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
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