Techno Tadpole Transforms

Technological Rock Star! 

     Finished up my Boot Camp Tech Skills Chart, today, amazed at my progress.  My Sakai “Practice Class,” Composition I, complete with super-duper, resource-rich syllabus, is up and running.  I don’t actually teach any online classes, yet, but I have all the building blocks in place to accept some.   Also, having created one online class, I feel a lot more confident in setting up another.  I’ve certainly enjoyed working with our college’s online classroom technology coach, Christina Schweibert, and I consider her to be a friendly, approachable resource.  Perhaps my lack of hysterical,  gotta’-have-it-yesterday attitude has helped us work together. 

I’ll miss blogging here, to some extent.  In recent years, weblog technology has become a widely used tool of communication with discussion forums, blogs and chat.  The New York Times reported thousands of teachers using blogs.  Teacher-generated blogs can be helpful in professional development to support technological training logs and goals.  Maintaining a blog with evidence of goals achieved allows supervisors and coordinators to be able to follow the progress. I might blog again, but I think I’ll set up an address with a built-in mnemonic and my name, like my Google website, Write on, Mrs. Frake!  https://sites.google.com/site/writeonmrsfrake/. 

This technology blog helped me to critically reflect on my technology integration, inside and outside of the classroom, and helps my teacher to record my progress and goal achievement.

Rather than feeling finished, I feel like this has been a springboard to continued training.  I’ve signed up for two faculty training sessions on Excel Spreadsheets this spring, at my college.  I’ve also signed up for a Visio training in January.  

Woo hoo!  This neophyte techno-tadpole is turning into a…mermaid!

Sakai Lab Appointment

Substitute the word class for term paper.   Wednesday, from 9:00 am - 6:00 pm I can build an online Composition I class in the Sakai lab and get help.  

How many backpacks, books, and folders can I take?  ALL OF THEM.  I'm chaining myself to my chair until it's finished.  The syllabus is getting there.  I have the class material.  But no one is sure if I can download from Google Drive into the software.   Even the experts await my arrival with baited breath. : )

Wedding Weekend

Post Wedding Snaps at House

What the bride's mother dreams about when she's very tired...

I like drawing on the laptop.  I like villifying the Turnitin,com website, because we've been wrestling back and forth for two weeks.  I'm determined to win.  

Apparently I need to out witthe plagerism checking software, as I program in due dates, what the students can see and what the software will accept.  Then I need to coax everyone into resubmitting and the software into reassessing the resubmissions.  I'm feeling redoubtable....really.

I am finalizing an online, super-enhanced syllabus for my Composition I class, and I have access to Northwest State Community College's Sakai Online class software.  I have inserted the syllabus plus the supplemental assignment helps.  Woo Hoo!  I have an appointment next week for some one-on-one assistance with posting.  Cha, cha, cha!

The Syllabuses 

noun (plural syllabuses or syllabi /-ˌbī/)

• 1an outline of the subjects in a course of study or teaching:there isn’t time to cover all the syllabuses

In my new job, I inherited a course syllabus.  I begged for permission to use someone's beefed up syllabus, and several teachers were very helpful and shared theirs with me.  They also gave me permission to use their syllabuses until I could tailor my own. 

I had so many good ideas, to make my syllabus easy and approachable, a real pal to the student, a help and a source of delight and information.  That was until my department explained that there were quite a few policies that needed to get in there, word for word.  The legal department really frowns on paraphrase and summary.

Also my children made fun of my cartoons and comic sans font.  

"Really, Mom?  Do you expect anyone to take you seriously?"

Well, that's an interesting rhetorical question.

I take writing quite seriously, but I often wonder at certain highbrow, lofty academics trying to teach college freshman.   If I am going to do my job correctly, then I may need to be the bridge between critical, academic writing and the ever popular "I Can Has Cheesburger" animal memes.

There is room for both types of writing!

      Not in academic papers, but certainly in the culture.  

The "I Can Has Cheezburger?" site (500,000 hits a day) was created by some Hawaiian guys, and the creative language originated from the 4chan site, an English-language imageboard website launched in 2003. 

4chan - Registration is not required, users post anonymously, and there are many different content boards. Originally a hot spot for discussing manga and anime, 4chan was modeled on Japanese imageboards. However, 4chan has been implicated in hijacking Internet destinations for pranks, provoking media attention.  For media planners they are proof that "creativity is everywhere and new media is less accessible to advertisement agencies," says Gawker, a blog by Manhattanite Nick Denton.

Let the cultures meet!  If Composition I is a prescribed paradigm of academia, a box of MLA and APA guidelines, then....

My Header Hurts...

It took a whole team of experts to add numbering, a running head and a different first page to my APA style paper this week.

We'd get the header or we'd get the numbering, but each would knock out the other.  My daughter finally Googled it, and the Microsoft experts walked us through the process....

We needed to pick the 3 column header, and then in the number column we had to insert a page.   Wow.   Who knew?    What a fun family activity!

Speaking of fun, my literature review involved examining the process of using technology to teach creativity.  Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

Of course you can.  When you 

• tease out the thinking skills set and 
• apply them to new situations, including new technology and software, plus, 
• create an atmosphere of collaboration and approval, anything is possible!

  

Creating a Turn It In Account 

http://turnitin.com/

I've had turnitin check my own papers, but today I set up a teacher's account and added three classes, plus their assignments.  The process was fairly easy with prompts took me about an hour, after I laboriously procured the correct account ID and password from my department.  My only confusion came with adding a posting date, immediately after the initiation of the assignment.  I wanted to be able to post about papers that came in early, so I did not make my posting date the same as my due date for each assignment.

Splashing About In Power Point

October 4, 2013   

     Welcome to my first Power Point presentation, introducing you to the viewpoint of Henry James, featuring his story, Daisy Miller.   https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByQDL2EBxe8-SmNZbG5DcG1zZHc/edit?usp=sharing

Finding the art, creating each slide and citing the source was a thing of joy and ease.  Why have I been so long avoiding the dreaded event?  I think we can blame all the text heavy, visually stultifying Power Points that have graced many a classroom.  I found that experimenting was easy and the longest part of the process was writing the script or text.  Then, with a portfolio of selected art images, I began to match and present - like scrap booking, but neater.

My artistic choices are simply illustrations, visualizations to illu'stro, enlighten or aid in the introduction of a concept (lenses of alternate perceptions filter and create bias) applied to Henry James’ Daisy Miller.

In a classroom learning setting, I would not explain my choices, but rather, hope to engage my students’ curiosity and set the stage for a collaborative exercise in critical thinking, synthesizing links between their own experiences and the material presented, both textual and artistic.  Peer teams would summarize and predict outcomes from the quotes and settings. This student-centered activity would effectively focus on the cultural context of Henry James’ characters’ dialogue.

However, I am delighted to share my artistic choices with all of you. 

First, all the Impressionist art, with the notable exception of Bacon, was produced during James’ lifetime, and he would most probably have seen it. 

Second, I included the artists that he names specifically in his article “New England: An Autumn Impression.”

Third, I chose artistic renditions of women from a certain high strata of society, indicated by their dress and setting.  That knocks out Manet’s Un bar aux Folies Bergèr, (terribly interesting with it’s optical tricks and interpretations), which might not truly represent Daisy Miller’s intimate society. Portraying the correct time period, this painting’s rich details provide clues to social class and milieu. The woman at the bar was a real person, Suzon, who worked at the Folies-Bergère, a nightclub, whom Manet identifies as a prostitute, according to art historian Larry L. Ligo.  Apparently Manet habitually associated oranges with prostitution in his paintings.  Navel orange, anyone? 

Renoir’s art worked well because during the Paris Commune in 1871 he painted on the banks of the Seine River, when James was critiquing the art scene for the NY Times.  Renoir experienced his initial acclaim when six of his paintings were hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 (you know, the one James hated).

Aline Victorine Charigot, an object of affection, and painted with that affection's singular interest made obvious, along with a number of the artist's friends, served as a model for Le Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881), a candid focus on the recreation of an economically -comfortable class in their everyday life.  She, like Daisy, seems full of sparkling color, light, open attitude and good nature.   

Nose, Just Above Water

First Excel Spreadsheets Have Been Produced!      

     They are pretty rough and I don't know how to add up the cells, but there are names hidden from this Jing snapshot, dates and assignments.  I'm terribly proud.  

Three articles, good reads, from ISTE's Learning and Leading this week have given me an idea for the literature review coming up.  I'm looking at the mobile phone as the easiest, most available Assistive Technology (AT) available, today.  Now, what has been written about that?

Glogster is a lovely program to create online posters, and a great piece of AT or anyone with limited fine motor skills that could make cutting, pasting and drawing a difficulty.
Ann's Glog About Assistive Technology

The Not-So-Blended Google Family That I Have Created

        How did this happen?  I have two Google Accounts, 

-an old one that I created for g-mail with teaching stuff on the drive, somehow anchored in the family e-mail address for access, and

-one that is connected to my Northwest State Community College e-mail and I cannot combine them...ever it seems.

I am told that I can get them to talk with each other, but I haven't proceeded that far.

However, I used my iPhone 4 Settings App and I now can access both school and personal e-mails, plus the ancient family account, on my phone!  

I still need to do spreadsheets for attendance and grade for my three classes.  I pulled Excel up on Monday, but became discouraged.

However, I reread the "Tool Close-up: Microsoft Excel", on page 109 of Joy Egbert's Supporting Learning With Technology and I'm willing to try again.  Her book really is a joy, and I've decided to mark it up and NOT sell it again.  Very few textbooks make that cut in my world.  

This past week I went through a laborious process, round robins of permission from multiple departments, and soon (next week?) I will be able to use Sakai, the "Canvas" of Northwest State Community College, and begin to build lesson plans online!   

Oooo, The Water Is Cold!

Welcome... 

                 to the terrifying spectacle of a middle-aged woman, vulnerable and almost naked in her swimsuit of experience, trying to jump in a cold batch of new technology.  It all began with an assessment of her technology skills:

Technology Skills Boot Camp Assessment…Ew

                Rate your confidence level (the real categories):  

         Hunt and Peck, Ask Your Children, I Had To Do That Once- But It Was A Long Time Ago, No Problemo’ and OMG, Are You Kidding?  Wow.  I have no confidence in technology other than Word Documents other than I’m willing to keep at it until I “get it” no matter how far I have to go for help.

                I’m so happy to be taking this class because I just started a new teaching job at age 53, at a new level of education and I suddenly need a whole lot of technology to help me at my community college.  Also, my initial skills assessment needed one additional category, “Pitiful!”

                I need to establish a spreadsheet system for three classes for attendance and grades.  I inherited two awful syllabuses and I need to create my own and be able to post it on a class site.  I want a power point presentation for Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and some videos of me explaining/encouraging certain writing processes for my class web site. 

                My college uses Sakai for their online classes, and I need to find out if Google Docs can be used to build a class.  Google Docs seems to be a real favorite among educators and I’ve seen some of their sites, so I’m very interested.  

                I need to check my class/school e-mail on my new phone (which provides hours of entertainment….to my family as I try to use it correctly and efficiently.)

Ann’s work plan and goal list:

Get a blog established by 9/22/13, following my learning adventures.  Here I am!

Mod 2 – Supporting Student Content Learning, Communication and Critical Thinking

By 9/29/13 I will establish spreadsheets for my three classes to chart absences and grades and I will get my Northwest State Community College e-mail added to my phone and learn how to check it and respond.

Mod 3 – Supporting Student Creativity and Problem Solving

By 10/13/13 –I will create a PowerPoint presentation of Daisy Miller, and more importantly, learn how to coach my students (many non-traditional) so that they can create PowerPoint presentations about authors and literature for our class.  Also, I will submit my Final Project Proposal (possible Google or Sakai class site with online directions for next semester?)

Mod 4 –Supporting Student Production and eLearning

By 10/27/13 I will have been teaching from my inherited syllabuses long enough, writing down modifications, additional exercises, etc., so that I can create my own syllabuses for next semester with fun teaching graphics, text boxes and easier access.  The ones I have make me cross-eyed and are difficult to follow.

Mod 5 –Supporting Teacher Development and Student Futures.

By 11/22/13  Final Project/ My Teaching Site with some embedded videos of my salient points and possibly some interviews.