November 5, 2013

Hello everyone!

Quint two is off to an exciting start!  As Alicia and I compiled these items from conversations we’ve had with many of you, and projects we’re working on we are a tad surprised at how packed this email is.   We hope it’s helpful and please let us know if you have questions or items to add.  Here’s what’s been happening with teaching, learning and technology here at NWS:

What’s working:

• There is excitement brewing about An Hour of Code  - http://csedweek.org/ - happening Dec. 9-15,  Ages 6 -106.  No math needed.  No computers either. Curious?  Talk with Cecilia, Alicia or me about more info:
• We have two new Macs in the computer lab.  They are shiny and working great.
•  Liza Beemster is experimenting with pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/ a visual bookmarking tool that lets you pin images/sites and collect your favourite things on boards.    She’s using the new projector and laptop cart in the Drawing Studio to share these images with students.
• In response to the interest in partnering with the ILAE school in Ethiopia around projects in Humanities, we purchased a  school-wide license of Voicethread: https://northwestschool.ed.voicethread.com/  Voicethread is a tool for having conversations around media.  For instance, upload images, documents or videos and then add commentary about the shared item(s).  Voicethread lets you and your students add their own video/audio/text comments and listen to others’ responses. This can be used by any teacher here at school.  Please let me or Alicia know if you’d like an account.  Keep your eyes peeled for more info – a laptop, lunch and learn is happening this Thursday from 10:40-noon in the Library Reading Room.  Please RSVP if you plan to come.
•   There’s a new projector in Photolab – it will have interactive whiteboard capabilities, short tutorials for teachers are coming soon. 
• COOL – Committee on Online Learning –is off to a busy quint.  You’ll hear more about the experimentation with online learning experiences in the coming weeks, but we look forward to hearing preliminary project proposals from all who are interested, curious and eager to experiment.  More info to come soon…

What’s wonky:

• Booking computer lab/laptop carts – Useful Subjects - Reminder to put your name, number of machines needed and where you will be (if using a laptop cart).  An example: Catherine Seaver – 10 laptops – Chavez
• The two old laptop carts in the upper hall – the lumbering ones from Carson and Fisken – are not to be used.  They are full of old laptops that are being refurbished and e-cycled.   We’ve just put some clear signs up but just wanted to send a friendly reminder.

What you wish for:

•  An explanation of the Snipping Tool – last wired weekday I mentioned this briefly, but didn’t give enough details.  The Snipping Tool is available from your Start Menu, under All Programs.  Once it loads you’ll notice your screen looks a little faded and your cursor has become a cropping tool.  Select the section of your screen you’d like to “snip”.  Release the mouse and that image will pop up in a separate window.  You can now save this – go to File, Save As – and use it in documents, emails etc.  Handy-dandy!
• A tad more info about EOM – this stands for End Of Message and can be used in the Subject line to indicate that the email has no content.  This can make email scanning more efficient and hopefully keep emails shorter when necessary. 
•  A more dynamic classroom in Skylight – the new projector and cart are almost fully functional, just waiting for a document camera, coming soon. 

Wildcard:

• There is a video rental store called On 15^th Video – at Harrison and 15^th – that has free video rentals for classroom use.  Enjoy!
• The new laptop cart in the Upper Hall is called Upper COW because it stands for Computers On Wheels – ironically, this laptop cart is agile and small.  Quite unlike some other cow-like carts I know…

Thanks so much for reading!

Have a great week,

Catherine and Alicia

Sept. 25, 2013

Hi everyone,

Alicia and I have been keeping tabs on all that’s been happening with teaching, learning and technology… you all have been busy!  Here’s the update on how we’re pushing our boundaries; our successes and struggles so far this year.  We hope this is useful to all of you, let us know!

What’s working:

• Marina, Cecilia, Ben and I are taking an online course with the Global Online Academy –– about Online Learning Environments.  We’re learning lots and eager to share with others.   
• The EOM (end of message) heading seems to be helping us be more succinct in emails.  An important note from Alicia – if replying to an EOM message, remove those letters from the subject to avoid confusion.
• Scott and Jeremy (and others!) are huge fans of the Snipping Tool – it’s popular because it lets you quickly grab a selected screen shot of your computer.  This can be helpful for all sorts of things – lesson plans,  
• We’ve had steady attendance at our open lab tech workshops.  Stay tuned for more sessions next week, advertised in the Monday Memo.
•  We’ve purchased 250 licenses for Adobe Creative Suite, each of which includes both an in-school and an at-home install.  All of those installs are available for faculty to request:
• If faculty would like a particular machine (or all the machines in a particular room) at school to have ACS, send an email to helpdesk@northwestschool.org , and this will happen.
• If faculty would like to install ACS on a home machine, send an email to helpdesk@northwestschool.org . A dvd will be burned for you to take home, do the install from, and then return.
•  Last year many teachers used our Flip Cameras and Bloggies to record student presentations, class trips and create student videos.  You requested more of these simple, hand-held video cameras and we bought 10 more cameras, we now have 15 working Bloggies.  

What’s wonky:

• The Earth Lab Smartboard’s mouse has been hijacked by the right hand corner of the board… We are working to fix this.  The work around is to unplug the usb connection to the Smartboard (this has already been done, but just in case – you’re now in the know!)
•  The Fisken classroom has an icky smell from time to time, and it seems to be connected to how long the bulb has been on in the projector.  This will be solved shortly with a new bulb.

What you wish for:

•  Perhaps one of the cutest tech issues reported lately, the new Hutch Laptops have touchpads that are too big for the little hands of middle school students.  So, a classroom set of mice will accompany the new Hutch laptop cart.  We hope to have this portable collection ready next week, in the meantime, pop by the Library to borrow a set from the AV closet.
•  Many of you have expressed interest in more hands-on training using Smart Boards.  There is a workshop offered through NWAIS – the Classroom Technology Workshop - happening Oct. 25^th at Epiphany School.  http://www.nwais.org/page.cfm?id=18&verbose=7845  We will also have ongoing open lab sessions.
• The humanities department is considering collaboratively study a novel with the ILEA school in Ethiopia -  using Voicethread as a way to leave comments (video/audio) on a shared document/presentation.  We’re looking into purchasing a school license – you can find out more about Voicethread here: http://vimeo.com/32856071 (ignore the Penn State info at the end)

Have a fabulous day!

Catherine and Alicia

Sept. 4, 2013

Helllo everyone!

You know that moment when you think.. if I just had a bit more information I could craft the perfect email and all will be made clear??

Well… this is not that email.

Instead, I hope this gets most of your devices online and if you encounter problems with these steps please talk with any of the IT folks, me or Alicia.  The reason for this is that there are so many permutations of how this works (on Macs, PCs, Droid, and Chrome devices) that we haven’t been able to test and document everything.  So instead, I’ve written out the basic set up for the most common scenarios.  Use your own troubleshooting skills to make it work and ask any of your friendly IT/Ed Tech team for help.  Or send an email to helpdesk@northwestschool.org

Think of this as access very much like you’d get a coffeehouse.  Specifically, to access files on the Common Server or in your H drive you’ll need to use the VPN as you’ve done in the past. 

From your Mac laptop:

1. Go to your Wi-Fi icon
2.  Select Join Other…
3.  Type in NWS-Faculty
4. Click Join 
5.  Open a browser and you may receive an error message about security settings here – allow this site as an exception if this happens.
6. Enter your NWS network username and password when prompted.
7. You’re all set for the next 2 hours. 

From your PC laptop:

1. Go to the Wireless Network icon (bottom right corner)
2. Right click and select “Open Network and Sharing Center”
3.  Select “Connect to a Network”
4.  You’ll see a list of networks, select Other Network
5. Click on Connect
6. Type in NWS- Faculty (the uppercase letters matter)
7. Click OK
8. You may need to wait for a moment before a screen appears and prompts you to log in.  If you do not get prompted – open a browser (IE or Firefox or Chrome etc.) and you should on the first screen be required to enter your NWS network username and Password.
• Note: You may be asked to change security settings/allow the site as an exception – click Yes.  If you receive an error about a missing certificate click Continue (even if it’s “Unrecommended”)
9. You’re all set for the next 2 hours

From your phone: (iOS, Droid and Windows phone)

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on Wi-Fi
3. Select Other… or Add Network (depending on your type of Smartphone)
4. Type in NWS-Faculty  (the capitalization matters)
5. Leave the security option as: None
6. Click Join
7. You’ll soon see the network appear on the list and very shortly a browser window should open with your NWS network login (if you receive a “certificate error” just click Continue)
8. Enter your NWS network username and password
9. You may see a blank screen that has a tine “Success” in the top left hand corner.  Click Done!
10. You’re all set for the next 2 hours. 

Good luck and happy networking!

Catherine & Alicia

p.s. For new faculty, this is not the usual structure of my “Wired Weekday” emails… more of those to come.   Alicia and I are aiming to send them out every 2 weeks or so.

May 9, 2013

Hello hello!

Happy Quint 5 to all of you. 

Here’s a quick overview of things that have been happening in teaching and technology in the past few weeks.

What’s working:

-         Sometimes it’s the small things that can save you a lot of time.   Renee F and Jeremy have both been using the Snipping Tool to quickly grab screen shots (just search in All Programs for the Snipping Tool and use the cursor to snap a copy of any image on your screen).  As well, a quick way to enlarge or shrink anything in your browser  is to hold the Ctrl button and the + or – button, to enlarge or shrink respectively.

-          Darren and other humanities teachers are modeling collaborative writing with Google Drive (previously Google Docs), here are some helpful tips and resources: http://gettingsmart.com/cms/blog/2012/09/google_docs_for_collaborative_writing/

-          Susan has set up a Dance Studio Calendar in Outlook – you can view the calendar (add Calendar in Outlook) to see when the Dance Studio is available as well as book the space for activities.

-          Jen’s international drama project – The Water Reckoning Rolling Role Project – is using a combination of websites including http://PlaceStories.com  (PlaceStories allows individuals or  groups of people to create digital stories, communicate and collaborate online), Google Hangouts, Google Drive and it’s all described on the project webpage: http://www.water-reckoning.net/index.html

-          Tuney and Rosalyn shared some great teaching ideas including how to check the reading level of a document in Word: http://grok.lsu.edu/Article.aspx?articleid=14250

-          I created a blog for NWS Wired Weekday postings - http://wiredweekday.blogspot.com/ - you can check it out for the full collection of Wired Weekday (previously Wired Wednesday) emails I’ve sent.  It’s searchable and a nice look back at what we’ve been up to here at school!

-          Our IT team upgraded the wireless network over the break… so great to have reliable, faster access!  More on this topic coming soon…

What’s wonky:

-          Email Etiquette -  We’ve seen some discouraging email etiquette lately.  For ways to encourage more courteous correspondence, check out this “contact me” page from David Montero’s teacher page: http://teachers.northwestschool.org/nws/dmontero/contact

To add this to your teacher page, login to SWIFT go to the Contact Me (or equivalent page on your site) and in that top Introduction field enter in text you’d like to appear.

What you wish for:

-          There has been a growing interest in more robust discussion tools.  I’ve been exploring options and this looks interesting: https://piazza.com/profs  I’ve been thinking about the possibility of a department-wide online discussion area/component… eg. Humanities or Math.  Could be interesting!

-          Free group calls with Skype?  Your wish is granted… check out Skype in the classroom: https://education.skype.com/ and sign up for 12 month  of free group calls (connecting with up to 9 multiple groups).  Skype in the classroom also has lesson themes you can search to find classrooms that are doing similar activities around the world.

Wild Cards:

-          Alicia just let me know about the free streaming videos from https://www.hoopladigital.com/  - a free alternative to Netflix.    Seattle Public Library is part of the initial group of library systems offering the service and all you need is your library card number and pin to log in. 

-          I’ve seen some excellent TEDtalks lately but a standout was by author, Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of the single story: http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Or check out TED Playlists – Collections for Curious Minds: http://www.ted.com/playlists

-          There are more spring/summer tech workshops through PSESD – a Google Day and more: http://www.psesd.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=327&Itemid=499

-          There is a free un-conference on teaching and technology happening Saturday, May 18^th – Puget Sound EdCamp - http://www.edcampseattle.org/

Thanks so much for reading!

-Catherine

March 8, 2013

Hello everyone,

On such a beautiful day I hope you all get a chance to enjoy the sunshine and unplug this weekend.   Today, the 6^th grade had an unplugged day (including poetry reading by candle light) and like many people who took part in the National Day of Unplugging last weekend, it sounds like they totally enjoyed themselves.    If you’re curious about this whole unplugging thing (and why it’s in my wired Wednesday) pop by the lab, email or let’s chat over lunch.

Below are some of the highlights of what’s been going on in the past few weeks as we use technology for teaching and learning.

What’s working:

-          Teaching in the Lab- York has a fabulous strategy for teaching in the Computer Lab… walk around the room but  teach from the back of the class, have students turn around and face you (turning their backs on the distracting computer screen and keyboard).  The key for teaching in this space is to roam, check out screens, and keep their eyes on you when you want attention.

-          David Montero Is using Edmodo for a secure online class experience – he is using it as a space for online interaction between our students and students in our partner school in Sevilla.   http://www.edmodo.com

-          The CRAAP test is taking off – more here -  and we have a few websites to have students test out the criteria, including:

o   Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus – a great hoax and excellent critical thinking activity http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

What’s wonky:

-          Laptop cart hygiene – we’ve been seeing quite a few laptops not plugged in when they are put back in the carts, thank you for increasing your vigilance.   And, as Tuney highlighted at Community Meeting, please keep an eye out for students damaging keyboards and removing keys.

-          The IT Team has been making a few changes to the student profile – making it much faster for students to log in  We’ve seen a big improvement and the only snag has been that sometimes the default printer is not the one that’s closest to the computer.  Please have students check which printer they are printing to, if confusion arises.  

What you wish for:

-          An upgrade to our Survey Monkey/ Zoomerang account – this is in the works. 

-          Good typing resources – I’ve found a nice curated list of fun, typing games: https://sites.google.com/site/whiteoaktechlab/home/typing

-          While sitting in on meetings and talking to many of you in the hall I’ve heard that there’s a desire for some tutorials on computer skills – from basic to more savy topics – these are excellent: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computers

-          There’s been some ongoing interest in teaching students how to code –here’s a great interactive, free site: http://www.codecademy.com  And for those of you wanting to teach computer science concepts without a computer – check out  http://csunplugged.org/ CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.

Wildcard(s)

-          At the end of January, I presented at the NWS Parent Forum – there were 80 parents in attendance and we had a rousing good time.  The focus was on Finding The Right Balance, and we spoke about how to guide our children in finding the right balance with technology in their lives (and about how to balance it in our own lives).  The podcast of the talk is here:   and all the resources I used in the presentation are on my teacher page: http://teachers.northwestschool.org/nws/cseaver/parent-resources

-          Next week is Teen Tech Week – http://teentechweek.ning.com/ - Check out new books and resources in the library and lab.  The purpose of Teen Tech Week is to ensure that teens are competent and ethical users of digital media, especially the nonprint resources offered through libraries, such as e-books, e-readers, databases, audiobooks, and social media.   

Wow. Thanks for reading this far!

I hope this has been helpful.

 

Enjoy the sunshine!

Catherine

 

February 15, 2013

Hello everyone,

I believe most of us are too weary for anything more wired than this fun little video… 

I hope it makes your day:

http://vimeo.com/58659769

I will send out a much more dense email in the first week of next quint about all that’s been going on around teaching with technology.  Thank you to so many of you who have reached out to Nancy, Alicia and me to include more information and digital literacy in your classrooms – we have been busy!

Until then, good luck with evaluations and be well,

Catherine

 

 

January 22, 2013

Hello everyone,

I can’t quite believe we’ve only been back for two weeks!  This is a busy place and this wired weekday email is almost bursting at the seams.

Here’s what’s happening with teaching and technology here at school:

What’s working:

-          David Matlock is introducing students to the fundamentals of investing using the very cool website, Wall Street Survivor: http://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/ Even students not in the class seem to be trying out the site.

-          Last year we had a surge of interest in blended learning and “flipping the classroom”-  turning a lecture or other basic materials into homework (watching a video of a lecture, explaining a concept online), and spending more class time in practice and problem-solving.  It’s also popular at UW (among other places) and highlighted recently in the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019920197_flipping17m.html

-          Nancy, Alicia and I have pulled together some useful handouts and videos to help students evaluate resources (books, articles, websites etc).  The CRAAP test (we love the name, the acronym stands for Currency Relevance Authority Accuracy Purpose )is straightforward and easy to use.  You can use the handouts or the quick Youtube description in your classes as lessons or starting points for discussion: http://teachers.northwestschool.org/nws/cseaver/class-resources

-          My Backpack updates: you are now able to see a listing of  student’s teachers.  You are also able to see students’ email addresses.  Follow these steps:

o   Log into My Backback, Search for an individual student.  Select “Details” next to the student’s name.  Click the “Schedules Tab” and on this new page, select the icon above the list, to the left (it looks like a grid) to display “as a list”.  The student’s teachers will be listed.

o   You are also able to see students’ email addresses in My Backpack.  Please only use the Upper School students’ email addresses.  Middle School parents have not given permission to use these email addresses for direct contact of students. This information is also available in the Details section once you search for a specific student.

-          The computer lab and library is no longer a space for Computer Games (read: Minecraft madness is behind us) over lunch time.  This means that students and staff can use the space to do work.  We’ve seen an increase in magnetic poetry writing, face-to-face interactions, as well as MAD magazine and graphic novel consumption.  A huge thank you to Joe for coordinating alternative activities for the middle school students and to MS teachers for supervising.

What you wish for:

-          Tamara and Julie would love to see our default search engine on IE be changed from Bing to Google – Google has a much more robust image search that allows students to actually click back to the original webpage and as a result credit sources effectively.

-          A new audio system in the Commons is woefully needed  – I am contacting people for quotes so if you are interested in seeing any other specific AV capabilities in that space, please let me know.

-          There’s already been a request to add a projector and laptop cart to Standifer to make the room more versatile.  Please submit a tech request if you have other items you’d like to see happen.  The form is located here. 

What’s wonky:

-          Lately we’ve seen teachers’ computers being used by students without the teacher’s knowledge or consent.  I encourage you to lock your computer if you leave it unattended and to set your screen lock up in advance.   If you have your own desktop (instead of using a shared computer in the school) these are the steps to automatically lock your computer when you’re away: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29410/beginner-automatically-lock-your-computer-when-youre-away/

-          A short note from Peter:

Hello everyone and welcome to 2013. There was something I wanted to bring up but figured two days before break started would be pretty poor timing. Over the past month while the kids have been at school, there has been a rash of keyboard vandalism. I know it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal – but I just wanted to bring it up because replacing keys on the keyboards are actually a real pain in certain places (especially for someone born with 10 left thumbs like me). I understand that some of the keys will just come off due to general wear and tear of being used and abused five days a week. But a lot of times they also come off because of wandering fingers that get bored and just like to pry. In fact, I actually ran out of used H keys and we had to order a new keyboard at the sum of thirty dollars. For one letter. So if you could keep an eye out, maybe let the kids know that twirling hair/doodling on a note pad are also appropriate things to do when zoning out I would greatly appreciate it.

Wild Cards:

-          The NCCE conference is coming up – February 26 – March 1 in Portland, OR -  and I will be coordinating a group of eager teachers.  If you are interested in attending please let me know.  The conference info is here: http://www.ncce.org/2013-home-page.html

-          Gabriel Teodros - the fabulous Hip Hop artist who performed at the end of our MLK celebration - has a TEDx talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvpgggGYtW4

-          This flowchart recently made me laugh - it is the Tech Support Cheat Sheet: http://xkcd.com/627/  (thank you Peter!)

Thanks for making it through this jam-packed installment of the Wired Weekday.

I look forward to seeing more of you in meetings and popping into classes in the coming days.

All the best,

Catherine