tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18122172222510525742024-03-12T22:04:46.092-04:00Larry's Opinion Drive-thruFeaturing commentary on educational technology from down in the trenches.Detroit Sports Dorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06507758358144530420noreply@blogger.comBlogger803125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-79452224871357877492015-10-03T04:00:00.000-04:002015-10-03T10:27:17.936-04:00Final Post at the Drive-thru
Photo courtesy of Nick Papakyriazis
I coached basketball for 21 years. When it was time to quit, I knew it. Nothing dramatic had happened. . . . I simply realized I was doing it out of habit more than passion.
I've reached the same point with the Drive-thru. For several years I have regularly posted twice a week (at the onset it was three times a week). It is something I have Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-70614116496104922482015-10-01T03:00:00.000-04:002015-10-01T03:00:07.683-04:00Quotes on Innovation, Technology, and Wonder
Photo by Michael Kirsh with permission
“It is not about the technology; it’s about sharing knowledge and information, communicating efficiently, building learning communities and creating a culture of professionalism in schools.”
— Marion Ginapolis
“Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems.”
— Tim Brown
if you’re waiting for Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-14968618301949433372015-09-27T02:00:00.000-04:002015-09-27T02:00:04.427-04:00Learning Spaces, Rigor, and the Look of Education in a More Open Future
Learning spaces: The subconscious teacher
Imagine yourself within a soft, white room. The room feels safe, perhaps even feminine, not unlike a blank canvas or white egg. Bright, sloping whiteboard walls surround you so every inch of wall space can be drawn upon. Creativity is celebrated here. This is a fresh environment where ideas are free to emerge. Curved, stretchy chairs meet flexible Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-87395281342982639532015-09-24T02:00:00.000-04:002015-09-24T02:00:08.631-04:00Maker Movement, Favorite Apps, How Tech Increases Rigor and More!
Why the Maker Movement Is Important to America’s Future
The Maker Movement has the potential to bring techies and non-techies alike into the world of being creators — some hobby-related, but for many, they could end up making great products and selling them online. In fact, Kaplan pointed out that Etsy has become an eBay-like vehicle for makers to sell their products to users around the world. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-52255894378487786842015-09-20T02:00:00.001-04:002015-09-20T02:00:02.213-04:00Palettes of Choice and Control in School and Workplace Environments
On Thursday I attended Reocon at NBS Commercial Interiors. Featured at the exhibition was a "Think Better" presentation by Katie Pace of Steelcase. She discussed research pertaining to the cognitive challenges presented to workers and students by the bombardment of "distraction" created by technology. She explained that innovative design of workplaces and schools could increase health, happinessAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-30315004319649743052015-09-17T13:18:00.000-04:002015-09-17T13:18:00.202-04:00A Baker's Half-Dozen Quotes from Wagner, Couros, Whitby, etc."A good library not only has answers to our questions, past and present and future . . . it has a place, a physical domain in which we can be absorbed in those answers." --The Language of School Design
"Change in education is slow -- it's a very conservative system. Our tech-driven culture, however, is less forgiving and will not wait. If educators aren't striving to be relevant, they're fallingAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-364600757456234742015-09-13T04:00:00.000-04:002015-09-13T04:00:09.205-04:00Boomerang, Flipped Staff Meetings and More!
Photo from Wikicommons
Boomerang for Gmail review
Boomerang essentially makes your emails go out and, wait for it… arrive when you want them to. Scheduling sending and postponing of incoming emails seem to be the basic staples of the app that most of its users love.
http://tinyurl.com/ntv288c
The Importance of Low-Stakes Student Feedback
Many classes in the U.S. assign a grade by Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-56393996668599677472015-09-10T02:00:00.001-04:002015-09-10T10:38:52.159-04:00Furnish It and They Will Come!
I asked these students if I could snap their picture when I was leaving for the day.
The new lobby furniture that I described recently New MHS Lobby Design Promotes Collaboration is a great hit! Primarily selected to accommodate students who stay for activities after school, it is designed to promote collaboration.
Each time I have wandered through after school, almost all 53 Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-60979282351338376672015-09-06T02:30:00.000-04:002015-09-06T02:30:01.909-04:00Six Quotes about Innovation
Photo with permission by fmfm166
"Our research shows that innovation starts at the top. It’s leaders who set the tone, not only by creating a climate that encourages it but also by making it possible for people to put forward new ideas without fear of failure." -- The Hay Group
<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?-->
"If innovation is truly a desired outcome, how is it Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-41623108941532515772015-09-03T02:30:00.000-04:002015-09-03T02:30:00.574-04:00Transforming Libraries, Teaching Critical Thinking, and Much More
Transforming Monticello High’s Library Into the Creative Hub of the School
We gave purpose to many of our spaces. We transformed our markerspace library from a blank canvas to a veritable craft room with art supplies and tools. This makes it a perfect space for all those messy things that teachers want to do in their classrooms but can’t because they’re, well, messy. An area of the library thatAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-72432493312235678342015-08-30T04:00:00.001-04:002015-08-30T04:00:04.027-04:00New MHS Lobby Design Promotes CollaborationThis past week was a milestone in terms of re-design of spaces in two major areas at Mercy High School. First, we made the furnishing choices for the collaborative area and digital creation room that I have described in recent blog posts.
Secondly, we took delivery of Steelcase furnishings that we have installed in our auditorium/gym lobby. The students love the comfort and lay out of the Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-23965716708912807942015-08-27T02:00:00.001-04:002015-08-27T02:00:00.056-04:00Class of 2016 iWizards Well Prepared for their Futures
Four iWizard seniors (and a senior citizen!)
As I recently posted, some of my iWizards have grown up! As originally formed three years ago, all members were ninth graders. While still skewed toward younger members, the iWizards will now be represented by students from four grade levels, among them the seniors pictured above.
Three of my seniors have been vitally involved with the Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-78200031602650560922015-08-23T02:00:00.000-04:002015-08-23T18:22:54.850-04:00Visit to Hillel Day School Part 3 -- Places to Make & Create This is a third reflection on my visit to Hillel Day School and how it impacts my thoughts on redesigning major spaces in our building such as Mercy's Media Center. The first post focused on the marriage of design and innovative instruction. The second focused on collaboration and student agency.
This post reflects on the "maker spaces" provided for students by Hillel. The maker movement is one Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-56403729275342538812015-08-20T03:00:00.000-04:002015-08-23T18:23:36.164-04:00Marriage of Design and Transformative Instruction - part 2
In my last post I described a visit to a neighboring school which I believe is engaging in transformative educational practices which are accommodated by ingenious design elements. Fundamentally, Hillel Day School has eliminated traditional classrooms. Consequently teachers can/must consider the optimal learning space for each lesson.
In this post I want to reflect on how Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-69143252784640767932015-08-16T02:00:00.000-04:002015-08-17T18:45:57.565-04:00The 2015 iWizard Tech Orientation (aka "My Babies Have Grown Up")
This was Izzy's third year leading an iPad orientation session
Three years ago Mercy adopted the iPad as its 1:1 device for the class of 2016. Shortly afterwards we formed a club of ninth grade iPad enthusiasts who named themselves the "iWizards". Those ninth graders set upon an ambitious project: They would conduct the two and a half hour tech orientation for the next group of ninth graders. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-12405412378737402602015-08-13T03:00:00.000-04:002015-08-13T03:00:03.499-04:00Hillel Day School-- A Marriage of School Design with Innovative Educational Practice
As I recently posted I am preoccupied with the potential redesign of our Media Center. I also am participating in redesign projects of two other major areas of our building— the lobby to our gym/auditorium land a proposed multi-million dollar renovation featuring the creation of a large student commons. These redesign aspirations motivated me to ask a friend if she could arrange Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-8016410237204503352015-08-09T03:00:00.000-04:002015-08-09T03:00:00.709-04:00Good Reads by Hayley Hutchinson, Tom Whitby, Mary Stemier and others
Use Blogging for Reflection and Assessment
Initially, I asked students to find additional resources to share. But no matter how much I stressed that they should be compelling, I often got links to bad websites. That prompted me to ask students to share something new that had not been mentioned in class, such as a video, a picture or any tidbit of information (properly cited, of course). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-13359531068518261922015-08-06T03:00:00.000-04:002015-08-06T03:00:01.690-04:00Learner Agency, Flipped Professional Development, 3D Printing, and More
3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time
Flipping leadership sounds like a gimmick but it's not. Co-construct the meetings with staff and make sure there is a focus on learning. Decide what the learning focus is together. Look at data, listen to the discussions and questions that go on around the school. There is so much to focus on in education that revolves around learning.
http://Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-17406093259924103832015-08-02T03:00:00.000-04:002015-08-02T09:02:43.178-04:00School Library Redesign on My MindFor the bast few days I have been completely absorbed in a redesign pilot for our Media Center. This flows out of A) The new movement to renovate libraries from places to receive information to places where information is used to create things. B) The need for today's learners to have flexible collaborative spaces.
I have plowed ahead with my planning and you will hear more about this as IAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-69804890906722827562015-07-30T02:30:00.000-04:002015-07-30T02:30:00.816-04:00A Staff's Self-Measurement of ISTE Standards Revisited
In 2013 we developed a likert scale survey for our teachers at Mercy several of the the ISTE Standards and published the results to iMercy. We are now nearing the completion of an iMercy second edition. In order to update the book's section on the "Compelling Evidence of Success" of our iPad program we revisited the staff with the same survey.
We were pleased to discover thatAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-45230658089082697472015-07-26T02:30:00.001-04:002015-07-26T02:30:00.297-04:00Solution for Finding Files You Squirreled away in the Cloud.
I just discovered an app that is hugely helpful to me. You may be interested too if you use more than one location for cloud storage. I am particularly guilty of this-- I have files stored in Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive (two accounts) and Box. I actually like each of these services and the search functions work very well within each one. But too often I can't remember Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-67279138179913979622015-07-22T07:00:00.000-04:002015-07-22T07:00:02.065-04:00Strong Evidence of iPad Success with Mercy StudentsThis spring we completed a survey of nearly all of our ninth graders using a likert scale to measure their perceptions of how intrinsic their iPads were to their learning in school. We used the the ISTE Standards for Students as the criteria for measuring this.
We has used the identical survey in 2013 when we applied to become an Apple Distinguished School. In every instance theAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-48525743409367473432015-07-19T03:00:00.000-04:002015-07-19T03:00:01.343-04:00Visions of the Future of Educational Technology-- Wearable Tech, Hackerspaces, and More
Imagining the Classroom of 2016, Empowered by Wearable Technology
Mr. Brannon is the P.E. teacher at an elementary school. Each student in his class is equipped with a special bracelet that measures heart rate, hydration levels, how many steps they’ve taken, and even breathing rate. From his iPad, Mr. Brannon keeps track of each student’s fitness and knows how far to push them. Students get theAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-65321916178782622502015-07-16T01:30:00.000-04:002015-07-16T01:30:00.603-04:00Part 2: Pushing back against the Scorn for “Using Tech for Tech’s Sake”In my last post I pushed back against a common theme I heard at the ISTE 2015 educational technology conference in Philadelphia. The theme was that using technology in schools “for its own sake” was a practice to be avoided at all costs and far too many schools were pursuing it.
In that post I argued that tech “for its own sake” did indeed make if one considered that it is unreasonable to Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812217222251052574.post-39936530580600423582015-07-12T03:00:00.000-04:002015-07-12T15:37:10.387-04:00Pushing back against the scorn of “using tech for tech’s sake”
I recently attended the ISTE 2015 Conference in Philadelphia. In several of the educational technology sessions that I attended a theme very prominently emerged: Using technology in schools “for its own sake” was a practice to be avoided at all costs and far too many schools were guilty of pursuing it.
The contention of course is that instead of using tech for its own sake, technology Detroit Sports Dorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06507758358144530420noreply@blogger.com1