(Re)launched just a few days ago, the new site combines nifty features (you can doodle on the page) sure to attract and retain the attention of our young learners, while it retains and strengthens the core value of the site: an adult-reviewed, kid-friendly, school-appropriate collection of links and resources on a multitude of topics.
Why do schools need such a site? Well, we’re fortunate. Our district that has a powerful, flexible content filter (Websense) that is managed by caring people responsive to the needs of teachers and students. If I need something unblocked, I ask, and it’s quickly done. Most importantly, Websense allows us to surf the web without fear of encountering inappropriate content. For example, we access Google Images regularly, and with no problems whatsoever. I often wonder, though, what happens when my students go home and try some of the same searches they do at school. We encourage our kids to use NetTrekker (a service we have purchased) but not everyone remembers to do that. For some reason, it’s easier for kids to remember AskKids.com. That’s what they tell me, at least!
In the image above, the “Schoolhouse” presents an easily-to-navigate collection of excellent learning resources, top sites, images, movies, games and more. The visual design appeals to me because it’s simple yet comprehensive. Advertisements are highlighted blue in the search listings (easy enough to teach the kids to identify.) I love the site previews function (click on the binoculars next to a search listing for a good-sized thumbnail). One thing I do miss from “Mother Google” is the “Did you mean?” spelling correction capability. For example, if I enter “fractrions” into the AskKids.com search, I get this:
But with Google, I get “Did you mean: fractions?” This is enormously helpful, particularly in an elementary setting, and heck, even *I* misspell search terms regularly. It would be awesome if AskKids.com could offer similar functionality.
That said, I’m VERY impressed with the content AskKids.com has made available. Case in point: animal information. Like many schools, our kids study animals. AskKids.com has the BEST collection of animal information I’ve seen yet. It’s very common for kids to select obscure creatures that are difficult to research. Browsing the lists on Askkids.com, I’m very excited, and confident our kids will find what they need this year.
One final thought - the image search with AskKids.com is okay but still yields the same copyright-protected content that Google Images does. The standard disclaimer: “Images may be subject to copyright and you may need permission from owner to use the image.” It would be REALLY helpful if there was a way to search Creative Commons and/or royalty-free images, particularly in high resolution.
I’ve only skimmed the surface of the new AskKids.com. It’s a terrific, free service and is worth exploring if you haen’t seen it since the relaunch. Better yet, let your students tear into it, and see what THEY think. After all, the name of the site is Askkids, right? Why not ask THEM? :-)
Well it’s back to school today for everyone at Northfield Community School and I’ve already been up for hours getting a start on my day! It’s great to be back! And, it’s great to also be getting back into the swing of daily posts here at NCS-Tech! I’d like to welcome my new readers as well as those of you who have been with me all these years. I wouldn’t be here without you!
Ok! Today’s featured site comes to us by way of the amazing Vicki Davis, just one of the many hundreds she seems to come across every day, and it’s PERFECT for the start of the new year … it’s called Science Fair Sanity!
Brought to you by the Chicago School Supply company, this site (which just happens to SELL things you might need for a science fair project) is a VERY comprehensive collection of awesome project ideas (K-12!), examples of display boards, judging questions, science fair certificates, even a support forum (free registration required). This site is terrific for students, parents and teachers and is a great example of the kind of site I’ll be striving to promote here on NCS-Tech, now that we are appealing directly to our school community (students and parents, as well as educators!)
How was your summer? Mine was AWESOME, the best EVER, in so many ways it’s not even funny! I spent the last ten weeks with my family doing fun summer stuff AND working too, teaching and learning, at conferences and workshops were I got to teach AND learn, what a deal! It was also the BUSIEST summer I’ve ever had, but it has prepared me for the new year with lots of new and exciting ideas, technologies and brainstorms about the things we can do in school this year.
Before I go any further, I want to explain an important change here at NCS-Tech. As of today, I’m officially writing for a much larger and crucial audience - my students, their parents and members of my community. I want to bring these members of my real-life community into this virtual one, because I am convinced everyone will benefit! I was inspired by many educators and bloggers this year, but none more than Mrs. Amber Coggin, whose classroom website led me to the realization that I needed to expand my operations here in a very big way. Thanks Mrs. Coggin!
So, I’ve added links across the top expressly for what I hope will be many new visitors and participants in this online community. I’ll be adding details about my lesson plans every week. I’ve included photos and other information about our computer lab facilities & infrastucture. I will continue to share excellent websites, free software and commentary every day. I’m broadening my audience but keeping the focus the same. I just want the folks I serve - the students and parents of my community - to be a bigger part of what we have here: hundreds of visitors every day, great websites and services everyone can benefit from, and more.
I’ll close with this Animoto movie I just put together … my Summer of 2008 in pictures and music. I’m very excited about this new school year and hope you are too!
The unrelenting proliferation of Web 2.0 tools means it’s always a good time to be thinking about your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and in relation to the latest and greatest tools out there for students and staff. One of the best resources available to do just that is School AUP 2.0.
School AUP 2.0 is a wiki* developed by my friend and colleague David Warlick. It’s no lame static collection of dusty AUPs from a million years ago; it’s a constantly-changing clearinghouse of information complied by not just David but hundreds (thousands?) of other educators - people just like you and me - who use the power of the web itself (specifically, the two tagging services Diigo.com and Delicious.com) to ‘tag‘ information they feel is relevant. This might be an actual, complete AUP posted online, an article in a professional magazine about acceptable use, or even a blog post on the subject. It’s super easy, too. If you don’t have a Delicious or Diigo account yet, take this opportunity to sign up now!)
So, you think you have a pretty solid AUP? Awesome! Check out the AUP Guides page and see how yours stacks up. Need to start from scratch? The Examples page will prime your creative pump. Want to push the envelope and be among the first schools to embrace use of cell phones in the classroom? The Cell Phone Policies page is just for you.
The power of this tool is that now that David has set it up, it’s a leaving, breathing, organically-growing entity (ok it’s not breathing but you get what I mean). Anyone can contribute to it. Everyone HAS to contribute to it, or it will stagnate and eventually become irrelevant.
So what do you think? Go ahead, mine the wiki for the best it has to offer. Then, give something back. Use your Delicious or Diigo account and tag some resources you don’t see listed! It’s all about the collective, and that means you and me!
Hope this helps!
-kj-
* - using Wikipedia to define a wiki, how’s that for a circular reference? ;-)
I’ve got to be out of my mind for taking this on … but I’m a sucker for a challenge, and I have a feeling these kids are going to RUN with this!
So I had this idea for our middle school student newspaper / multi-media club (funded by the Northfield Education Foundation) … ran it past the administration … got greenlighted … now, with the first day of school looming, it’s time to turn the vision into reality.
Background: I’ve seen our students generate some pretty impressive content. Some for school assignments, some for projects / competitions, and some just for fun. I’m talking digital movies, short stories, poetry, fan fiction, digital photography, podcasts. These kids can write. And produce. And edit. And enhance. And compose.
So I wondered … what if we found a way to leverage those creative energies to shine a bright light on all the amazing things going on in our school every day? What if our student correspondents were free to “cover” school happenings via podcasts, videos, digital photos, original digital artwork, etc., in addition to traditional written stories?
How cool would that be?
Yeah. Exactly.
I soon realized we would need an online container for all this content (the “presentation layer” as we used to call it in the dot-com days) and it didn’t take long to rule out Joomla, Drupal, or a Wordpress as a platform. The answer? A Ning, of course! So, I created one, whipped up some prototype content, registered a domain name, and presto! http://www.tbirdtimes.org was born.
Our administration is pretty excited about this. I am too but get nervous when I think of how much work is going to be involved. What am I getting myself into? Ha!
One side benefit of using the Ning is that all our “writer/producers” will have a “profile page” on the Ning and that we will give us a platform to teach safe social networking skills. We’ve got COPPA compliance to be concerned with as well, and I’m planning to get written permission from every parent, and to instruct every student to use initials when posting articles (creating pseudonyms would be a lot more fun but I’m not sure that will fly). Our site will not gather personally-identifying information at any time.
We’re also planning to use Google Docs to manage stories and assignments (I’ve already completed the Google Apps setup), a Box.net account for file storage, and a variety of Web 2.0 applications for production. The best part is that much of this work will be done indpendently, by students, with other students, after school, using either school infrastructure or their own equipment at home.
So what do you think? What do we need to watch out for? How can we ensure this project is a success and that we generate high-quality content? I’m presently the sole advisor, but I hope to involve our Language Arts teachers in at least an advisory capacity to help with the writing end of things. Oh, and I’d like to perform some sort of pre-assessment and post-assessment, on the assumption that this entire excercise will improve written communication skills. Need ideas there too. All input is welcome!
Good morning all and happy Labor Day! (It’s ironic that Labor Day is one of the busiest ‘work’ days for teachers getting ready to start the new year - I know it is for me!)
By now many (most?) of you have heard about the wonderful free video production site called Animoto. I first wrote about it last year. Anomoto allows anyone to easily create MTV-style videos via the Internet. Upload pictures, select music from their royalty-free collection (or upload your own music / recorded narration) and then press a button. In minutes you have a movie you can share via the Internet, post to YouTube, or download. Here’s a great example of a fourth grade anti-bullying campaign. The opportunities are endless!
Animoto is FREE for EVERYONE but you are limited to 30 second “shorts” - unless you either pay for an unlimited, “all-access pass” ($30 for the year) … but educators (and students) get All-Access Passes for FREE! Just click here to sign up. You’ll receive a code your students can use to create their own accounts but be advised - they expire in six months unless you email Rebecca Brooks at Animoto (rebecca[at]animoto.com) and request an extension. It’s that easy!
Animoto is a great example of both an empowering Web 2.0 technology and a company that “gets it.” By supporting the educational community, they help make our classrooms richer and more engaging while they build their brand. To me, that sounds like good buisness - and good corporate citizenship! Thanks, Animoto!
Just two days before school starts (for staff … the kids don’t come until Thursday) but I want to get back in the swing of things here with daily postings (perhaps more than once per day as I get caught up).
Heard about this contest from my friend Sylvia Martinez of Generation Yes who posted it on her blog. This competition has categories for Elementary, Middle and High School. Check out the 2007 winners … and get those cameras into your kids’ hands!
Note - the deadline for submission is October 1st - so if you’re planning this as an in-school activity, better start now!
This powerful little guy was the keynote speaker at Dallas ISD’s back to school convocation, yesterday, August 25th. I’ve tried to find out more about him, but I can’t, which is in many ways a good thing because he’s just a kid.
Make no mistake - Dalton Sherman is no ordinary 5th grader. He is extraordinary in every way. He could have just as easily been addressing a major political party convention.
His message, his delivery, his passion, his enthusiasm cannot be described in words. So incredibly powerful!
It’s a bit after 10 pm Sunday night, August 24th. We just got back from the Ocean City Boardwalk for one last family jaunt before the rides go dark for the summer. Amid the sights and sounds of the boardwalk, my mind wandered a bit, as I thought about the week ahead and the new school year, just days away.
“August often feels like one long Sunday night to teachers,” observed a friend of mine, recently, via email. I’d never heard the expression before, but it really captures the buildup of anticipation as the new school year approaches, while, at the same time, evoking images of restful summer days, recharged minds and rejuvenated bodies.
As I look back, my summer has been a month of Sundays, two months’ worth, to be precise. School starts in a week or so (some of you are back already!) Personally, I can’t wait! Yes, it’s true, I’m even more enthusiastic than usual. Why? Because I’ve had the good fortune to spend much of my summer surrounded by some of the most talented, dedicated, motivated, fun and friendly educators in the world, doing the thing we love most: feeding our nearly insatiable appetites for knowledge, learning and connection. And I’ve got the photos to prove it. :-)
It started with the wide-eyed workshop participants at my “Google Camp” on the Monday after the last day of school, hungry to learn how to leverage “The Googleverse” to maximum advantage; the 14,000 or so people from all over the world (including many members of my personal learning network) who descended on San Antonio, Texas for NECC; the hundreds of classrooom teachers, hardcore gamers and academic researchers at Games+Learning+Society ‘08; the group of 40 or so administrators, principals and superintendents who spent two days with David Warlick and me discussing the Future of Teaching and Learning at NJELITE; the class of up-and-coming administrators taking part in the NJEXCEL program who were so hungry to learn about safe social networking and web 2.0 tools; the group of Social Studies teachers from all over the state taking part in an annual summer institute; the launch planning session for Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’sPowerful Learning Practice New Jersey rollout (in partnership with Kean University); and finally, a terrific NJDOE Summer Institute featuring speakers including Erica Denman, the kind of presenter whose professional aura effortlessly transforms any space into a vibrant, comfortable, engaging classroom.
The cost to my district for this professional development extravaganza? Exactly $25, for that NJDOE Summer Institute. The rest I either paid for myself, got a scholarship to attend, or was paid to deliver. Not a bad way to spend a month (or two) of Sundays! If my calculations are correct, I was either at a workshop (or leading one) for about eight of the ten weeks that comprise summer recess. “Off,” indeed!
It has been a truly magical two months. It is hard to put into words how these experiences have changed my outlook. We read so much in the popular press about downtrodden, overburdened, burned-out educators, frayed to the breaking point by seemingly endless administrvia, the pressure of high-stakes testing, and the disintegration of family values in our country. Funny, I didn’t see any of those teachers this summer. The ones I saw were passionate about their profession, excited about being in the classroom, eager to learn new things to share with their students, and relentlessly positive about the future.
I’ve often said that I wish we had school 12 months a year. It’s true; I miss my students from the moment they walk out the door in June until the day they return in September. But now, after having spent this summer with a whole different group of “students” - both peers and people far more professionally accomplished - I have a new found appreciation for the value of a “summer off.” I’m excited about Summer 2009.
For those who don’t know, the Google Teacher Academy is basically a free one-day professional development extravaganza led by an incredible team of educational professionals including people from Google, CUE, and WestEd. I attended in 2007 in New York City. It was without a doubt the most important single-day professional development experience I’ve ever had as an educator. (You can read my own reflections about it here.) And even though the day’s activities are themselves truly inspirational, the real value comes from the personal relationships you will forge, both at the Academy itself and later as part of the larger online GTA community. There are, I think, almost 300 of us now - and we’re from all over the world.
Here’s the official announcement and invitation to apply:
We are pleased to announce that another round of Google’s FREE training program for K-12 educators is coming to the windy city! Outstanding educators from around the world are encouraged to apply for the Google Teacher Academy taking place on Wednesday, September 24, 2008.
The GTA is an intensive, one-day event (8:30am-7:30pm) where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, collaborate with exceptional educators, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, GTA participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region.
50 outstanding educators from around the world will be selected to attend the GTA based on their passion for teaching, their experience as leaders, and their use of technology in K-12 settings. Each applicant is REQUIRED to produce and submit an original one-minute video on either of the following topics: “Motivation and Learning” or “Classroom Innovation.” Applications for the event in Chicago are due on August 24, 2008. If possible, please use Google Video or YouTube to post these original videos. Participants must provide their own travel, and if necessary, their own lodging. Though we will give preference to K-12 educators within a 90-minute local commute of an Academy event, anyone may apply.
The GTAs have been a wonderful experience for everyone involved, with 97% of all attendees rating the GTA as “outstanding.”
Here are a few quotes from GTA participants:
—————————————-
“The academy was everything I hoped for and more! I can’t wait to plan out ways to use the tools we learned about, to share my experiences with my colleagues and to re-connect with the other academy participants!”
—————————————-
“The focus on innovation in education, and not just about the tools, was right on target.”
—————————————-
“I appreciate the opportunity to be connected to a group of educators that are passionate about preparing students for the 21st century. I feel inspired and able to meet the challenges that lie ahead!”
—————————————-
“Until now, I had never attended a conference where I was so engaged and loving every minute of it.”
—————————————-
“This was easily the most important professional development experience I have ever had as an educator. World-class tools demonstrated by world-class people at a world-class facility. THANK YOU!”
—————————————-
“I love [the Google Certified Teacher community] for the ideas and inspiration that comes flowing to and from it…folks share professional development strategies (technology or otherwise) that have worked. It’s nice to have a variety of ways to assist others and having that variety also provides spice for those of us responsible for doing the providing.”
—————————————-
Feel free to send any questions to “gteachers@gmail.com”, and please spread the word to anyone who may be interested in joining us.
Note: Another GTA is currently being planned for New York City in November 2008. Sign up for the Google Teacher Newsletter on the front page of Google for Educators site to receive more detailed information soon.
Don’t let the application video requirement scare you - it’s NEVER BEEN EASIER TO CREATE VIDEOS, PEOPLE! I almost didn’t apply back in ‘07 because I’d never made one! I overcame my fears and came up with this (9.6mb, .mpg) which pales in comparison to some of these others, but you get the idea.
If you can get to Chicago on the 24th you MUST apply! You can’t win if you don’t play. Good luck!
