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23
May

The only thing we have to fear…

Categories: education, Observations
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Franklin D Roosevelt was right in his inaugural address when he proclaimed “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  It is not only fear but the fear of failure that hinders our willingness to take chances on success.

Once upon a time I rode motorcycles.  I was living in East Tennessee, teaching college, making near-to-nothing but it didn’t matter.  I’d hop on my motorcycle and ride out Highway 129, through Deals Gap, The Tail of The Dragon, and over the Cherohala Skyway before heading home.  It was relaxing and exhilarating.  After entering a charity raffle, I won first prize- a custom paint job on my motorcycle.  I needed it- like many first time riders I had laid my bike down and scratched up the tank and had the design worked out in my head for almost a year before the opportunity presented itself.

The bike was a work of art.  Color changing flames over a pearl black fading from a faux carbon fiber finish that was airbrushed by a fantastic artist.  He gave me more than I had imagined and I was proud of what I had. I couldn’t wait to show it off, and I especially couldn’t wait to show my dad.

My dad is a Michelangelo of sorts when it comes to repairing and painting cars.  I grew up in body shops and watched him restore crumpled lumps of metal back to their owners’ pride and joy.  When I brought the bike out for him to see he was equally as impressed as I was which made me proud.  I had impressed my own personal Michelangelo and that made me happy.  I made a remark about how I could never had painted it and his reply is one that defines the lessons I learned many times sitting in a garage into the wee hours of the morning.

“Why not?” My father retorted.

“There is no way I could paint that well,” I said.  “I’d mess something up.”

“It’s just paint,” he said in the matter-of-fact wisdom that only my father could master.  “If you screw it up, you sand it down and start over.  What’s there to be afraid of?”

And that is the most valuable lesson I have ever learned.

We are often too afraid of messing up that we are afraid to take the chances that bring about success.  We are afraid of failure and that fear hinders our potential successes.

I take that lesson with me every day- whether I’m tearing apart a laptop, teaching a lesson, writing a book or cooking something new, I try to remember not to be afraid of failure.

 

04
Jan

Teaching Our Kids To Be Better Failures

Categories: Classroom, education, Observations
Comments: 1
Have we shielded our kids from learning by protecting them from failure? It's time to quite saving our kids from life's most important learning opportunities. Read more
20
Nov

Using GoogleEarth in the Classroom

Categories: edtech, education
Tags: , ,
Comments: 2
Image representing Google Earth as depicted in...

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve been quite open regarding my love for Google, so this edtech tip should not surprise anyone. :mrgreen:

GoogleEarth is a great tool for education (more than just hunting for your house and seeing if you can count the missing shingles from your roof).  One great idea that I’ve passed on to a few of our teachers is using GoogleEarth as the starting point for creating Scavenger Hunts and WebQuests.  Depending on grade level, student ability, and comfort level of the teacher these can be as simple or as complex as you want.

The Scavenger Hunt

Most of us have done scavenger hunts before.  You’re given a series of items to find and the first to find all of them wins.  Usually the items are goofy: pictures of you next to someone wearing a striped pink sweater, a ceramic platypus, or a bass fishing trophy.  With a younger audience you could use the scavenger hunt to look for 3-D buildings, important sites, constellations (don’t forget the sky function!) and more.  For example, giving the kids a list of places to find will help them build an understanding of geography, land mass, location, mapping skills, and more.

The WebQuest

A WebQuest “uses the power of the Internet and a scaffolded learning process to turn research-based theories into dependable learning-centered practices.” Basically there are four steps:

  1. Guidance- The teacher provides guidance by supplying questions, resources,and research options that will lead to a differentiated method of authentic assessment.
  2. Exploration and Discovery- Using various technological resources, students are guided through the discovery process by using the questions and resources provided in the assignment.
  3. Transformation and Application- Once the student has completed the questions and research, they can then apply their newly discovered information and grow as students.
  4. Presentation and Assessment- using a well defined rubric, the teacher needs to be able to assess if the students were successful in gaining the desired knowledge and whether or not the assignment was sufficiently successful.

Creating a WebQuest in GoogleEarth is done by creating a collection of placemarks, providing sufficient questions and resources (the older the audience, the more freedom can be given), and setting expectations and authentic assesment methods that will demonstrate the success of the assignment.  Creating the placemarks is simple, entering the data requires a rudimentary understanding of a couple HTML commands, and then you save the collection as a KMZ file that can be sent to users.  (For an excellent handout on creating placemarks, click here.)

For example, I created a small KMZ file for a WebQuest on the National Mall in Washington DC (click to download KMZ file).  By launching the file it will add the placemarks and information that I have put together to guide a student through some basics over the National Mall.  The final assessment of the assignment would be to take the information gleaned from the assignment and use it to reach an educated conclusion (such as focusing on the importance of the three monuments and the numerous speaches and protests which have taken place in the National Mall.)

Resources

There are a number of great sites for creatin webquests and using GoogleEarth.  Also look for sites where teachers share their KMZ files for you to use but don’t forget to contribute back to the community!

Geo Education Home – Find helpful information on using Google Earth, Maps, Sky, and SketchUp in your K-12 classroom.

Google Earth Blog

Google Earth Hacks – Google Earth Hacks provides links to interesting content found or created by users like you and gives you quick access to check things out in Google Earth.

Google Earth Lessons – GELessons.com – A Free Public Resource – Providing Teachers with the tools needed to enhance their instruction using Google Earth®, the free program that brings the world to the classroom! A Website By and For Teachers.

Google Lat Long Blog – News and notes by the GoogleEarth and Maps team.

Google Lit Trips – KMZ files for literature tours in Google Earth.  Map important locations in the Aeneid, The Grapes of Wrath, MacBeth and more.

Making Movies with Google Earth

Ogle Earth blog

Real World Math – Using GoogleEarth to teach math lessons.

Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0

Using Google Earth – Learn tricks and tips to explore your world more effectively in Google Earth.

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18
Nov

Information Fluency Part I: Redefining Technology

Categories: education, technology
Tags: , , , ,
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A teacher writing on a blackboard.

Image via Wikipedia

This past Monday I had to give a presentation on Information Literacy in the classroom and decided to take a different route.  It seems as this has become a dominant theme this year for our school, but I have to wonder if we’ve taken the right approach.  With this in mind I set out to redefine Information Literacy.  My first task was one I strongly feel must be done.  In our school, it is an unfortunate fact that even the technology has become a part of the “Us and Them” structure that causes tension between the faculty and the administration.  Part of this I believe is due to the fact that teachers look at the tech department as forcing technology on them as well (as a number of other factors).  In order to somewhat alleviate the tension and separation between the two groups, it would be best if we can come together with one common understanding of technology.

The word “technology” has its roots in two Greek words: teche, meaning “craft, skill, art,” and logia, meaning “word, speech, wisdom.”  Logia is an interesting word.  When we look back into Greek philosophy (I’ll try to keep this brief, so please forgive the oversimplification!) we find that philosophers argued over the nature of the Logos (translated simply as “word” or “thought” but it’s implications are quite profound).  Plato argued what really mattered was the true nature of something.  For example, a chair is a chair not because it has a physical existence (which can change), but rather because the word chair evokes an image of the absolute essence of what a chair is (which is absolute and unchanging).  Aristotle argued just the opposite- that what really mattered was what we could sense with our physical senses.  Either way the word logia does not simply mean “word” but rather it is the absolute nature of something- it is what really matters.

When we combine these two Greek words, teche and logia, we are now left with a better definition: Technology is the tools that allow you to do your art, craft, or skill to be its absolute best.  Technology is the tools that allow you to give your job meaning.  We often associate technology with machines and computers but by this definition, technology can be a pen or a piece of paper.  For a carpenter, technology can be a hammer (after all, isn’t a hammer just a technological advancement over the rock?) or a fancy compound miter saw.  A whiteboard/chalkboard are great pieces of technology and are excellent tools for teachers just as a tablet pc with the right software is as well.  In the end, the tools needed to do a job effectively are the pieces of technology that allow a teacher to do their job to their best ability.

Now that we’ve defined technology, we need to next consider the implications of that terminology.  Using a bit of reason:   if technology is the tools that we need to do our jobs to their absolute best, and our job as teachers is to prepare our students by helping them to develop the proper skills necessary for functioning in a 21st century world, then what tools do I need to accomplish this task?

Other Posts of Interest:

T+L to Educators: Embrace Change

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