My daughter Heather and I have continued our podcasting adventure with two new tales for your listening pleasure. The purpose of this is two-fold: Heather and I are having fun sharing our tales for posterity, and we are providing some examples for a creating and publishing online media class! I plan to tweak these podcasts using Audacity and spicing them up a bit with music, pictures, etc. We shall see what comes to pass. The fun part of publishing online is the ability to be creative with what you want to share and how you want to share it. For instance, an actual “Heather Tale” web page or blog would be a great repository for these tales. The whole idea is to generate ideas with your “stars/students” and audience; so, let Heather and I know what we could do to jazz up our podcasts, and in the meantime enjoy our raw, unedited tales as told in real life! 
A Brand New Heather Tale (As of about 9:30 p.m.)
I’m off to Kansas City for an Infinite Campus “meeting” (I have to travel on Super Bowl Sunday & will miss it!!!) and am placing a couple of podcasts here for my Heather to listen to while I am away! Heather’s brother Nicholas and I began a tradition a few years ago of making up and telling dragon tales for our bedtime stories. In recent years Heather has added pony tales to the mix. We have begun to record our tales as they need to be saved for posterity and for the listening enjoyment of others! 
We are simply using a Video iPod and a Griffin iTalk to record our tales. I load the .wav files into iTunes and convert them to mp3; so, nothing fancy here as of yet. Enjoy!
I read this article last week and I see this world with my own young ones. An interesting read: “Web Playgrounds of the Very Young.” NeoPets is the site of choice right now at our home.
Today is a continuing education day in our district and several offerings are on tap for staff to partake of (Several offerings are associated with Atomic Learning tutorials!):
Quia (Another Tutorial Resource: Hot Potatoes)
I came across Childsplay today: open source (FREE) software that works on Mac, Windows, or Linux operating systems. There are several games in the software that test basic math and language arts skills along with other exercises that practice matching, listen, and memory skills. The activities help children learn fine motor skills as they navigate the computer keyboard and identify specific number and letter keys, mouse, and mouse pad movements. My 4 year old daughter and 6 year old son think these games are awesome!!! I do to, and best of all they are free. Download, install, and try them at home or school, but remember to get permission from your parents or the technology department or both! Enjoy!
This ad from Give Kids Good Schools really hits home:
I have been fiddling around with an Edubuntu 6.10 install for the past few months. Edubuntu comes with a superior educational program with applications for young children called GCompris. One of my problems was getting the children’s software GCompris to work without crashing. The simple solution was bringing up the terminal and typing in “gcompris -x.” Easy, but frustrating if you don’t know!!! The GCompris software is excellent for young children. There are so many applications from matching, counting, to problem solving, and more. Now that I have it running, I will have my soon to be 4 year old daughter try out the “games” to test them. My other 4 children will want to try too! It is nice having a test lab and subjects built in at home !!!
My experiment for the day is to get Edubuntu running on an old Power Mac 5500. I am downloading the Edubuntu .iso image to create a live CD, and then I will be off to the races. So many times I have watched legacy hardware lined up in the “boiler room” to be taken away for salvage (most of the time to the landfill!!!), and I honestly believe that in a school we can find continued life for old computers. Edubuntu is one of the answers to extend the life of some of these machines. I realize there comes a time when the value of maintaining legacy equipment is not cost effective, but I also believe we must get the most out of the tax dollars that fund technology in our schools. If we can take old iMacs and install Edubuntu on them and put them to good use in K-3 classrooms, for instance, why not do it!?!
Please share your utilization of legacy hardware and any experience using Edubuntu in the process. Also, what are your experiences using GCompris in the classroom? Inquiring minds would like to know!
This site, Federal Resources for Educational Excellence, is another repository of educational resources to assist in the learning process, and best of all the FREE word is involved!
The following are great resources for free education lesson plans, tools, and courseware:
Often times there are students in any classroom that require assistive technologies, in particular audio content. Any time I enter a new classroom of my own I immediately contact free matter for the blind resources to access recordings of a textbook I may be using. In the past many of these recordings required special tape players, but with new digital technology these books can be downloaded online, and texts that can be downloaded, like at Project Gutenberg, can be “read” via a text to speech function found in most operating systems. Some audiobook resources include the following:
Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic
I know there are many other resources, but hopefully this will give you a start on these wonderful resources that can be used in your classroom.
Rick Thomas shares a valuable resource via his blog post “Using Technology in the Classroom.”
The link he shares is to the Kentucky Department of Education site, and I really liked the parent resources found by clicking on “Parental Involvement” then “What Parents Need to Know.” This takes you to the “Links for Parents” page. The introduction states:
“Helpful links for parents regarding kids security online, what parents need to know about media, and some good links for students.”
The page is divided into the following categories: “Helping Your Kids With Homework,” “Kids Security Online,” and “Sites For Kids.” Check it out today!
Yes, it is easy to be critical, but it is not an easy thing to be part of the solution. As I thought of what to post about today, I was having a difficult time narrowing something down. The state I currently reside in is the smallest in population. It is required like any other state to meet the requirements of NCLB, but are all states created equal?
I want to share two online news articles about Wyoming’s state assessment: PAWS. Read and reflect to make your own conclusions. I would like to hear your comments on the situation that has resulted here. It is not cut and dry, and I think it highlights the complex and multifaceted challenges that come into play when we test our students. Then, I want to share a blog posting that explains, very well, the intricacies and misinterpretations that can arise from testing. I look forward to any comments you may have on these subjects.
Casper Star Tribune: “Schools get test results late“
Casper Star Tribune: “Firm: Next scores won’t be late“
Ed Tech Journeys: “Misleading Data Hides NCLB Scandal“
I have a personal stake in all of this as my children have been directly affected by what you have read, but we all are affected. The time has come to take a stand and realize REAL children are being tossed about in this whole situation. My children, your children, your neighbor’s children, your grandchildren, and so on. How do you explain it all to your kids, what do you say, what do you do? I’m afraid the answer may often be NOTHING. I hope not, but this is becoming a very scary and frustrating experience for me and my family. How about you?
My oldest daughter, who is a freshman in high school, had the all too common experience of needing help with her homework. This is makeup work from our time away last week while spending time in Nebraska and her trip to the state basketball tournament to play in the pep band. As “responsible” parents we had asked that she get her work ahead of time to prevent the situation we are in now, but the teacher wasn’t sure what the class would be doing at the time (That response always amazes me!). Now our daughter is backtracking to get caught up, but was not offered any instruction and was informed to figure it out on her own (Another response that always amazes me!).
Nevertheless, the math problems she was working on had to do with factoring polynomials (Ever notice how you have enough problems as it is and then when you go to math you get more problems, often ODD problems !?!). My wife went over the “lesson” with my daughter, but talk of FOIL (I never heard mention of plastic wrap .) wasn’t sinking in. Being the instructional technology specialist that I am, I immediately pulled up Learner.org (Annenberg Media that I mentioned several days ago in another post.), and found a video that explains factoring polynomials. The instructor, Sol, explained and showed how to factor polynomials, and we were all on our way to learning success!
If my daughter’s teacher had taken the time to teach her the lesson I believe the whole situation would have been less stressful; however, since there seems to not have been time to do this, where was the alternative or differentiated instruction? I know that had her math teacher been aware of Learner.org he could have done exactly what we did at home with the video from Annenberg Media.
Please take the time today, especially if you never have before, to explore the technology tools that can enable, enrich, and remediate the learning process in our homes, classrooms, and schools. We cannot afford to let students “figure it out on your own” any longer. Problem solving is an important skill, but if we do not offer tools and strategies to help solve those problems we offer a huge disservice to our youth. As a parent this is the least I should have to expect from a teacher: finding and offering tools to facilitate learning.
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