Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Reflections from CUE 14 - Lisa Hendricks

Lisa Hendricks is a Social Science teacher at Torrey Pines High School. She attended CUE 14 and wrote the following reflection:

The CUE conference was a great way to learn what was out there and how teachers and professionals are using it to inspire their kids. I met a lot of different professionals from various parts of California and the west coast. It was great to meet people who were passionate about teaching and curious about technology. There was a strong consensus that many teachers are a bit hesitant to try out new technology in their classrooms because they don’t feel comfortable about it. In many of the conferences and workshops, teachers said to their students, “Let’s try this new app and see if it works for us or not”. In many cases, if the teacher was stumped, the kids were able to discuss it and fix the problem and even offer how to use it in class. I have to admit that some of the workshops that I attended made me think, “wow, I have a lot of learning to do and this seems impossible”, however I already tried a few things and they worked out to be lovely and kid are already excited about it!

Here are my favorite take-aways:
  • www.movenote.com This is a powerful tool! It allows you to upload videos or powerpoints into a template. Then you click through your powerpoint and record yourself via video (laptop or ipad with a video camera) This is still pretty new in the educational field for technology. Best part, its FREE and it is easy to do. The program converts the video into a link to share as a link, email etc. 
  • www.lucidchart.com Allows for you to make charts like you would a google doc. It allows for several users to work on a chart at the same time. Could be useful for math/science classes. 
  • http://learni.st Love Pinterest? Why not try this website to make learning boards for classes? It connects you to a wide variety of many professional networks for teaching. Type in an idea, there are tons of ideas to explore. You can follow other learner boards or vice versa. I have yet to try this, but it appears to be super cool. 
  • Need to make primary sources come to life? Use an IPAD with a video camera in class. Since we are a BYOD campus, have kids bring in IPADS. If you cannot do it during class, assign it as a group project. Break students up into 5 people. Have one kid be the newsreporter. Each other kid takes on the identity of the primary source. IE: Wife of a factory laborer, a factory laborer, a co-worker who is an immigrant that needed to work in the factory, the factory owner. Each person has to come up with questions that the news reporter is going to ask them. It allows each person in the group to look at the primary source and investigate. The kids are encouraged to do extra research and to also include an image from the time period. Long story short, the kids act the part, the news reporter goes to each student and interviews them about their conditions via Ipad video. The video is easy to share and it makes the primary source come to life. 
  • http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/ Is a website dedicated to California History. More geared towards a middle school class, but it has great photos that tie into U.S. History and some world history. Focuses on a lot of multiculturalism
  • www.edmodo.com is another interface that can be used like blackboard. Personally kids like it because the interface looks like facebook. It is important to instruct kids to use only images other than themselves for their edmodo photo. For my AP World class, students must upload a photo of a country. I talked to them about internet security. It is very important that we model digital citizenship to kids. 
  • Screencasting? This is when you can capture video etc. This works fantastic for math etc. You can use an IPAD for this and it allows you to draw on the ipad and voice over to explain and show things to students as you talk. This can be more intermediate and advances, but the websites recommended were http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html or http://www.screenr.com or http://www.screencast-o-matic.com
  • For Fun: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chatterpix-kids-by-duck-duck/id734046126?mt=8 This app allows you to make objects talk. So for history, imagine uploading a picture of Napoleon and allowing him to talk for a short while. It’s for fun!
  • Common Core discussion was everywhere. In one of my workshops common core was being discussed and edmodo has embedded the standards into the edmodo program which will be launching next month. https://www.edmodo.com/snapshot This is a big buzz in the world of common core and it shows you tools to assess your kids according to common core and the content that you teach them. 
  • Summer Programs are available for teachers in the summer for technology. If you want to become Certified in PBL (Project Based Learning) there are programs available. (4 core pieces of CCSS: collaborate, communication, critical thinking, creativity) Stop turning things in, PUBLISH IT! Twitter/Blogs/Weekly Log. GOALS are standards first, then figure out a project for it. Backwards design. Choice for kids.
  • Google Forms is pretty powerful stuff! Yes, it is time consuming, but if you can learn a couple skills from it, you can make quizzes, get instant feedback from it, make surveys, polls etc. Learn how to use it! 
  • Powerpoints need to have LESS TEXT. Kids need to focus on YOU, not the slides and taking notes. New approaches to powerpoints are very similar to Steve Jobs presenations and Nancy Duarte. How are kids going to be good presenters, if we don’t model to them what powerful presentations look like? Two books recommended for powerful presenting skills are: Presentationzen by Gar Reynolds and Resonate, by Nancy Duarte. Show your kids youtube clips of their presentations and discuss as a class what they did that was powerful in their presentations. 
The reality is that I can keep going with a list of things to try out. In reality, try one, master it and then move on to a new type of technology later. There are a LOT OF FREE and useful apps out there! Go out and explore! I felt pumped up after the conference and have told my kids about it. I flipped the classroom today. It was hard for me to really take the other role, but I saw kids that were typically quiet talking a lot more. Happy to share my experiences with anyone interested. I also loved hanging out with district employees outside of school. We got to talk about our students, technology, schools, concerns etc. Time well spent and it can only make our schools better and the kids excited!
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Reflections from CUE 14 - Michelle Anderson

Michelle Anderson (@mathmama) is Math Department Chair at La Costa Canyon, as well as one of our Common Core Math ToSAs this year. She attended CUE 14 and wrote the following reflection:

I found the CUE to be exciting, motivating, and inspiring. I always find math conferences inspire me to try new things in the classroom, but the CUE was more than that to me. The energy surrounding me was going in a million different directions; people were excited to share the various tools they are using for inside the classroom, tools for building a community, tools for reaching out to the community, tools for connecting with educators, tools for using technology in a PD…and the list goes on.

Here are my favorite take-aways:
  • Twitter - I finally get what a hashtag is! #knowledge #revelation – Kevin and my students tried to explain it to me. But it took an elementary school teacher to make it so clear and precise how I can use one. What a powerful tool to research anything I am interested in!
  • socrative.com – I plan to use this free app to develop surveys and exit slips for my students. It seems to provide more than kahoot.it which I am already using in the classroom. 
  • thinglink.com – another great free tool that you can use to develop an interactive worksheet, agenda, presentation, image…
  • There is a difference between using technology to enhance learning versus learning with technology. I have to admit many times my document camera and projector might as well have been an overhead projector. A few years ago I realized the power of connecting the projector to your computer. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities of learning to take place. 
  • I learned about an overwhelming number of free apps out there, and the hard part for any teacher would be weeding through them and figuring out how one can use them in the classroom. We are fortunate in our district to have Kevin and others that have used or been exposed to many of them to help. 
  • "Common Core and Rigor” was the name of a session that two people presented…that I really thought should be Kevin and Guen. The theme was that technology is embedded in the standards, critically thinking and responding digitally are core elements. Rigor is not more work, but more meaningful work. Technology needs to be purposeful and meaningful. 
  • Embrace passion - school should be more passion driven. Pay attention to what students are passionate about. Focus on communication and relationships. Students need a voice on campus, freedom to explore possibilities. Technology can be a tool to help foster this. 
  • Don’t follow technology blindly. Find what works best for you and your students. 
I walked away from the conference feeling empowered. This year I have already tried to incorporate more technology by using GeoGebra, more tools in Blackboard, Kahoot!, experimented with flipping my classroom, and I just started using padlet. Since Thursday I have been on Twitter more and understand the value of it as a professional resource. Next year I plan on starting a Twitter group for my classroom. I believe I can be a part of the change in embracing more educational technology in our district. Technology can be intimidating at first, but once embraced, the possibilities are endless. One presenter called Twitter – “A SuperPOWer for Educators,” I say the CUE 2014 is my SuperPOWer. Watch out!
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Monday, March 24, 2014

Reflections from CUE 14 - Kevin Fairchild

New CUE Logo
I spent the end of last week at CUE's annual conference in Palm Springs. Here are some of my thoughts after the weekend, in no particular order:

  • Thursday Keynote: Dan Meyer's talk was fast-paced and high energy, showing lots of examples of how he finds math questions in everyday situations. His three-step sequence is "Capture Perplexity, Share Perplexity, Resolve Perplexity". The big take-away for me (and I hope for a lot of people) was starting lessons with a question, rather than a topic. This reflects the emphasis on inquiry in Common Core, as teachers in all subjects shift to working in this student-centered way.
  • Friday Keynote: LeVar Burton shared about his love of reading which he got from his mother, who was an English teacher. He used Reading Rainbow to share this love and to provide opportunities for kids who may not have books around their house.
  • Saturday Keynote: I did not attend Sal Khan's talk, but I followed some of the discussion on Twitter. I truly do not understand the passionate reactions (on both sides) that Khan Academy inspires. One attendee tweeted that Khan should get a "Nobel Peace Prize" (sic); another tweeted that they were "vomiting" in reaction. Khan Academy is a useful resource for teachers, but it is not The Future. Like any tool, it has strengths and it has weaknesses. I don't think he deserves a prize, but he doesn't make me vomit either.
  • Three teachers and two administrators from our district joined me at this conference. It was great to be able to share ideas and thoughts with them throughout the weekend, and be able to think specifically about how things could work in our district. The other attendees were Michelle Anderson (Math, LCC), Lori Meyer (English, CV), Lisa Hendricks (Social Science, TP), Corey Bess (AP, DNO), and Tim Hornig (Principal, SDA). I'm hoping that they will also share their reflections in subsequent blog posts here.
  • Resources and links from session I attended (or learned about):
    • Teachers lined up early to get in the Chrome session
  • The best part of the conference, for me, is re-connecting with people in my PLN and meeting new ones face-to-face. No matter how much we talk through Twitter, or blogs, or Google+, or email, it's still great to see colleagues and friends in person and informally.
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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Who is Tom Bock, and Why Does He Keep Following Me?

So I have a doppelganger on Twitter. A twitterganger, if you will.

It started last week, when I was looking at Tweetdeck one evening. I saw a post with our district's tech hashtag #SDUHSDtech from one Tom Bock. Now, I've wanted to get teachers in our district using that hashtag for conversations, but so far I'm just about the only one who uses it. So it is a rarity when I see a post in that column that I didn't write. Furthermore, I don't know anyone named Tom Bock. I decided to click on their profile to see who it was. Here's what I saw:
The internal monologue in my head went something like this, as I read:
  • Teacher on Special Assignment: OK, cool, someone else who is a ToSA...
  • (Technology and Learning): What a coincidence, that's my title, too!
  • for the San Dieguito... WAIT A MINUTE! WHAT?
This account had copied my bio, but not my current bio. This is one from a few months ago, before I made some changes. It got stranger as I started investigating. Starting on February 28, this account re-posted my tweets nearly verbatim, 3 or 4 per day. I say "nearly" verbatim, because it stripped out the @ before Twitter usernames, so the people I had written to would not see these tweets. Here are some examples:






This was weird. There's nothing special about the tweets the account chose to re-post. I couldn't find any pattern. There's no distinguishing information in the account's profile. I tried a Google Image search on the profile picture but did not find a match, so I can't tell where the photo came from.

I presumed this was a "bot", not someone who was manually re-typing my posts. This was confirmed in my head after I started tweeting about the account itself:
Several of my Twitter friends recommended that I report the account for impersonation. One linked to Kathy Cassidy's blog post about her twitter imposter; I considered that my situation was not as bad as hers. After all, they didn't use my name, my photo, or my URL in their profile. On further consideration, though, I decided that it was impersonation. First of all, this account was representing itself as coming from my school district. I work hard to represent my district professionally on Twitter, and don't want someone else behaving inappropriately and having that reflect on my district. Secondly, I would like to think that I have a positive presence myself; I try to contribute as much to my PLN as I get from them. Some of the re-posts from "Tom Bock" got replies from people who follow me, and they followed "Tom Bock", in good faith. I don't want anyone to mislead my followers, especially with my own words. Third, there's the "annoying-little-brother-following-you-around-repeating-everything-you-say" factor. Finally, while 140-character tweets are not exactly grand treatises, plagiarism is plagiarism: dammit, I wrote those, and you stole them!

So I used Twitter's process for reporting an impersonating account. As part of that, I had to send in a picture of my driver's license to prove who I am. Since the account is not using my name, I also had to send in a picture of my district ID, to prove that I work for the district. It was a little bit of a pain, but not too bad.

However, Twitter does not agree with me:
According to Twitter, this behavior is perfectly fine. I can block "Tom Bock", but that won't prevent the bot from seeing and copying my tweets. Or I can protect my profile, which negates most of the benefit of having a PLN on a social media site.

That's where it stands now. As of today, "Tom Bock" hasn't posted anything since Tuesday. Maybe the bot got tired. Maybe it's just storing up my tweets. Or maybe whoever created the bot realized that I'm aware of what it's doing. (I did re-tweet once, on accident, using the accounts' twitter handle. I tried to avoid that, but slipped once. Maybe that's what it takes to get it to stop? Just guessing.)

I've spent some time trying to figure out why someone would do this, and the only thing I can come up with is that it is to build an account with seemingly real tweets that can then be sold to someone else. I've never understood the "Buy 10000 followers immediately" offers, but obviously some people do that. I suppose someone could charge more for "real" accounts with dozens of tweets rather than obviously newly-created accounts. But I'm just guessing.

This is a minor issue; an annoyance, nothing worse. But it has certainly made me think about how fragile our online reputations are. We teach our students about creating positive digital footprints (or digital tattoos), but much of it is out of our hands, unfortunately. And I think it gives me just a little bit more insight into people who are seriously stalked, harassed, or threatened on Twitter (or other networks) and feel like there's nothing they can do about it.

In any case, I think all we can do now is to block "TomBock3" and report the account for spam. If you haven't done that already, I would appreciate it.

P.S. I'm a child of the 80's, and one of my favorite bands from then is Timbuk3. If this were a real person named Tom Bock, and they used "Tombok3" as their Twitter handle, that would be genius!


UPDATE 3/16: Looks like I spoke too soon. "Tom Bock" copied six more of my tweets last night, so I guess the bot isn't finished. All six of the tweets were posted at 2:53 am. I'm using a new Twitter app on my Android tablet (Plume), and when I look at the followers of "Tom Bock", it shows the most recent tweet for them. Fully half of those "followers" also posted their most recent tweet at 2:53 am. How long is it before Twitter is nothing more than bots following other bots?
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