How Do I….

Cross posted on Thoughts Have wings

There was so much so fast here but she does have the links to the instructions on her website at http://www.karenferrell.net/TCEA

This was all about using the randbetween function in excel to generate random numbers in a range you designate to create flashcards, graphs, ordered pairs and more.  She shows you how to use autoshapes and this function to create dice.  I will play with this some more but wanted to get the link posted.  Excel rocks!

TCEA session 3 Notes
blog has handouts and links
http://www.ed-tech-4-science.com

analysis
inference
explanation
interpretation
evaluation
self-regulation

www.wonderwhizkids.com
java applets

World of Goo - trial download
demonstrate basic relationship between force and motion using simple machines
http://2dboy.com/games.php

Spore - trial but you can download Creature Creator e.g. of class use - have students create a carnivorous organism that lives in water.  Have students evaluate each other and vote on creature most likely to survive.  Change the environment to hot and dry - what are the results?
genetics, structure and function

Adaptive Curriculum (not free)
intended for a once or twice solution

Peter Rillero Ph. D

Dare to Use Audacity Session 2 Notes
http://sites.google.com/site/daretouseaudacity/
Resources and Links all on their google site Yay!
Audacity is opensource - free - links are on their google page for downloading
Make sure you download the lame encoder so you can export as mp3s

Classroom uses (they showed several examples)
Book talks
Substitute Instructions
Speech Pathology
Create Interviews (you can do it yourself and use audacity to change one voice so it sounds like two people - historical character. book character etc)
(files can be brought into movie maker and powerpoint
record reading a textbook for student
record students reading aloud so they can hear themselves
audio book reports
book promo for library

Headphones with mics attached helped to record without picking up background noise

Sound resource freeplaymusic

demonstrated creating three tracks - two had the music and stepped down and then back up and the “speaking” track was placed so that it fell between the steps so you had music introducing, then speech, then music for the ending
Can edit out words (uh, and like)

Can add words

Audacity saves the file as a .au (this is where all the behind the scene stuff happens - do not touch this file and you can edit it later)

When complete you have to export as an mp3 or wav file

resulting mp3 can be used as background audio, podcast, embedded in a blog, imported into powerpoint or moviemaker

Technology Staff Development Strategies
Kaye Moore Hurst Euless Bedford ISD (HEB)
What they did - went from Windows 98 and Office 2000 to xp and office 2007 over the summer

Discussed the usual closed doors of staff dev
Time, schedules, childcare, reluctance to use personal time, facilily usage and software problems

Unlocking the doors

Went from face to face to techno tv
Borrowed a dedicated channel that was not being used
Instructional video each week plays all the time so teacher can access whenever
They do have “best of” weeks
Fun project weeks (before Christmas they showed teachers how to create a calendar or personalized notepads (use glue you buy and apply at the top of the pages to create notepad?)
At strategic times the broadcast can be gradebook instructions

Videos created using Camtasia

Also utilize a departmental website with instructional docs available to download - no login or password needed so things like gradebook are NOT found here

They also have HEBonline (blackboard) with online courses and curriculum info.  Constantly being updated.

Software central where manuals can be downloaded

They do an end of year video and instruction sheets for backing up to server

Podcasts and Vodcasts - ability to blog /wiki, or subscribe in itunes

Create a plan
do preliminary training with key people - instructional and support
Timeline for installation - support
timeline for training - instructional
timeline for implementation

They outsourced the training for their key people
Then, key instructional staff dev in house
Key instructional staff to use model that has been created and adjusted to train staff

Trained admin staff first

Information blitz entire district - IT staff provide 15 minute overview for every staff. vodcast available

Summer Training

Result of all this - fewer calls for help,
Requests for upgraded training

Used PDSA model
Plan Do Study Act
Plan - analyze
Did training using small steps to start controlled environment
Analyzed - what worked, what didn’t, revised and adjusted or standardized process
Check, Study results
Get buy in

Burning An Audio CD Using Your Mac

My last Mac post I talked about how I am not fond of iTunes.  That said, one thing that iTunes does nicely is burn your MP3 files to an audio CD that you can play in any CD player.

The first thing you need to do is create a Playlist. To do this either press the Command key and N or go to file and click New Playlist.  Give it a name so you will remember what it is.

Click on the Music icon under library in the sidebar to see all your music.  Put a check in the little boxes to the left of each song you want to include in your playlist.  Keep in mind that a CD will hold about 74 minutes of music.  You will see approximate times of each song to the right of the song name.  Average is about 18-19 songs, but you can add those minutes up to be sure you don’t have too many songs for your CD, then delete or add as needed.

When you have your Playlist created, select it and place a check next to each song if they are not already checked.  Insert blank CD in the drive. Right click (control-click) on the playlist title and select Burn Playlist to Disc. A Menu box will pop up. Make sure Audio CD and Use Sound Check are selected.  The other defaults should be fine.  Sound Check will adjust the volume so that all your songs play at the same volume level.

Click Burn and wait - iTunes will beep when it is complete.  That’s all there is to it

Also posted at Thoughts Have Wings

I love using a Mac and have always found that most of the applications for it work almost intuitively.  The only application that I really can’t make myself like it iTunes.  I guess if I used an iPod I might be more motivated to work with it but as much as I have tried, it just seems too much like a lot of Microsoft apps in that it tries to take over and do things without you asking it to.

One of the things that aggravated me the most was that it would default to opening any media you double clicked on and not only does it open it - it copies it.  If you clicked on a video clip attached to an email it would end up with a copy in your downloads folder and a copy in iTunes.  That means that if you want to completely delete the file you have to delete it both places.  While not a huge deal it is still an extra irritating step, not to mention cluttering up your Mac.

I prefer to use Songbird which is an opensource media player that looks similar to iTunes but I usually just open audio files in VLC Player and video in Quicktime.

Today I learned that it needn’t be so! I am no longer a slave to iTunes! This may be obvious to more experienced Mac users but it’s one of those little things I didn’t know I needed to look for.

The first time you open a media file (you will need to do this for each kind - mp3, avi, whatever kind you want to open with another application instead of iTunes) - right click on the file and click get info. In the Open With section you can click the side arrows and see a list of the applications you can choose to set as default.  I use QuickTime Player for most things and then I sort files into folders the way I want to see them.  I can then have SongBird import what folders I want - you can do the same with iTunes if that is your preferred media player.

If you want to find your iTunes folders after reading this it is typically in Macintosh HD/Users/YouUserName/Music/iTunes
Your download folder is typically Macintosh HD/Users/YourUserName/Downloads

Now that you know where these things live and how to tell them where to live you can clean up your files and take control of your media.

This is also posted at Thoughts Have Wings.  Hope you found it helpful!

If you are an Excel addict this blog will feed your brain!  I wanted to share this post with you because you can download the spreadsheet that will give you calendars - just change the year to watch the calendar dates change.  very.  cool.

Enjoy!

The building that I work in has come together and become a community. The yearly Homecoming Door Decoration Contest became the “Whole Hall” decorating contest for our building.  The kids had a great time and instead of just decorating doors, there were records hanging from the ceiling, streamers on the walls, posters and of course the winning door (Mrs. Davis jukebox and 2nd place her neighbor, Mr. Johnson). All became more than just decorating.  Our kids bonded and became a community within the larger community of the school.

It just goes to show you - we are all big kids who still like to color, cut, and paste and win contests.   This might seem like a small thing, but this sense of community may set the tone for us for the rest of the year and while it is not the answer to everything it will certainly help.  Our students had fun and were proud of the results and there are already juniors who are asking what they will get to do next year.

The teachers are feeling positive and are already talking about the next “hall project”.  That positive attitude and the sense of community will spill over into the rest of the school and while the decorations are nice, I am most proud of our teachers for the non-tangible thing that was created here.  I “heart” you guys!

I read about ChaCha this morning and set my default location to well, here.  I texted for local weather report and got a message back seconds later.  You can get answers on most anything so if you have talented texters in your class - look out at test time!

You can get stock reports, answers to all kinds of questions and if you like you can even become a guide and answer other peoples’ questions.

On the road and need travel information? Here is an example:

I wonder if it has suggestions for snacks? Happy texting!

An article in Popular Science on the Mythbuster guys speaking at teacher conventions gave three things that that they think need to be done to improve science education in this country.

1. Let the students get their hands dirty

2. Spend more money on science education

3. Celebrate mistakes

“These teachers are so dedicated, but they have difficulty teaching for the standardized tests they’re given with the budgets they’re not given.”

It’s amazing that in my one generation we as a country have gone from an image of THE world power, rich, educated, land of opportunity to falling behind everyone in all kinds of areas.  When I was a young adult you would NEVER have read that we are falling behind another country in science, math, medicine, technology and yet  it seems like every other article I read these days says just that.

What happened to us?  The cold war ended and we got comfortable with the lack of competition?  I don’t get it.  We live in an age where so much information is at out fingertips.   Why does it seem to be so impossible to get it from our fingertips into our brains and then DO something useful with it!

Enough ranting - I think I will just go watch Mythbusters.