InfoTeacher

One other seminar I attended at the TIE conference was on an instructional programming language called Python. It looks a lot like the old BASIC language which I’ve been intending to re-acquaint myself with and use with some G/T math kids (hate to keep returning to just G/T kids, but my G/T teacher is open to almost any new thing, and she already does things with kids that may apply to things I’d like to do with kids. If not G/T, then perhaps some 4th or 5th grade kids could “skip” math a couple days per week to do Python with me.) Python gets kids thinking about math — they engage themselves in meta-cognition because they have to think about how a simple math concept is done so they can program the computer to do it. Rather than returning to BASIC (now “Visual” BASIC and different than when I learned it in the ’80s), Python is simple and English based so the kids can think about how to program (and do the math and logic), but the seminar I attended already has many of the lessons prepared for me to teach with kids!  The benefits are that kids engage in higher level thinking as the debug their programs and think about logic and math concepts in a new — detached — manner of thinking. I see many benefits for students. Python is a powerful language with simple possibilities that can make learning fun.

Friday morning. Just sitting in potentially the most informative course of the week. I will post as I listen (if possible). Two class spaces listed on the board as I arrived:

1. http://alsuproom24.wikispaces.com/
2. http://www.room24.blogspot.com/

Fourth Grade Teacher at an IB school in Commerce City.  Obviously these sites are not blocked at they are in my district, now beginningto talk, so I will post and listen. Begins with — I want to tell you HOW to use these tools in the Elementary classroom. I am excited to learn.  Instructor has a wiki up – has a link to a page for TIE for this seminar with questions for seminar participants. We can post comments to his questions live and all can see live updates continuously.

We are starting a district hosted blog, wiki site this fall. I have asked to be a part. After seeing the possiblilities, i intenet to contact my G/T teacher. I think some of the writing activities she does with 4th of 5th grade would be a good place to start – then if I can look for ideas for students to respond to we could increase opportunites for students to write in ways that would get them excited about writing as a way of expression. The 5th Grade social studies unit also might be a good place for students to collaborate on a wiki writing “assignment” that could possibly turn into a perpetual student-led collaboration. 

Obviously I haven’t posted — been trying software tricks at night from seminars I’ve been in each day. Fought with Windows Moviemaker last night for a long while wishing it worked like garageband. Went to another eminar today and saw more tricks from garageband — I’m amazed and really wishing Windows had something remotely similar. I’m about to sit through a Fundamentals of Moviemaker seminar — a change from my original plan — just because I finally figured it can’t be that bad. I must be the one who is unable to teach myself. I know Moviemaker doesn’t do nearly what the Mac does (whether it be garageband or imovie or what . . . ), but it must be a little better than what I’ve taught myself. So, I’m going to sit through this seminar and try to learn what they teach. The instructor was here when I came in and asked me why I attended. I mentioned wanting to get kids podcasting and wished we had something like garageband. He didn’t say (as I’d hoped), “you can do more with Moviemaker than you realize.”  What he said was, “I can tell you about a product called JOURNALIST IN A BOX that lets a Windows guy do just about the same thing as the Mac guys. I’m not to encouraged. I was hoping with Moviemaker we could get remotely close — since I don’t want to have to buy more software (with budget constraints, plus all of the district bells and whistles needed to get software for the school) but use what we already have!

So, I’m sitting in the last session of the CASL preconference — and I have to say how impressed I am. CASL really did things well. With the wiki (http://caslworkshops.pbwiki.com/), all of the handouts from the speakers are available online as well as the schedule and changes to the schedule (if any, I didn’t notice any, but if they had to make some changes, they were ready). Since they are holding this in conjunction with the TIE conference which has a wifi set up all over the Copper Mountain’s conference rooms. Just in case you couldn’t access the web, they handed out flash drive. On the flas drive was a folder containing all of the CASL speaker handouts and notes as well as the PowerPoint from the featured speaker. Wow, I’m impressed and excited. Good learning sessions, too. One last main session, and then CASL session is over and TIE begins in the morning. I’ll try to sum up today’s sessions in a longer post a little later on. 

I’ll be blogging the TIE conference this week to post my thoughts and network with other library/information teacher bloggers. Today is the CASL preconference to TIE. Sitting listening to introductions right now, and looking forward to learning.