Here’s a few of the workshop wikis I’ve used recently, which I thought might be worth sharing here.
Intro to Tablet PC - This is the latest version of my Intro to Tablet PC workshop. We had to do this in three hours, though, and only got through the Education Pack and Experience Pack.
Tablet Sharing - This page is for Tech Lead Teachers who meet every other month as part of a Tablet PC Pilot project. This included my previous sketchcasting workshop and then some. There’s a few more example sketchcasts in this outline. We also covered Jing… and because there was time left I showed them a document camera and then ZiPhone - and how to jailbreak their iPhones. :)
Document Camera Workshop - This is a new workshop for me and it went well. The wiki isn’t terribly rich yet, but it provides a structure for training teachers of various levels how to use a document camera in the classroom and includes links to several quality resources for additional ideas and inspiration.
Projector Workshop - CUE does projector workshops from time to time (either 3 or 6 hour versions) and I used to wonder how on Earth that time was filled, even though I understood it was more about how to teach with a projector rather than how to use a projector. This wiki represents my first go at running a projector workshop myself. It was 90 minutes of interactive demo followed by 90 minutes of practice time where teachers got to team up and work on the things they most wanted to try. It went well for me, and there are lots of links on this wiki for anyone else attempting something similar.
Google in Education - This is the outline of my short Google Workshop, which is largely delivered as a demo that the participants can follow along with hands-on. I most recently delivered this to teachers in Redondo Beach, and wished I could do all three days of the Search, Learn, Share training below.
Search, Learn, Share - This wiki was originally created by Chris Walsh and I to support a workshop based on the original Google Teacher Academy. I recently expanded it into three half-day Saturday workshops for private schools, which you can access in the sidebar. I’m very happy with how this worked out, and think there’s enough structure here for other professional developers to put it to use without much work.
Images, Impact, and Interaction - This is another new workshop for me… rather than how to use Powerpoint, this is how to design better presentations, with a focus on creating interactive experiences for the students. It went well, and again there are plenty of links to good resources here.
I’d love any feedback you might have on any of these workshop wikis. And, of course, feel free to contribute to them or put them to use, as long as you respect the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. ;)
UPDATE:See my Workshops page for a more complete list of workshops. Most are wikis, and several are newly updated.
What is Big Tree Learning? My friend and colleague, Chris Walsh, father of the Google Teacher Academy, has a new venture. Big Tree Learning is an online education company helping high school students succeed in school and be better prepared for college. You can get involved this summer as a Teaching Fellow (or “Rock Star Teacher”) helping to develop curriculum with them in San Francisco. Cool name for a learning company, too, eh?
This week is national teacher appreciation week and today is national teacher day! If you’re a teacher, I hope your students are celebrating with you - and whoever you are, I hope you’re celebrating the teachers in your life.
Google, CUE, and WestEd are celebrating by announcing a special Google Teacher Academy (GTA) to be hosted at the Googleplex, Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA. I’m thrilled to be involved with this project - and to share it with you here on the this blog. As with previous GTA events, tech savvy educators and professional developers in the area can apply to participate in the special full-day workshop. For the first time ever, the application process is also open to anyone, including educators out of the area, out of the state, or even out of the country (with the understanding that Google doesn’t cover travel or lodging). In other words, any of you who feel you meet the criteria for application are invited to apply!
Below is the official announcement and invitation to apply:
Google Teacher Academy - at the Googleplex Mountain View, CA June 25, 2008
Since today is National Teacher Day, we thought it appropriate to announce that Google’s FREE training program for K-12 educators is back at the Google headquarters! Outstanding educators from across the country (and beyond!) are encouraged to apply for the Google Teacher Academy taking place on Wed, June 25, 2008.
The GTA is an intensive, one-day event (8:30am-7:30pm) where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, collaborate with exceptional educators, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, GTA participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region.
50 outstanding educators from across the country will be selected to attend the GTA based on their passion for teaching, their experience as leaders, and their use of technology in K-12 settings. Each applicant is REQUIRED to produce and submit an original one-minute video, and applications for the event in Mountain View are due on May 28, 2008. Please use Google Video or YouTube to post these original videos. Participants must provide their own travel, and if necessary, their own lodging. Though we will give preference to K-12 educators within a 90-minute local commute of an Academy event, anyone may apply.
The GTAs have been a wonderful experience for everyone involved, with 97% of all attendees rating the GTA as “outstanding.”
Here are a few quotes from GTA participants:
—————————————-
“The academy was everything I hoped for and more! I can’t wait to plan out ways to use the tools we learned about, to share my experiences with my colleagues and to re-connect with the other academy participants!”
—————————————-
“The focus on innovation in education, and not just about the tools, was right on target.”
—————————————-
“I appreciate the opportunity to be connected to a group of educators that are passionate about preparing students for the 21st century. I feel inspired and able to meet the challenges that lie ahead!”
—————————————-
“Until now, I had never attended a conference where I was so engaged and loving every minute of it.”
—————————————-
“This was easily the most important professional development experience I have ever had as an educator. World-class tools demonstrated by world-class people at a world-class facility. THANK YOU!”
—————————————-
“I love [the Google Certified Teacher community] for the ideas and inspiration that comes flowing to and from it…folks share professional development strategies (technology or otherwise) that have worked. It’s nice to have a variety of ways to assist others and having that variety also provides spice for those of us responsible for doing the providing.”
—————————————-
Feel free to send any questions to “gteachers@gmail.com“, and please spread the word to anyone who may be interested in joining us.
We’re looking forward to another great event!
- The GTA Team
——————————————————– Google Teacher Academy June 25, 2008 Mountain View, CA
The application deadline is just three weeks away, so don’t wait to start putting together your video and your application. I hope to see some of you in Mountain View!
Incidentally, anyone can now view and subscribe to my shared items at this page: Mark Wagner’s Shared Items. This is now an easy way to share important posts or annotated links with your students. By adding the new “Note in Reader” button to your browser toolbar you can share and annotate any site, not just those you’re subscribed to.
Two weeks ago Mike Lawrence and I were at the Leadership 3.0 Symposium, where we made sure to pop into a presentation by Kevin Silberberg, Ed.D., Superintendent of Standard School District:
Today’s progressive administrators understand how affordable handheld technology can help them efficiently manage data. This session explains and demonstrates how you can collect classroom observation data via Apple iPhone and iTouch devices—as well as any laptop computer—and record, store and access your data anywhere, anytime, via the Web.
In essence, Kevin and his team from CTAP Region 8 built a beautifully streamlined web app (about 2 MB of php code as I understand it) that is optimized for the iPhone and does away with the need for administrators to “synch” their handheld. I got the impression they would host your data or else give away the code to use on your own servers. Got to starthere.ctap8.org to register. Good stuff.
Even better, one of the team, who preferred to remain nameless, showed Mike and I his “jailbroken” iPhone and explained how easy it was to do. The value in it was obvious within about 60 seconds of seeing his phone… um, I mean his cutting edge computer. He was gracious enough to meet Mike and I after the session to walk us through the process - in exchange we bought him a couple of O’Douls. ;)
iPhone is Different
I’ll explain the process below, but first I want to explain why iPhone is Different. I know longer think of this thing as a phone, but rather as the most advanced computer I own. So what’s so different about iPhone? In short, it’s multitouch, it knows its orientation (thanks to the accelerometer), and it knows its location. I can’t stress how much this changes things, and how many new things it allows “the computer” to do. I have no doubt this is the future of 1:1 devices in education.
It’s Multitouch
Multitouch allows a whole new brand of applications, like those offered by Moo-Cow-Music, including a Piano (that allows recording and playback), a Guitar, and a Drumset. (Click on the video below to see a video I shot of Mike Lawrence and Hall Davidson playing a duet on two iPhone pianos. You may have to crank up the volume. I’d love to see a whole band of iPhone instruments: a piano, two guitars, a drummer.) One of the most powerful uses of computers in education is to encourage student creativity, and this kind of application opens whole new doors. By the way, for more on the importance of student creativity, watch Sir Ken Robinson, who keynoted the Lead 3 event. You might also check out Tap Tap Revolution, a game that demonstrates what the multitouch screen is capable of.
It Knows It’s Orientation
Obviously this is handy for little things like turning the device to read or view in wide-screen mode. But like the multi-touch screen, it also allows a whole new class of applications. My favorite straight forward example is iLevel, which might be particularly useful for teachers hanging posters or bulletin boards or for students building models for final projects. Mostly, I think it demonstrates how new things are possible. If you have your iPhone, you have your Piano and your level in your pocket… not to mention all that access to the Internet business! I also like Sketches as an example; it’s a drawing program (also good for kids, especially if coupled with Capture to save the drawings), which is modeled after an etch-a-sketch - so if you shake the device the picture is cleared. :)
It Knows Where It Is
Hopefully by now you all know that iPhone got a cool new killer app (or killer feature) in the January software update. Push the little button in the lower left corner of Google Maps and iPhone triangulates your position based on cell tower signals and wifi signals. It puts me squarely in my office at home… and is far more accurate than a regular map search. So this has made a whole host of new applications possible.
Geopedia brings you Wikipedia articles about things that are near you. Twinkle brings you tweets (from Twitter) that are near you. There are several apps that bring you nearby Flickr picures (including Geopedia). And this is the coolest, however scary: using Navizon you can see where your “buddies” are. You sign up for an account and then set your iPhone to update the Navizon servers - then you invite buddies who do the same (and accept your invitation). There goes the need for the “where you at?” conversation. When I demonstrated this to workshop participants in Orange County on Tuesday it was cool to see that Mike was up in Oakland.
I suspect all phones will have this soon, and “good, our kid is in school” will be a frequent experience for parents. Of course, this has the same limits it did in Star Trek: The Next Generation; if Ensign Barkley was causing trouble, he probably left his communicator in his quarters so you couldn’t be sure where he was. Presuming this feature is used for accessing information rather than tracking kids, though, I think it is extremely powerful - and they’ll love it. I’ve barely got my mind around GPS in education, but I dare say this offers up far more possibilities, particularly with the seamless integration with online applications.
And More
On top of all this, it’s still the multimedia (audio, visual, tactile) Internet device we’ve already come to love as the iPhone. In addition, there are applications that unlock many of it’s hidden features. Mobile Finder gives you access to the file system. You can even instal AFP for file sharing, or Apache to use your iPhone as a web server (it is an OS X box after all). There’s several applications like Snapture that open up new functionality for the camera (sorry, still no video). And Vnotes allows you to record (and send) voice memos. I was only ever half-heartedly on the iPod in education bandwagon, but I’ll lead the iPhone in education charge.
And don’t worry if I didn’t link to every app you want. You’ll find them all in the new Installer app on your iPhone once you jailbreak it. So, about that…
Jailbreak Your iPhone
Here are the simple steps to Jailbreaking your iPhone. It’s amazingly easy (and safe). You can synch your phone before you start. Then, if something does go wrong you can restore it to factory settings and then restore your data. You can even take it in for service after restoring and no one would know you ever had the iPhone out of jail for a while. ;)
Follow these instructions and you’ll be playing with all these apps in no time:
Sync your phone. You’ll get back any data that’s synched with your computer. Because you will restore it as a “new phone” you’ll lose little things like your favorites, but you can recreate them from your contacts.
Download the ZiPhone application for your computer.
Use iTunes to Restore iPhone to it’s factory settings.
Use ZiPhone to Jailbreak Your iPhone. (Just press the Jailbreak button. The application has pretty straight forward instructions if you need them, too.)
One the phone has restarted, use iTunes to sync your phone with your computer as a “new phone” (don’t use your old profile). But of course you already have service with AT&T, so don’t try to set that up again.
Use the new Installer application to add any of the applications you like. This application querries “source” servers on the internet to bring you lists of applications you can download and install right on your iPhone - without any need to sync with you computer. It’s as easy as browsing categories of apps, clicking on one you like, and then clicking install. On wi-fi this is amazingly fast. On cell signals it can be merely quick. Once each application is installed, you’ll need to “log out” and “log back into” iPhone by going to the home screen. It’ll kick you out, but just slide the slider and you’re back in. Be sure to add the following apps as they open up all sorts of other functionality and lay the foundation for more fun applications:
BSD Subsystem (Enables Unix core, allowing you to install other apps)
MobileFinder (From iClarrified source)
SSH (So you can install AFP later)
AFP (So you can file share with your Mac)
SummerBoard (So you can install different themes)
Have fun!
By the way, if you ever need it, the default username is root and the password is alpine.
Potential Issues
I had a problem early on with cookies not saving correctly, but I hear this is not limited to Jailbroken iPhones. Happily, using Mobile Finder it is easy to fix the issue. Go into your home directory (using the “~” button in the upper right of Mobile Finder). Go into the Library folder. Select the Cookies folder. Modify it so all users have read/write/execute access. Do the same thing to the Cookies.plist inside the Cookies folder.
Other than that I haven’t had any issues. My battery life has been reduced and I have to restart the phone from time to time, but I attribute both of those things to a significant increase in usage. And I think it’s totally worth it. Incidentally, I’ve learned you can do a hard restart of the phone by holding down the home button and the top power button - and then sliding the power off. Then simply turn it back on.
The only other potential issue is that when software updates are released for the iPhone in the future, you may need to once again restore the phone to factory settings and then apply the update before jailbreaking it again - and you may need to wait a few days for the programers to update the ZiPhone software. And who knows what the future holds with the official Software Developers Kit and new applications they plan to release in coming months. Still, you can always restore to factory settings and get back on the official bandwagon.
Now I’m hardly an expert, but I’ve found the benefits of Jailbreaking the phone and installing these new apps to be worth far more than any headaches, which have mostly just been a learning curve. Shoot me a comment or email if you want any help with this - and particularly if you start using it with your students or in your roll as an educator.
Top News - Gaming helps students hone 21st-century skills
An article from eSchool News not unlike my own dissertation study: “Online gaming can help students develop many of the skills they’ll be required to use upon leaving school, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity.”
(tags: edugames)
