21st Century Leaders

I watched a video seminar through the k-12 online conference website on 21st Century leaders. Their main point was that technology is everywhere and technology must not be an add on, but needs to be integrated into life and the classroom. Good school leaders should realize that educational goals should focus on a combination of "old school" teaching techniques and new technological ideas. Plan ahead, be prepared but be ready to adjust to the new changes within technology.

While this seems fairly self-explanatory, school leaders need to make this a major goal for their students and faculty. David Wells, (not the former pitcher) but the elementary school principal from Vermont, did a nice job of making sure everyone understood how vital this message really is. Do not turn a blind eye to technology, and if you realize how important it is, it can make you a great leader in this new century.

Screen-o-matic

So I tried today to record a "lesson" through the screen-o-matic technology tool. While I think this tool could be successful, today it proved to be more frustrating. It would not load on my fairly new laptop, and when it did load on an older computer, it froze and then would not export. I think it could be a good tool for students to use for review, or when they are sick, but this as caused the most problems for me thus far in the class.

I hope to fix them tomorrow and turn in the assignment but after today, I'm not very confident. More to come...




Ok so after 24 hrs of trying, it finally worked. It is short, but hopefully will give an example for the kids on how to access Moodle.

Scriblink and Etherpad

I continue to be amazed at the advancement of this technology. Scriblink and Etherpad are two online tools that are user-friendly and can be used easily by students and teachers alike. I really like that both do not require log-ins and registration, and just allows the students to begin working right away.

While Scriblink seems to be more math-related and not geared toward my history classes, Etherpad could work very well. it seems to be a less complicated version of GoogleDocs and more "ready" to use. It would be great for the students to work on laptops and compile information on the Etherpad rather than go through the mess of GoogleDocs or Wikis. I need to research it more, but I like the promise of it already. Perhaps I could use it for an exam review when we return from break...

More later. Thanks for reading!

MH

Google Docs

I just completed my "assignment" working with Google Docs. It seems to be an easy and hassle-free way to have staff and/or students collaborate. Perhaps we could use it with some peer editing for freshman essays or even the Junior Research Paper in the Spring. Some students were even using it the other day without my knowledge when collaborating on their WWI project! As always, the students remain clearly ahead of me in the technology field.

Kicking and Screaming

Erik Vanags and I are working with Moodle and are in the process of creating Wikis for our freshman World History project on Africa and the Americas. Erik knows what he is talking about, but I'm fairly clueless. Hopefully students will be patient with me as we can work together to try to incorporate more technology into the classroom. Suddenly, at 28, I feel like my grandfather trying to use a cell phone...

Stay tuned.

First Post

Hey guys,

Welcome to Double Star Triple Asterisk. This blog will be used for Mr. Hanley's history courses at Mariemont High School.

More to follow.

MH