Life-Long-Learners

My first DS106 video assignment is a “Digital Story Compilation” in which I was challenged to “Create a video compilation of some of your favorite things you’ve made in ds106″. I titled it “DS106: Thanks for the Memories” because while I was creating this video, I was totally engaged in the process of documenting my new-found experiences in my DS106 learning journey.

I must admit though I was so envious of some of my colleagues who assembled a 3-5 minute video of their creative images, added a soundtrack, uploaded it to YouTube, and quickly moved on to their next video assignment. True, their videos represented their accomplishments and other DS106 students, who shared the learning experience, could view the elements without the need for additional commentary to explain the back story.

By comparison, my video, like my blog posts, tend to favour the longer formats. I am jealous of my colleagues who can write effortlessly and share ideas with an economy of words. Some might consider my style to be somewhat “anal”(ytical). This approach might be reinforced if one knew that I initially attempted the relaxed “voice over” narration and rejected it after several “takes”. As an educator, I just felt uncomfortable “winging it” and recording a narration as the video progressed.  Therefore, I created a Word document with an embedded table which contained both the slide images and their respective narrative “sound bites”. Believe me, after matching images and writing appropriate narration to enhance the video, I have a new-found admiration for the work that goes into video production.

Your “Teacher’s Voice”
However, it was my adult son who raised another aspect of video creation that I had not considered. After listening to my “20 Questions & Answers About DS106” radio show, he provided me with some constructive feedback about my sound-track, when he stated:

Dad … in your narration, you pause too much and your speaking is too slow and deliberate. Radio announcers talk quickly and move right along. I think you seem to be lapsing into your “teacher’s voice”.

Certainly my “radio show” narration was somewhat stilted. In fact, I will warn viewers that even the following “DS106: Thanks for the Memories” video appears to have this same deliberate narrative quality that I, as an educator, tend to use in an instructional setting.

It was this feedback and reflection that caused me to finally ask this very important question:

Who is your audience?

While most DS106 students were designing audio-visual creations, their primary audience was their respective instructor and their supportive DS106 colleagues. Each of these audience members were quite familiar with the DS106 massive, open online course (MOOC), the “Daily Create” activities, and its challenging assignments. These individuals were immersed in the ABC’s of “Always Be Creating” and “Always Be Commenting”.

On the other hand, as a former teacher, who has been sharing educational blog posts for more than two years, I write for a primary audience who are K-12 educators, with my DS106 community an important secondary target. Whereas, my colleagues are creating for an audience who knows the complete DS106 back story, I am sharing with many educators who are not even aware of what the MOOC acronym represents let alone understand the mechanics and learning that goes on within this course. For this reason, I feel the need to explain in more detail so that my blog-following educators can better understand the dynamics, the energy, the fun and most importantly the learning that is taking place within this creative DS106 community. As an educator, I am doing my best to share powerful ideas and creative endeavours that I hope can somehow be adapted to work successfully within the K-12 environment. So perhaps, I am using my teacher’s voice but in many ways, I am still teaching.

I trust that readers will find ideas and learning opportunities within my 18 minute Vimeo video entitled “DS106: Thanks for the Memories“:

DS106: Thanks for the Memories from Brian Metcalfe on Vimeo.

In closing, it seems particularly fitting to share with you Solomon Ibn Gabriol’s five step process for learning and acquiring wisdom:

The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence,
the second listening,
the third memory,
the fourth practice,
the fifth teaching others.

Take care & keep smiling

Credits:
-   Flickr – Creative Commons image “Thanks for the memory”
by Leo Reynolds – http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/4037019936/

Although this assignment and tutorial has been created as part of my contribution to the DS106 learning community, it also has great potential as an activity/project for our Senior Years’ students. “ReCaptcha Illustrated” is a unique Visual Assignment that was proposed by Alan Levine (aka cogdog), who challenged DS106 students to:

Include a screenshot of a word pair from a reCapctha in an illustration or visual mashup that shows what the words might mean. Use your imagination to create something meaningful out of the random words.

When you write it up, provide some narrative that puts the image in context.

As someone who can trace his heritage back to the “Emerald Isle”, it would have been ideal if my visual mashup creation, and its equally important narrative, could have been posted on March 17th.

I will provide a step-by-step tutorial to help engage others in this unique learning experience.

1.   After reading the description of the “ReCaptcha Illustrated” assignment, I searched for a web site that would allow me to activate a ReCaptcha display.

2.  My Google search led me to the “What is a reCAPTCHA?” site with an active reCAPTCHA “generator”.

3.   I examined the initial “two string” display, which made no sense, so I kept pressing the “recycle” button located above the “speaker” icon to generate a new text combination for consideration.

4.  I admit that I rejected perhaps 80% of the reCaptcha images generated because I was unable to visualize a context under which the displayed text might apply.

5.   However, when I found a reCaptcha display which looked promising, I took a screen capture and saved the image. Some of my “possibles” are shown below:

This one had possibilities if I could find an image of a “farming family”. I could then manipulate the photo and add a speech bubble having the children complain that “Ma …kills o(ur) farming”.

This one looked much more promising. I envisaged a teenaged boy, texting his buddy and (with an unfortunate slip on one letter) proudly announcing “I’ve dat3d Lisa”. Perhaps this display might also be a person typing in a 15 character password using the popular technique of replacing the letter “E” with the image reversed number “3″.

6.   When the reCaptcha displayed this one, based on my Irish heritage, I immediately imagined “a bubble in green beer”.

7.   The next step was to find an image of a “green bubble” using Flickr’s “Advanced Search Tool”.

8.   In the “search field” at the top of the page, I entered the two words “green bubble” (without quotes). Since I only wanted Creative Commons-licensed images that I could modify or mashup, I clicked on the check-boxes in front of the following two statements near the bottom of the search screen:

• Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content; and
• Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon

9.   I began searching for images that I felt had potential. Whenever I found an image that I thought I might use, I clicked on Flickr’s “Actions => View all sizes” menus to check the “license type”, and verified that the image was available for downloading.

10.   Whenever I found a possible image, I always recorded the image’s URL address in my Research URL File, together, with a brief description and a 1-10 rating. Experience has taught be that it takes little time to record the URL at the time of download as opposed to deciding to use an image and then having to go back later to find the image address. If you finally decide on an image and then have to go back later to find its URL for citing purposes, you often can no longer remember the exact search parameter terms which can be very frustrating and a real time waster!

11.   I decided on this “Green Bubble” Flickr image with its Creative Common’s Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike attributes. Under this photo’s license, I could “Share” and, most importantly “Remix” or modify/manipulate it by adding a speech or thought bubble. I proceeded to download the largest format size available that didn’t exceed 1024 x 768 pixels.

12.   I think that one should always follow the DS106 “ABC” mantra of “Always Be Commenting”. In particular, I believe that it is proper etiquette to leave a “Thank You” comment below the original Creative Commons image that you are going to use. Furthermore, I try to provide a URL link to the the remixed image in your own Flickr photostream. This provides an opportunity so that the individual who uploaded the original file can visit your remixed or modified creation so s/he can see how you utilized the original.

13.   Next I decided that I would need to add a speech bubble to the image. The only mechanism that I knew for accomplishing this task (at that time) was to use PowerPoint 2007. I started this application and used the Insert => Picture menu items to transfer this image on to a PowerPoint slide.

14.   After dragging the image’s corner handles out to fill the entire slide, I clicked on PowerPoint’s Insert => Shapes => Callouts menu items and selected the “thought bubble” icon. I clicked on the slide and dragged the “thought bubble” into position.

15.   Since the reCaptcha’s “A green bubble.”  text was displayed on a white background, it is very important that one right-clicks on the active “thought bubble”, selects the Format Shape => Fill => Solid Fill => Color, and selects the white “Theme Color” to match the white background of the reCaptcha disply.

16.   Next one must choose the Insert => Text Box menu items and enter an appropriate “thought” as a layer above the bubble image.

17.   One must now use a graphic viewer, such as the Irfanview freeware for Windows, or image editing software to capture only the reCaptcha’s “A green bubble.” text with its white background. Once this portion has been saved as a new image, it can be inserted onto the PowerPoint slide.

18.   All that remains is to add appropriate text into the thought bubble, add the ”A green bubble.” image, and experiment with resizing and positioning these components.

19.   Once you are satisfied with the thought bubble text and it’s position on the slide, it is important to save this file. Certainly one can save this PowerPoint file (of one slide) as “Greeen Bubble.ppt” or (.pptx using the newer 2007 file format) or any suitable file name. However, it is also important to save this single slide as an image. To do so one must click on PowerPoint’s Office Button” in the top left corner of the screen and select Save As => Other Formats menu items. Under the “Save in:” location options, navigate to an appropriate folder or location on your hard drive. Next, click the “Down arrow” at the right end of the “Save as type:” field, scroll down, choose the “JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg), enter an appropriate “File name:” and click the “Save” button. When prompted “Do you want to export every slide in the presentation or only the current slide?”, click the “Current Slide Only” button to save the following creative image for display and/or later use.

“Enquiring Minds Want to Know”
Providing a narrative to put the image in context

Background
This assignment has great potential for being used to engage students in Manitoba’s Senior Years Information and Communication Technology (ICT) courses. Undoubtedly, it could be introduced in both the “Applying ICT” and the “Digital Pictures” courses.

One might consider having students investigate the work of Luis von Ahn at Carnegie Mellon University as he developed different CAPTCHA processes. Some excellent resources were provided in my earlier blog post entitled “CAPTCHAs Reduce Blog Comment Spam“. Once students are more familiar with CAPTCHAs, this “hands-on”, multidisciplinary assignment will complement the theory and provide an excellent opportunity for students to demonstrate their creativity.

Although the somewhat technical portion of this Visual Assignment is completed, there are still ample ways to demonstrate creativity. This “reCaptcha Illustrated” activity has many learning opportunities for Senior Years students. Why not request that pairs of students work on this activity together? One person may take the lead in the more technical areas while his/her partner may wish to focus more on this narrative component. Regardless of how the work load is divided, students will learn more through communication in a collaborative environment.

ReCaptcha Illustrated – The story behind the image
The scene opens on St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. The story centers around a wee, Irish leprechaun by the name of Tommy O’Toole. Since early morning,Tommy has been celebrating all by himself in the local public house (or bar) called “Clancy’s Cellar”.

Tommy has not been keeping track of the number of beers that he has consumed. but it is safe to assume that even the locals would agree that “wee Tommy” is, indeed, intoxicated.

Tommy shouts to the barman … “Clancy  … draw me another pint of your best green beer, my good man.” Within moments a large glass tankard automatically appears in front of Tommy.

Just as Tommy toasts St. Patrick, hoists the tankard to his lips, and is about to pour the green nectar down his throat, he stops abruptly. He spies a large green bubble staring back at him from the frothy surface of his beer. Grasping the mug in both of his alcohol-induced shaky hands, Tommy slowly lowers his tankard and gingerly sits it carefully on the bar so as not to upset the delicate equilibrium.

Although his mind is somewhat clouded, after spending more than seven hours sampling all varieties of green beer, Tommy says to himself … “Faith and begorrah … have ye ever seen such an amazing green bubble? I wonder if St. Patrick is, indeed, sending me a sign of future good luck? I must share this good fortune with my closest friends.”

Through squinting eyes Tommy surveys the patrons of “Clancy’s Cellar” and, regretfully, does not recognize any of his friends. “How can I share this moment with my personal learning network?”, Tommy thinks.

“I could take out my cell phone and take a picture of the bubble”, thinks Tommy, but he quickly dismissed that poor idea. He says to himself. He mutters to himself, “Although my brain is a bit fuzzy, the picture would be worse, as my hands would shake so much while taking the picture”.

He continues problem solving as he thinks of a strategy. “I could brace my shaking hands on the bar and take a much steadier photo to send to my friends. No … even if I they were to receive a good quality picture of this green bubble, they would all accuse me of “Photoshopping” it. There has to be a better solution”, he thought.

Then Tommy shouted out loud … “OMG!”

He quickly realized that he had to invite all his Irish friends over to this bar ASAP, so they could witness for themselves, this wonderful green bubble.

He reached into his pocket with one shaky hand and slowly withdrew his cell phone. He grasped the device in both shaky hands as he navigated his thumbs over the keypad. Even in his drunken stupor, “wee Tommy” remembered he had to be extra careful with that one key that kept sticking.

“Was it the letter ‘e’ or the number ’3′?”, he muttered under his breath.

“I’m sure that every sober person knows that the uppercase ‘E’ looks like a backwards ’3′”, however Tommy was far from sober. “It’s understandable that everyone becomes confused over their similarities. They look so much a like”, thought Tommy in his drunken state.

Tommy realized that there was some urgency in sending a quick message to members of his PLN, so they could quickly travel to “Clancy’s Cellar” and view this amazing green bubble.

In his mind he began formulating a message he could send out through Twitter. Wee Tommy struggled to compose a coherent message. Furthermore, he knew he had less than the standard message length of 140 characters, because he needed to alert his friends using the important “#Irish” hashtag.

Tommy’s brain tried its best to send signals to activate both thumbs appropriately as Tommy stabbed at each key in turn.

As displayed below, there was a close correlation between the thought image in “wee Tommy’s” brain and the message that each of his friends actually received through Twitter …

Take care & keep your “Irish eyes” smiling

Credits:
-   Flickr – Creative Commons image “Green Bubble”
by jacsonquerubin – http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacial/4861327151/

-  Brian Metcalfe’s DS106 “photostream”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/life-long-learners

Today I will focus on some “hidden” Art-based projects that Manitoba students and educators have created and shared. I have purposely used the adjective “hidden” because these educational treasures often get little exposure beyond the school in which they were originally created. However, should the ideas migrate to other students or teachers, they often, unfortunately, tend to stay “hidden” within the originating school division’s boundaries.

Why do we, as educators, spend so much time searching the Internet for practical classroom-based ideas which we can download and then “tweak” or modify to meet our local provincial curriculum? My experience suggests that we often do this because we are unaware of the proven educational resources that have been created and used successfully by other Manitoba educators and students.

I recently attended a meeting in Brandon of the Manitoba Association of Educational Technology Leaders (MAETL). I regularly attend such meetings because I am eager to learn of new educational ideas and  resources that I can share with other students and teachers. At this meeting, I was not disappointed. Part of the morning was spent discussing how technology leaders might, more actively, share the inspirational, educational “nuggets” that each individual knew about within his/her own school division. Following the formal discussion, I had a chance over coffee to talk to Ron Nordstrom, who is the Technology Coordinator for the Beautiful Plains School Division. As is so the case, a chance remark afforded me the opportunity to learn a great deal. Although, I have known Ron for perhaps 15 years, I was unaware of his many talents. Recently, I have been following Ron through Twitter and I was impressed with the sketch that Ron had chosen for his gravatar. I asked Ron, who had he commissioned to created his life-like sketch. Ron replied that he had sketched his own image and that in addition to acting as Technology Coordinator, he also taught Grade 5 and 6 Art at Hazel M. Kellington School in Neepawa.

We then discussed some of Ron’s engaging Art activities, together with the student creations, that I wish to share with you. Readers should begin by examining the wealth of Art-related resources that Ron has compiled and displayed along the side of “Mr. Nordstrom’s Art Wiki“. To showcase the creativity of his students, together with the focus for the Art lesson, Ron designed this powerful image-enhanced blog resource called “Nordstom Art“.  I encourage readers to examine, and comment on, the creative student image galleries and lessons that Ron has shared under the following categories:

Ron has also conducted a Superhero Challenge where students, with Internet access, may submit their own superhero drawing. Not only can viewers compare and contrast this gallery of portraits (all which display correct facial proportions), they can also examine each hero’s individual profile and super powers. Imagine the fun that students can have drawing their superhero and then writing about his/her exploits?

Finally, Ron described a book-creating service that he had recently used. As an dedicated teacher, Ron wanted to capture the lessons, ideas and, most importantly, the creative art work that his talented students had produced. To do this Ron submitted the ideas and images to blurb.com where he made his own book entitled “Art Projects – Examples From Grade 5 & 6 Art Classes“. I encourage readers to preview Ron’s excellent Art resource and share it with other educators who appreciate and/or teach Art to middle years students.

So often, as educators, we expend a great deal of effort preparing lessons and activities which engage our students. Perhaps there are some readers that will want to investigate the Blurb book building service to create their own coffee table book.  Regardless of whether such a book captures the creativity demonstrated by your students, a grandchild’s first steps, or a trip of a lifetime, the resulting book, that you create, will indeed be treasured.

Speaking of treasure, I want to thank Ron Nordstrom for sharing his talents and treasures with me and my readers.

~~~~~

Since this post is focusing on educational Art projects, I thought that I would share with readers two instances of unique Art projects that Winnipeg School Division teachers and students created several years ago.

Kate Wallis and her Grade 3 class at Sister MacNamara School challenged other students to take part in an innovative “Picasso Principals” challenge. At that time, Kate’s students sketched an image of their principal, Dale Scott, using Picasso’s creative style. Although this challenge started as an Art activity, it quickly developed into a unit which integrated Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Technology. I encourage readers to examine this web site and peruse the wealth of integration ideas and resources that are displayed through the “Index” links menu. Although this Art unit is more than 10 years old, it still demonstrates creativity and innovation on which today’s teachers and students might capitalize.

When I viewed Ron’s lesson on “Ted Harrison Watercolors”, I immediately remembered another Ted Harrison-related article that I had published in my “Bits and Bytes” newsletter in March, 2005. Sheila Malcolmson, of Tyndall Park School, shared an instructive article entitled “Smart Art – Tyndall Park students showcase Ted Harrison“. Here, in her article, Sheila described how her students created images using Ted Harrison’s style to complement the Social Studies unit on the Arctic Region. Windows users will still find the Anfy book flip freeware a unique tool to help them display exact-size images in a rather effective manner. Furthermore, I encourage readers to peruse the “Tyndall Park Alphabet Book’ that Sheila’s students illustrated using the Ted Harrison technique. Wendy Groot, who was the technology support teacher at the school, helped showcase the student’s artistic talents by displaying their creativity on the school web site as well as incorporating each student’s Ted Harrsion style image into a HyperStudio stack. Although HyperStudio may not be as popular in schools as it was several years ago, one can still download this creative “Tyndall Park Alphabet Book” as a Windows executable HyperStudio file, to view the talents of these Grade 5 students.

In conclusion, I ask that readers pass along these engaging Art-related resources to teachers who might wish to use them with their students. Regardless of when these ideas were first created, the resources of such creative and dedicated educators need to be shared so that other students might benefit.

Thanks to all for caring and sharing.

Take care & keep smiling

When I taught middle years Mathematics, I found myself intrigued by the different ways students solved puzzles. Classic puzzles, such as the following problem, use letters to represent numbers which can be displayed as simple calculation problems in disguise. One must replace each letter by a single 0 to 9 digit. The same digit must be used to represent the same letter. So, if you believe that 4 is being used to represent the letter A, then 4 must be used for all A’s in the same problem. Of course, one must use a different digit for different letters. After one substitutes all the letters for the numbers, a perfectly valid calculation problem will result.

Although some students might approach the problem using a “brute-force” method in which guesswork was employed, I was fascinated by those who approached the problem logically or employed a variety of strategies. I found that it was wise to provide my students with an opportunity to share with the class what assumptions were made and what strategies were used. For example, most would try to solve the above puzzle as shown in its subtraction format. However, some students found this puzzle easier to solve when the problem was rewritten in its corresponding addition format. Such “working backwards” is an effective strategy for solving problems and one that works well in this case. In addition, unlike most mathematical problems where there is only one correct answer, I encouraged students to see if they were able to find more than one series of letter substitutions that would solve each particular puzzle problem.

Excel Spreadsheet Format:
In the January, 2001 issue of “Bits and Bytes”, I wrote an article entitled “Spreadsheets: A Problem Solving Puzzle Creator“. This extensive article, provided the reader with insights into how I designed the spreadsheet component using Microsoft “Works” to create problems such as the above. Recently, I decided to improve and upgrade these same six problems so that they could be used by those readers using the 2007 (or later versions) of Microsoft Office. Educators may download a single Excel 2007 workbook which contains each of the six puzzles as individual worksheets at the end of this blog post.

Word Document Format:
As an educator, I wanted to provide students with an opportunity to identify the hunches and strategies that they used when attempting to solve these problem/puzzles. In order to facilitate this important documentation step, I created a Word document containing each puzzle as an embedded spreadsheet followed by a “What I/we learned” portion at the bottom of the page where students could list the various steps and strategies they took in solving a particular problem. The individual six Word problem/puzzles can be downloaded as “freebies” at the end of this article.

Suggested Lesson Steps:
I would use the following Word puzzle activities in the following manner:

1.  Divide up the classroom into teams consisting of two or three students of similar abilities. I believe that the collaborative interaction in the team approach, as well as a reflective “What I/we learned?” nature of this project gives the best results for learning. Since the puzzles are arranged in order by relative difficulty, I would assign particular puzzles to challenge teams while providing a “best-fit” scenario.

2. Make a backup of all Word document puzzles (and keep them in a safe place) in case student puzzles get saved over the originals.

3. Transfer a copy of each Word document puzzle to a computer server drive location to which the students have access.

4. Open the first Word Puzzle #1 (ONE + ONE = TWO) on a workstation and project the image onto a screen so the entire class can see how the activity will work.

5. Demonstrate where team members will enter their names at the top of the document and stress that student teams must frequently save their progress using a file name format and drive location with which they are familiar.

6. Stress the need to document the team strategies and hunches and have students in class suggest why certain letters can take on certain values. For the initial demonstration, I would only choose values for E within the range 1-4 so that there is no need to carry over a 1 to the adjacent column. You might ask students if E could take on the value of 5 and to explain their rational to support their decision. Likewise, why can E not equal zero?

7. Before attempting to activate the spreadsheet component, enter a few of the class suggestions in the “What I/we learned” area at the bottom of the page and save the Word document (using the agreed upon location and file name convention). Possible sample comments can be viewed by clicking on the image near the end of this article.

8. Demonstrate how the embedded spreadsheet is activated by double-clicking within the yellow frame. Inform students that one will know that the spreadsheet is activated when the Excel column letters and row numbers appear along the top and left hand edge.

9. When the embedded spreadsheet is activated, one can position the mouse over the red-coloured “DIRECTIONS” link to review the puzzle-solving process.

10. Using the suggestions and the strategies listed by the students, enter a value for E in the “Guess & Test Area” and observe the changes in the “Results Area”. Remind students that the <Enter> key must be pressed after inserting any value into the “Guess & Test Area”.

11. Students must regularly update and enter strategies at the bottom of the Word document by deactivating the spreadsheet. To do so, one must click outside the yellow framed embedded spreadsheet. When the spreadsheet column letters and row numbers disappear, one is now in the Word document format.

WARNING: Sometimes when one returns to the Word document, the yellow frame disappears or is not completely displayed. If this happens, students must immediately click on the “Undo Object” (the “reverse arrow”) button or enter the <Ctrl-Z> keystroke combination. This “undo” step will always recover the original Word document display with the complete yellow framed puzzle/problem and team comments at the bottom.

12. Remind students to take turns so that different team members alternate tasks between entering strategies and hunches at the bottom of the Word document and activating the spreadsheet component to enter another letter value to observe the results and progress.

13. Continue with the demonstration on Puzzle #1 until the spreadsheet feedback area finally displays “CORRECT!”

14. Return to the Word document (using the Undo process) to re-draw the Word document and finish entering any additional strategies or hunches that the class agrees upon. Remind the class that it is important that students not only document strategies that worked but also hunches that need more refinement. Stress that we often learn more from our failures than our successes.

15. Invite students to suggest whether Puzzle #1 can have other solutions. Discuss such possibilities, without demonstration, particularly if you wish to use this puzzle with a team as an easier entry into this activity.

16. Save the Word document, one last time, and demonstrate how you wish this completed Word puzzle file to be submitted to the teacher.

17. Now ask the students to arrange themselves into the teams that you have chosen and advise each team which puzzle is their responsibility. Select a particular member of each team to open their assigned Word document puzzle.

18. Instruct another team member to enter their team or individual names at the top of the Word document puzzle and save this named document in an appropriate location using their student names as a file identifier.

19. If one of your teams is working on Puzzle #1 (which was used during the demonstration) tell these team members that they have to find a different solution than the one that was demonstrated.

20. Direct team members to examine their puzzle (in the word processing format) and discuss any beginning steps or strategies that they think might be used to help solve the puzzle. Have a new team member type their initial strategies/thoughts  in the “What I/we learned” area at the bottom and save their team Word puzzle document before proceeding.

21. Ask a new team member, to start the puzzle by double-clicking within the yellow frame to activate the embedded spreadsheet. Remind the teams that the spreadsheet is “activated” when the Excel column letters and row numbers appear along the top and left side boundaries.

22. If necessary, team members can move the mouse over the red-coloured “DIRECTIONS” link, when the spreadsheet is activated.

23. Have each student, in turn, enter a value in the “Guess & Test Area” and observe the results in the “Results Area”.

24. Frequently remind teams, to return to update their strategies at the bottom of the Word document. To do so, one must click outside the yellow frame to deactivate the spreadsheet. Once the spreadsheet column letters and row numbers disappear, one may update the strategies and hunches at the bottom of the Word document. Remind students that if they return to the Word format (where no Excel column or row indicators are displayed) and the yellow frame spreadsheet does not display properly, one must immediately click the “Undo Object” (reverse arrow) or enter the <Ctrl-Z> keystroke combination to recover the Word document without any distortion.

25. Have students alternate between activating the spreadsheet, entering the next number, observing the results, returning to the Word document (using the “Undo” process to re-draw the Word document) and refining or typing in the new hunch or strategy to be tested.

26. Once the problem/puzzle feedback indicates that the team is “CORRECT!”, have the team complete the “What I/we learned … Area”, save the final version of the Word document, and transfer the resulting Word document to the teacher.

27. After finding their first solution, suggest that student teams, re-open the same puzzle, repeat the same steps to see if they can find more than one solution to their particular problem or to determine if their solution unique.

28. This problem solving activity could be used again by ensuring that different puzzles were assigned to different teams.

~~~~~~~

Sample Team Word Document

< Click the above image to view the display in a larger format. >

Freebie Downloads:

• EXCEL PUZZLES (#1- #6) WORKBOOK (Excel format)
• PUZZLE #1 ~ ONE + ONE = TWO (Word format)
• PUZZLE #2 ~ TWO – ONE = ONE (Word format)
• PUZZLE #3 ~ SEND + MORE = MONEY (Word format)
• PUZZLE #4 ~ SPEND – MORE = MONEY (Word format)
• PUZZLE #5 ~ SANTA – CLAUS = XMAS (Word format)
• PUZZLE #6 ~ THIS + IS +VERY = EASY (Word format)
  

Take care & keep smiling

In this blog post, I will review two K-12 Online Conference presentations from the past year’s archives. My reason for focusing on the past sessions, rather than the present, is based on the following professional development assumptions.

Some educators, that are new to the K-12 Online Conference, may peruse this year’s presentation descriptions and perhaps feel somewhat intimidated by the sophistication and knowledge of the presenters. However, I have always maintained that all educators, like their respective students, are travelling along their own personal learning continuum. As such, it is important to find professional development sessions that meet each individual’s current needs. Perhaps, equally important, is that the learning opportunity arrives “just in time” or when the learner is most receptive. When one finds timely, professional development sessions with a “good fit”, there is a much better chance that such opportunities will help educators move forward in their learning and encourage a willingness to try new strategies, applications, and resources.

As I indicated in my last post, the K-12 Online Conference provides professional development opportunities through a powerful instructional video mechanism which facilitates investigation when the individual learner is “ready”. Furthermore, unlike a traditional keynote speaker who delivers his/her message and then exits the stage, these video learning opportunities are conveniently archived for review as far back as 2006. Such wide ranging video learning opportunities can be perused, played, and even paused (to note a particular interesting web resource address) as one extracts the relevant and meaningful message. In addition to the archived videos there are also very important supporting resources and applications that should be investigated as well. True, you might think that when you review a video presentation created for the 2007 K-12 Online Conference, that you are three years “behind the times”. Not so …, I contend. Regardless of one’s position along their personal timeline, one doesn’t stagnate when one tries to implement new ideas. Furthermore, when one reviews a K-12 Online Conference video and related resources created in 2007, one can be assured that the message still has applicability and the related computer applications have improved dramatically over the past three years and now have so many more educational features.

Now that these assumptions have been identified, I will continue by briefly outlining two rather interesting, archived, K-12 Online Conference presentations from the past.

K-12 Online Conference theme for 2008
“Amplifying Possibilities”

I chose to look at an introductory or “Getting Started” keynote entitled “How Can I Become Part of this ReadWriteWeb Revolution?” I was immediately set at ease as I watched three educators, Alice Barr, Cheryl Oakes and Bob Sprankle, sitting outdoors, sharing their educational insights with their video audience in a rather down-to-earth manner. As they talked about introducing technology to students, each educator held up a “flip video” and captured the dialogue and expressions of their colleagues in a very conversational manner.

They agreed that VoiceThread was an excellent mechanism for helping educators begin to learn about technology and utilize web 2.0 applications with their students. I liked Bob’s comment, which I am paraphrasing, when he stated that …

bringing in these technologies (e.g. flip video units) has a transformational effect that can help educators move out of their comfort zone and patterns of what they have been doing for years. When you hand out a flip video to your students, you no longer control learning and no longer are you the gatekeeper of knowledge.

These three educators have formed a professional learning network called the “seedlings” and I encourage other educators to connect with them.

K-12 Online Conference theme for 2009
“Bridging the Divide”

Each of the video presentations in the K-12 Online Conference is filled with a wealth of pedagogical information. Indeed, some use amazing techniques to get the message across to the audience in a meaningful manner. My favourite instructional video presentation has to be last year’s “Getting Started” keynote by Joyce Valenza entitled “The Wizard of Apps” which is embedded below:

Joyce uses a very unique video presentation to share her message in an entertaining and informative manner. I encourage readers to view Joyce’s additional “Backstory to the Wizard of Apps” where one can appreciate the collaborative endeavour that went into producing this remarkable instructional video. Undoubtedly, the creation of this video engaged students who were passionate about performing and producing this polished presentation.

However, learning is not limited to the actual K-12 Online Conference video presentations. Rather, dedicated presenters like Joyce Valenza often provide a wealth of extensive additional resources. Not only does Joyce supply links to her presentation slides, she also supplies a link to her “new tools workshop” wiki which provides a plethora of possibilities for educators who want to explore the potential of using web 2.0 applications in their classrooms.  This “new tools workshop” wiki resource, is a “one stop shop” for educators wishing to explore applications that will engage students and enhance classroom teaching. With this presentation and her accompanying resources, Joyce and her students, have set the bar high for future presenters.

I trust that I have demonstrated that the K-12 Online Conference archives of 2009, 2008, 2007 & 2006, contain relevant educational ideas and resources, that interested teachers can learn from, long after the video presentations were first shared online.

In closing, let me challenge readers to take action in the manner suggested in Dean Shareski’s 2010 keynote “Sharing: The Moral Imperative”. When we find educational resources that help us to better “teach and reach” students, we make time to share these ideas with others. I just did … and I trust you will too.

Take care & keep smiling

One of the most popular “four letter words” that educators like to hear is “FREE”. Imagine the tremendous opportunities that would exist if these popular four letters could apply to the traditionally, very expensive process of professional development.

If you have Internet connectivity, you too can take advantage of a very unique, free, annual, educational professional development opportunity. I encourage readers to reserve time during the first week of October to beginning exploring the potential learning opportunities at the following web resource:

The K-12 Online Conference is a free, online, annual professional development conference offering opportunities for educators around the globe to share innovative ways web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. Our conference this year will take place in October, and will include four different strands: Student Voices, Leading the Change, Week in the Classroom, and Kicking It Up a Notch. Our conference is entirely organized and facilitated by volunteers, which include a conference organizer for each strand.

If one checks out the schedule of K-12 Online Conference presenters, one will find that this year’s four strands and sessions are arranged as follows:

• Pre-Conference Week: October 11-15, 2010
• Week 1: October 18-22, 2010
  • Leading the Change (Keynote and 9 additional presentations)
  • Student Voices (Keynote and 9 additional presentations)
• Week 2: October 25-29, 2010
  • Week in the Classroom (Keynote and 9 additional presentations)
  • Kicking It Up a Notch (Keynote and 10 additional presentation)

“Cultivating the Future” is the theme for 2010. I encourage readers to review the descriptions of the wide variety of multi-media presentations and mark down the dates and times so that you can experience them “live”. However, don’t worry if you have a conflict and are not able to get online at the time of a specific presentation. One of the most important aspects of this K-12 Online Conference is that presentations are archived so that one is able to review both the multi-media sessions and the wealth of online resources at your convenience. In fact, educators can go to these archives of sessions presented in 2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009 to gain access to relevant, educational ideas and resources that may have been presented years ago but still have relevance today. It is no wonder that the K-12 Online Conference is described as “the conference that never ends”.

Take care & keep smiling

At this time of year, many educators are looking for review projects or activities that will really engage their students. In addition, many teachers know that using technology can help students review concepts in all subjects as well as meet the descriptors that are identified in Manitoba Education’s Literacy with Information and Communication Technology (LwICT) developmental continuum.

I thought that I might challenge students to demonstrate, through the LwICT “Produce to Show Understanding” Big Idea that they really understand a particular concept or unit of study. However, rather than write the traditional essay or report, I want students to exercise their brain and use the Audacity (open source, free audio editor and recorder) application to create personal “review song” lyrics. In order to demonstrate this process, I decided to summarize and review Manitoba Education’s LwICT Across the Curriculum by creating a poem set to music. On-line readers can hear my “ICT-Rap” and view the lyrics by clicking on the appropriate hyper-links. I am sure that with the basic steps below, students will be soon generating exceptional musical compositions as a review mechanism.

The basic steps begin with finding a freeware background music track which can be, optionally, loaded into Audacity. One can then play this background loop while using a microphone to record the lyrics to your song. Although one can spend more time experimenting with the various effects in Audacity, one can simply save the lyrics and background musical loop as a blended MP3 file and celebrate your learning.

1. I went to the “loops” section of the Flash Kit web site at: http://www.flashkit.com/loops/

2. I searched for “free loops” and scrolled down the resulting pages and listened to the various samples by pressing the “play” button in the Flashtrak Console.

3. Once I found a free loop, that I thought would provide my song with an appropriate background, I downloaded it in an MP3 format. For example, on-line readers can click on “What_You_Gonna_do” to hear the free loop created by PlayaJayCee. I downloaded this MP3 background loop as the start of my ICT rap.

4. Next I started Audacity. I clicked on Audacity’s File > Open menu items and navigated to the folder where I had previously stored my “What_You_Gonna_do” MP3 loop. When this 8 beat loop is opened in Audacity, it appears on the top track with a 10 second duration. Next, one has to repeat the background loop to accommodate the number of verses in the “review song”. To do so, click the Edit > Select > All menu items to highlight the entire loop and the click Edit > Copy to store the loop in memory. Next one must place the cursor at the end of the selection and press the Edit > Paste menu items to extend the background audio track. The instructions in this previous sentence must be repeated as necessary to accommodate the lyrics or verses that are to be included. The newer version of Audacity (1.2.6) has a special “Play” feature as shown. One can hold down the <Shift> key while pressing the “Play” button to have the loop or song automatically repeat. However, one cannot record any additional narration while this “Shift/Play” button is depressed or in “loop play” mode.

5. Now press the File > Save Project As menu items and store this “work in progress” file (e.g. audio-track.aup) in an appropriate folder as an Audacity’s AUP program file.

6. At this point you will want to create lyrics or a series of verses which summarize the project or concept that you are reviewing. I find that because my background audio track is an 8 beat loop, I type my lyrics into Word making certain that the words adhere to this 8 beat timing structure. Save and print up the lyrics for the up-coming “voice over” narration portion.

7. Next we need to set a preference in Audacity. Click on the Edit > Preferences menu items. On the Audacity Preferences display, click the “Audio I/O” tab, and click to place a checkmark to the left of “Play other tracks while recording new one”. Click the “OK” button to proceed.

8. Insert the microphone into the computer and position your lyrics printed page so that you can begin the “voice over” narration. Press the left-most “Skip to Start” button to make certain that the cursor is positioned at the start of the background loop. Press the reddish “Record” button and begin listening to the background loop. Let the loop play though once before adding you own lyrics to the mix. You will note that your “voice over” narration automatically is displayed as an additional audio track below the loop background music. Adjust the speaker and microphone sliders, immediately located below Audacity’s buttons, as appropriate.

9. Press the File > Save Project As menu terms and store this “work in progress” in an appropriate folder with “version number” filenames ending in V1.AUP, V2.AUP, V3.AUP (e.g. History-Review-V1.AUP) to keep track of various attempts.

10. Undoubtedly you will not be able to record your entire “review song” at one sitting. Make certain that you save any “work in progress” as an Audacity project as noted above. Later, when you return to work, start Audacity. Select the File > Open menu items, navigate to the appropriate folder where you last stored your Audacity AUP project file, select it and click the “Open” button.

11. If you have time, you can explore the various effects that can be applied to your “review song”.  Audacity has an extensive “Help” file and the addtitional resources identified at the end of this article may be helpful as well.

12. When satisfied that the creation is finished, save the project one last time. Before exiting, make certain that one selects the File > Export as MP3 menu items and save the “review song” in a compressed MP3 format which will automatically blend all the tracks together.

12. After all students have played their “review songs” for their peers, provide a process where all students’ review projects can be accessed and listened to for studying purposes. Students who are aural learners may benefit from their colleagues’ “review songs” and find such a depository of audio files quite helpful.

13. Lastly, I encourage you, the reader, to provide feedback to this article by sharing your experience using Audacity to produce a “review song” as another mechanism for students to demonstrate understanding of a concept or unit of study.

Take care & keep smiling

Resources:

• Audacity Tip Sheet at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28905901/Audacity-Tip-Sheet
• 21st Century School Teacher Tips Sheets (Audacity Tips & Recording in Audacity) at: http://www.21stcenturyschoolteacher.com/tip-sheets.html
• Technology Integration – New Prague Schools – Audacity Tip Sheet at: http://www.np.k12.mn.us/TechIntegration/tipsheets/Software/Audacity/Audacity.doc
• “Super Fast Guide to Audio Editing” by Mindy McAdams at: http://www.jtoolkit.com/audio/Audacity_Guide.pdf

Credit: This blog entry is an updated version of an earlier article entitled “An ICT Christmas gift with lots of rappin’” which was first published in my “Bits and Bytes” educational newsletter in December, 2006.

During a recent keynote address, I shared slides in a PowerPoint presentation which automatically “came alive” as they faded from gray to vibrant colours. To help readers visualize this process, I encourage you to click on this video link to view a similar 10 slide PowerPoint demonstration. Start the presentation and let it run automatically to see the power of the fade effect which is applied to each colourful slide.

I admit that I did not create this technique on my own. Rather, I deconstructed the process from a motivational PowerPoint slide show that a friend shared with me by email. If you are intrigued by the process, the resulting directions should help you incorporate this feature into your own, or your student’s, slide presentations. The technique described below applies to PowerPoint 2003 but it can easily be adapted to other versions. Although the steps might seem rather lengthy, I assure you that once you master the technique, it will take you very little time to apply this fade process to your colourful slides.

The key component to this process is that each slide is composed of two images – a grayscale image on the bottom layer (which is not animated) and its corresponding coloured version on the top with a 3 second “slow” fade in.

1. For example, suppose one has a very intense colourful image called “sunset.jpg” which one would like to see fade in from its grayscale format to colour.
2. Start PowerPoint and insert a blank new slide.
3. Next insert the colourful “sunset.jpg” picture and drag the “handles” so that the image exactly fits the original slide boundaries.
4. With the colourful “sunset.jpg” positioned properly, click on the slide to make it active (with the handle showing), and then select the “Edit -> Copy” menu items to place this colourful image into the computer’s memory.
5. Next, make certain the “Picture” toolbar is displayed by clicking on “View -> Toolbars -> Picture” menu items.
6. With the colourful “sunset.jpg” image active, click on the second “colour” icon (with two vertical bars) on the Picture toolbar and select the “Grayscale” option to reduce the colourful sunset to its corresponding shades of gray.
7. Next, click on the “Edit -> Paste” menu items to paste the previously saved colourful sunset on top of the existing grayscale one. If necessary, reposition this colourful sunset, so that it fills the entire slide boundary.
8. Click the “Slide Show -> Custom Animation” menu items.
9. With the colourful sunset slide active, click the “Add Effect” button and select the “Entrance -> Fade” option.
10. If one wishes to activate the fade in process automatically, change the “Start” activator from “On Click” to “With Previous”.
11. Set the timing “Speed” to “Slow”, which will cause the fade in process (from grayscale to colour) to span a 3 second interval.
12. Save your PowerPoint presentation and view the show from the current slide. Once this fade-in from black and white to colour process is operational, one can
13. All that is left is to locate some very colourful images to which one can apply this technique. I suggest searching the Flickr image depository at: http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/
14. Near the top of Flickr “Advanced Search” page, enter “color” and any appropriate tags in the “Search for” field.
15. Near the bottom of this search page, check the “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content” and click the blue “Search” button to find colourful images that one can legally utilize in PowerPoint presentations provided one gives attribution credit.

I hope this information helps you add a little “colour” to your presentations.

Take care & keep smiling

Do you want to learn time-saving techniques to help you find information of interest on our Life-Long-Learners.com blog? In this post, I will share three research strategies, which are identified in order of extraction precision from the broader to the more specific need.  These three strategies involve the use of categories, tags, and the search function.

Categories
Whenever a blog entry is created and published, the author can provide one, or more, broad  category descriptions which are displayed on the left, immediately below the entry title. If you look above, you will see that this particular entry has been classified under the “How To” and “Tutorial” categories. To utilize this tool to conduct research, one should select a category of interest from the “L-L-L Categories” list in the narrow, right column. If, for example, the reader chooses to select the category “LwICT”, then all blog entries/articles which were categorized with this “Literacy with Information and Communication Technology” (LwICT) identifier, will automatically be extracted and displayed for the reader to peruse.

Tags
At one time, categories were the only way in which the blogger could systematically sub-divide post entries into different groups. Unfortunately, as bloggers tried to more accurately describe their entries or posts, the category list became much larger and too unmanageable.  So tags were created to allow the blogger to provide additional identifiers that descibed each post in more specific detail. Generally, most posts have fewer categories than tags. For example, a blog post with a title of “2010 is a New Year” might have categories of “Olympics” and “resolutions” with an alphabetical tag list of “figure skating”, “help around house”, “lose weight”, “Men’s downhill”, “walk dog”, “Vancouver”, and “Whistler”.  In our Life-Long-Learners.com blog, the tags are located at the end of each post, after my traditional tag line, and are listed with pipe (|) separators. In this specific entry, the tags listed in alphabetical order at the bottom of this article are “categories”, “research”, “search”, “tag cloud” and “tags”. In addition, if the reader clicks on any particular tag entry, for example the “search” tag, all blog entries that utilize “research”, as a tag, are automatically extracted so the reader ca investigate like-tagged blog entries.

In this blog, the reader can also use the animated “L-L-L Tag Cloud” in the right column to help extract all blog posts identified by a specific tag descriptor. Tag clouds are a pictorial representation in which the size of the font, of each hyper-linked tag, is directly proportional to the frequency of use. In order words, the more popular the tag, the larger its font. The researcher should move the mouse over the “L-L-L Tag Cloud” in the right column to start the animation and then click on a hyper-link tag of interest. For example, if one clicked in the tag “21st century learners”, then all blog posts which were identified by this tag would be extracted for viewing.

Search
The “Search L-L-L Blog” function, at the top of the right column, is the tool that helps one find any textual references throughout the entire blog. This tool is my favourite as it can select posts that contain certain words that may not have been included as  a “category” or “tag”. Furthermore , this “Search” mechanism will extract blogs containing multiple words. For example, if one enters “Creative Commons Flickr” (without quotes) in the search field, all blog entries that contain Flickr and the  Creative Commons terms will be extracted for perusal. Although only the initial  portion of the relevant articles are displayed, one can click on each hyper-linked title to display the corresponding entire post.

Hopefully, the reader will now be able to find blog entries of interest in a more efficient manner by using the categories, tags and search functions.

Take care & keep smiling

Credit: Flickr image “Magnifying” by Clover_1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clover_1/3433081165/