Reflections of a Techie

Improving the Diigo Setup

Jim at the TipLine blog had a great idea that I'm going to pass along to my IT and district office people.  Diigo student accounts should really be created by a source that will be present in student's lives beyond one school year.  He says,

Why? Because, if I create the student accounts, they're not visible to other teachers. So, each teacher would have to upload their own list of students, causing them to have multiple accounts and causing their bookmarks to be scattered across those multiple accounts. A student should have the same account the entire time they're in that building, beit middle or high school.

Isn't this right on target?  I hadn't thought of this but it's something worth considering.  Right now my problem is that I'm one of the only teachers in my district that is attempting to use something like Diigo.  No one else is really using it beyond their personal account??? and when I tell them about the cool possibilities I get answers like "Well, that is good for your kids because you are so techie, I would never do anything like that" or "Why would you invest so much time in this.  I'm not doing anything until the IT people figure it out, then maybe I'd consider it".

It's one of the reason why I think it's important that a district have digital innovators down in the trenches. If you wait for an innovation to be embraced by district office people, it will be "deployed" as anything but innovative and will turn into a cookie cutter roll out.  Now I get that it's good to have those for the masses of teachers who (embarassingly) pronounce their resistance to anything new or anything technological.  I wouldn't even mind the cookie cutter rollout if it could happen in less than....5 years of investigation, research, planning and implementation.  My students will be mid-way through HS before they figure out if it's a good thing to do!!!!  I get it...but I'm saying there has to be more than the one mass model...allow for innovation around the edges and support that, too.

It's why I wish district deciders would figure out that they need to help us with these innovations and be more responsive when we don't know if it's the web application or our network...and not always assume it is the "other" guy.  Who cares who's fault it is...it isn't about fault...it's about getting it to work so the kids can be invested and learn.

The reason why I'm investing this time is so that my kids can really interact with scientists and so they can use 21st century tools that are so embedded that it isn't about the technology.  It's about the conversation around the science.  I don't think my kids would even realize they are using some new fangled technology because it's just the way we started and done it from the beginning of school.  we just had a protracted conversation about not giving up...why these scientists are willing to keep trying to make it work.  My kids couldn't figure out why they hadn't given up...I guess pack up their stuff and sail home....and slowly they are beginning to realize that it's hard work.  You have to hang in there if you want something badly enough.  That you have to keep trying even if it's not working the first time, the second time and so on.  This is not a lesson that they've encountered before and it's definitely not something with which they are familiar.

so many lessons from one activity...science, virtue of perseverance and oh yeah, technology.

My newest Kiva loan--Marie Kiki from Benin

Just made a new Kiva loan.  I'm thankful for all that I have so I'm celebrating my making another microloan to Marie Kiki from Benin.  I'll freely admit that I had no idea where Benin was...so I looked it up and it is a country in West Africa.  This brave woman helps to support her husband and family by tailoring.  She makes and sells clothing.  The loan profile says she has already received 2 loans which were fully repaid.  (I think this is a fear that some people have that microloans won't be repaid...Marie's case is a perfect example of how these folks DO repay and on time.)

I wish everyone in the Kansas or the US would become some kind of microloaner.  Imagine how the foreign policy statement that would make and how much the world would change through people helping people.  As I scan the Kiva website it tells me that over 21,000 microloans were made this week and overall they have a 98% payment rate.  Isn't that amazing?  Isn't a shot in the arm when you feel like there's nothing you can do to make the world a better place than something like this where you know you are helping people.

Can you find $25 to get started or to add to what you're already doing?

Update: In the 10 minutes or so it took me to write this original post, 5 more people joined in helping get the entire $250 that Marie Kiki will need to have a fully funded loan.  None of know each other but we are now a little band of people from the US, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada.  When I first made my contribution she needed $190 more dollars and when I just left, she was only $50 away from being funded.  Can you wrap your mind around that?  I can't.

Thank you Kiva for creating this internet platform that allows us to come together and change the world.

Update Two:  Just got the notification that all of this loan has been fully funded.  It really does humble to stop and think how I can take my disposable income, combine with other people who have some disposable $$, too, and together we can help another person halfway around the world.  It's empowering.  It makes me feel like I did when I was in my 20's and thought I could conquer the world!!!

A really useful Wordle trick

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo's tip, I found this blog's advice on how to use Wordle to include phrases. This will definitely help in science and math.

I use Wordle quite a bit and thought this tip was very useful.

If you look at the above word cloud, you can see that there are three other phrases/collocations included in Sylvie’s word cloud: “Lesson plans”, “Body language”, and “Young learners”.

Sylvie showed me that the answer lies with the tilde sign (~). Whenever you are pasting text into the “Paste in a bunch of text” window, insert that character between any words that you want to keep together

Thanks to both Larry for finding it and Jamie for posting it.  I've already sent it out to several colleagues who responded with great enthusaism.

 

Big Hearts Launch the Service Drive

  Painting posters today and the hallways were filled with so much excitement.  Our 1st hour classes adopt  a child from a group or foster home.  Today we worked on creating the hallway bulletin boards to announce what every child needs and some of their special "wants".  We made posters to encourage students to participate and join in the fun.

 Each hour is given a big red trash bag to fill with presents including new coats, boots, gloves, bedding, tolietries, toys, books and games.  We have a long list of possible gifts to fill the bag and students love to sign up for what they'll bring.  If the "want" is too big, they go in together and pool their money and resources.

Students were asked to come up with slogans for the drive...here were the winners from a multitude of choices....."Fill a Bag, Fill a Heart"  and the "Fill a Bag with Love".  Aren't those great slogans?

Wish we had our storytelling microstudio operational.  This would make a perfect starting project for the studio. 

Diigo conversations push kids deeper

I'm having a blast doing an enrichment project with about a dozen students.  We are following a scientific research vessel that is exploring the Canterbury Basin and documenting what they are doing via blog entries.  Each day I have my students work on reading those blogs and harvesting out the most relevant information using Diigo annotations.

The blog entries give a pretty simple to understand description of the science they are doing...as they are doing it.  With a Teacher at Sea, we get glimpses into the processes by which they study the crust of the earth in search for answers about all sorts of things.

Imagine my kids excitment when they read about the current project being conducted at Canterbury Basin which is on a transform boundary.  We just finished studying about plate boundaries and I don't think they thought they'd ever use that info much.  Heck I don't use it very much either.  But sure enough it is that boundary that produces enough sediment that the rising/falling of the sea level can be studied at his location.

The other evolving part of this project is the use of Diigo.  Now I haven't worked out all the bugs...and as Bill Ferritier likes to say, I'm being digitally resilient...ie I am using multiple work arounds.  But I have to tell you that despite all the pain in my neck this has been, I'm LOVING Diigo.  We are annotating the blogs as we read them and then dissecting what they mean.  Now imagine my little kids (6th graders you know) trying to understand that the geochemistry of this sediment can tell scientist about the cycling of sea levels...and this cycling is important to the coastal cities survival throughout the world.  We're just at the most basic places, but they are digging through...asking me questions and pulling out info they think is relevant.

I have them write summaries and email those summaries from Diigo to me each weekend.  OK...not all are great.  But most of these kids "get it" and are pretty interested in the science being conducted.  I think they are also grooving on the conversation we get from highlighting important things from the blogs and then chatting (via the annotation commenting feature) about why it's important and what are the next things we should look for.

Believe me when I say I don't know what I'm doing.  But I think we're doing some good stuff...and I know this is a perfect enrichment project for those kids that are super motivated, want to do something beyond the routine class stuff and will follow through with minimal teacher hand holding.

This is the kind of thing that puts me in the zone of a perfect teaching situation.  I love it because they are excited and interacting with stuff well beyond my skimpy set of science skills.  I know NOTHING about geochemistry or micro palentology or ____________________.  I don't have to because there are 60 scientists that know everything...I just have to facilitate the conversation!!!!  Isn't this the best?

Image copied from "All Hands on Core" blog post from the JR Resolution 11.18.09  http://joidesresolution.org/node/896