Karen C. Seddon’s DEN Blog

“I’ve never been any good at math.” How many times have parents and students been allowed to make that comment as if it is no big deal? We don’t allow them to say that they are no good at reading or writing, but somehow it’s acceptable to not be good at math.  Math phobia can be removed with time and opportunity.  As we get closer to standardized testing times across the country, why not give the students a 21^st century way to enjoy math?  Have you ever considered allowing them to compete with students across the globe?  The Internet makes it possible and so very authentic. 

A creative website

I am very excited to bring you a FUN and FREE math site whether you are a math teacher or not. World Maths Day is next week, March 5^th.  The goal is to challenge students around the world to compete against each other on a quest to set a world record in answering mental arithmetic questions.  Last year, more than 287,000 students from 98 countries correctly answered over 38 million questions!  This year they hope to break the 50 million mark!  Answering mental math questions is a lot harder than it looks.  This initiative is part of VMathLive where they are raising up Mathletes who compete in real time games of speed and skill.  Math can be VERY exciting.  Don’t let them tell you they are no good at math.  Practice makes perfect! 

An image to share

Microsoft Office Online

A proverb

“The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.”  S. Gudder

An encouragement

I would really love to challenge ALL teachers, not just math teachers, to take some time on March 5^th, World Math Day and get all our students involved.  Do you know what a great message that sends to the students when the Social Studies teacher or the TV production teacher takes some time out of their busy schedule to give them the opportunity to practice mental math skills?  While you are on the World Math Day site, there is a very small link in the bottom right corner, (click here for country details).  An amazing teachable moment awaits you there as you try to identify where all these nations are.  (Don’t worry, they will show you!) Let us know if you get involved and what the impact was on the students by posting a comment on my blog.

How do you do that?

I know how pressed you are for time and how the FCAT or whatever standardized test you have is looming over you, but I believe that is the very reason you need to step back and try this very challenging and engaging math experiment. If you don’t have a lot of time, create one account and project the site on a screen and play it a few times with the whole class.  If you have no access to computers in your room, consider booking the computer lab for March 5^th.  If those are not possible, give the kids the information and a log-in and let them find a way.  It’s amazing how much access they have to My Space these days.  They will find a way.  Let us know if you found World Math Day a valuable math experience or not  and if you had any “Mathletes”  by going to our “tuesdays” Professional Learning Community.

What are teachers saying?

Tales from the Teachers in the Trenches

“We have assembled a “Pod Squad” of students who create podcasts for our school. They use reading vocabulary words as the basis of their messages. They are creating the podcasts with Picassa,  Audacity, PhotoStory and more. The part I liked the best is that they are telling me that they are downloading these programs at home and showing their families. It doesn’t get any better than that! .” John Patience, Boggy Creek Elementary School, Instructional Technology Specialist

As always, I am

Ubiquitously yours,

K 

I was left wondering about something this past week that I’m not sure how to solve or even if it’s necessary. I was asked for help with keyboarding for students. The teacher was very concerned about the lack of keyboarding skills being taught today when our students type more than ever. That really got me wondering. When I was a kid, you learned to type in 9th grade whether you wanted to or not. It was not my favorite class at the time, but is by far one of the tangible evidences of a public school education that has helped me excel in so many other areas. What do you think? Do students need to have formal keyboarding skills? Does it need to be taught right away? We obviously can’t wait until 9th grade anymore!

A creative websiteI’m of two minds when it comes to formally teaching the students keyboarding. I see the absolute necessity of how I needed to learn keyboarding and its benefits to speed and accuracy. It also affords me the ease to create using a computer with no drudgery. However, I do watch this generation in marvel as they develop their own text messaging skills without any help from us! Have you tried to text message like your teenager? In the meantime, I would like to highlight a neat little online keyboarding skills builder that you can examine: Keybr.com and Learn 2 Type is a FREE typing test and typing tutor that helps you master the keyboard over the self taught hunt & peck method. There is also kid friendly version for your consideration and a FREE school version where teachers can monitor their students’ performance and improvements.An image to shareMicrosoft Office Clip Art onlineA proverb“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Harry S. TrumanAn encouragementThe reason I am of two minds about teaching keyboard is not only the kids amazing ability to create their own systems, but the lack of creativity. I would really like to generate a dialogue about this dilemma because I can see strong points for insisting that students learn how to type on the QWERTY keyboard in a manner that will build speed and efficiency. I also see the lack of time and resources need to invest in such a rote skill. How early do you start? Children today put a mouse in their hand as if it is a normal appendage. Are they really handicapped by not learning to type like we did? Let us know some of your opinion about teaching keyboarding skills on my blog.How do you do that?Learn 2 Type has their own little video tutorials that walk you through how to use the site to build up speed and accuracy. I took the typing test five times to generate a certificate and discovered how they make their money - they charge for the certificate! Since I didn’t care for a certificate it still made the FREE part of the site very appealing. You do suffer from adware overload, but the test capabilities are awesome. My highest score was 57 WPM and my lowest was 36. The other keyboard at Keybr.com had interesting charts and tracking features and a lot less ads. Should we be teaching keyboarding in our elementary schools? Let us know what you think in our “tuesdays” Professional Learning Community.What are teachers saying?Tales from the Teachers in the Trenches“My 4th grade class paired with a 1st grade class while researching Arctic animals for a webquest. My students set up the laptops, added favorites to the computers and assisted the 1st graders in reading the information and summarizing what they learned about their Arctic animals. It was a great learning opportunity.” Shelley Gerber, Lincoln Avenue Academy, 4th grade teacherAs always, I amUbiquitously yours,K

I have learned to get right on things as they happen or else they get in that grand “to do” pile that never seems to empty.  Don’t you find that the best-laid plans remain plans if you don’t jump on what has to get done right away?  Email is the perfect example.  If I just browse through my emails quickly to get a feel for what’s in store for me, I will unintentionally add those emails to a heap.  As a practice, I will try to answer an email as soon as I read it, return a call as soon as I hear the voice mail, take out the garbage as soon as I see it full and “get’r done” when possible.  That is why I am so excited about Skype this week.  It’s the coolest “get’r done” tool out there.

A creative website

Using Skype is the perfect example taking care of business on the spot. Skype is FREE software that you download to you computer so that you can talk, chat or even make video calls for nothing!  Skype-to-Skype user calling is over the internet and is remarkably clear. I was introduced to Skype about a year ago and was always going to download it and it somehow it sat on the bottom of that heap.  Fortunately for me, I saw Melissa do an outstanding demonstration of it at FETC and then Tom said, “Just do it!” and I’ve been Skyping ever since. One of our teachers demonstrated her nightly conversation to her sister in Greece (in Greek, of course). Think of the educational possibilities. Ok, I know your mind is already spinning around authors and poets and experts speaking to your students.  Keep thinking. Keep thinking.

An image to share

For some very high quality photos, check out FreePixels.

A proverb

“A single conversation across the table with a wise person is worth a month’s study of books.” Chinese proverb

An encouragement

I would really like to encourage you to become a Skype user because everything we do in education really comes down to relationships.  If you could make a quick Skype call to an expert or another classroom to collaborate, you will bring an engagement level to the classroom unlike mere text.  Please understand that most districts are unsure of how to handle Skype. Does it require a lot of bandwidth? Will it affect the network? I would like to see teachers utilize Sykpe like a field trip with permission slips and preplanning so that everyone is aware that a Skype interview/conversation/collaboration is happening on campus and test it first before blocking it immediately. As a teacher, make sure that you clear this with your administrators before doing anything at school, but in the meantime, try it at home with family and friends and think of the possibilities! Let us know some of your ideas for classroom uses of Skype on my blog.

How do you do that?

Since you are going to “get’r done” right now (right?), go to the download area of Skype and follow the directions on the screen. Once you have the client on your computer, find the Add Contact button and start searching for your friends and relatives. It’s always important to relate to a tool personally before you attempt using it for instructional purposes.  If you want to call me just to see how it sounds, please do!  My Skype name is seddonk. I just used Skype Thursday evening for a meeting with four teachers and we discussed a research project.  The best part was that we didn’t have to leave our families, drive home and viewed the same website together from our own machines.  It was VERY effective. Oh, the possibilities! For those teachers who are already using Skype, please consider joining the conversation in our “tuesdays” Professional Learning Community.

What are teachers saying?

Tales from the Teachers in the Trenches

“My students daily address the need to create, connect, and communicate. Skype gives us the ability to connect and communicate ubiquitously. Image talking to a scientist from NASA, marine biologist from SeaWorld, your homebound student, your family in Europe, or your best friend in Alaska. Connect a webcam and video conferencing is the icing on top. However, the ability to talk to multiple people at the same time with crystal clear connection and collaboration is priceless. Fun, easy, and free! Skype away!”  Fotini Guzman, Pleasant Hill Elementary School, Computer Teacher

As always, I am

Ubiquitously yours,

K 

Today is Super Tuesday in the political world and Fat Tuesday, the final day of Mardi Gras. Now how can you compete with that? You can’t! So let’s just have a little “tuesdays” fun with creative technology. I am out and about asking teachers to describe how technology has impacted teaching and learning in their classrooms and without a doubt, there is a greater desire to create electronic presentations particularly in video format. Most of us (me, included) are still too overwhelmed by video cameras and file formats, what works with what and so on. This “tuesdays” I’d like to take a look at an amazing website I learned about at FETC from Hall Davidson.

A creative website
As we become more and more digital, it’s becoming more an more complicated to understand file format and what works on what machine. Media-Convert will help you understand the vast file formats that are out there AND the best part is that they will convert the files for you into a format that you want. I had a nice surprise while using Keynote (Mac’s presentation software) because it let me convert it to PowerPoint, Flash, a video and even a pdf. However, not all machines are alike and we want to make our creations accessible to our students and other teachers. Using Media-Convert is the best manner of converting audio files, video presentations, documents, spreadsheets, and all electronic creations in our classrooms. It’s incredibly convenient because you upload your file to their site, they do the converting and then you downloaded it to your machine. Best of all, it’s online. You need no software on your machine and you have access to it anywhere you have access to the Internet. That’s so 21st century! DO NOT use this site with your students. Because it is FREE the ads are obnoxious. For that I am sorry.

An image to share

Huber, Joe. neworleansfloat1.jpg. 2006. Pics4Learning. 5 Feb 2008 <http://pics.tech4learning.com>

A proverb
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” Clay P. Bedford

An encouragement
What is the last step of the writing process? Publish! Everyone who writes wants to be published. This certainly applies to electronic creations. I want to encourage you to share your presentations, documents and lessons with others. There’s no telling how you may be encouraging someone else. It may be a teacher looking for the perfect lesson. It may be a student who needs to see the same concept from a different angle. Creating our lessons digitally allows us to “publish” our documents and it encourages the students to be more diligent and professional with their assignments when they know they have a wider audience. Students today know the value of communicating online. Let’s give them the skills to be published authors in all electronic formats. Let us know some of your experiences with publishing your works or student works on my blog.

How do you do that?
Here are a few quick steps for converting a file using Media-Convert. Click this link and scroll down to How to convert a file. Click Choose File and upload the file from your computer that you want to convert. It will automatically detect what kind of file it is! (now that’s pretty incredible in itself). Scroll down a little bit more and look for output format. The drop window will give many possibilities to choose from. I went from a PowerPoint to a pdf. The combinations are limitless. Think of all the times you took little videos with your digital camera and they wouldn’t play on someone else computer. Change the format here. Think of your students that don’t have the same programs that you do. Change to pdfs. here. Almost all computers will read a pdf these days. The point is - go digital, find a format that works most universally for your audience and then publish! For those teachers who are already publishing electronic creations in the classroom, please consider joining the conversation in our “tuesdays” Professional Learning Community.

What are teachers saying?

Tales from the Teachers in the Trenches
“Technology affects my students all day, every day, especially with the collaboration that is happening between them. We use BlackBoard to share presentations, websites and even Gaggle.net email. ” Autumn Stiene, Dundee Elementary School, 1st grade

As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K