iCreate Workshop

The Mercy iWizards have begun registration for iCreate -- an iPad workshop of 7th and 8th graders on January 17, 2015.  The two sessions will revolve around the following creative apps:

ArtRage

Animation Creator HD

Photogene

iMovie

Staff Learns to Weave Dreams in our Computer Labs

MHS Dreamweaver Training in our Mac Lab (Photo by Gary T. Bank)

On October 23, seven of our staff members received one full day of Adobe Dreamweaver training* in Mercy's Mac Lab.  Adobe Dreamweaver CC is the all-in-one visual development tool for creating, publishing, and managing websites and mobile content.

Training was customized for our Fine Arts Department members who will apply their new skills with the graphic arts curriculum. The day's syllabus included

* Creating and understanding Dreamweaver

* Stylizing Content

* Creating Flexible Layout 

* Adding a Portfolio

* Using Content from Other Sources (e.g., Twitter & Video)

Participants in the training:

Susan Smith (Fine Arts)

Carol Rife (Fine Arts)

Aaron Poris (Fine Arts)

Lauren Marquard (World Language)

Christopher Blitz (Advancement)

Carol Maclennan (Pastoral Ministry)

This full day of professional development was supported by many teachers and staff who substituted in class for the Dreamweaver training participants.

4.) 

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*Training was provided by Charlie Grover who MHS has also contracted for training in Final Cut Pro X

Registration Now Open for 2015 Tech Talk #mhtalk

We have just opened registration for Tech Talk at Mercy— A day filled with real world applications for the K-12 classroom.

Date: February 27, 2015.

Cost: (Includes continental breakfast and lunch):

$40 Early registration -- individual

$30 Early registration -- per person for a group of five or more registering together

After February 1: All registration $50 per person

SCHECH credits will be available to professionals through Madonna University.

Scene from 2014 Tech Talk

Our keynote presentation will be delivered by Karen Bosch and titled, The Power of TLC: Technology + Learning + Creativity. To date other topics will include: * Productivity Apps for the Busy Teacher

* I got an iPad, now what?

* 5 Inspiring Google Connect Apps * Introduction to Photoshop CS6 * Creating Quality Video * Weebly in the Classroom

* inFORMed with Google Forms; communication=relationships

* Becoming a Digital School Administrator

* Blending Traditional Curriculum with Technology

* Happy Together with Google Sheets

* Snag it and Share-it!

Until November 15 we will be accepting presentation proposals at 

http://techtalkmercy.weebly.com/call-for-presenters.html

Day Off (Sort of) for an Ed Techie

Today I have enjoyed a day-off from yesterday's all day Parent-Teacher Conferences.  For me to really vacate I have to be on a bike tour like the one I enjoyed three weeks ago in California.

But today was almost as good.  I started with my daily spin/workout at Core Cycle, did some grocery shopping, and then set to work on my two favorite projects-- iCreate and Tech Talk.   iCreate is an iPad Workshop for middle school students on January 17, 2015 from 9:30am - noon.  Activities will include drawing, animation, and video-editing.  Today I have been working on promotion and setting up future face-to-face and Skype meetings for the project. Tech Talk is our conference for 300 K-12 educators on February 27. Today I have identified some potential presenters in my network and I am reaching out to them to consider submitting a proposal to Tech Talk.  Already we have several interesting proposals, including: * Productivity Apps for the Busy Teacher

* I got an iPad, now what?

* Introduction to Photoshop CS6 * Creating Quality Video * Weebly in the Classroom

* Becoming a Digital School Administrator

* Blending Traditional Curriculum with Technology

* Going One-to-One at Your School-- a Conversation

* Instructional Uses of Pinterest

We expect many more in the next month (deadline for submission is November 15).

While I haven't "gotten away from it all" on my day off, what ed techie would want to get away from interesting events like these?

Connecting Educators, Unlimited Storage, and other Good Ed Tech Stuff

Google Gives Students Unlimited Storage Space in the Cloud

Google is giving the 30 million students and teachers who already use Google Apps for Education unlimited storage — and it's offering the same deal to anyone whose school wants to sign up for it.

http://tinyurl.com/nmysnyo 

How to Become a Connected Educator

Getting connected isn’t always easy. We asked some of our most plugged-in educators to offer tips on how to connect with colleagues outside your school community to form an invaluable professional learning network.

http://tinyurl.com/pcgwws9

katypang via Compfight cc

How to Record Audio Interviews With Skype and QuickTime

If you have a Mac you can record by using QuickTime. The screenshots below provide directions for recording a Skype audio call by using QuickTime. After recording your call you can take the audio file and use it Garage Band or another audio editing tool like Audacity to edit the audio.

http://tinyurl.com/nbnemsy

Creating Simple Websites With Keynote

You can use Keynote to build a simple multi-page website. When you export as HTML, the resulting files can be uploaded to a web host.

http://tinyurl.com/mj7eqgz

Four Activities to Jump-Start Teamwork Among Teachers and School Leaders

But many teachers feel isolated in their classrooms, beholden to curriculum and state tests, but not necessarily connected to a learning community or a team to support them. That’s where school communities could learn from other types of work, where teams are crucial to generating new ideas and momentum, while providing members with support when it’s needed.

http://tinyurl.com/kgk7pgz

Is Math a Feature of the Universe or a Feature of Human Creation?

Requiem to the iPod and Five other Good Reads

On Death and iPods: A Requiem

We made playlists that spoke to the lives we lived at the moment. Looking at someone’s iPod was like looking into their soul. In their music you could see who they were. You could tell if they were sophisticated or rough. You could see in their playlists the moments they fell in love and the moments they fell back out again. You could see the filthiest, nastiest hip hop in the little white boxes of the primmest people, and know their inner lives a little better than you did before.

http://tinyurl.com/pak9ucw

What is Twitter, as explained by its evolving tagline

Eight years later Twitter is so much more. Its users came up with great features such as replies, hashtags and retweets. The best things about Twitter arguably came from people who didn’t work at the company. . . . As Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said of Twitter’s good fortune, “it’s as if they drove a clown car into a gold mine and fell in.”

http://tinyurl.com/orzu7pn

jurvetson via Compfight cc

You Are Asking The Wrong Questions About Education Technology

What works for industry will not work for education because, as one recent New York Times article aptly noted, “teaching is not a business.” By now, we should know better than to transplant the intellectual structures of one human activity onto another. The trouble, however, is that we mistakenly believe we can separate the medium from the message.

http://tinyurl.com/ndbcvs4

Line by Line, E-Books Turn Poet-Friendly

“We wanted to feel confident that what the poets were doing visually came across in the e-readers before we made this transfer,” said Christopher Richards, an assistant editor at Farrar. “The visual look of a poem is really important and can communicate a kind of meaning, and if it’s not preserved in the e-book, you really lose something.”

http://tinyurl.com/n6jcj83

Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away

I teach theory and practice of social media at NYU, and am an advocate and activist for the free culture movement, so I’m a pretty unlikely candidate for internet censor, but I have just asked the students in my fall seminar to refrain from using laptops, tablets, and phones in class.

http://tinyurl.com/lrm8f94

Back-to-School List Begone. Google Chromebooks Are the New Kid in Town

If you're still talking about the digital divide, you haven't heard about Google Chromebooks. Chromebooks are not only affordable, they actually save schools, districts, and families money. Chromebooks are only about $225 and last for about three years. That's $75 a year. The devices cost less than your back to school list for the next three years and yet provide so much more.

http://tinyurl.com/nwfvzpa

New Technology for Mercy Broadcasting

I visited Mrs. Eddy's Broadcasting class yesterday.  It was my first opportunity to see how thousands of dollars of new technology purchased over the summer was impacting her student's projects. With the help of a $25,000 donation and other significant capital spending, Mrs. Eddy has masterfully redesigned her course to give the students an authentic 2014 broadcasting experience.

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All photos provided by Mrs. Eddy

Outside of the Box Peer-to-Peer Tech Training Strategies

I like to submit conference proposals that reflect projects which preoccupy me. Knowing that I am going to submit a proposal on a project motivates me to work harder on the project.

Recently I submitted a proposal called Outside of the Box Peer-to-Peer Tech Training Strategies.  Here's the description:

Peer to peer training is powerful. This session will describe some methods which have proven effective at Mercy High School such as teacher lead workshops, drop-in labs and a teacher-to-teacher conference. A badged self-paced course for teachers will shared as well as an iTunes U course for administrators which includes resources exclusively created by building administrators.  Additionally, a program where savvy students orient new students to their iPads will be described.  

I hope it gets selected!

Museum Apps, the Myths of Learning, and Preserving the Pleasure of Deep Reading

WORK HAS CHANGED, SO MUST SCHOOL AND THE MYTHS OF LEARNING

LEARNING MYTH #2 – COMPLIANCE IS LEARNING.  Again, don’t be mistaken.  We all have to comply with rules, regulations, structure and supervision . . . . But we can’t always confuse or substitute compliance for progress, advancement or learning.  In the 20th century workplace, again workers did not question their boss.  They did their jobs and shut up.  However, in the 21st century workplace, input from employees is not only acceptable, but also needed and required for real quality work.  Employees need to be part of a team that has a mission, a vision and goals. 

http://tinyurl.com/mvxu8b4

6 Museum Apps for Virtual Field Trips

Whether your kids want to understand the first people to walk the earth or find out about the greatest living artists in the world, chances are there’s a museum app out there to educate and entertain them for hours.

http://tinyurl.com/lu4cjsm

MOMA iPhone app

“Four Things I’ll Do Differently This School Year”

Many of my students lug around backpacks stuffed with wads of paper and smelly gym socks . . . .This year I’ll rise to the challenge by digitizing handouts and assignments, uploading them to my Edmodo library and sharing them with students. iPads are a staple in my classroom. Students can access handouts through their class folder using their device, annotate using Notability and turn in completed work electronically for me to view. 

http://tinyurl.com/kmxxtkf

The Case for Preserving the Pleasure of Deep Reading

The deep reader, protected from distractions and attuned to the nuances of language, enters a state that psychologist Victor Nell, in a study of the psychology of pleasure reading, likens to a hypnotic trance. Nell found that when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection, analysis, and their own memories and opinions. 

http://tinyurl.com/m9kcxu3

What Do Schools Risk By Going ‘Full Google’?

“One of the issues I had with students was their not citing correctly,” Berlusconi says. “There was a lot of plagiarism.” With Google Docs, she can figuratively look over a student’s shoulder and flag improper citation even before they turn in an assignment. Plus, she says, when students are collaborating, a glance at the revision history “allows you to see who really is doing the work” by who contributed what edits.

http://tinyurl.com/nwraevy

Five Strategies for Edtech Success During the New School Year

Publish, Publish, Publish Student Work

It is essential that your students publish their work right at the beginning of the year. Their first creation could be simple: a written reflection of summer learning, a photo essay, or a list of goals for the year. The point is to get them used to putting their creations out there for others to see and react to.

http://tinyurl.com/qbovr3g