If you want to capture high quality video when the moment strikes and like lightweight technology, read this review.Post from: The eLearning CoachFlip HD Camcorder: A Review

Marc Prensky once famously accused instructional designers of sucking the fun out of learning at an EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Conference a number of years back. As you can imagine, instructional designers were not amused.  I was reminded of Marc's quotable quote during a recent conversation regarding the value and role of structure and specifications - or the lack thereof - for designing learning experiences. This is a more nuanced conversation than differentiating between formal and informal learning, or whether one is online or on-the-ground. This also includes things that lead to immersion, augmentation, mobility, and personalization. It inevitably leads to thoughts of learning analytics. Life-long learning tracking even. It's almost as if today's emergent designers want to dance on ADDIE's grave and declare that ID funsucking is a thing of the past. Which brings me to my point. It is inspiring to know that there are exceedingly passionate designers out there who want to create learning experiences that engage and inspire, helping the world see new possibilities with fresh eyes. Good on ya. The world needs you.  But designers also must bring order to chaos. Most of us work in settings where we are mostly responsible for the practical, pragmatic applications of design principles to achieve tangible measurable results for individuals AND enterprises.  It does not matter if we believe something to be true with total heart and soul if it cannot demonstrate tangible value of those beliefs to stakeholders. Not in the future. Now. So here is a message for the "true believers". When someone tells you than an idea is a little early for their stakeholders....it doesn't mean he or she "don't get it", nor does it necesarily mean that she or he is a pin-headed, short-sighted idiot. It simply means that the case still needs to be made. To be clear, if it weren't for people believing that they have a better way of doing something and being willing to social the ideas ad nauseum we probably *would* still be sniffing ditto copies in our obligatory F2F training sessions. All *I'm* saying is that visionary awesomeness on its own probably isn't enough. Sometimes it might just take a few funsuckers to spin all that straw into gold.    

Thinking of doing some in-house or on-site audio recording? Then take some lessons from this pro.Post from: The eLearning CoachMicrophone Questions Answered Here

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kindergarteners learned about healthy eating habits with a variety of (literally) hands-on activities as a class and on their Chromebooks; First graders went to the "old" computer lab for a their first-ever Powerpoint project; Second graders completed an assessment of the EiE STEM Play Dough unit we just finished; Third graders were introduced to Spreadsheets via excercises at Learning.com; and Fourth graders finished reading the EiE Storybook, "Erik’s Unexpected Twist," concluding the reading portion of that STEM project. Week ending 10/18/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: This week’s topic was healthy eating. We started be identifying some plastic food representing the food groups and had a discussion about processed vs. natural foods. Using the SMART Board (and in a few classes, some websites) kids identified proper food group items. We then introduced the kids to Gumdrop, the Computer Lab mascot, and the world of Webkinz (which, years ago, nearly every child would be familiar with; now, barely a handful in the entire grade knew what a Webkin was.) Using the Webkinz website, we played with Gumdrop (getting some much-needed exercise) before heading out for some grocery shopping and snacking. After that, students completed a simple sorting activity on their own using SMART Notebook Express on their Chromebooks. What I observed / inferred / connected: Kids have a very solid understanding of what foods are healthy, unhealthy, and why. This lesson was very active, fast-moving and got kids out of their seats a lot. The Chromebooks performed well and the SMART Notebook Express software worked as it should have. Kids learned the user interface quickly and were instantly productive. What students can do at home: Have a conversation with your child about healthy & unhealthy foods, let them show what they know. Check out the healthy food activities on the Kindergarten Symbaloo. Play together! Work on keyboarding skills, too. The Kindergarten Symbaloo has what your child needs! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Working in the "old" Elementary Computer Lab #1 (with PCs), students logged in with their IDs and passwords, then used a template I’d created to record information about a favorite object. They entered their name and other text, practiced writing uppercase letters, chose a theme and saved their work. What I observed / inferred / connected: As complicated as PowerPoint can be, it’s still suitable for lower elementary student projects (with enough advance planning). This lesson went really fast and kids picked up the concepts quickly. Letter recognition / keyboarding skills were the biggest challenges. What students can do at home: Talk with your child about a possession they care about. Ask them about it. Let them use vivid language to express themselves. Have students explore the First Grade Symbaloo, particularly the keyboarding activities. It’s just so critical they get these skills early on. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Students used SMART Notebook Express to complete an assessment I created regarding the EiE STEM unit "A Work in Process: Improving a Play Dough Process," designed to see what they retained from the experience, including the story as well as the hands-on activities. They also worked on keyboarding skills using a variety of activities on the Second Grade Symbaloo. What I observed / inferred / connected: This worked well for most classes but not for all. The SMART Notebook Express software was finicky; when it was good, it was very, very good … and when it was bad it just didn’t work at all. On two occasions I had to "punt" and do the lesson as a whole-group activity. We’re trying to isolate the problem (network connectivity; site slowness; Chromebook Flash player issues) but until we get everything figured out we’ll be sticking to the "old" Computer Lab with its PCs for these types of assessments. What students can do at home: Ask your child about the story. What do they remember? What resonated with them? Ask your child about the Engineering Design Process. What are the steps? How can they be used to create technologies? Take a look at this page from the EiE website - it will give you additional ideas for discussion and exploration. Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We are starting a unit on spreadsheets and utilized Learning.com to communicate basic concepts and lay a solid foundation. We’ll be continuing with this next week. Learning.com exercises are super because they are performance based; kids have to correctly do as they are instructed in order to proceed. Gentle reminders keep kids on track when they make a mistake. I really love this service. What I learned / observed / inferred: Once kids are logged in, this application holds their attention like no other. We didn’t even get to keyboarding this week! The kids are THAT focused. What students can do at home: Work on EasyTech! It’s the ideal app for home use. I have provided the login information for Learning.com before but if you need it, let me know! The Third Grade Symbaloo page has a lot of great learning activities to explore. Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: We entered Week 2 of the EiE STEM project, "No Bones About it: Designing Knee Braces" by reading the last half of "Erik’s Unexpected Twist," the storybook that accompanies the lesson. What I observed / inferred / connected: Since the 4th graders are studying the human body right now, the timing was perfect ("I love it when a plan comes together") - the kids literally lit up when we started talking about bones and ligaments and tendons. Good stuff. Kids REALLY enjoyed this story, much more than the one they did in Third Grade. Not sure why. Maybe I’m getting better at storytelling. I’m certainly enjoying it! What students can do at home: Ask your students what happened in the story; how the relationship between Erik and Matthias changed; how the Engineering Design Process helped in the woods; what ligaments are and how they work (anything about the skeletal system). Check out the Fourth Grade Symbaloo page, especially including the Typing Pal application, as keyboarding is a perfect skill to practice at home.

Important questions can get swept aside when the rumble of excitement about future possibilities are loudest. Nowhere is this more clear than in the emerging arena of learning analytics. The fact that we can track information just about anytime, anyplace and on any device boggles the mind with possibilities. But it also begs a few questions: Does the fact that we will eventually be able to collect, track, link, visualize, tokenize, correlate, factor or parse data pulled through APIs mean that we should? When we can collect everything, will we know what to look for when applying various analysis technique among the research protocols? Will we recognize the answers we are looking for when we see them forming in the mists or hanging from the branch of a CHAID tree? Perhaps even more to the point - will we be able to do anything meaningful with what we find? What are we going to DO, once we know? The notion that all learning should be tracked, or that there is value to tracking activity stream level information, or that Hadoop-like pattern-seeking technologies will serve the needs of the learning enterprise in meaningful ways, must also consider what that capability is really worth to the enterprise.  It  presumes that once we DO recognize new patterns of loss, momentum and opportunity that we are going to be able to do something about what has been found.  But most people do not understand how long it is going to take the learning world at large to think of data as his or her friend. To see the results of analyses as benchmarks for better understanding performance, not as red flags requiring an intervention. One can only wonder how many enterprises will be slow to collect learning data worrying that they can't afford the Burden of Knowing what their data will reveal.       

Tired of the same boring slide-based courses? Liven things up with this little bit of magic.Post from: The eLearning Coach10 Best Articulate Presenter Tricks and Tips

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kindergarten students explored a definition of technology that rocked their world; First graders continued working on their PowerPoint projects in our PC lab, strengthening their skills with Microsoft Office; Second graders re-visited the idea of technology as "anything man-made that solves a problem" and enjoyed a scavenger hunt throughout the school; Third graders worked with Learning.com’s EasyTech service; and Fourth graders created their own Goniometers and used them to record measurements of knee flexion as part of our Engineering is Elementary STEM unit, "Designing Knee Braces." Week ending 10/25/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: We warmed up with a fun game of ABC Order to work on our letter recognition and fine motor mousing skills. Then it was off to the cubes in front of the SMART Board for a quick discussion of  "What is Technology?" We introduced the students to a definition of "technology" that is both new to them and critical to our work with engineering (the "E" in STEM). Our Engineering is Elementary curriculum defines technology as "Anything made by man that solves a problem." So, in effect, anything NATURAL is by definition NOT considered a technology. Using the SMART Board, students took turns coming up and identifying items that were or were not technology. Some of these were intentionally vague or tricky because I wanted the students to really THINK and sure enough we tripped some kids up. We followed this up with an activity called "What do ENGINEERS make?" which involved students using a SMART Notebook I built with the "erase to reveal" technique hiding pictures underneath. Students then went to their tables where we had arranged "mystery technology bags" with different examples of technology which the students had to identify and draw pictures of. What I observed / inferred / connected: This is always a fun lesson because you can literally see kids’ minds expanding when you explain that ‘technology’ is not necessarily something that plugs in. This concept is central to our curriculum because we want kids to know anything they can design - anything they can engineer - is a ‘technology.’ We want them to understand that THEY are designers and engineers! Most students are still working on their letter forming and drawing skills so the worksheets they completed were pretty interesting! What students can do at home: Ask your child to identify technologies around your house and the problems they solve. Ask them if they have any ideas about technologies they’d like to create. Check out the healthy food activities on the Kindergarten Symbaloo. Play together! Explore and play any of the keyboarding activities on the Kindergarten Symbaloo as well. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We continued working on our PowerPoint projects. Students had to log on with their network IDs, traverse the network folder/file structure to locate and open their projects and then add images and additional text. Finally they had to save their work. (We will be printing these next week.) What I observed / inferred / connected: Kids really seemed to enjoy this activity, which is important because they need solid independent skills working in the lab. Virtually all were able to log on successfully without assistance; those that still need help will get additional practice. As important as it is for kids to be able to use our PC lab and Microsoft Office products, I have to say I prefer the simplicity of Google Apps in general and Google Presentations in specific. The interface is WAY SIMPLER and focuses on what MATTERS MOST. Happy that we are getting kids experienced with both in the elementary school. What students can do at home: Right now, literacy trumps pretty much everything for these kids, and technology can support that. The First Grade Symbaloo has a host of activities that can help. As far as keyboarding, we’re focusing at this age on awareness, not technique, so, any of the ‘easier’ and ‘fun’ keyboarding activities are best. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We revisited the concept of "technology" with a range of activities including some I neglected to photograph (I kept reminding myself and forgetting.) We started with a discussion of "technology" (which these students learned last year for the first time) and some SMART Board activities similar to those we used in Kindergarten. The worksheet shown above was done in one of my classes, the other four got it as "homework." The highlight of the lesson however was dividing the class into teams for a technology "Scavenger Hunt" throughout the school. We each took 10 minutes to identify as much technology as we could and then compared our answers in a group review. It was kinesthetic fun at its finest and it drove home the point of the day that technology is anything made by man that solves a problem - and that our students are all designers and engineers. What I observed / inferred / connected: Some of the best conversations this week came from kids whose parents are engineers - some I knew personally, some I did not. We talked about engineer moms and dads in software engineering, surveying, construction and more. As the folks at EiE point out, most kids don’t understand what it means to have a career in engineering. Some students whose moms & dads worked in engineering were literally bursting to tell us about their work, but, many kids thought engineers were people who drive trains. This is a common misconception, and one we are working hard to rectify, explicitly through instruction and hands-on activities in my lab. Kids are born engineers. They are constantly building and creating. School time is precious; we know that literacy (and numeracy) are the focus in elementary school but I am glad we have the opportunity in my program to convey and reinforce concepts that will serve them into middle school and beyond. As clear-cut as one might think the definition of technology is, if you look closely at the picture of the student’s worksheet, it’s clear we still have some work to do. (That’s okay, I’m up for the challenge.) What students can do at home: Let your kids tinker, take things apart, better yet, join them in the process. How do things work? What parts make them up? How are things combined to perform a task? What can they design, invent or discover? Don’t let this magical developmental time go to waste - encourage them to wonder, foster their creativity, whatever it takes. There are some excellent "brain teaser" / engineering activities on the Second Grade Symbaloo, check them out. Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Students completed more EasyTech tutorials in preparation for this week’s lesson in which we’ll be sorting "virtual" bags of Halloween candy (images of candy bars I printed out and put randomly into paper bags) and creating a spreadsheet with a partner. What I learned / observed / inferred: Kids continued to sail through these tutorials. It will be interesting to see how well the instruction kids got via this service will prepare them for the upcoming task. I’m expecting/planning to re-teach several key concepts. What students can do at home: Work on EasyTech! It’s the ideal app for home use. I have provided the login information for Learning.com before but if you need it, let me know. The Third Grade Symbaloo page has a lot of great learning activities to explore. Keyboarding is key! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Students learned about Goniometry and Goniometers by working with a partner to create their own device and use it to record measurements as directed by a worksheet provided by EiE.  We referred to videos on YouTube and EiE’s own channel for instructions. Students also watched a demonstration of how to create a "wet footprint" they will be using in my next class to measure and analyze foot dimensions including arch height, as an excercise in biomedical engineering (and spreadsheets - they’ll be using Google Docs to tabulate data.) What I observed / inferred / connected: This was the first time through this lesson and it was FUN! The video I started with provided real-world context that made the lesson more meaningful. Kids enjoyed creating their Goniometers and using them to measure each other’s knee joints. The data collection went really well! What students can do at home: Kids interested in medicine or physical therapy may want to explore these concepts in greater detail; if interested, let me know, and I’ll provide some ideas! The Fourth Grade Symbaloo is always worth checking out!

If there was ever any doubt that we are in the midst of a new dot.com boom for education, that doubt was removed at this week's SXSWEDU. The event brought entrepreneurs and educators to Austin, Texas for four days of panels and a competition for education start-ups. I had the great fun of participating in a panel discussion on "Are Courses a Commodity?" with Myk Garn, Mickey Revenaugh and Michael Horn. Vanessa Dennen and I helped Curt Bonk rehearse his "cage match" answers while sharing beers and ribs at one of the Cengage social events. I enjoyed hearing Bill Gates speak to the crowd about his vision for a transformed education system. It was definitely an interesting mix of energies. Gotta say, not all of it felt all that good. This morning's Chronicle of Higher Education led with a headline that explicitly named the tensions between entrepreneurs and educators. You can read the Chronicle report here. While I was there, I kept hearing that THIS dot.com is different because it's about education, and because the tech is better and data will inform us and investors are smarter and the market is ready, and there are business plans and people aren't just throwing exuberant ideas at the wall and hoping that something sticks.  Really?  I have to say that the confident assurances that this educational technology boom is different just didn't make me feel any less skeptical. Because in the same way that there are some who really DO believes that MOOCs are the birth of online learning, it is clear that there is an entire generation of investors and entrepreneurs who really DO seem to believe that the ideas thrown against the wall of the 1990s are somehow less legitimate than some of the ideas that are currently being thrown against the wall today. So let me tell you why this particular new EDU.dot.com isn't as different as visonaries and investors would have you believe. Ready? It's because no matter how new your tech is or how great the idea is, or how impressive the possibilities are, or the circumstances or the bandwidth or the platform or the operating system we won't figure out how to crack the code on transformation until we change the most important part of the equation. And that is the human factor. Eventually it comes down to people being ready to embrace the change. The ability to ride out the hype cycle and get oneself to a true plateau of productivty will all come down to the degree we can induce people to change their ways, completely rethink their practices, and help them figure out how to use new tools toys, apps and the like deliver on their promises. The excitement around innovative technology futures for teaching and learning has energized educational researchers to think broadly and deeply about the possibilities they represent.  The venture capital communities’ recognition that education may be ready for its "Internet moment" has also generated massive interest in developing promising ideas for products with commercial consideration. Between these two exciting arenas of exploration live equally important opportunities for transformation that come from practice-focused solutions contributing to demonstrable improvements in student engagement, faculty performance, and institutional accountability.  People. We've got to get ready, too. [1]     

Not sure how to get through the analysis phase? Here's how.Post from: The eLearning CoachAnalysis For eLearning Projects

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kidnergarten students learned about drawing and painting tools while they created some original digital art; First Graders finished their PowerPoint projects and printed them to take home; Second Graders got their first taste of Google Apps and created a basic document; Third Graders used a Google Spreadsheet to anaylze bags of "virtual" Halloween candy; and Fourth Graders analyzed their footprints (made last week for homework) and entered the data into a shared Google Spreadsheet. Week ending 11/01/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: This week’s lesson was about digital art. We started with a conversation about the kinds of art we like to create and whether or not doing art on a computer is ‘better’ than by hand. Students said computer based art has several things going for it: unlimited supplies, no mess, you can usually fix errors easily, and it can be faster. Working by hand was said to be better because it’s easier than using a mouse, the textures and smells are great, and, it’s fun making a mess! For the warmup, I introduced the kids to four different websites (on the Symbaloo, naturally) used to create art (there are several more, these were the most effective for what I wanted the kids to experience: the Jackson Pollack Simlator, Crayola Digi-Color, the oddly-named "Bomomo," and Art.com’s Artpad. At this stage of a child’s development, most don’t have the ability to interpret a complex user interface (UI) so simplicity is key; and these apps were perfect and engaged them immediately. After a warmup that lasted a bit longer than usual, we came back to the cubes on the SMART Board for a quick lesson on how to use Learning.com’s EasyTech, the "computer teacher in the computer." I’d logged in all the accounts so everything was ready to go. Didn’t take long to show the kids how to interact with the tutorial, then, they were off. Students completed two tutorials, "Brushes and Lines" and "Shapes and Fills." All were ultimately successful despite many of them being non-readers. What I observed / inferred / connected: We love EasyTech. Each child learns at their own pace. The program has a very gentle learning curve and actually prompts kids with clues if they guess incorrectly and ultimately reminds them of the proper steps to complete a task if they can’t accomplish it on their own. The audio narration is excellent. It’s just a terrific way for kids to get individually-oriented instruction on technology topics, especially at home. (Need the login info? Email me!) We continue to struggle with students incorrectly closing browser tabs. We ask the kids not to be "an X-er outer" - many seem to want to close all the open browser tabs! We are working on it! What students can do at home: Work with EasyTech, I can provide the login info for anyone who wants it. Spend some time exploring the Kindergarten Symbaloo. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We spent a third (and final!) day in the Elementary School Computer Lab #1 finishing and printing our PowerPoint projects, which should all have come home this week. Students traversed network shares, located and opened their personal files (we only had one instance of a student opening/editing the wrong file, which is pretty impressive), made final edits and (with assistance) printed their work. We (most classes) learned where the printers were in the media center and the proper way (quietly!) to retrieve output. What I observed / inferred / connected: After three weeks in the lab, and based on the work we saw, kids have gotten these skills. Time to move on and raise the bar! We need more work on picking up out output! We also need a better system for storing completed print jobs prior to being picked up. What students can do at home: If you have a computer with Microsoft PowerPoint installed, by all means, explore the software with your child, let them show you what they know! Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: For the first time, students accessed their Chromebooks with their Google Apps for Education username (a correctly formatted but non-functional email address) and their password. Students then created a basic Google Doc, renamed it, added text and shared it with me. What I observed / inferred / connected: WE. HATE. GOOGLE. CAPTCHAS! I was SO RELIEVED to learn Google recently abandoned these RIDICULOUS distorted text captchas. I wish the changeover was instantaneous; these security codes (see above) are EXTREMELY frustrating, especially for kids. I can’t wait until they are gone forever. The kids did very well with the simple document exercise and had no problem completing the tasks. What students can do at home: Ask your child if they remember their Google Apps login; if so, click here: http://docs.google.com/a/ncs-tech.org - please note this is a different login page from what we use at school and only the username is entered in the top box; the domain "ncs-tech.org" is already provided. Then, explore Google Apps together! Check out the Second Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities, especially keyboarding! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Thanks to an idea shared by our Middle School principal Glenn Robbins, and the Halloween holiday, I had the perfect context for a lesson on spreadsheets - sorting candy! It was a little tedious cutting out literally hundreds of candy images (I think there were over a thousand) but I needed enough for each pair of students to have a "realistic" amount of candy. Working with a partner, they first divided up the candy among themselves, then they decided how much candy they would "keep" or "trade," then they divided the candy into groups I’d already defined. Once they did this data collection, they worked with their partner to enter the information into a Google Spreadsheet I’d shared with them and create some simple math formulas. What I learned / observed / inferred: This was a blast! I really need to cut down on the candy (just like in real life.) The kids needed too much time to count the ‘virtual’ loot. I went a little overboard with the variety and number of candies represented. Printing off the spreadsheet in advance allowed students to quickly enter data into their spreadsheets and build the necessary formulas. I was able to share the spreadsheet template with the entire class quickly and easily using the gClassFolders Google Apps Script. It’s a little on the techie side, but, it’s worth figuring out because it saves a lot of time and makes everyone’s life easier. It’s a free (and more basic) alternative to the powerful Hapara service, which is worth considering also. I was pleased with the students’ ability to get their data tabulated and entered into the spreadsheets during the short time we had in class! What students can do at home: Ask your child if they remember their Google Apps login; if so, click here: http://docs.google.com/a/ncs-tech.org - please note this is a different login page from what we use at school and only the username is entered in the top box; the domain "ncs-tech.org" is already provided. Then explore Google Apps together! Heck, they could even create their own spreadsheet with "real" information about their actual candy haul! Check out the fun learning activities on the Third Grade Symbaloo. Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Using the footprints they created last week for homework, students took various measurements and entered the resulting data into a shared Google doc that we are using to tabulate data for the entire fourth grade. We discussed metric vs. imperial units and the conversion between centimeters and millimeters. This lesson was part of the Engineering is Elementary unit we are doing called "Designing Knee Braces." I added the spreadsheet component because the kids need that experience and I knew it would be a snap with Google Apps. What I observed / inferred / connected: Kids loved this activity and so did I. Though simplistic (intentionally), it effectively allowed us to experience collaborative spreadsheet use as well as demonstrate the need for "healthy skepticism" when working with spreadsheet data. In almost every class we discovered data entry errors and fixed them, along the way exploring why some of the errors were so hard to spot. This was pretty basic. Our next lesson will involve additional data analysis and formula creation. What students can do at home: Ask your child if they remember their Google Apps login; if so, click here: http://docs.google.com/a/ncs-tech.org - please note this is a different login page from what we use at school and only the username is entered in the top box; the domain "ncs-tech.org" is already provided. Then explore Google Apps together! Check out the fun learning activities on the Fourth Grade Symbaloo.