Girls: Creativity on the Web

The NY Times has an article today that teachers should note: Don't think of the Internet as a guy thing. Here's just a bit of it...click the title link for the complete article (may require registration, but it's free now).

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

OpenEducation: 12 Must-See Education Videos of 2007

The OpenEducation.net blog has posted its top "must-see" education videos of 2007. You can see them by clicking the title link (above). Here are the topics:

- Research into learning: Babies being able to discern helpful versus oppositional behavior.

- Research into learning: Young children interacting with robots.

- Education yesterday and the challenges of tomorrow.

- A video put together by college students at Kansas State in a video ethnography class. Depending on your perspective, the problem lies with the other group, yet both groups see the problem. The ambiguity makes this video absolutely stunning.

- Some professionals' view of homework.

- A Carnegie-Mellon professor’s last lecture.

- The classroom of yesteryear, a teacher-centered classroom that is anything but engaging.

- A teacher rap.

- A business video called elements of greatness.

- Technology Fear Factor.

- And a little comedy video at the end.

We're pretty sure we'd pick different videos, but since we didn't, we'll point you to their post.

History Resource: Online Archives!

Lifehacker had a great post this week featuring some of the archives available on the internet. These are a great resource for your students doing research. Some of the archives listed in the article (as well as those mentioned by commenters - good stuff!) were:

Time Magazine has archived all of its articles since 1923. Using this archive is a great way to get "as it was" journalism in the hands of your students....It's also a great way to teach them that they need to be smart about their search terms. If you type in Battle of the Bulge, for example, you'll be inundated with recent articles on weight-gaining Americans rather than on-the-spot reporting from the front lines in France. A tremendous resource -- it's free, although your students will be subjected to a ton of advertisements (as in many magazines).

The David Rumsey Map Collection, an archive of over 15,000 maps online, is huge. If you know what you're looking for, it's wonderful.

Google News Archives is listed as "an easy way to browse past copies of newspapers, journals and news magazines. In addition, Wikipedia has compiled a long list of online newspaper archives."

The Rockefeller Archives has "literally hundreds of thousands of documents are available here for viewing in at least six different archival collections."

Mutopia has music archives organized by instrument, composer and style.

More than 170 companion sites to episodes of NOVA, the public television science program.

The Smithsonian magazine has an archive for every magazine published from 1995 to the present; you can also browse past copies of Air and Space magazine.

It's possible that the Obsolete Computers archive has pictures of machines we still use in public schools....

The National Archives, a vast collection of archived historical documents available to the general public. There's also the Archive of Folk Culture, the archive of terrorist attacks on the United States, and the Department of Labor archives.

National Geographic Photo of the day archive: [lava.nationalgeographic.com]

The www.TheEuropeanLibrary.org gives access to the combined resources of Europe's National Libraries. It has been asked to help build a 'European digital library'. This initiative goes beyond national libraries aiming to include all digital cultural heritage collections contained in archives, museums and libraries across Europe.

The first webcasts of the year are up!

We've posted the year's first three webcasts over on the OTAC site. You can find them on the Webcast Directory page. (Yes, it's gotten long and we need to rearrange it....that's on our ToDo List.) The first three webcasts are:

• Grants for Art in Education: Aaron Jones, from the Oklahoma Arts Council, did a webcast to help schools (1) find out about available funds and (2) complete their applications for grants.
• K20 Partnership Update: Lisa Pryor and Laura Buxton from that Oklahoma State Department of Education joined us to talk about the new co-teaching project for Alternative Education Academies. We are very excited about this project!!
• Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention: Over the summer, Fran Roberson from the Center for Children and Families in Norman recorded a series of webcasts on this topic. (Thank you, Fran!) There are four parts to the series. Part I is available now; the remaining three parts will be available soon. The link to this series is near the top of the Webcast Directory page, or you can use this direct link.

We are hoping to record about four webcasts a month this year -- two for general education and two that are more directed to working with children at risk (although these topics cross over quite a bit). We have the next couple of months planned, but we are always happy to hear your suggestions. So, keep those cards & letters coming....

Online Resource: Safe Social Networking Workshop

Wes Fryer (Speed of Creativity) has posted the curriculum from his day-long workshop on safe digital social networking. He's also published the recorded audio from the workshop on his blog as well as links to movies that he used during his presentation. Here's the intro to his workshop materials:

Generally, adults help young people learn to drive safely before giving them car keys and turning them loose on the streets of the world. Young people also need guidance and adult assistance to learn how to safely navigate the virtual environments of the 21st Century. Schools must be proactive, rather than merely defensive, in helping students acquire the skills of digital citizenship needed today and in the future. Simply banning read/write web tools on school networks is an inadequate response: Educators must strive to learn alongside students and parents how these technologies can be safely and powerfully used to communicate and collaborate.

Earth Science Bonanza: Google Earth Adds the Night Sky

If you aren't using Google Earth as a teaching tool, you're missing a great resource (a free one!). It just got better! According the the Machinist tech newsblog on Salon.com (it's free, but you have to watch an ad), you can see far more of the universe through Google Earth than you can from your backyard. Look around. Zoom around. Go broad or go deep space....Makes us want to teach Earth Science again! Here's the scoop from the Machinist:

Google has added the heavens to its Earth. In the latest version of the company's geographical browsing software Google Earth, you'll find more than a million astronomical photographs stitched together to give you a deep picture of the sky.

The software will display diagrams of constellations, Hubble telescope pictures of the far reaches of the galaxy, and animated graphics of the planets and other bodies as they move in the sky. The sky portion of Google Earth is also, like the earth, fully searchable. Type in "pinwheel galaxy" and the software zooms you there -- or anywhere else among 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies.

Astronomers are delighted by the new feature; several tell the New York Times that it could get kids excited about astronomy.

Get Google Sky in the latest Google Earth.

MySpace: Good for Your Students!

We are strong advocates of using the real world to enhance classroom learning, so we've been dismayed by schools' blocking access to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. (The web IS the real world now.) Education Week's online edition (requires free registration) reports on a study by the National School Boards Association that shows....well, we'll let you read it for yourself. The first few paragraphs are below; click the title to read the entire article. I've put a few things in boldface type, 'cuz I didn't want y'all to miss 'em!

At least half the adolescents who exchange messages for hours with their friends online or by cellphone spend part of the time discussing their schoolwork, a new study shows.

An online survey of 1,277 9- to 17-year-olds found that 50 percent said they talk specifically about their schoolwork when they text-message by cellphone, or use their computers to instant-message, blog, or visit social-connection sites such as Facebook. Nearly six in 10 said they discuss education-related topics, including college or college planning, careers, and jobs.

The survey, commissioned by the Alexandria, Va.-based National School Boards Association and released today, showed that 96 percent of adolescents with access to cellphones and Internet-capable computers use them to build and maintain social networks.

NSBA leaders believe those numbers must point the way for educators. Social-networking technologies are so popular and offer such promise for education that district and school officials would be remiss not to adapt them for the classroom, they said.

“When it’s another generation’s technology, it’s easy to be uncomfortable with it and say we don’t need it,” said Ann Flynn, the NSBA’s director of educational technology. “We want to say to people, explore these things. Figure out what kinds of tools they are. By no means are we saying people shouldn’t be safe. But we also don’t want to see policies that are so restrictive that the unintended consequence is to keep the technology out of the hands of educators.”

The NSBA’s report urges school board members to “find ways to harness the educational value” of social networking, such as setting up chat rooms or online journals that allow students to talk about and collaborate on their classwork. Boards should also do everything possible to ensure that all students have access to the Internet, the group says.

The report also tells school boards to re-evaluate policies that ban or tightly restrict the use of the Internet or social-networking sites. Findings from the survey, NSBA officials said, suggest that parents’ and educators’ perceptions of the dangers of online stalking and bullying—fears that fuel such restrictions—could be overblown.

Seven percent of adolescents responding to the survey said they had been bullied on social-networking sites, and fewer than 3 percent said unwelcome strangers had tried repeatedly to connect with them online. Two percent said that someone they met online had tried to meet them in person, and only .08 percent said they had gotten together with someone they met online without their parents’ permission. An online parent survey on those issues, part of the same study, backs up the adolescents’ accounts.

“The vast majority of students, then, seem to be living by the online-safety behaviors they learn at home and at school,” the report says. “School district leaders seem to believe that negative experiences with social networking are more common than students and parents report.”

Got 5 minutes? Watch this video!

M.U.S.I.C. !!

You find the most interesting things sometimes when you're browsing....

I found this last night while looking at the MySpace page for Dar Williams:

M.U.S.I.C.
Musicians United for Songs in the Classroom, Inc.

M.U.S.I.C. is a nonprofit organization promoting arts integration through the study of popular music.

~ About M. U. S. I. C. -- Critical thinking and media literacy curriculum and products for grades 7-12

~ Popular Song Directory and Index -- A database of over 3,000 songs for use in the classroom.

~ Classroom Activities / Reading Room / Links – Methods and Resources for K-12 teachers.

~The Stories Behind the Songs -- An interdisciplinary song lyric reference guide.

~ Gallery -- View examples of student’s visual projects and written work.

Teach with Web Tools

The creative and collaborative uses of computers are changing the ways that students learn and the ways that teachers teach. “Better Teaching with Web Tools” in the May/June 2007 issue of Harvard Education Letter addresses how Web tools such as wikis, blogs, and podcasts can provide students opportunities to learn and to collaborate in ways never before available. Teaching and learning are no longer confined to the physical classroom but can take place anywhere, anytime one has access to the Internet.

In keeping with the over 30 year tradition of providing high quality professional development to Oklahoma schools, teachers, administrators, and students, OTAC is in the process of producing a series of instructional WebCasts on the uses of Web tools. Several are already available and we'll be producing more over the coming year. Watch for the announcement of these professional development opportunities and register to join the thousands of educators that are using Web tools to enhance teaching and to motivate students.