Socrative

21 March 2016

So for my latest Edtech assignment, I had to make an online test from Socrative.com.  Making the test was pretty easy, and fun, actually. Setting it up for people to take was a bit tricky, but it was still fun to do. I could definitely see how easy it would be to make a quiz for students and post it for everybody to take, either in class or at home. A friend of mine was even able to take it on his smart phone.

Video Intro

5 Feb. 2016

This is my video introduction (with  my son, Justin making a cameo appearance) as per my 3D GameLab quest requirements.

PS
I notice that each of my posts tend to get around a half dozen viewers.... besides Prof. Nelson, who the heck is reading this blog??

Video intro

My Voki Portrait...thing

Realm of Creativity or Succubus of Dread

30 Jan. 2016


     In Chapter 1 of Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse OR The First Year of Teaching, the hilarious author, Dr. Chris Haskell discusses the rules to "setting yourself up for success" so to speak.  The first step is to create a vision; a clear idea what you expect your class to feel like, what you want to accomplish and how you will accomplish it.  It's a good idea to make sure the parents and school principal are on board with your "vision", and that your vision is written down.  In further guiding the creation of your vision, Haskall advises the consideration of the look, feel, and presence (how everyone interacts within the classroom, and to what degree) of the class. These and other considerations are discussed (teaching style, goals/objectives, etc.) - and again advised by Haskall to be written down, posted in the classroom, and even distributed. This vision can then be referred back to and modified with time.

New 3D technology

30 Jan. 2016


     So I watched an awesome video showing some of the latest and greatest computer technology.  The first part of the video highlighted an interactive touch-screen that, while cool, didn't exactly knock my socks off. I've seen that kind of tech for a few years now and while impressive, I don't exactly see it as world-changing, necessarily. I was however, enormously impressed by a ZCo "Augmented Reality Visualization tool".  Now that program was awesome!  The tech guy was able to pull up images on his screen and rotate them around like he would if it were a real, physical object.  Now, I know even this tech has been around awhile- it's a critical element of 3D gaming, which is also fairly old tech by now.  What really caught my attention though was that he could enlarge it and see the various layers of the object- in the example shown in the video the tech guy examined a multi-layer bus, like the kind driven a lot in the UK.  He was able to look at it from any angle, and enlarge it to the point that he could start seeing inside the bus!  My first thought upon seeing that was remembering the elaborate computers used by Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies, particularly the first couple when he was building/upgrading his Iron Man suit.  It makes me wonder just how many years away we really are from having those kinds of computers! 

     Functionally, I see all kinds of application for this augmented reality tool.  Especially in architecture, automotive classes, engineering, hell even in history class! Being a massive history buff, I can just imagine teachers someday talking about the Roman coliseums and bringing up not just photos of modern day ruins on a flat screen TV but actually bringing up an historical rendering of a colosseum, and even being able to spin the image around at various angles on a computer screen, zoom in and out and show the different areas of it, as it would have looked two thousand years ago.  Or imagine showing, not just telling or reading about the Battle of Gettysburg!  That would be seriously cool!

My Netiquette rules

30 Jan. 2016


In compliance with the netiquette questin my EDTECH class, here is a list of netiquette rules I generated- geared for elementary/middle school level.

KYLE’S RULES OF NETIQUETTE

1.    Never give out personal information (passwords, home address, phone number, etc.)

2.   Don’t be a “troll” and pick fights with people. Be respectful and talk to people the way you would like them to talk to you.

3.   Using all capital letters is the same as shouting online, SO KEEP THAT IN MIND WHEN YOU DO IT. The exception to that is when using shorthand, such as “LOL” or “ROFL”.

4.   Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

5.   Once something is posted on the internet, it is available for the world to see, and is very, very hard to remove.  Some things may never fully go away.  Keep that in mind before you say anything, or post images on the internet!

6.   What you say, and how you say it is a reflection of who you are as a person.   Take a moment and look twice at the things you post before you post them and ask “What does this text/image I am about to post say about me? Am I ok with possibly everyone who knows me and possibly many people who don’t know me, reading or seeing this?  If there is any doubt, it might be best not to post  it!

Schemas

26 Jan. 2016

What the heck is schema and what role does it play in how we perceive student intelligence?

     As Prof. Chris Haskell defines the term in his book Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Or The First Year of Teaching, a schema is a "...collection of experience and knowledge about how to react, iterpet, or operate in an environment."  Basically, according to Haskell, all students are capable of learning what is needed and getting good grades; we are all intelligent in our own ways.  It's the teacher's job to determine what approach will work best for each student- it's a known fact that we do not all learn the same way at the same rate, and we all grow up with different life experiences.  This is where schemas come in.  As we grow up, we learn different routines, patterns, and guidelines that tell us as individuals how we are supposed to react to various situations.  Given that, teachers need to be ready to identify students who are struggling and look deeper into the source of the problem- beyond simply accepting the "obvious" answer that that student isn't as smart or capable.  It is very possible that the schemas that student has developed in life up to this point are simply not working for him/her now, and needs help creating new schemas.