Does your audience reject dense or obscure information? Here's why.Post from: The eLearning CoachHow Visual Clarity Affects Learning

Blokify, a free iPad app that allows you to print your creations in 3D, just went live yesterday. Here’s a quick video: The app seems a little sluggish on my iPad 2, but I’m not sure why. It looks great and the user interface is very intuitive. Screenshots (there are four, use the arrows on the left and right to navigate through): I let a few students play with it yesterday, they seemed to enjoy it. Note that you start out with some basic blocks and that more are available but must be purchased. When you are finished, it allows you to email the model to yourself. Works great! Give it a try! Mr. Jarrett

Together with a colleague, Chris Hayford, I have developed a new site for knowledge workers. "Smartworking (www.smartworking.com) helps knowledge workers to explore the issues underlying knowledge work and enables them to improve the way they work. Smartworking provides a fresh perspective on the way we work in the information age. It helps knowledge workers take control of their work

Check out the distinctive thinking you'll find at these blogs.Post from: The eLearning CoachThese 12 Unique Blogs Are Written By Professors

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 used Kerpoof.com for the first time to create winter-themed images entitled "Think Snow!" (I give them full credit for the snow day we are enjoying today!). First graders did a little non-standard measuring with giant rulers the size of their bodies; Second graders dove into spreadsheets using Learning.com’s EasyTech service; Third graders evaluated different materials for use in the sails we will be constructing next week; Fourth graders finished the knee brace designs they started the week before. Week ending 01/03/14 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: After a quick warmup featuring ABCYa Alphabet Bingo and ABCYa Number Bingo, we set out to use Kerpoof.com to learn about this important digital art creation tool AND to do out part to help ensure a SNOW DAY … and sure enough, we DELIVERED!!! All kidding aside, Kerpoof.com is a terrific, free, easy-to-use website that kids can use to make many different kinds of art and multimedia projects, suitable for grades K through 8. Our lesson this week involved the "Make a Picture" (yellow square) activity, requiring kids to understand and use controls for background selection; object placement, sizing, and orientation; text entry & manipulation; and finally, saving and printing. What I observed / inferred / connected: Kerpoof is such a great tool, so simple, yet, so flexible and powerful. Best of all it grows with students and has sophisticated capabilities that even middle schoolers can utilize to create great art. We use it a lot, and, this was the first time Kindergarteners were exposed to it. Enjoying a snow day with your family today? You can thank our Kindergarten students! ’nuff said! What students can do at home: Visit Kerpoof.com and make some art! Let them show you around, how to add objects, and some of the cool hidden features! Be ready for lots of requests to PRINT and know that the output is large, colorful and will run through your printer ink in NO TIME! Check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for more interesting and entertaining activities! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Our topic this week is non-standard measurement. We started the lesson with some assessments of prior knowledge (what rulers/yardsticks are) and introduction of new concepts (you can measure using something other than rulers/yardsticks); with their interest piqued, students warmed up further with Curious George: How Tall and PBS Kids’ Fearless Flying Fleas estimation game, both of which introduced and reinforced key concepts for the day - "understand measurable attributes of objects and the units, systems, and processes of measurement" and "apply appropriate techniques, tools, and formulas to determine measurements" (source here.) We then watched the video clip of Sid the Science Kid above, noting the concepts as they were shown. (We enjoyed watching the student in the video lie down on the classroom floor - honestly - who DOES that?) Finally we made our own "Paper Body Rulers" and measured the length of objects in the room, first estimating how many "paper bodies" it would take and then comparing our estimates to the actual numbers. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson is fun every year, the kids enjoy the exercise and really relate well to the concepts. They love getting "into" the measurement and the websites do a great job of communicating the key concepts. What students can do at home: This is super easy to replicate at home - any object can be used to measure another - challenge your child to estimate the size of some objects and then measure them with others. Compare the results! Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for more interesting and entertaining activities! Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We are getting ready to start a unit on spreadsheets - with some VERY FUN, hands on activities - but first the kids need a solid grounding in the fundamentals. For that, there is no more personalized and individually-focused vehicle called EasyTech by Learning.com, a terrific service we have been using for years. These lessons cover the foundation concepts in detail but at a pace set by each learner. Mistakes are gently corrected until the child succeeds at the task. What I observed / inferred / connected: I especially like how EasyTech allows kids to work at their own pace, and how the scores reported at the end give me instant feedback as to who has mastered the concepts and who still needs help. What students can do at home: This service is accessible at home; contact me for a username and password if you need them! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Our Engineering is Elementary STEM unit, "Catching the Wind: Designing Windmills" is kicking into high gear now. Students are going to be designing and testing sails to determine which material is most suitable. (We are preparing for the segment shown in the video above in which kids design and test sails using different materials.) Working in teams, students evaluated each material, brainstorming adjectives on our Great White Wall. Finally they were asked to make some predictions about sail materials and begin designing their sails on paper. What I learned / observed / inferred: Preparation was key for this lesson as kids worked in teams to evaluate the different materials (paper of various types; felt; aluminum foil; felt; an index card; a plastic grocery bag; and a paper cup), determining which might be best suited to the task. The whiteboard wall worked perfectly and the kids LOVED writing on it. We finished with a short worksheet asking the students to identify the materials that would and would not work well in their design. What students can do at home: The basic science concepts behind this unit are fairly simple, students could easily compare materials found around the home, examining the texture, properties and suitability for sail designs - they could even make and test their own. Check out the Third Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Students finished their knee braces and completed illustrations explaining the designs! What I observed / inferred / connected: There is quite literally nothing like a hands-on project to bring out the best in my students! What students can do at home: We will be doing a reflection this coming week, but, ask your child what they learned about knee brace design (and teamwork!) this week and last! Check out the Fourth Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities!

Want to improve how you write for the ear? Then you'll want to read these tips.Post from: The eLearning CoachThe Art Of Writing Great Voice Over Scripts

Our 3D printer has captured the imaginations of everyone in our elementary school, and I’m so glad! It’s thrilling to see kids’ designs come to life, print cool models from Thingiverse, and even witness Minecraft creations rendered in glorious plastic. Unfortunately, things don’t always print as expected - and in fact, much of the time, they don’t. The spaghetti disaster above is the result of a model coming free from the baseplate (I still don’t know how that happened) on an overnight print. Serves me right for thinking I could let this thing run unattended. The larger problem we are having is a design issue having to to with overhangs. To Support or Not to Support, That is the Question The great free 3D design tools we’ve profiled here on my blog all have one thing in common: it’s very easy to design "in thin air," meaning you literally can place objects anywhere. This is terrific from a creativity standpoint but we’re finding it’s very problematic when it comes to printing. The basic problem is that a 3D printer works horizontally, in layers, and can’t print "into thin air." Take for example First Grader Isabella M.’s "Snowflake Treehouse," printed without "supports." Everything’s just fine until you check out the underside of the roof: Which is amazing to have printed successfully at all, in my view. To help alleviate this problem - as far as I know - there are two options. The first is to rotate the item so that any overhangs are minimized. The second is to use the Makerbot Makerware software option to print "supports," which basically means thin vertical columns of material underneath things that would otherwise be difficult to print because of overhangs. Sounds great in theory! Problem we’ve had is that the supports DON’T come off easily (we must be doing something wrong) and often will leave unsightly remnants behind (it’s hard to see but the base of the snowflake has material left over from the supports): In other cases, supports seem to put material where it doesn’t belong, messing up the model: and The model above is a professionally-designed building and was created using AutoCAD. We must be doing something wrong … I’m off to find out what settings I can adjust to improve our results. Meanwhile, if anyone has any advice I can pass along to my students, who continue to design things (rightfully so!) that defy gravity, I’d appreciate it! Here’s Isabella’s latest creation, a sunflower - I’ve left the support material on: Thanks! Mr. Jarrett

Timelines don't need to be about history. Get some ideas here.Post from: The eLearning CoachThe Art Of Timelines For Learning

January is a busy month for learning technologists. On Monday we had Handeld Learning, this week is BETT and on 26/27th January it’s Learning Technologies. I didn’t manage to get to Handheld Learning this year but I did manage to spend a few hours at BETT. BETT is the learning technology show for education so it’s frequented primarily by teachers who have a special bent on technology. Few corporate e-learning people attend but I always find it  useful to see what is happening on the other side of the learning technology fence. One thing that is immediately clear is that this is a big show - it takes over the whole of Olympia (Learning Technologies is teeny by comparison). As you can imagine the technologies on display are aimed primarily at the classroom environment so interactive whiteboards are really big at BETT. So are student response technologies - you know those little wireless devices that let pupils and students make contributions in class. There are also big stands by major IT players such as Dell, Asus, NEC, Toshiba and Adobe and Microsoft. Strangely there was no Apple stand but a fair number of Apple Resellers and Solution Experts. There was very little in the way of remote or virtual learning solutions. I guess this reflects the fact that the show is aimed primarily at classroom teachers. Synergy Learning were there with Moodle but there was no sign of Blackboard or any other virtual learning environment platforms. Here are some highlights/lowlights: Elearningforce were demonstrating their SharePoint based LMS. Ouch! MOOPLE is a new virtual learning environment aimed at kids. ASUS were demonstrating their new big slate device. Nice widescreen but Windows 7 is not a great slate OS and as for apps well you’ll just have to be patient. One thing that you do see at BETT is learning technologies that are fun and engaging. Lego had a massive stand and there were some pretty cool interactive whiteboard applications. But probably the most interesting piece of new technology that I came across was a chair designed specifically to be used by a class gathered around an interactive whiteboard. The Lamu can be used in two positions facing forward or facing backwards (more like a conventional chair). Even for an adult it was surprisingly comfortable and facing forward it allows a sort of rocking motion that makes using it even more enjoyable.

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. Week ending 01/10/14 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: Given the success of this lesson on non-standard measurement with 1st grade last week, I decided to do a slightly modified version for my Kindergarten students this week. We did a bit less measuring and took more time to explore, explain and play, and the results were worth it. (I failed to get any pictures, we were having too much fun.) What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson generated more enthusiasm than most others of late. I’m not sure if it was due to the popularity of Sid the Science Kid, the zaniness of measuring things with shoe and other objects, or the challenge and reward of the web activities Curious George: How Tall and PBS Kids’ Fearless Flying Fleas … but this week we had more kids openly cheering and literally high-fiving each other as they succeeded in their tasks. What students can do at home: This is super easy to replicate at home - any object can be used to measure another - challenge your child to estimate the size of some objects and then measure them with others. Compare the results! The website activities above (and more!) are on the Kindergarten Symbaloo! Image Credit: Engineering is Elementary Image credit: Engineering is Elementary Image credit: Wikipedia First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: It’s January, which means it’s time for our First Grade STEM unit, the excellent Engineering is Elementary production called "A Sticky Situation: Designing Walls." (Check out the unit overview.) When I mentioned we were starting a project like they did last year in Kindergarten, they were very excited! We reviewed the Flickr Set from last year, with great results, I don’t know what the kids were more excited by - the prospect of "getting dirty" with mortar mixes or smashing the walls to bits at the end of the unit. We then returned to the STEMLAB where we used Google Earth to show how far China is from the USA by "flying" from NCS to the Great Wall of China. The kids’ mouths were agape as the Earth spun around for what seemed like forever until the Great Wall appeared. We read the first three chapters of "Yi Min’s Great Wall," the storybook that presents the engineering design challenge at the center of the unit. The protagonist is a young Chinese schoolgirl who wants to protect her school’s garden from a hungry rabbit. We then wrapped up with an intro of the next week’s lesson and let the kids play on the Chromebooks for a few minutes before leaving. What I observed / inferred / connected: I really enjoyed reading the book, as I did last year.  We stopped for questions periodically and had some great conversations along the way about gardens, caring for them, what types of things are grown in gardens, etc. We talked about earth materials for building, which might be better for walls than others, and which types we’ve seen around school and home. I was amazed how many first graders had heard of the Great Wall of China. One even said she’d visited it - but we’re pretty sure that’s a tall tale. What students can do at home: Talk about brick walls either in your home or nearby. Ask your child what they know about the walls, how they are formed, why they are created, etc. and let them astound you. Check out the First Grade Symbaloo page for fun online activities. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: The "Drops on a Penny Challenge" is part science experiment, part spreadsheet data collection activity, and it’s always fun. I start by telling the students they will "do the impossible!" and ask how many drops of water they believe will fit on a penny before running over the side. The estimates are usually in the single digits until I prod them to "think bigger" - but their guesses are always short of what’s possible! We watched this Youtube video of a penny getting 36 drops of water just to show them what IS possible, then we talked about surface tension via an example everyone can relate to - doing a belly flop into a pool. We talked about the properties of water, the principle of cohesion, and how pennies (old and new) might hold more or less water (and why.) Each student was provided with a shiny, NEW penny and one older, worn penny; eye droppers; a magnifying glass; paper towels and water. They used the worksheet above (blank available here) to record their predictions and repeated observations. Our trusty Dell D600 laptops (one per group/table) were used to collect data via a Google Docs Spreadsheet. They also had to explain WHY they were seeing what they were seeing. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson was great fun, mostly because the students were in charge of their own learning. They conducted the tests and recorded the results on their own. All were successful; everyone was able to get their pennies to hold a large amount of water. Excited shouts could be heard around the room as the tiny water bubbles eventually burst. "I got 50!" "Watch it wiggle!" "It looks like a Snow Globe!" It’s such a simple activity but one that captures the imagination and is therefore PRECISELY the kind of lesson experience we want. What worked well: every student had what they needed to be successful and they were. All were amazed by what they observed. Many went home and told their parents and re-did the challenge at home. I am willing to bet many of them will remember this lesson and the concept of "surface tension" for years to come. What could have been better: some students struggled with the worksheet, particularly the writing portions. I could have done a better job explaining what they needed to do. Some "old" pennies were shinier than "new" ones, causing some confusion. My explanation of surface tension could have had more of a scientific basis. What students can do at home: Do the challenge! Get a penny and an eyedropper and see how many drops will fit. Use different coins, but first, have the students PREDICT what will happen and explain WHY. (A magnifying glass is helpful to investigate coins up close.) We are working on having students remember their Google Docs logins; it’s going to take a while, but, ask your student regularly if they know theirs. (Note: the Google Docs login link is on the NCS Website under "Students and Parents.") We want students to be comfortable using Google Docs anywhere, anytime! Practice keyboarding with Typing Pal. Students should know their usernames and passwords by now (they are simpler than Google Docs.) Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Our Engineering is Elementary STEM unit, "Catching the Wind: Designing Windmills" has moved into the hands-on phase! Students are using what they know about sail materials and structure to design and test their own sails.  They selected the material to use from the available supplies (we evaluated them last week) and began with designs on paper. Using straws for frames and craft sticks for masts, most students completed at least one design, which were then tested on our sail track (shown above). What I learned / observed / inferred: This went about as well as I’d hoped, the kids had no trouble designing (at least moderately) successful sails. We had plenty of materials, plenty of time, and there was plenty of conversation, collaboration and celebration. Providing students with some ideas about possible designs helped a lot, but the best ideas came from students themselves as they iterated through various designs on their own. What students can do at home: The basic science concepts behind this unit are fairly simple, students could easily compare materials found around the home, examining the texture, properties and suitability for sail designs - they could even make and test their own. Check out the Third Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Having just finished the longest-running Engineering is Elementary STEM unit in our history, we had the students complete an assessment that was both a test of the knowledge they gained as well as their experience with presentations (Google Docs). Students worked independently to complete the assessment shown above and then shared the document with me electronically. What I observed / inferred / connected: The assessment took just about the entire available period, telling me the length was right. I have not reviewed them all yet but in retrospect I wish I had worked a collaborative element into the activity.  They could have worked with a partner (electronically) and divided up the work between them. Next time… What students can do at home: Work on keyboarding skills with Typing Pal. If they need help with their password, they can contact me, or, use the Parent Technology Help Desk. Check out the Fourth Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities!

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. Week ending 01/17/14 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: We warmed up with some shape identification/matching and a fun shape puzzle game from ABCYa.com before returning to the cubes by the SMART Board for a discussion about playing well together. (It’s one of the pro-social skills we work on in school.) Almost everyone could relate to a play date that didn’t go well for some reason, how it made them feel, and how it was resolved. Many thoughts were shared. It was a great discussion. We then watched Crawford Lets Everyone Play (the video above) and talked in various spots as the story unfolded, asking questions to stimulate even more conversation. When it was over, I asked the students to use Kerpoof.com to create an illustration of a playdate going well with appropriate graphics, dialog and text identifiers. We printed them in color. What I observed / inferred / connected: This was only the second time kids had used Kerpoof.com but thanks to its superior user interface and ease of use they were instantly productive, generating excellent images with little effort - meaning they could be extra creative in terms of composition. Kerpoof.com started having MASSIVE stability problems about mid-week and never fully recovered. Several students had to go with our Plan B, creating images using ABCYa’s  free and fabulous PaintGO site. Nothing wrong with that, just wasn’t the tool I wanted them to work with, and I hadn’t expected Kerpoof to go KERPOOF! What students can do at home: Using art-based Web 2.0 tools for self-expression is easy and fun. Check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for more possibilities! First grade students examine mortar in the Elementary school vestibule (2013) First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We finished reading the Engineering is Elementary storybook, "Yi Min’s Great Wall." Students were great listeners as they sat for a good 20-25 minutes, allowing me to get through the rest of the chapters. Conversation was great too thanks to the comprehension questions sprinkled throughout. We took a mini "field trip" into the vestibule outside the Elementary office to examine the mortar used in the bricks in our school. Kids ran their fingers on the mortar and felt what we believe to be sand rub off onto their fingers. Back in the classroom I gave the students a sneak peek of what to expect when we start mixing and testing mortars this coming week! What I observed / inferred / connected: Kids enjoyed finding out how the story ended and seeing the close relationship between Yi Min and her Grandfather. What students can do at home: We talked a lot about different kinds of mortar. Help your child see these in real life and ask them to guess what they might be made of. Be prepared for them to request a "finger test." Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Last week’s "water drops on a penny" exercise was equal parts crazy mad awesome science exploration -AND- data collection effort. I needed something to base a spreadsheet lesson on to make it "real;" and inventing fictitious numbers just didn’t seem right. So we gathered our data, I consolidated the entire second grade’s observations into a single spreadsheet, and we used that as the starting point for this lesson. First we reviewed the collected data for reasonableness. As you can see in the first image above, there are several outliers and some wild fluctuations. We talked about what we saw and what might explain the differences - how drops were placed on the pennies, size of the drops, table shaking, etc., and kids ate it up. They even observed things I missed. Impressive! We then looked at histograms of the predicted and actual data and saw some very interesting things. The predicted water drop numbers formed an almost perfect normal distribution, which we talked about. The actual water drop numbers had a bell-curve distribution as well, but with different characteristics, which we also discussed. The last part of the lesson involved creating a basic spreadsheet with simple formulas, which the students did mostly by themselves.  They then shared the spreadsheet with me. What I observed / inferred / connected: Keyboarding … keyboarding … keyboarding! Students with solid keyboarding skills were well ahead of everyone else during the creation aspect of the lesson. Can’t emphasize this enough. It’s the most important skill kids will learn in my class. Kids are great at spotting trends in data. Who knew? What students can do at home: Graphs are pretty simple to recreate even without a computer. They can be built with objects, drawn, etc. Here’s an example. The important thing is that the data collection is accurate. In this Edutopia article, "Wonder, Prediction and Student Engagement," author Dr. Richard Curwin speaks about the power of wonder and prediction in student learning. It’s a big part of what we do in my classroom. Check out the Second Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities and KEYBOARDING PRACTICE! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We had a second session of designing and testing sails, but this time, we recorded our data for further analysis later in the unit. Sail designs got bigger and crazier than ever before and kids learned what worked and what didn’t. What I learned / observed / inferred: Kids are fearless, especially in environments where experimentation and failure are encouraged. My classroom is unique in that respect. I’m convinced it’s one of the reasons why kids enjoy STEMLAB so much. I need to use stronger fishing line next time to minimize flex in the sail track. A lot of kids’ designs toppled over midway through, or wobbled, resulting in them traveling less far than they might have. What students can do at home: Ask your child what they thought of this activity. Did they get the results they expected? Why or why not? What materials worked well? What shapes? What about other students’ designs? Check out the Third Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities and KEYBOARDING PRACTICE! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Students worked through several Learning.com EasyTech tutorials on presentation software as preparation for a project we will be doing involving our 3D printer. What I observed / inferred / connected: EasyTech is a terrific service that allows students to learn at their own pace. We have been using it successfully for years to establish baseline skills and for refreshers when needed. Its gentle learning curve and clear instructions make it effective, even enjoyable as a means of acquiring or building skills. What students can do at home: We have provided the login information but can do so again at any time - if your child wishes to explore EasyTech at home, contact me! Check out the FourthGrade Symbaloo for fun learning activities and KEYBOARDING PRACTICE!

You don't want your project to fail, but how can you control it? Post from: The eLearning CoachHow To Avoid Project Failure

Part of the fascination and wonder associated with our 3D printer is literally letting one’s imagination run wild. Students have already asked: could you 3D print a HOUSE? Yep! See below: Click here for the source article on Mashable.com, and click here to visit the company behind the product, Contour Crafting. These are truly amazing times! Mr. Jarrett

I had an e-mail today to thank me for being one of the early adopters of Linked-In: "I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn’s first million members (member number 237,711 in fact!). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the early adopters, those who help lead the way. That was you." Total members is now 100 million! I feel like a pioneer though I have never really utilised the full potential of Linked-In. My profile is here (come and connect):  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jtacurran Read more at: http://100million.linkedin.com/ Infographic at: http://247wallst.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/linkedin-100m-user-chart-image.png

Book recommendations that provide inspiration, examples and guidelines for visualizing concepts, information and data.Post from: The eLearning Coach10 Books Of Visual Ideas

As we explore 3D printing more deeply in the STEMLAB, videos are immensely valuable for many reasons; for one, they help fuel the imagination. I’m currently using this short (2 minute) video, for a commercial 3D printing service called Shapeways, to do just that. While the 3D printing technology shown is different from our Makerbot Replicator 2, the essential messages in the video transcend any particular type of printer. Personally, I find them inspiring: "I’m not a designer, but, you know, now that I am seeing the possibilities of this technology, I’m starting to see the world differently, and you start to re-imagine objects around you." "People are taking the power of creation into their own hands." "It’s mind-blowing to build something today that was literally impossible yesterday." Those are some of the messages I want my students to hear. Check out the video below.

A look back at what we've seen in 2010 and speculation about 2011.Post from: The eLearning CoachLearning Technology Trends To Watch In 2011

I use Articulate Studio a lot in my e-learning projects. It’s a great tool and because it relies on PowerPoint as the primary authoring environment (Articulate Presenter is actually a PowerPoint add-on) it is ideal for trainers who are just getting into e-learning. This reliance on PowerPoint however has also caused some key problems - primarily because PowerPoint is a presentation tool not an e-learning development tool. It quite common to see e-learning that looks a lot like PowerPoint presentations with a voice over. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing -  Articualte Presenter was originally conceived as a presentation tool NOT an e-learning authoring tool (the name gives the game away). However as a learning designer I have always wanted to break out of the PowerPoint environment and be a little more creative with my e-learning projects. For a while now there has been some speculation as to when the next version of Articulate Studio (the current version is Studio 09) might appear and what additional features it may contain. More recently there has been speculation that it might abandon Flash altogether and take the HTML5 route. Well it appears that the mist is clearing and we will see in 2011 TWO new products from Articulate: A new product called Articulate Storyline which will be aimed at intermediate e-learning designers. This will be a standalone installed desktop application (like Quizmaker) and will publish to both Flash and HTML5 (primarily to keep us iPad owners happy). It will have a lot more creative control over learning interaction and also the player design. Release is due in Summer 2011. Articulate Studio will remain but will be upgraded with new functionality. It seems that this will still be the first choice for those just getting started in e-learning. Release is not until the end of 2011. And Quizmaker - well I assume that as a standalone product it will also get an upgrade and either be bundled with Storyline OR with Studio. This seems like a good strategy. We need a tool with the ease of use of Articulate Studio that can break free of the constraints of being a PowerPoint add-on BUT of course learning this tool is going to a challenge to those who have never developed any e-learning (or indeed any form of on-screen multimedia) before. Hopefully moving from Studio to Storyline will be reasonably straightforward so once Studio has been mastered there is a clear next step. The only downside? The extra cost of buying and managing two products in an organisation. But if they let us do more then that investment will be repaid quite quickly (one good client project might just do it)! There is limited information about the new products on the Articulate web site but there is a discussion thread here: http://community.articulate.com/forums/t/1694.aspx?PageIndex=2

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. Week ending 01/31/14 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: Knowing that Kindergarteners would be working on writing sentences by this time of the school year, I wanted to introduce them to some word processing concepts so we could begin writing in the STEMLAB on our Chromebooks. To get them ready, we fired up Learning.com EasyTech and dove into some lessons designed to give them the background knowledge they need to be successful. We also worked through some keyboarding lessons there too - more like "keyboarding awareness" than keyboarding per se as the only thing we are concerned about at this age is that they can FIND the keys they need to press. What I observed / inferred / connected: Learning.com’s EasyTech software is one of the easiest and best ways for students to get solid, foundation skills before we work on projects. The kids love the activities, they work at their own pace, they get the skills before they finally proceed. It’s a win-win-win. What students can do at home: EasyTech is available at home, we provided the login credentials at the start of the school year, if you’d like them, contact me! Check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for more possibilities. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Our first grade "materials engineers" got hands-on experience with three different earth materials - soil, sand and clay flour - to determine their properties when dry and wet and to find out which one made better mortar. Students examined each sample with magnifying lenses while recording our observations on a whiteboard. We added water and noted changes to color, texture and stickiness. Then we made "mortar sandwiches" using ceramic tiles which were dried overnight and tested. What I observed / inferred / connected: Words like "adhesion" and "torque" aren’t usually part of a First Grade lesson but they are in the STEMLAB! As expected, kids were delighted by the touch and feel of the dried earth materials used in the mortar sandwiches. As expected, the clay flour was the best mortar and we decided it would be the "base" for our rock wall mortar testing / creations next week. What students can do at home: Ask your child to explain the difference between soil, sand and clay - both dry and wet - when used for mortar. Let them tell you which would be the better choice and why. Ask them to provide specifics as to why they feel that way! Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for fun learning activities. Second and Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Second and Fourth Graders are preparing to do some presentation work so we took the opportunity to work through several related Learning.com EasyTech lessons. As an added bonus, students experimented with the 3D design application Tinkercad, mostly with great success, completing several tutorials including a basic key ring (as shown above). What I observed / inferred / connected: The Learning.com EasyTech lessons went about as well as they could have, allowing kids to work at their own pace and re-learn techniques as needed. Tinkercad was great fun and the tutorials were straightforward and effective. What students can do at home: Parents can create free Tinkercad accounts and work through the tool together with their children. Let them show you what they know! EasyTech is available at home, we provided the login credentials at the start of the school year, if you’d like them, contact me. Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After having read about how wind energy can be converted into rotational energy, students actually MADE IT HAPPEN in the STEMLAB by creating their own windmills. With some of the materials prebuilt to save time, students were able to focus their attention on designing windmill blades and determining where (and how many) to place on the hub for maximum lift. The initial goal was to get the blades to turn enough to lift an empty paper cup; from there, students tried to design a windmill strong enough to lift as many metal washers as possible. What I learned / observed / inferred: THIS. WAS. AMAZING!!! Everyone was successful to one degree or another and some were EXTREMELY successful; out most powerful windmill, shown above, EASILY lifted 60 metal washers - the base had to be held in place and cup could not hold any more! This lesson CAPTIVATED students and challenged their scientific understandings and design skills. Windmills featured as few as two and as many as thirteen blades and were made of a variety of materials. The pace was frenetic and the noise in the room was deafening at times but it was the best kind of noise - happy, enthusiastic and celebratory noise! What students can do at home: Ask your child about their windmill design. How well did it work initially? How did they redesign it? What change made it better? What surprises did they encounter? What design changes do they still need to make? We have at least one more week of work ahead with the windmills, we plan to make the most of it!

Last week I spent an excellent day at the University of Leeds sharing Articulate tips and tricks with 70 other UK based users. This is actually the third event of its kind - I completely missed the others in 2009 and 2010! The day is the brainchild of Dragos Ciobanu from the University of Leeds Development Support Unit supported by his team; Carol, Jade and Michelle. The University of Leeds currently has 212 user licenses of Articulate Studio - quite an impressive investment! Here are some of my observations on the day: The eight minute rule - apparently this is the maximum attention span in front of a piece of e-learning. When I first started developing e-learning an hour was the standard length of an e-learning programme. Today clients generally want something that is no more than 20-30 minutes but even I have recognised that 10-15 minutes is more popular with time pressed learners. Maybe we really do need to break things down into even smaller easily digestible chunks but it’s also possible that we are confusing  learning with information access.  There is an argument that good learning is actually slow learning (article to follow on that). Graeme Youngs repeated a message I have been telling clients and people on my Articulate courses - if something already exists as a document don’t rush headlong into putting all that content into your e-learning. Simply introduce the resource, explain why it’s important and provide it either as an attachment (file) or as a link (web based resource). Finally - if appropriate - test them on the content. All done in two slides plus a Quizmaker quiz! As well as saving heaps of time, if the resource changes it’s less likely to affect your e-learning. Steve Rayson from Kineo walked us through some really nice examples of Articulate developed using primarily PowerPoint and Engage and Quizmaker. Even pro e-learning companies keep things simple sometimes. One challenge he talked about specifically was ‘page wait’ due to poor corporate networks. That rings true with my own experience - people really don’t like to wait for the ‘spinning wheel’ too long while an Engage interaction with lots of embedded media loads up. As far as a collaborative authoring environment is concerned he was less enthusiastic about using Articulate. I have to agree - working on big collaborative projects is not a perfect application of the Articulate ‘workflow’. Kineo use CourseBuilder but you could also use Mohive or ContentPoint (ex Atlantic Link). Steve also mentioned ‘art direction’ which is key for getting a consistent look and feel - especially in a corporate branded environment. Matthew Lloyd from Omniplex took us through the complexities of ADDIE as it is applied to developing e-learning. Ouch! I do believe a development methodology can help but ADDIE needs serious simplification for the type of rapid authoring environment at which Articulate is targeted. Don Freda from Articulate gave us a demo of the pre-beta version of Storyline. It looks really good but is probably not the Studio killer I was hoping it would be. More in a separate article to come. Tony Lowe from Webducate talked about Articulate skins. Tony and his partner Rachael run Webducate which develops Articulate skins and also Flash interactions such as Dragster. We had an interesting presentation from Richard Windle from the University of Nottingham on ‘Open Resources in Education’. Think universities adopting the ‘freemium’ model. Why? Because sharing helps promote their areas of expertise and because most of what they do is publicly funded, so providing some resources back to society is a natural thing to do. He also shared some interesting results from feedback from e-learners. Apparently both bespoke Flash work and work developed using just the Articulate tools were pretty equally liked by learners. So the message is think twice before you spend all that cash of expensive Flash. However there are some circumstances when the bespoke solution is the best for the learning experience. In the afternoon there were some 5 minutes slots - one of which I gave on 10 gripes with Articulate. I’ll post my presentation with voice over is a later blog post. Robert Cochrane from the University of Leeds Engineering Department also gave a really interesting talk on using online learning to get MSc students up to flying speed. Thought this was a really creative use of online learning to prepare students for the full-on lecture room experience. And did I learn anything? Yes here are a few things I learnt: Sometimes it’s OK to let learner’s wander around a learning resource (some of the Leeds programmes adopt this ‘learn what you need approach’). Articulate ‘web objects’ can be used for variety of clever things - certificates, forms or even micro-web sites designed specifically as part of the course. The simplicity of Articulate causes lots of ‘workarounds’ to be employed and this actually fosters creativity and lateral thinking. And finally…I can’t wait to have a play with the beta version of Articulate Storyline! See you in Leeds next year. Useful Links: Articulate example projects from the conference

Need help starting a career in eLearning? Check these ways for getting into the field.Post from: The eLearning CoachJoining The eLearning Tribe

My STEMLAB Second Graders are taking part in the Doodle4Google challenge this year as an introduction to a unit on design thinking. We’re using our Great White Wall to ideate: Problem is, I need to clean the board every day for a new class. So, I’m going to transcribe the notes as best I can here every day to make it easy for everyone to review, ponder and revamp. The Doodle4Google prompt this year is: If I could invent one thing to make the world a better place… Here are the kids’ contributions, in no particular order, transcribed to the best of my ability (capturing the kids’ intent), by category as suggested by Google. (Some belong in different categories but I want to honor the students’ work and share as-is.) I will update this post every day after school. Animals Virtual animals for hunters to hunt instead of real animals. A machine that brings animals back to life. An animal force-field (for protection). Animal Teleporter (to get animals from place to place, like across highways). Animal Robot Butler. Hunter Alert - to tell animals when hunters are nearby. Food canon to shoot food toward animals. Red Light / Green Light to tell fish and sea animals when boats are coming. Friends & Family A floating skateboard A glue thing that fills holes (wounds) in your body. A machine that makes clothes (from trash? natural materials?) Robot assistants for old people that are blind or need help. A giant balloon that inflates by itself and catches old people if they fall. Gloves that make your hands hot or cold by the press of a button. A robot that makes food in one minute. Jet packs for people to escape robbers. A seagull poop shield. A happiness machine to make people happy. Automatic Voice Controlled Oven. Robot Doctors. Doctor Teleporters (to get them to places they are needed). Automatic Foot Massager. Imaginary Friend Glasses (they let you see you imaginary friend). Remote Control that stops family members from fighting. A machine that makes everything free in stores. Toast Deliverer (hands you toast when it is done so you don’t burn your hand.) Bully-Stopping Robot. School Drone (flies around and takes your classes for you). Heated Jacket. Restaurant Drone (delivers your food). Napkin Shirt. Robot to help you get dressed. Heated shirt. The World An anti-littering robot (drone?) A machine that sucks up litter. Robots that put equipment on for you. Robots that pick up garbage. A World Peace Maker. A button that makes a giant wave that wipes pollution out of the ocean. Safer playgrounds. A robot that turns bad people into good people. Automatic Food Maker/Dispenser. Car Teleporter (to move long distances quickly). Homework "Doer". Job Finder / Person Matcher. Robot Firemen. Giant Rock Breaker. House Maker Device. Our Community A microwave oven that is powered by the sun. Moving sidewalks for kids. Flying cars. A car that is powered by the sun. A bus that can fly in an emergency. Make a dog (robot?) to do our homework and chores. Robots that stop people from littering. Street light that is free to make and does not use electricity. A robot that can deliver food. A robot to help old people be stronger and feel younger. Flying Goose Poop Cleaner The Environment A machine that makes paper out of air. A machine that makes anything you need. Underwater garbage eater. A machine that can turn water into snow. A non-polluting car that has an engine made of plastic. A ship that picks up trash in the ocean. Automatic (Forest) Tree Planter. Self-Cutting Grass for lawns. Outdoor Large Scale Smoke Remover. Robot Litter Sucker. Trash-Eating Robot. Fire-Fighting Robot. More to come! Stay tuned!

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. Week ending 02/07/14 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: Kindergarteners are currently working on their sentence writing skills, so I took this opportunity to introduce them to the concept of doing so on a computer. Last week we laid the groundwork with an EasyTech lesson on words, spaces and the enter key. This week we put it to use. We began by reviewing sentence writing technique by hand while identifying the key components: start with a capital/uppercase letter, one space between words, finish with a punctuation/ending mark. We then discussed how this process is similar (and different) on a keyboard before sending them to their Chromebooks to get to work. I set up a unique Google Presentation for each student with a picture and a starter sentence. They were given the option to recopy the sentence as-is, copy one of several we posted on the board, or come up with their own by looking at the picture. They also had to put their name on the top using a capital/uppercase letter. "Kidspell" was allowed. I was mainly interested in their ability to capitalize, space, and keyboard correctly. What I observed / inferred / connected: This worked really, really well. Much better than I expected, across the range of abilities in class. Kids that were comfortable on the keyboard went bananas writing sentences, they just kept going and going (I provided several pages for them to use if desired.) Those who struggled were able to copy directly from the screen or whiteboard, with help from a teacher. Those in the middle just powered through. Everyone was productive, no one got frustrated. This was one of our most challenging lessons to date. A Google Presentation was the ideal container for this work. The standard slide layout was perfect; it had a space for their name at the top, a spot for the photo prompt, and a text box just big enough for simple sentence writing. The font was large and easy to see. It was everything we needed and worked wonderfully. What students can do at home: Practice writing simple sentences by hand first. If you have a computer, any word processor or text editor will do. Heck, even your email program will work - have your kids type sentences into an email and send them to friends and family. What I am looking for: capitalization of their names and first letters in the sentence; a single space between words; and some kind of ending mark. The Kindergarten  Symbaloo is always worth checking out, too! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: For this part of our Engineering is Elementary unit involving materials engineering, students built rock walls using two different types of mortar - clay flour mixed with either sand or soil, just like the character did in the storybook. Students worked in teams mixing the mortar and placing the rocks in designated sections for later testing (demolition!) What I observed / inferred / connected: This was, as expected, a highlight for the students - we all know they LOVE hands-on learning. It was messy, but we anticipated that, thanks to the smocks provided by Mrs. Lisa Pilli last year. (I can now add "doing a load of laundry every night" to my lesson plans.) Kids did a much better job this year designing the walls themselves because I took the time to explain how to stagger-stack the rocks and how to place the mortar. We created a total of 10 sections of rock wall, five each using the sand+clay and soil+clay mixtures. They are now fully dried and ready for testing in our next lesson. What students can do at home: I actually had a student come up and tell me they made mortar and a rock wall themselves at home. How cool is THAT! It’s the kind of inspiration I would love to see more of. The key concepts in this lesson involve understanding how different materials can be combined to create new materials, and, how water can make mortar soft and sticky and usable to create a structure. Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for fun digital activities! Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Second Graders are taking part in this year’s Doodle for Google competition, which will provide me with content to do a unit on presentations. We started by discussing the need for and process surrounding inventions, emphasizing the fact that everyone is an inventor (especially kids) and that inventions serve people / solve problems. We followed the Doodle for Google prompt and divided into groups to brainstorm ideas that could be the basis for doodles - specifically, what could they invent to help either: Animals, Friends/Family, the World, our local Community, or the Environment. We used the Great White Wall (above) to brainstorm ideas, which I dutifully transcribe every day onto this blog post for kids to refer to. At the end of class, we passed out copies of the official entry form and asked everyone to do a ROUGH FIRST DRAFT by the next class meeting. Students will then either re-do the draft in final form or choose another concept for their official entry. These creations will be photographed and inserted into Google Presentations which is the curricular link I was after from the start. What I observed / inferred / connected: The brainstorming worked amazingly well. Students had to work together for a limited time on a particular subject area and write down whatever they could - all ideas were welcomed. Conversations were great, kids supported each other and generally had a blast writing their ideas all over the whiteboard wall. What students can do at home: Keep brainstorming! Check the blog post for ideas and start doodling! We will be finishing up this coming week! Check out the Second Grade Symbaloo for other fun activities! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We had another session dedicated to building, testing and and improving our windmill designs. It’s very important to me that everyone have a chance to be successful with this activity. What I learned / observed / inferred: Everyone was able to get their windmills to work - to varying degrees. A pair of students in Mrs. Hinman’s class set a new record - their windmill lifted 92 (!) washers, the entire contents of the box we purchased for testing. It was quite an accomplishment! Despite our many successes, some students still did not grasp the key concepts of proper blade design and orientation, and as a result, their windmills were among those who struggled the most. We need different styrofoam balls for next year; the ones we used were too easily deformed by multiple blade insertions. Several failed completely. What students can do at home: I am hearing reports that students are creating these windmills at home - that is terrific - they are easy to make, just look at the photos. As students explore the connection between wind and rotational energy, ask them to improve their designs until it can lift greater and greater amounts. Check out the Third Grade Symbaloo for additional learning activities! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Needing a container / context for a unit on presentations, I came across "Back to KG???!!!," a terrific activity on the Stanford d.School’s K12 wiki focused on design thinking. I was immediately enamored with the theme / concept and its value as an introduction to the design thinking mindset. We started the lesson with a wide-ranging conversation about memories from kindergarten and what it is like today - setting up some very profound exchanges between kids, especially those who have younger siblings in Kindergarten. We then sent the kids into a Google Document (presentation) I’d created in advance where they had to respond to prompts (writing like this, on a keyboard, off the top of their heads, is a critical skill and one that is tested under the new PARCC assessments.) My goal with the prompts was to dredge up enough memories so that they would be able to come up with five excellent questions for next week - when we will be travelling to Kindergarten classrooms and interviewing students (individually and in groups.) What I observed / inferred / connected: This went really, really well. Even as fourth graders, these students experienced POWERFUL nostalgia for their first year of schooling. It is clear that many, many great memories are formed in those years, and a great deal of learning occurs. The interviews next week are going to be fantastic. What students can do at home: This is one of those rare times I have assigned homework in my class. For the students who have had this lesson, the homework is for them to come up with five questions to ask a kindergartner by our next class. Many finished in class; many others wanted to be able to access the Google Doc from home and work on it. I provided instructions for anyone that needs them on my classroom website: http://eslab.northfield.groupfusion.net/. Check out the Fourth Grade Symbaloo for even more learning activities!

I have seen the new Articulate Storyline - or at least a pre-beta version of it. Don Freda gave us a demo via webinar at the Articulate UK Users conference at the University of Leeds. So what does Storyline do that Studio doesn’t? Well it didn’t feel like a full Studio replacement but that may be because of the limited demo that we saw. First of all Storyline is a standalone program - it doesn’t rely on PowerPoint as its base authoring environment. This is both both good and bad - good because no longer do we have to rely on piggy backing off another application, bad because does it effectively recreate all the functionality that we relied upon in PowerPoint? I couldn’t get any pictures sadly but here are the menus from Storyline: Home, Insert, Slides, Design, Animations, View, Help, Character Tools (Design, Format) So what does each of these menus do? Well I really don’t know (even after watching the demo) but my best guess is that they pretty much replicate a lot of the PowerPoint functionality in the same way that PowerPoint functions such as animations etc. were added to Quizmaker 09. Most of Don’s demo focussed on the scenario building aspects of Storyline. Its ability to develop scenarios with different characters (using the Character Tools menus above) is really powerful. You can create libraries of different characters and then weave them into scenarios which use branching to take the learners on different routes through the content. So for example when you are presented with a scenario where two people are discussing a possible solution you can choose which solution you would go with and follow the ‘storyline’ from there. To make the scenario more believable you can even alter each character’s expression to suit the situation so Frankie can be happy, sad or even perplexed at the touch of a slider (well a drop-down actually). This capability is underpinned by things like ‘MouseOver’ or ‘Hover’ or ‘Click’ events just like in real app development. In this respect Storyline really does take hyperlinks and branching to a new level, and one which is way beyond what you can currently achieve easily with PowerPoint. Don also touched on whether it would work with the iPad. The good news is that it will - there will be a new publish option to iOS (though there may be some features not fully supported). How this will work for the two current form factors (iPhone and iPad) remains to be seen. There won’t however be a publish to HTML5 option. Regarding workflow it looks like Storyline will replace Studio as the core authoring environment and like Studio it will have the add Quizmaker or Engage buttons to drop in quizzes or learning interactions before finally publishing. So where does that leave Studio? Well Studio, Quizmaker and Engage are all due an upgrade by the end of this year so it seems that Studio (effectively Presenter) will be positioned as the entry level authoring environment while Storyline will be used by more advanced users. This strategy seems sensible and it allows an organisation to buy a certain number of Studio licenses for low level users and a smaller number of Storyline licenses for more advanced e-learning designers. The pricing for Storyline is apparently going to be ‘similar’ to Presenter so I guess that means it can be bought standalone or with Quizmaker and/or Engagage for $xxx Release date for Storyline is ‘this summer’. Will Studio users be able to upgrade to Storyline? Should we do so, or should we wait until the Studio upgrade later in the year? I don’t know the answer but it’s something I am definitely thinking about! That’s about it. Time to start designing my new Storyline course! I’ve requested to be included on the beta test programme so hopefully we will see more pretty shortly. Can’t wait! Follow Storyline thread on Articulate e-Learning Heroes Forum: http://community.articulate.com/forums/t/1694.aspx?PageIndex=2