Taking Video or Photos of Yourself Voting is Illegal

in some states. This is not to prevent documentation of who you vote for but rather to stop the selling of your vote.

After the 2000 Election debacle, Web 2.0 has come to the rescue. The NY Times has reported on wikis that have been set up to monitor voting.

Voter Suppression Wiki

SourceWatch’s Election Protection Wiki

Video the Vote project

You Tube Video Your Vote

Would we have elected George W. Bush if we had wikis collaborating to monitor the voting in the 2000 election?

Hold a Mock Election in Your School

Using Google Forms our school set up an online ballot where voter demographic information and rationale for voting for a particular candidate can be collected. Math classes can do a statistical analysis of voter information while social studies classes can analyze the reasons voters give for voting for their candidate. The Google Form collects the data in a Google Spreadsheet that can be shared among teachers. See of Google Form ballot here.

Web 2.0 and the Election

McCain is encouraging posts on blogs of every political angle. Posters are encouraged to email the campaign with their work.



Obama lets people embed code to place his tax savings calculator on their websites.

Election '08

Help your students follow the election through the NBC News iCue website. The site is a treasure trove of present and past videos.

It is however 2008 and the web is changing presidential politics. Go over to TechPresident.com to see how the candidates are using the web and how the web is using them.

With the debate season upon us you have to watch the debates through C-Span's Debate Hub, C-Span has taken the tradition of presidential debates and layered web 2.0 applications over it.

Help Students Visualize Large Amounts of Data

The people at www.many-eyes.com are helping us visualize our uploaded data. You are no longer limited to Excel's Chart Wizard. The website offers different views data. The charts can help students see patterns and make comparisons. Data can be differentiated for students. Students can manipulate data, seeing in real time how this changes data patterns. Here is a visual of the AIG bailout and government bailouts overall.

Create online formative assessments and tests, for FREE

If you have a Google account you can use Google Forms which is part of the Google Docs suite to create surveys (tests) for your students. The assessments can be multiple choice or open ended. The results are funneled into a Google spreadsheet making grading extremely easy, no more luging home piles of tests, you just sign into your account to view the results of sortable data. The surveys create a website or can be embedded. Use the survey as a formative assessment to create groupings, homework assignments, or to test at the end of a unit.

Wordle Word Splashes

I have blogged about wordle.net in the past. Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. Wordle is great for creating word splashes on the smartboard. Wired magazine took McCain and Obama's convention speeches and feed them into Wordle, this is what came out.

Digital Literacy

"Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?"

The NY Times story talks about the future of reading and digital vs print reading. Some notable quotes from the piece.

"Even accomplished readers like Zachary Sims, 18, of Old Greenwich Conn., crave the ability to quickly find different points of view on a subject and converse with others online."

"Reading in print and on the internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author's vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends."

"Web proponents believe that strong readers on the Web may eventually surpass those who rely on books. Reading five websites, an op-ed article and a blog post or two, experts say, can be more enriching than reading one book."


A digital literacy encompasses more than print literacy. If a student reads on a fourth grade level in print they will probably read on a fourth grade level digitally. However, if a student possesses the right online skills they may be able to lift there fourth grade digital reading level. Can they properly look up a word they don't understand in a reading? Can they research a reference they may not understand or go further in depth on a topic they interested in?

We need to teach our students how to use the internet.

90% of the students who read this website containing information on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus thought it was really endangered.

Adults are NO BETTER "An Online Hoax Becomes a Source About a Suspect"
Reuters were one of the major newspapers to quote a hoax website when Radovan Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb leader was picked up for war crimes.

We need to teach how to source a website to find out who owns it (www.easywhois.com).

You should also know who links to your website (use altavista's link command).

Most recently someone was caught "scrubbing" McCain's VP pick Governor Palin's Wikipedia page. We don't like to think that any major news organizations sourced Wikipedia, but if they had you would hope they noticed some favorable changes to the site less than 24 hours before her pick was announced.

Make Your Students Part of History

An Art and Social Studies teacher can work together to have students photoshop themselves into photographs from history they are currently studying. Students will get excited putting themselves in the middle of history, they can present the doctored photos, explaining to their classmates what is occurring at that time and place.

"I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop."

Collaborating Online

VoiceThread A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.

Twiddla calls itself "team whiteboarding". A very easy to use web based interactive whiteboard. Think of it as a smartboard in your browser. You can upload files, record video and audio, save a session, and embed it in a website.

Skrbl is another website that offers a sharable online whiteboard.

Examples of people collaborating online.

Telephono has musicians record music than e mail it to the next musician. Each musician can change everything or add nothing The song keeps getting e mail from musician to musician. A play on the childhood game of telephone.

NY Times columnist is writing a thriller novel over Twitter. Followers are able to comment on the story as it unfolds. THese comments may effect the course of the novel. Could a group of students write a story collaboratively over Twitter?

Sticking with the Theme of Texting in the Classroom

"Free Speech in China? Text Me." This NPR story talks about how Chinese citizens are getting around government bans on communication by texting one another. A quote in the story from a Chinese CEO reads "texting allows traditionally reserved Chinese to say more than they would in person." Could texting in the classroom give more of a voice to that reserved student?

Jott is your personal transcription service. Call Jott's number, talk into your cell and the audio will be transcribed and sent to a document, calendar, text message, or e mail. Students can use it to transcribe notes, group work, or a teacher's lecture. Jott could fulfill a scribe resource from an IEP or just help that student with illegible handwriting.

Earfl lets users dial their number and tell 3 minute or less stories. Photos can be added to accompany the story.

For my music teachers out there, Ring Blender helps you create your own ringtones.

Want to challenge student motivation and increase note taking and summarizing skills? Have students summarize a play by Shakespeare or the Declaration of Independence using text language. If they can do it in 140 characters or less they might not forget the content.

Qik lets a cellphone user stream video live to the web. Representative Culberson of Texas streamed video from his cellphone to the web when Pelosi adjourned the House and would not let a vote for off shore drilling. The videos were shown on different news channels.

Texting in the Classroom

In honor of Obama announcing his VP candidate via texting, here are 3 ways you can use cell phones in the classroom this coming school year.

1) Send Homework Text Alerts
Use Text Marks to send out homework reminders to a class of students.

2) Use Wiffiti to have students text suggestions to the smartboard for a word splash.

3) Use Poll Everywhere to assess students by texting answers to multiple choice questions. Bring up the poll results on a computer. Think American Idol.

In a related article
Welcome, Freshman. Have an iPod. Students on college campuses across the country are being offered iPhones and iPod Touches. While a specific use is not being designated by the schools, ideas range from communicating cancelled classes to online research and in class polling. It is refreshing to see the schools take a wait and see approach observing how it fits into studies. Duke University handed out iPods a couple of years ago expecting students to download and record lectures, they were surprised when students started creating their own content to add to the professor's.

Refer back to my post on Cellphone Texting Novels.

Information security

Information security
Originally uploaded by Yong Hian Lim

There was a breach at The Princeton Review. The NY Times was able to access student records through the test prep's website. A main security implementation the company did not adhere to was putting student data and innocuous data on separate computers.

Supreme Court Video Game

"Sandra Day O’Connor’s Plan for Joystick Justice"
78 year old Justice O'Connor wants to lead the way in learning civics, ethics, and character development using video games. She is helping to develop a game which has an issue brought to the court and argued by different players.

Art Class 2.0

Should designing a computer font be a skill we teach students in art class?
"Down with Helvetica:Design Your Own Font"
The article talks about the need to create new fonts to personalize in the digital age. The article includes websites with software ranging from free to $1,000 in price to create your own fonts.

Are Viral Videos a Marketing Skill?

It seems every month a video goes viral getting millions of views. Is this a skill that can or should be taught? Is it lightning in a bottle like a great song? Does this skill have a place in a marketing class or business school? Does it show a superior form of digital literacy if you can create a viral video?

Web 2.0 Social Studies Classroom

Want to create an online timeline for your social studies classroom, use XTimeline, while there are many timeline creator programs out there XTimeline has web 2.0 traits, it is web based, easy to use, and embedable.

http://www.dipity.com/ is a similar application.

Sticking with the Social Studies theme the Best of History Websites pulls together some of the best resources for history teachers.

Using Comics as a Classroom Assessment

Comics could be a different product for student representation of ideas. The software Comic Life is an affordable solution. The Read Write Think website offers a free comic creator applet.

Connecting Universities to the Classroom

Ohio University students are creating virtual worlds to teach middle school students math, science, and technology. In the Interactive Science Lab students enter a virtual lab to perform experiments. Could this be a solution for New York City schools who do not have the proper equipment to perform these experiments?
Ohio University Immersive Technologies and Arts for Learning

Technology/Government/Civics

Congress is arguing over how much freedom to give its members when it comes to Twitter, You Tube, and other applications.

"In House, Tweets Fly over Web Plan"

This dovetails with the disparities between Obama and McCain's technology platforms. Look at the difference in their platforms over at Mother Jones Magazine. Obama has some interesting proposals like a Chief Technology Officer and using technology to make government more transparent.

We shouldn't underestimate a President's ability to be forward thinking with technology. President Lincoln was a techie, he pushed hard for telegraph lines across the country and slept in the telegraph office when he was monitoring battlefield positions.

Julius Genachowski's Blog can be read here. He is running technology for Obama's campaign, his name has been kicked around as the first Chief Technology Officer. The blog is a window into the campaign's thinking on technology. Names of a lot of technology heavyweights have also been mentioned for the position of CTO.

"The Facebooker who Befriended Obama" Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook is running Obama's MyObama social networking component of his campaign.

iLighter

iLighter lets teachers highlight websites up at the SMARTboard. Markings will be saved and can be organized into folders for different research topics. Highlights can then be e mailed or posted to blogs or websites.

Voki

Get a Voki now!

Mountains and Mountains of Data

Nate Silver is known in baseball circles as the stat guru. He takes seemingly unrelated data and predicts hits and season records. He is taking his data analysis talent to political polling. His predictions of state results in the Democratic Primary were often very close to the outcomes. He often beat established polling companys offering a critique of them on his website fivethirtyeight.com. How does this relate to Educational Technology? I would argue that a skill needed for the 21st Century is the ability to analyze data. Nate wrote algorithms to make predictions from available data. This ability made him successful in the baseball and political worlds.

Read about Nate in Newsweek.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/140469

In a related story Bill James a life long Celtics fan is being credited with the Celtics playoff birth last year for his analysis of seeming unrelated statistics. Bill does statistical analysis of common stats but is also able to tag game footage to easily enable players to bring up all instances a player is at the top of the key to see if they go left or right. Bill's expertise in math and computers has made him a go to guy for the front office, players, and coaches.

Tina Fey Phenomenon?

When I first started teaching math I would often come across articles talking about the gender gap of achievement. Boys were suppose to be out performing girls in the classroom. I taught in a middle school and I found the opposite to be true. A similar technology gender gap has been researched. Newsweek took a look at the issue in their Revenge of the Nerdette article. The article takes a look at girls that are smart, good looking, and popular. They are succeeding in areas of math, science, and technology.

Not all woman are being well received in the tech world. It seems some woman bloggers are hitting a glass ceiling.

Make a Long Story Short

Attention English teachers Spark Notes is the Cliff Notes of the 21st Century. Students can get abbreviated versions of books online. Could this be incorporated into the classroom?

In a related article "The Dumbest Generation? Don't Be Dumb." Newsweek wonders if Generation Y's ignorance of facts like history and geography reflects a dumbness or just an attitude that if it can be looked up I don't have to remember it. IQs have been rising since the 1930s, technology is changing how information is processed. It is still yet to be determined if it is changing for the better or worse. Are multitasking and video games helping or harming our kids? Could these be increasing our thinking ability?

"When Computers Hurt instead of Help" is the NYTimes take on how helping poorer students buy laptops may not be improving their achievement but becoming a distraction.

Is Teaching Ed Tech a National Security Issue?

In an under reported story stores as prominent as Target and Best Buy sold digital frames produced in China that when connected to a user's computer loaded a Trojan virus which could take control of the customer's computer and steal personal information. It was suggested that this virus could be from the Chinese government.

"Virus from China the gift that keeps on giving"

The NY Times Bits Technology blog had a post "Tracking Hate 2.0 on the Web", it mentions a Congressional briefing looking at hate in the information age. How can we follow the proliferation of this speech if we don't understand the technology they are using?

Another related article
"Al Qaeda Warrior Uses Internet to Rally Woman"

Before Russia invaded Georgia it attacked its online infrastructure.

Photoshop and Ethics

Show students this video before teaching them Photoshop, start a conversation about the power of the tool. This can develop a student's digital literacy of what the are being shown.

Even foreign governments photoshop official government photos as seen in this Iran missile launch. A digitally literate citizenship will be able to pick out the phony photo.

Online College Courses

Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth lets students of all levels take enriched multimedia classes through a distance learning model. Course offerings range from Math to Music.

Yale's Open Course Program is just one of the many programs offered by colleges that let anyone in the world audit a class. Yale has offerings in Astronomy and Philosophy.

MIT's Open Courseware is a resource for teachers to integrate MIT material into their classroom.

The abundance of free material from these colleges almost makes you forget how much they have grown to cost.

If you have a ipod check out iTunes University for educational downloads (no degrees currently offered).

Adobe Flash

Tired of stale PowerPoint presentations, give your students access to Adobe Flash Animation. Students can create video presentations for Science showing how different objects fall or an audio dubbed cartoon animation demonstrating the use of the Spanish past tense.

I am Running for President

Studying the Election in Social Studies, have your students create video commercials for their candidacy where they represent their platform.

On the reverse side have your students create an attack commercial, showing them the music, tone, and lighting usually used in these ads. They are so easy to make even the Swift Kids for Truth put some out.


Read this NY Times story about Facebook users who are putting their middle names as Hussein to stop smears against Obama. I think this is a great way to use a web tool to protest.

This video from CNN talks about students learning political advertising 101.
"Students Explore World of Politics"

Spore

Spore is the highly anticipated release from video game maker EA. In the game you can nurture a creature through the 5 stages of evolution. From an educational perspective I am more interested in the Creature Creator. You can design your own creature from scratch. You can have students accurately create an animal they learn about in Science class. I teach proportions by looking at the long necks or short arms of dinosaurs, why not have my students create creatures with a arm to body proportion of 10:3.

Are your 8th Graders Programming?

Bill Gates started programming in the 8th grade. Being introduced to computers at this age helped him become one of these founding Microsoft members.

Google Earth/Sky/SketchUp

Studying Architecture in Art class, bring up famous buildings in Google Earth. Why not have your students create their campus with Google SketchUp and place it on Google Earth.
Don't keep your feet on the ground, use Google Sky to study the stars in Science or Astronomy class.

Record Calls in Skype

With Skype students can call anywhere in the world free to another Skype user. Bring an expert into your classroom where students can ask questions. With the Call Recorder download you can have a record of the conversation. Create a podcast news report of the interview using clips from the recorded discussion.

The Battle for Facebook

Was the idea for Facebook stolen? While this might not be related directly to Ed Tech this RollingStone story looks at whether or not Mark Zuckerberg stole the ideas from classmates who were starting ConnectU. I find this story is very similar to the accusations against Bill Gates stealing the idea for Windows. The ethics of who owns a website, the coders or the people who thought up the idea. Many of my middle school students think Gates developed the internet. I think we need to teach the history of computers, the internet and influential websites.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/21129674/the_battle_for_facebook

G-Rated Search Engine for Kids

The Red Zebra search engine filters web searches for our younger students. No explicit content will slip through like in a Google search.

Also see my post about the Boolify Search Engine for kids.

Daily Newspaper Publishes Online

The 90 year old Capital Times has stopped printing a hard copy of its newspaper for Madison, Wis. It is offering the daily exclusively online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/business/media/28link.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Math Games that are Wii Compatible

Arcademic Skill Builder has great online games for math and english learning. What sets this game site apart from the others is that the games are compatible with the Nintendo Wii.

LiveScribe Computer Pen

With the LiveScribe Pen students can record audio of lectures while taking notes by hand. The computer in the pen automatically synchs the lecture with your notes when you tap on part of your writing. www.livescribe.com

Create Online Formative Assessments

Blogger has a feature to put surveys on your blog but if you want to take your classroom assessments to the next level head over to mystudiyo.com and create an embedded quiz for your blog or website.

Influence Super Delegates Through YouTube

The President and Vice President of The College Democrats of America want you to chime in with an opinion on who they should pledge their vote for.

iQuiz

Create review questions for your students with iQuiz. Students can download the quiz directly to their iPod.

Text Message Novels

Think twice the next time you are about to give detention to a student texting in your class, they may be writing the next great novel. In China authors are writing and distributing novels by texting on their phones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/11/international/asia/11shanghai.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bookworm - Scrabble for Elementary Students

Play Scrabble like Bookworm with your students. Students are given letters and have to create words. Unlike Scrabble when students create words they receive potions and treasures.

http://www.popcap.com/games/bookwormadventures

Mac iSpeak Can Help Fulfill Student IEP

Apple's iSpeak download converts typed text to audio. Teachers can load audio of test question onto iPods to met Individualized Education Plan requirements for test taking. The audio conversion can also aid ESL students or aid students with reading difficulties. iSpeak turns any text into a book on tape.

With Odiogo you can add audio to a blog post. Put reading assignments in blog posts and have students read along with the audio recording that is created.

Easily Create Data Rich Web Pages

Programming as easy as copying and pasting will let students create interactive web sites displaying student data. The Simile Project from MIT developed Exhibit, an open source program taking student expression of data to the next level. The above example is an interactive map of Presidential birthplaces. Check out Simile's web site for more examples.

http://simile.mit.edu/exhibit/

Google SketchUp

Google SketchUp is an affordable CAD style program. This program will let students build 3D homes, parks, or stadiums Along the way they will learn area, perimeter, and volume.

http://sketchup.google.com/index.html