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Sharing files

Need to share some files?  Piece of cake:

http://www.4shared.com

This site allows you to create an account in the amount of time it takes to type in your email address.  You instantly have 5 Gb of online storage. 

The best part about this is that they give you the URL to hand out to others if you want to share your files.

Think the URL is to long?  Visit tinyurl.com and shorten it up.

Final Post

This is my final post on this blog.  I put wordpress on my server and I’m going to work from there.  The new blog is

blog.hohmanprovement.com

I still get a little traffic on this site so as long as WordPress lets me leave it here I will.

Later!

New Project

Grad school is over for the semester. I am in need of a project. I think that is how my mind works. I need projects. This latest one is a website called:

How-to-jump-high.com

I used to have serious hops. I played volleyball in college and could dunk fairly easily. Now I’m creating a website devoted to jumping higher.  It’s a fun project.  I wonder how many sites I might end up making.

Final EPSY

I have to admit it took a while for me to appreciate appreciative inquiry. If the semester had ended halfway through I think I would have though that this was a weird course. After designing an evaluation using AI and thinking about the results and thinking about what can be done with the results I am now a big fan of AI.

I enjoyed the way this course continually built up our project and gave us so many ways to reflect on things. Luke was a great help in week 8 when we talked about the interview questions. The whole class was helpful with comments all semester. Even just being able to read through a bunch of papers helps see different angles taken on the various readings and assignments and that was a big help for me. I look forward to continuing my education through moodles and online courses.

Thanks everyone for a great semester!

Math Cartoons

 

I’m writing some math cartoons and checking out how they look in wordpress.

Making Movies With Text

Before they start charging money go to xtranormal and make some movies!  All you need to do is type in the script, add some gestures, facial expressions, background noises, and plenty of other fun stuff.

I think I am going to have my algebra class create a bunch of quick movies that explain various vocabulary words that we are working with.  A talking dictionary.

The problem I’m running into is that I can’t embed the movie in google sites.  I guess I’ll have to make a wikispace and see if that works.  OK!  It works in wikispaces if you put it a widget, select video, select “other” video at the bottom then you can put in the embedding code that xtranormal gives you.

It looks like I can’t embed it here either.

Ed Tech? Is that a job?

I am trying to figure out what this job really is.  I’ve asked around and found out that the job title, description, and tasks vary greatly from school to school. Here are the titles I’ve heard:

• Instructional Technology Specialist
• Ed Tech Specialist
• TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment)
• Technology Coach
• Technology Liaison

The job descriptions have included:

• Run computer lab
• develop/maintain school website
• assist teachers in using technology (ppt, web 2.0, student response systems, smartboards, etc.)
• lead training on various pieces of technology
• minor troubleshooting

The actual person is sometimes someone who works for the whole district and goes from school to school, sometimes a dedicated person at the school, sometimes a teacher who is relieved of a class, and sometimes just a full time teacher who helps out.

Our district is thinking about adding this position at the high school.  What is the ideal situation for this position?  What should they be responsible for?  Who should it be?

SRS Evaluation Key Questions

My questions are below.  There is a lot of research out there on SRS (student response systems.)  A lot of this research is saying the same thing.  Basically they all say that the SRS is great, teachers and students like it, engagement is increased, but there is no statistically significant increase in test scores. 

I didn’t want to spend too much time worrying about test scores with this evaluation.  I am more concerned with finding out what works and doesn’t work in the high school classroom when implementing the SRS.  As a nod to the test happy administration world I would like to look at test scores but I would like to pay more attention to the student and teacher perception of their level of understanding.

For teachers:

What are the discipline issues associated with clicker use?

What logistically worked to pass out, use, collect the SRS?

What didn’t work?

How do you feel the student engagement was affected by the SRS? 

How do you feel the student understanding was affected by the SRS?

 

For the students:

 

How was your engagement in the class affected by the SRS?

How was your understanding of the material affected by the SRS?

How did your use of the SRS affect your test scores?

Kids and the Ipod Touch

Here is something that every techie type needs to know when they are about to have kids.  Get an Ipod Touch. (A PSPworks also but the IPod is way cooler.) 

Here is why:  There are going to be many times in your life when you need to be sitting in the room just to be sitting in the room.  For example, watching Dora, watching Little Mermaid, staying in the room to make sure no monsters come in while they are getting to sleep. 

This is an enormous amount of time when you could be on-line but a laptop is a little too intrusive for the father-daughter time you are having.  I am subscribed to about 25 blogs and I get through all of them while taking my kids to bed or watching Charlie and Lola (you’ll know what that is soon – it’s a good one – you might end up watching that instead.)

It’s all about technology making our lives more efficient, connected, and stress free.  How wonderful.