The article goes on to address how students are using wikis, blogs, video-conferencing and instant messaging, all within the context of their classes.

"All of those things add up to higher levels of achievement," said Chris Dede, a professor in learning technologies at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. "It’s not so much the technology, it’s about how to make meaning out of the complex by using technology as a partner."

The article is an exciting glimpse into a practical, well-reasoned, and appropriate implemention of technology into students' learning.

[via @kloza]

• One in six of respondents said they thought that Auschwitz is a theme park based on the Second World War.
•  One in 20 said that the Holocaust was the celebration of the end of the war, whilst one in ten said they believed that the SS were Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven [the British version of the Babysitter's Club/ Boxcar Kids/ Nancy Drew].
• One in twelve thought The Blitz was a huge cleanup operation after the war, a quarter believed that D-Day stood for “Dooms Day” and thought that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Pearl Harbour.
• Around 40 per cent of children did not know that Remembrance Day was 11 November, while 12 per cent thought the McDonalds logo was the symbol of Remembrance Day.
• A quarter of respondents said they do not think of the sacrifices made by the soldiers who died in war, but 70 per cent said they wanted to learn more about the Second World War at school.

While these results are certainly disturbing, it raises an old question about what is really important and worth knowing. What are the "essential understandings" (the Need-to-Knows), versus what are the less important details that fill out the larger field of knowledge? These are questions that we can hopefully answer for ourselves and our students - and they highlight the need to collaborate, and come to a shared understanding of what the level-wide Need-to-Knows are, versus the teacher-specific bits that complement the course outcomes.

I cannot help but think about the Curriculum Design & Review Process that we are formalizing this year, and the questions that process engenders. "Do we, as a level or a Department, have defined standards?" "Do we have clear performance expectations?" "Do we have communicated shared goals?"

"Do we gather learning results regularly and consistently?" As troubling as the British survey above is, the only way anyone can be troubled is because assessment results were gathered, the data analyzed, and the results published.

Good curriculum, good instruction, and good reflection are all required to help students learn the best content, skills, and attitudes that a school has to offer.

Photo credit:
Intense by cbcastro.

In this post, I would like to address one facet of good design, using images for the greatest impact. We have all seen presentations that were just massive blocks of text, usually bullet-pointed, that was then read to us. What presenters should be doing is telling a story, and sometimes that story is accentuated by an image.

Imagine a story being told about ancient Rome and the transition from Republic to Empire; to tell that story well, we would need to talk about Julius Caesar. (You can substitute any topic, figure, event, or issue that you want.)

This is the default slide that Powerpoint encourages. Notice the title, picture, and box of bullet points.

This slide could be fancied up by applying a template or some color, but that does not change the "design" of the slide.

The version below is slightly better in that it moved the dates of Caesar's life into the context of Caesar's image, and it has removed the block of text. The block of text should be spoken by the presenter and expanded upon. All too often though, that text is read to us, and then the slide is advanced to the next. The slide below is better because the audience will focus more on the presenter, and the presenter will have to talk about Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon and all that entailed.

Notice how much more effective the above slide is, compared to the one below. A picture is far more engaging than clip-art, which should almost never be used.

Returning to the slide with Caesar's image, I think it would have greater impact if the limited text that we have on the slide now "popped" more; it needs to have greater contrast. For some reason, white text on a black background has greater impact.

It is looking good! There is still quite a bit of unnecessarily blank space on the slide. If a slide is going to have an image, then use the image to its fullest, as in the slide below.

As with all things, it is possible to go too far. The slide below, for example, has stretched the image too far, distorting its properties, and distending poor Caesar's face.

Below is the final version of the slide. I've added a citation for the image, since I did not take the photograph. Given even the barest of information as in this caption, one could search for "Andrew Hitchcock" 2006 "julius caesar" and find the image without any difficulty.

I think the slide above provides a good background for a presenter to talk around. They cannot read from the slide, but the audience is able to see a picture of Julius Caesar while hearing about him, and they have an important quotation that serves as a historical benchmark, as well as the most relevant year in terms of the story being told.

With a little more time to invest, I might consider making the strangely shaded background behind the photo of Caesar's bust transparent. That would put the bust, with its while marble, directly atop the stark black background for extra impact.

The first way of providing additional feedback for an individual grade in EasyGrade Pro is by using footnotes. Simply right-click on a grade and choose a footnote from the pop-up list.

If you do not like the list of available footnotes, they are very easy to change. At the bottom of the list (marked in orange above) is a link that will allow you to change the footnotes. Please note that

• the list of footnotes is only for the current class; you can define a separate list for each of your classes, and
• footnotes are best for often-repeated remarks, such as "Score reduced because assignment turned in late."

The second way to provide additional feedback is using a Score Note. This is a free-form comment field that allows you to provide a greater degree of feedback than the Footnotes. To access this, double-click on a grade, and the following box will appear.

The Score Note function defaults to a private state; anything typed in is for the teacher only. To make the remarks viewable to students, per the yellow above, choose the second option, "Note is for student." After you have done this once, the Score Note will remember your selection, and any future Score Notes will be pre-set for students to see.

Whether you use Footnotes or the Score Note feature, when you publish grades to the internet or email them out, the additional feedback that you have entered will also be published (unless you kept the Score Note set to "Note is for teacher.")

Using the Footnotes for oft-repeated feedback or the Score Note for more detailed comments, EasyGrade pro provides two ways for teachers to provide additional information on an individual grade.

[To see other posts related to EasyGrade Pro, click on the EGP tag to the right.]

First, know that Keynote files are Apple-only. There is a simple export function that will allow you to convert your Keynote presentation into a PC-compatible Powerpoint file. Under the Share menu, choose "Export", and then select Powerpoint.

Second, know that Keynote files are not files in the way that we normally think of files, they are containers. That is to say, a Keynote "file" is most similar to a folder. Your Mac knows that this folder belongs to Keynote and that everything inside of it is related, so it treats it as a file - but not all applications know this, and other computers certainly don't. This is why it is sometimes difficult to email a Keynote file; it's like emailing a whole folder - which can rarely be done. And this is why you cannot simply post a Keynote file to your website or CatLink (our in-house Moodle install, for our outside readers).

Back to the original question then, how can we post Keynote files to the web for students? I recommend converting to PDF. You could do it through the Share menu and the conversion dialog shown above - simply choose PDF instead of PPT. This will put one slide on one 8.5x11 page, if students print. That strikes me as wasteful, and so I recommend using the Print dialog, and placing multiple slides on a single piece of paper.

Begin through File > Print, and then follow the screenshots below.

At the PDF button (step 3 above), choose "Save as PDF." This will result in a PDF suitable for students to print, whether they are on Macs or PCs.

As always, if you have questions, please let me know.

If you were not able to come to the workshop but would still like to see what was covered, here is the demo file that was used:

Keynote Demo

There are hints, descriptions, and directions in the Presenter Notes. To see them, go to View > Show Presenter Notes.

I recommend setting your Keynote application to look similar to the screenshot below.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know.

This will allow students to submit a paper from any word processing application, even an online service like Google Docs.

"Washington taught the world to know us. Lincoln taught us to know ourselves. The first won for us our independence. The last wrought out our manhood and self respect" (The Expositor).

Somewhere in there is a connection to our our Mission and Vision. I humbly leave that as a thought for the day.

Tips and Tricks: Making the Most of Google Calendar

If you are not yet using Google Calendar in any way and are interested in learning more, please let me know. Google Calendar works well with Apple iCal, and a small plug-in allows Windows-folks to use it with Outlook too.

The short version is this: "People remember things better, longer, if they are given very challenging tests on the material, tests at which they are bound to fail."