Memphis City Schools might have its first interactive whiteboard made for 70 bucks, thanks to Aaron Fowles, who has got one up and running in his ESL classroom. Set up on an Asus eee, running Ubuntu, I think he is definitely setting the trend for Edupunk in our school district.
Here is a link to his blog entry, where you can view a Youtube video in which he demonstrates his interactive whiteboard made with a Wii remote and an infrared pen.
We’ve got an edupunk-centered presentation coming up at the Midsouth Technology Conference, where Aaron will demonstrate the Wii remote whiteboard. Be sure to come and see it!
North East Region of Sunderholm Detailed Map from RPGMapshare
Trying to get your students more involved in creative writing? Understanding map concepts in social studies? How about just looking for something creative that involves collaboration and critical thinking?
As a classroom teacher, I did an activity that involved map creation at least a couple times a year. Whether it was a scenario for creating geographical and social structures for an imaginary community or giving students a nudge to start coming up with fictional story ideas–even making grid map reading challenges for classmates. Most students seem to enjoy working with maps when you’re not asking them to color explorer routes of the 1500’s or find the latitude and longitude of Buenos Aires.
First, some map making/fantasy map gallery digital resources. Although it seems like a lot of these are used for role-playing games (never did really get into those), they could have good application for the classroom.
Dungeons Unlimited: Maps and Mini-Grids
University of Texas Historical Maps Library
Some possible activities:
1. Starting with a map, create your own country. Divide political boundaries, assign and name cities, rivers, mountain ranges, and lakes. Note how the climate is different in some regions, and how that affects the people living there. Write a historical timeline for the country. Create and draw the currency used. Describe current leaders and popular customs. Design the most important national holiday and some traditions associated with it. The list goes on for possibilities with this activity.
2. (Great group activity) You and the people in your group have been stranded on an island. You’ve explored and now know enough to design a map of the island. Decide where the best area to build your shelter would be. Specialize your group and decide which tasks of survival will be assigned to which group members. Decide how you will protect your shelter from storms and wild animals. Note on the map where resources like food, fresh water, and trees are located. Create rules for the members of your group. Using the map and creativity, work out a plan to keep some sort of signal visible in hopes of being seen by a passing boat or airplane, and get rescued.
3. Design a map of an area. It could be a forest, a space station, a city or town, a house, or even a cave. As you begin to add details and name places or objects on your map, think about how a story could be placed in this setting. Create a story that takes place in the setting you have created.
These are just a few ideas, but maps can be a starting point for some really meaningful and fun projects in class. Of course, consider using digital mapping tools!
If you are familiar with the Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship, then you might see how participating in a massive, multiplayer online game (MMO) could help students learn and practice the skills necessary to be a responsible digital citizen.
Digital etiquette (”netiquette”), digital communication, digital security…knowing how to be responsible in these areas is important when participating in an MMO. Plus, with the two that I am going to mention, it’s possible to get better at these skills while playing the game.
Unfortunately blocked for Tennessee schools, most likely because of the chat feature, Woogi World’s mission is:
In our safe and engaging virtual school at www.woogiworld.com, elementary-age children worldwide learn age-appropriate core educational content, essential 21st century skills, cyber safety and security, and responsible and ethical behavior that will yield academic success and the leaders of the future.
Another great online community is Secret Builders:
Not yet blocked for Tennessee schools, the vision of Secret Builders is:
Founded by a former teacher and developed by a core staff, the majority of who are parents themselves, our uncompromising vision for SecretBuilders is a positive, wholesome online outlet for children where they are actively engaged. Internet engagement is inevitable for this generation; turning into passive zombies is not. SecretBuilders will stimulate, educate and entertain through subtle immersion in cultural literacy.
Both games operate in similar fashion. Students choose or create a character that represents themselves, have a home or homepage within the community, and become citizens of the community. Both are academically focused, providing mini-games within that are core subject content focused. Both communities also provide opportunities to publish student writing. While the focus of Woogi World is more character-education driven, Secret Builders has more of a humanities drive. In the latter, students can interact with real-life science and humanities figures like Shakespeare and Albert Einstein, or can play games or go on quests with fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Lewis Carroll’s Alice. Both games are visually fantastic, engaging, and super safe for kids. For example, Secret Builders has a Citizen Patrol button, allowing players to quickly report any wrong-doing within the site, plus an online safety quiz, and a safe-chat feature.
My suggestions for using these games at school:
- Teach digital citizenship first. Make sure students understand netiquette, how to communicate, and internet safety rules. There are many resources available on these topics.
- Give an introduction to MMOs in general, and make sure students understand they are going to be the new kids in an already established digital community.
- Have students sign up with a teacher email. This way, you will be able to approve accounts and look up lost passwords. To avoid the whole “forgot my username/password” deal, provide pencils and slips of paper (preferably with spaces ready to fill in) for students to write down their account information.
- Create a Powerpoint, PDF, or even a handout that details some of the basic rules and gameplay directions so that you can review this with students; however, be sure they know how to locate the in-game FAQs or tutorials. Emphasize that if they want to figure out how to do something, they need to read the directions themselves.
Although I didn’t get far into Woogi World, their staff is very prompt with responding to inquiries, and I hope that perhaps my students will be able to use Woogi World in the future. One student decided to go ahead and get on it at home, with his grandma, and they came in to tell me that they really enjoyed playing it together. Secret Builders, likewise, is a good parent/child game. Also, this MMO has a feature called “One for All” which allows your students to help raise money for a good cause, or raise money for your school.
I teach in a computer lab and can have up to eight classes some days. If I want to assess my students with a test or quiz, using paper just wouldn’t work. Using Google Docs form/spreadsheet combo works great for this. Simply create the test by making a form, select a theme, save it, and create a link for the students. Once they submit their completed forms, Google Docs creates a spreadsheet of their answers. Once printed, I can go through and mark incorrect answers, and I’ve got some tangible evidence of data thanks to the option to view graph summaries.
This is an example test of mine on digital citizenship.
As the school website manager, I find that I really don’t want to deal with opening up GIMP or Photoshop (my really old old old version of Photoshop on my old old old eMac running 10.2…cripes), I turn to something easier when I need to crop or resize an image.
Seashore is an excellent image editor for Macs. It starts up quickly, makes a new file from your clipboard if you’re pasting from Grab or a screenshot, and does generally a quick fixeroo.
My favorite thing right now, though, is the MakeJPEG droplet. This is the best idea anyone has ever had. Here’s how it works. Drop an image, MakeJPEG converts it into a .jpg file and puts it on your desktop. When you put the MakeJPEG icons in the dock (for 60, 80, or 100 percent quality), all you have to do is drop the image you want onto the icon and poof! The image is now a .jpg on your desktop. This is wonderful for those pesky TIFF files from Grab that I have to convert before using them in a blog post, for example.
