MouseFlip Blog

A project that I am working on with some other ADEs here in Korea for this year is a project that will benefit our schools in Seoul and our hope is to provide a framework and valuable information to publish online to share with ADEs around the globe.The project centers around helping principals in practicing 21st century technology skills to accomplish their job's tasks.

The first step we accomplished was polling our principals (including vice principals) to find out what forms of technology they are already using. We then met with and emailed principals to discuss the results and to find out what areas they wanted to improve on or simply explore. We shared with our principals some best practices that other principals were using that increase efficiency and productivity.

Currently we are in the stage of setting up a customized technology program with principals that gives objectives and desirable outcomes and then meet with the principals individually face-to-face or online to discuss the progress, answer questions, and share ideas.

So far it is going very well and I hope to attend the ADE conference in Ireland this summer to share the results along with my dissertation results from the effects of a positive digital footprint among students in applying for jobs.

After finishing semester exams I fly out of the hustle and bustle of Seoul with my family back to Hawaii to enjoy a break. During this time I received an email from one of my students saying he had made a Christmas song with GarageBand and wanted to share it with me. I was not only impressed with the quality of his song but the fact that he is applying what he is learning in my class to what interests him outside of the classroom. I also caught a couple of my students making Christmas cards in Photoshop since we just finished learning the program.

So go ahead and have a listen to the Christmas song.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2012

I remember at my previous school in 2008 I was a student council advisor with my wife and we transitioned the election speeches to videos rather than formal speeches in front of the student body. The change was sparked partly because the students did not know how to give a good public speech with the whole high school body peering and juding them and the other reason was because of a couple inappropirate words and gestures in the speeches.

Forcing students to record videos of the message of their cpeech forced them to be more concise with a limited amount of time (instead of rambling at times) while allowing their speeches to go viral beyond the mere student body. Check out this year's student speeches:

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Give out an oral report assignment on how the body works or have students write a paper on anatomy and you may hear some groans...even from teachers and grading them. But allow students to write lyrics to a song incorporating the content learned and you may have an interesting assignment with students putting more effort into it. Even if they don't use GarageBand to create their own melody, this video shows that a couple of my former students singing accapella can produce an entertaining and catchy video, which was recorded in the wee hours of the night.

During an ADE Korea meetup, Darren Price posed a question, "Which Apple Distinguished Educator's value do you best identify with and wish to employ? After reviewing the various posters around the room that displayed each of the values, I chose Authentic Authors.

These days I am investing much time and effort into my Digital Footprint dissertation and trying to contribute original ideas to the topic. Also challenging my students to embark on their own digital footprint journey and be an author on the web: Yum Listens.

This image that I took in Melbourne while I was presenting at a technology conference reminds me to think and be creative above our current situations. Sometimes we go day by day with our heads down, we forget to elevate, look at our situation, and press on as authentic authors in the right direction.

 

The university that I attend online for my PhD decided to create a Facebook page and run a campain offering free school shirts to those who contributed their perspective of the school with a photo. I thought it was a practical and creative way to get school exposure on the web...something I don't see a lot of schools doing. Jeff Utecht wrote an interesting article about schools communicating to others through Facebook. Full Article

In this culture you have to be creative and use the web to get your name out for future jobs. This guy gets it.

Currently I'm teaching my students PowerPoint and since most already know the program I teach more of the advanced features. Here are some very helpful tools in PowerPoint you may want to familiarize yourself with:

During our professional development day at school yesterday I was given a break from presenting and was able to attend Kate Johnston's presentation on Digital Portfolios. I have presented on the topic before but enjoyed the fresh perspective Kate brought from a 7th grade teacher. She emphasized the use of Wikispaces (user friendly) but preferred GoogleSites due to their ability to customize. I liked how she used Diigo to add sticky notes to student portfolios when grading after they join her Diigo group.

Many times as a tech teacher I focus too much on the technology and design side of things and cut corners or forget the learning process. For example, she did a great job in providing clear detailed rubrics, specifically aligned the assignment with the appropriate standards, and even had students give a narrative reflection & rate their own portfolio.