Organic Learning

I’ve finally published Part 2 of my interview with Howard Johnston, a literacy coach at Corona Ave. Elementary School. He shares how he uses collaboration not only among his teachers, but how he is making connections with the neighboring primary center and middle school. His ideas for using technology to make connections are great. I really learn  a lot every time I visit with Howard. His school is very lucky to have him!

You can subscribe to the podcast here: http://district6.lausd.k12.ca.us/~edtech/

Interview with Howard Johnston, Part 2

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Will Richarson recently posted a compelling example of how to use RSS in the classroom in his thoughtful Pageflakes example of the crisis in Darfur. Pageflakesis a tool for pulling RSS feeds from many different sources into one place. Read how Will pulled al the feeds together in his blog post entitled, “Using Pageflakes as a Student Portal”. I used this page to learn about the crisis in Darfur, about which I knew very little. What makes this page about Darfur relevant and real is that it changes everyday, as new information is posted. I was able to learn about what the news agencies have to say here and also in Sudan, but also what conversation is going on about Darfur, with pictures and video. Because of this learning, I noticed that the iTunes Music Store had a free download from the NBC special, Crisis in Durfur with Ann Curry. The only thing I would wish could be added in Will’s Pageflakes presentation would be to include the RSS feed to Google Video’s coverage of Darfur, because many districts allow Google Video, but block YouTube. (Will put the YouTube feed because there is no “Page Flake” to display Google Video.)

I can’t help make a connection to the upcoming InfoTech student competition for elementary and middle school students, or even high school students in the student showcase. Our elementary and middle school competition involves telling a digital story about heroes. I think the crisis in Darfur could initiate some deep thinking about today’s heroes working in places like Darfur. How about a story on the Doctors without Borders?

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I came across this video that explains Creative Commons so well, I had to link to it. I’ve seen other videos from the site, but the Wanna Work Together? video is the best yet I’ve seen for teachers and students who want to work collaboratively. Great ideas for on guidelines for our upcoming “Our Heroes” digital storytelling project.

Technorati Profile

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I really like my new Intel mac. One of the first things I did when I got it was to install Parallels, so I could run Windows when I needed it. This evening, I was so glad to be able to use it. I was reading Will Richardson’s post, 2020 Vision, about Karl Fisch’s new video by the same name. Will commented on the creativity that Karl uses to convey his message about how we will be using tools for education in the future. I eagerly clicked to see the video, but I was disappointed that only the audio came through on my MacBook Pro. No problem. I just copied the link and fired up Windows XP through Parallels. I was able to see the video and blog about it on the Mac side, all at the same time. Tools make learning happen. I was glad to see this newest creation. I still show Karl’s Did You Know presentation whenever possible. It’s a great way to get the conversation going.

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Last week, I took an Intro to Photoshop class offerered by LACOE in Downey, CA. The instructor was John Chambers. This was an excellent class to learn about beginning Photoshop. Not only is the instructor outstanding in a face to face environment, he also has all of his presentation online, along with podcasts and videocasts of his lessons (and other tips). His good sense of humor and expert knowledge of Photoshop made the class enjoyable.

He made this course very engaging, even for a techie like me. I encourage any educator in the Los Angeles County area to enroll in his classes offered at LACOE. I already enrolled in his Adobe Photoshop: Beyond the Basics class on July 13th-14th. He also will be teaching Adobe InDesign on July 17th, and Photoshop for the Web on July 20-21.

What makes his class outstanding is the fact that all his content is online. In our first session, we strayed a bit from the outline, but he easily reordered the outline online to match what he was teaching us face to face. I especially enjoyed his outstanding podcasts and videocasts that reinforced what I learned in class.

Even the geekiest of us take classes sometimes. I want to use Photoshop better. I struggle with professional apps like Photoshop and Final Cut, so taking a Photoshop class seemed like a good class to take. This class, although very introductory, was enhanced by his love of Web 2.0 technologies that he mentioned throughout the class, like Pandora and Second Life. I even was able to share Box.net with him. That was fun to find someone who knew about some of the new tools that are available for educators.

Thanks, LACOE, for offering this outstanding educator at such a reasonable price. I’m sure this class would have cost at least 8X the price if taken somewhere else.

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