Feb 06 2010
The 2010 Microsoft Innovative Education Forum will take place in Cape Town, South Africa. Teachers are selected from all over the world to “compete” at this event. It’s an incredible opportunity to say the least.
Having been fortunate enough to participate in the 2009 forum in Salvador, Brazil, I highly encourage teachers to put together a proposal and send in the application.
Feb 01 2010
The children behind Portable Radio are a whole lot more articulate than I can remember being in elementary school. They quite obviously scripted their audio segments before they began recording. But it’s clear that they’re thinking in full paragraphs, not the sound bites that pass for business strategy or the monosyllables that substitute for political debate in adult circles.
Mitchell Beer, CEO of The Conference Publishers.
Mitchell Beer wrote this post after the latest Portable Radio P.O.V. was broadcast CBC radio’s Ottawa Morning last week. Jane’s students took on the topic of the Apple iPad that was just announced.
I completely agree with Mr. Beer when he says that these students are “our most demanding audience”. It seems to me that as a teacher I’m being forced to keep up with the kids today. It’s reassuring to hear someone out there in the so-called real world expressing a need to get prepared for when these kids enter the workforce.
Jan 27 2010
Back in the fall, Edublogs changed the look of their dashboard making my version 2 of this screencast somewhat obsolete. So, here is the new and improved version of adding contributors to your class blog (using the free features of Edublogs).
Keep in mind depending on how many students you have, this process can be pretty tedious! I found it bearable it with a class of 30 students. Changing the passwords each year saves you from repeating this process every time you have a new class.
Visit my class blog, MrToft.ca, to see how I’ve set things up.
Sue Waters has a similar tutorial in written form here: http://help.edublogs.org/2009/08/24/adding-users-to-a-blog/.
She has also written a post on this topic here.
Click here for a larger version
There is an easier way – $
There is another way, that is much easier, but it involves being a paid subscriber. I think this tutorial (written when the feature was free a few years back) still applies to how things work these days.
I’ve paid to be subscriber myself, but in my case it was more for the extra storage space you get.
Jan 25 2010
We enjoyed talking about blogs, podcasts and music at the A.C.A meeting tonight. Getting chances like this really energizes us.
Thanks, Kelly, for bravely volunteering to play the recorder last night. Here’s how you sounded:
Kelly January 2010
(you’ve also been added to PortableRecorder.ca for posterity!)
.
Here are the various websites we mentioned tonight:
MrToft.ca – Nathan’s class blog
MrsSmith.ca – Jane’s class blog
PortableRadio.ca – our class podcast
PortableRecorder.ca – junior level recorder music resource created by us
Free online notation software that is much easier for kids to use. Nothing to install on your computer, it runs off the web. You do need to register with an email address.
This is the provider we use for our various websites. Let us know if you create a blog and we’ll work our magic to take off the advertising.
This is an installer on board computers. It’s also a free download for home computers. If you do decide to download make sure you take the one that isn’t marked “Beta” (unless you’re into that sort of thing). Currently, it is version 1.2.6 you are after.
We mentioned this but didn’t demonstrate it. It’s fun, no music notation involved, more like painting with sound. Those of you who are Mac users will compare it to Garage Band. The free version does quite a bit and allows you to save to MP3.
Jan 23 2010
First off, apologies for our extended absence on this blog. Jane and I both miss being a part of the “loop” of educators connecting and sharing online. Here’s hoping we can get more posts and podcasts out this year. We both find all of this stuff fun and immensely entertaining!
Thank Goodness for Blog Moderating
It’s been fascinating to watch how my class blog (www.Mr. Toft.ca) has developed and taken on a character of its own. Now that the students have a handle on how it works I feel justified in not publishing every comment and post they write. To be published the post/comment needs to show that thought has been put into the subject and, ahem, continues the conversation. Stuff like “U rock!” and “Great post. Visit me at my blog” aren’t making the cut. I think the quality is improving. There has been only one comment, not from my students, sent this year where I was very relieved that everything filters through me before publication to the web.
Who’d've thought?
Here’s an exchange I thought was pretty cool. One of my students wrote about a scary experience last week. He did this on his own time – it wasn’t assigned by me. After talking later on that week, he told me his mom likes to have him write on the blog once a week. Here’s his latest post:
Before I tell you what happened, I’m going to say I did not make this up. It’s all 100% true. One night I was trying to get to sleep. Then I started hearing heavy breathing. I held my breath and held my nose but I could still hear breathing! I was so scared that I was paralyzed. So I had to fall a sleep with something breathing right beside me. I woke up the next morning, earlier than usual, and my bedroom door was a open and I had closed it that night. So either my brother tried to play a joke on me or someone else was there.
The next day, Katie, one of the more prolific bloggers in my class wrote to Evan with the following:
That sounds alot like an uncommon halucination called the old hag. If apears by the end of the bed or somtimes(yikes!) on your chest. It is acompanied by heavy breathing. If in is on your chest you can even feel it…. I can’t explain the open door, but the old hag always comes with paralaysis.
OK. Now I was learning something. Evan’s description did fit Katie’s “Old Hag” theory. I’ve never heard of this and was inspired to do a little further digging on Google:
@09alc, I did a little research on this and found the following article (http://ezinearticles.com/?Old-Hag-Syndrome&id=2317718). It describes the “old hag” much like you did and goes on to say:
“The truth is there are no ghouls, demons, witches or old hags at work. The old hag syndrome has been found to be a part of the problem of sleep paralysis. The problem causes the victims to paralyze in sleep. As far as the weird feelings are concerned, they can be accredited to the confused state of the brain. The overheard stories of the superstitious beliefs also add to the problem.”
So there’s the “scientific” explanation. I guess it’s up to you to decide what to believe.
I hope Evan gets a chance to read the comments about his original post.
Immediate Feedback
Another one of my students decided to write last night about yesterday’s ski trip. I know that she was very excited and nervous about learning to ski. I dare you not to hear her voice in this post:
Today we went to Mont. cascade. I was a lot of fun.first i was scared then when i got used to it was soooooooo much fun.
i went down the chairlift.i fell off then the next time i was fine.I fell two or three times but then i was fine.
tomorrow i am going to be sore. I went really fast down the hill. I fell did a 360 on my knees. it was awesome. I can’t wait till next time.i learned how to do the s and the snowplow.
i would totally go there again.
To which another student responded with the comment:
It was funny how I hit my head into the soft snow and how I got my right face with all those cuts(Sorta!). Oh I went down the blue square like a pro (without poles even!)
I saw Alex’s crash while I was on the chairlift. He’s fine but I will need to remind him about having a few more runs on the bunny hill next time out and to always ski with a friend.
Shelfari
I’ve been thinking of adding some sort of virtual library of the students’ favourites books to my blog for some time now. Thanks to Jan Smith’s class blog, Huzzah!, I now know how to make it happen. She created an account for herself at Shelfari.com and cuts and pastes student book reviews as they come in. Shelfari makes it easy to embed a shelf of favourite books on your blog. Floating your mouse over each book will cause a student’s review of the book to appear. I’ve added an entire “Books” page to my site as well. Now the trick is to get the students to recommend books, which leads me to my next and final topic.
Assigning Homework on the Blog
Homework, that dreaded topic. Whatever your feelings are on the subject, here’s how I’ve been dealing with it. I assign homework roughly once a week. So far, the homework has focused on Math and Language Arts. Students maintain a homework duotang and I give them a hard copy of the week’s assignment. This sheet is also made available on the blog. I do my best to give an option for at least part of the assignment to be done on the blog.
Part of this week’s homework assignment will be to write a post review a favourite book. I plan to copy a paste their review into the Shelfari widget. Here’s one of Sheridan’s favourites. Look to the left menu, and hover over the picture of the Monster Hunters book and you’ll see his review appear as well.
Upcoming Presentations
I’m looking forward to seeing some of you this Monday evening at Fisher Park / Summit Alternative. Jane and I will be talking about ways to include technology into the Junior music program.
We’ll be doing a similar presentation at our Federation PD Day on February 12 at 1:00, I think.
We will also be taking part in the TEDxOntarioEd event on April 9, 2010. It’s is very cool to see our names listed with these people!
Dec 08 2009
Here are my choices for the 2009 incarnation of The Edublog Awards:
Best individual blog: The Blue Skunk Blog
Best individual tweeter: Jen Deyenberg (jdeyenberg)
Best group blog: The Committed Sardine
Best class blog: Huzzah!
Best resource sharing blog: iLearn Technology
Best teacher blog: Music Is Not for Insects
Best educational tech support blog: The Edublogger
Best educational use of audio: MP Radio
Nov 28 2009
As I was putting things together for my trip to the TLLP “Sharing the Learning” summit being held in Toronto tomorrow, I came across a CD that Cheryl gave to me last May. It was a podcast she had made with her class after doing a series of workshops with Jane and me.
Here, at long last, Cheryl’s podcast of her grade 3 class discussing Earth Day. I really like how she involved so all the members of her class and the tasteful use of sound effects. Great work Mrs. Woods!
Nov 28 2009
On November 27, 2009 we were featured in the Kanata Kourier-Standard.
Click here to read the article.
Nov 24 2009
Jane and I both enjoyed the experience of being interviewed by Ottawa Morning host Kathleen Petty this morning. We talked about our recorder program and our experiences at the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum held in Brazil a few weeks ago.
Sep 11 2009
Links
Blog/Podcast Picks
Blog Challenge – by Ms. Wyatt
Mr. Baird’s 4/5 Class Blog by Matthew Baird
Web Resource
http://cybersmartcurriculum.org
http://pbskids.org/license/index.html
Lesson
Student avatars from MrToft.ca
My Avatars (handout in PDF format)
Credits
Hot Doggin’ – by DeerFoot (Podsafe Music Network)
The Kool-Aid Makes Itself – Psykosoul (Podsafe Music Network)
Mumbo Jumbo – BD Lenz (Podsafe Music Network)
Hook, Line and Slinker – Podington Bear
Bump and Run – Derek Audette
How Quiet Helps at School – Prelinger Institute
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Flags courtesy of ITA's Flags of All Countries used with permission.
