A Few Words About this Blog

I have really enjoyed blogging, much more so than I anticipated I would when this course began. It is a personal diary in many ways, but it can be shared, and people can read your innermost thoughts. And people can respond to you. That in and of itself demonstrates the communicative power of the platform and the openings it permits and encourages. It has a wide range of educational purposes, allowing students to explore, articulate their thoughts, organize, interact with others, and form groups. I can see having your students prepare and maintain a subject-related blog in almost any subject matter in secondary education.

Another nice feature of blogs is their multimedia capabilities. The digital imagery and sounds which you can incorporate into your blogs enhances learning and appeals to a wide range of learning styles and preferences. You are communicating on many different levels of intimacy and in many streams of sensory acquisition. You will see a plethora of pictures on my blog, as I really believe in the power of imagery and the visual stimulus.

Finally, the blog's self-storage of prior posts and comments serves as a written legacy, a catalogue of thoughts and correspondence, which you can refer back to again and again as time passes. What a wonderful feature! You don't have to search through old papers and notebooks, it is right there at your fingertips. And it is focused in one place, not scattered over dozens of e-mails that get lost in your e-mail inbox over time. Organized, historical, and archival, features that an aspiring social studies teacher, slighty left-brained, is bound to appreciate and enjoy!

Final Words

Please take a minute and go to my wiki page, at this link:

http://billmcgillicuddy.wikispaces.com/Parting+Thoughts+-+Something+I+Think+About+as+a+Parent

I saw this poem posted in an appliance store, fell in love with the words, and copied it. If you have children of your own or even in your class, they are a precious gift. When they grow up you realize it more and more. I dearly wish I had back a thousand days with my kids when they were younger. The innocence of childhood is the stuff of life, and nourishes us all.

Farewell, everyone, and enjoy the summer.

One last photo from flickr?

Final Reflections on ICP

I wanted to say a few words about the powerpoint I did on flickr and photobucket. I enjoyed the assignment very much because I find the photographs on flickr, the site I really explored, so beautiful and moving in many ways. How can a person in general and our students in particular not come away from some of these visual images without deeply implanted impressions and sensations? I am certainly a "written word" kind of guy, have been my whole life, but the visual image is powerful and moving. Our children need to balance visual stimuli with the written word, watch the movie, see the play, but also read the book.


I learned a great deal about the sharing capabilities of flickr, the group functions, and the organizational aspects allowing creation of sets and groups. If I were to do this all over again, I think I would follow my lesson plan more than the slideshare powerpoint, as the latter was designed to accomplish the overall lesson objectives in 10-15 minutes. You need more time than that to truly explore any software. The lesson plan calls for group formation and creative endeavours together, and that is the way to really appreciate and utilize the program.


I think images would be indispensable to almost any curriculum area. Children learn through photographs, cartoons, seeing how things work. How can a verbal explanation of "The Great Wall" compare to photographic images of this architectural marvel? You can [occasionally] lecture in your classes but you should intersperse these digital images throughout the lesson to really communicate with your audience. In English, imagery such as dew drops on a leaf can be stunningly portrayed in a photo, not only by written words.


In Math, concepts could be displayed by images to enhance understanding. Science, same thing. The host of possibilities is endless. This software makes incorporating photos in your web pages, blogs, whiteboard teaching, and wikis so easy and lends itself to constructivist learning with students authoring their own creations. And collaboration is built into the program itself, with the group features and sharing abilities. Most of all, it is great fun and instructional at the same time. How can you go wrong bringing this tool into your classroom?

New York

Still the greatest!

Home Stretch!!

Well, here we are, coming to the home stretch. Eric is participant 3 with the chef hat! Crazy week for me, had to go to the shore for several days and clean. I have filthy hands and fingernails, cleaning and scrubbing. I am now "Cinder-fella" to my friends.

Well, have now seen most of the ICP's which were collectively quite good. Alot of creativity in this class. Mine on flickr and photobucket can be seen at the following link:
http://www.slideshare.net/WilliamMcGillicuddy

The Twt:In Action video portraying several technology applications in the Wichita Public Schools was worthwhile, especially to see the varied implementation, the remote classroom apparati, and the young ages at which students are using Web 2.0 tools and platforms. The practical advice on creating a photo album in powerpoint was also informative. I was impressed with the LoTI in this district. I also liked the reminders in the blog article about establishing a virtual learning community through blogs, instead of individual blog postings isolated from the web of readers. The link for the article is as follows:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogs_as_virtual.html
Reminded me that I would have liked to have spent more time reading my classmates' postings if time permitted. The reciprocal interchange between author and readers is the true learning process offered by blog platforms.

Reflections on Week Four (W/E 6/12/08)

I thought the two most useful things in this week's readings were the "Authentic Assessment Toolbox" and the "Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages."
Links are http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm & http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html respectively.

I really liked the format of the Toolbox. It was straightforward and crystal clear, starting with definitions, concrete examples of authentic assessment from teachers in the author's course, and then a nice compare and contrast section outlining the differences between traditional assessment and authentic assessment. I thought his point about a teacher not really having to choose between the two was insightful, likening the process to preferring a chauffeur who could both pass the written driver's test and also perform well on the road to one or the other alone.

I also liked the side-by-side chart of defining attributes of each type of assessment, followed by his "fleshing out" the chart and describing the benefits of constructivist, performance learning as opposed to the narrower confines of recall and contrived responses in traditional assessments which do not accurately reflect true learning.

With the data smog and profusion of websites out there, I think teaching information literacy is extremely important for our students. They must be able to make reasoned, balanced appraisals of the trustworthiness of internet sites, as not every one is worthy of reference status by any means. The five criteria are short, pointed questions which virtually every student can use to assess a site to evaluate its merit, integrity, and authority. If a web site display any weaknesses or deficiencies, a student quickly knows to enlarge the search or look elsewhere. With the sheer abundance of materials out there, all claiming to be authoritative, this skill is critical for the net generation learners. Kind of like separating the wheat from the chaff.

More Humor

Engrade Experience

I created an Engrade.com account and a fictitious 10th grade Global History and Geography class consisting of 10 members to play with the site and discover its features. The link for the class page is http://www.engrade.com/teacher-gradebook.php?c=1. My user name is MrMcGillicuddy and my password is Will91 for accessing the class page and my first several mock assignments.

I thought this was a terrific program. Very simple, straightforward, and highly useful. It followed my commands explicitly and did everything I told it to, and the program allows you to easily customize, e.g., say you wanted to change your grading system from the conventional 90-100 is an A to 97-100 is an A+, 93-97 is an A, and 90-93 is an A-, you could set those parameters in the custom screen. I liked the assignment calendar charting, the custom profile and numbers assigned to your students, the weighting for individual parts of your curriculum, the cumulative grade numbers it keeps reflective of that weighting, and its time-saving attributes. It is hard to see negatives without using it for a semester, but it is rather impersonal seeing your grades posted, unless you make special use of the custom messages features. You would need to supplement it with personal remarks to your students face to face, I would think, to humanize the grading process.

I like the fact that students can use their own personal access code and see their grades and assignments at any time. I have seen a few teachers at Pine Bush High School use this type system and it is wonderful to see where your student stands at any given time. It seems that a student can only access his or her own grades, though, and it might be helpful to see the class grade average and range in the window, along with your own grade. If the class mean was an 80 and you got an 84, you might not be as unhappy with that grade as you would be if the class mean was a 90.

The program is extemely useful to teachers. As far as class management, record-keeping, and grade averages, it is quick and painless to use. It saves an extraordinary amount of time, freeing teachers to focus more on curriculum and learning strategies. Teachers can maintain multiple classes on their account and even differentiate students who they may have for more than one class. You can add or subtract students who enter or leave your class after the creation of the class list, and you can even add extra credit points for a given assignment which will be weighted into the average. The attendance keeping feature is handy too and a precise record for use in proving absences if called upon by parents or administration. Similarly, with grading, if a student's grade is significantly lowered by a zero on a missing homework assignment, this program pinpoints the omission for students, parents, and administrators to see.

I think students and parents would appreciate this gradebook online. Of course, student accountability would be easier for parents to observe and verify, for their childs' efforts and attendance could be continuously monitored. If parents knew that their child had an 89 average towards the end of the quarter , they could push their kids a little harder to make that 90. But, apart from parental benefits, students could know where they stand at any given moment, see when assignments are due, discuss issues with the teacher directly through the program, and determine over the course of a semester where they scored weakest and where they may need to spend extra time in studying for a final or year end standardized test. For the reasons noted above, students and parents always want to know how the rest of the class did, and this program doesn't appear to convey that information. However, a special request for that information could be relayed to the teacher through the program.

I see this program as a valuable compliment to other 2.0 tools in the classroom, all of which faciliate communication, which is vital, and keep learning in the light and not hidden. Many parents feel blind to the process in the classroom, relying only on the snippets of information passed on by their sometimes misleading kids, until reoport card time; and many students often have very little idea how they are doing in the quarter. Report card time is too late in the process to make changes and improve behaviors, and information needs to be timely imparted along the way. Together with the class newsletters in Assignment 5, blogs, wikis, and other communication mediums, the dialogue between teacher, students, and parents can be increased across the board and that is obviously beneficial for all in the learning process.

My 10th Grade Social Studies June Newsletter

I prepared a newsletter, slightly fictitious as it refers to our own group wiki rather than the actual class group wikis which I would expect and encourage. The link for the Newsletter is http://letterpop.com/builder.php?newsletter_id=90561. I used LetterPop as it was easy to use, gave the right appearance and professional look, and allowed importation of images and links without any difficulties. It was also easy to access online which is an important factor, particularly if parents access the newsletter electronically as opposed to hand distribution.

I think communication between parents and teacher is critically important. As a parent, I have seen the disasterous results of poor communication between teacher and parents. There is absolutely no excuse for failing to send materials and notes home to parents, for neglecting to call, and for relying on a five-week notice to advise parents of poor performance of their children. Unless parents are enlisted in the educational cause, all students are at risk for failure. I know the old adage about teachers not having time, and I suppose frequent calls home might detract from the teachers' planning and classroom preparation time. However, with the advent of the Web 2.0 tools we have learned of in the past few weeks, there are so many creative options for communicating with parents electronically and remotely, at your own pace and time, and for allowing their feedback. This newsletter format is informational in a more generalized way, supplemented with more personal and direct means of communication such as personal web pages, blogs, and wikis. All platforms allow two-way communications, in more direct and centralized formats than separate e-mails which can be overwhelming to the teacher; they are quick and accessable to teachers and parents alike.

I think blogs, perhaps moreso wikis, would be good means for mass communications and advising of specific learning objectives, unit themes, projects, deadlines, , etc. More direct communications could probably be accomplished on blogs, with e-mails for highly confidential exchanges. Of course, you should provide your phone number to your students' parents, I believe, to foster open communications and allow for the opportunity for personal calls about serious and sensitive matters. I think podcasts would be fun and useful to impart to your parents what you sound like in the classroom and give some life to the written word. Flickr images of the class and learning themes would also be something parents might like to see. After all, parents really don't know what transpires inside the classroom, and these are great ways for them to find out.

If I were to use this Newsletter medium in school, I might make it more content specific with links to the actual resources we use in class. The newsletter I prepared for this exercise is an "end of the year" newsletter which reminds students and parents about test preparation for the omnipresent standardized tests and celebrates the year's achievements and the joys of summer looming for the kids. I would probably make it more content rich earlier in the year, and try to let parents know where in the historical timeline we were at a given moment. I think discussions at home about the Depression, World War II, the atomic bomb, etc., are very enriching, but these discussions can only occur if parents know to talk about these things as their children are studying the topics. Parents could even be invited to post their own stories about historical events on wikis or blogs, for recitation to the class by their sons or daughters.

Assignment 4 - The Dreaded Excel Crossword

This assignment was not one of my most favorite. The instructions called for saving the Excel crossword in .jpeg format which isn't even one of the options in the save drop down list. I tried cute pdf save, html save, everything I could think of, but couldn't import it here in the blog seamlessly (after many hours of attempts). I could not follow Dr. S.'s recommendations to Eric of my group in an e-mail, namely, CTRL + Print Screen and paste, don't have photoshop, etc. So, while the task was extremely time-consuming, it was also frustrating at the end not to be able to transport it to where I wanted it to truly go. The best way to access it is on my assignments/artifacts subpage of my personal web page, http://www.freewebs.com/wmcgillicuddy/.

I think the concept of integrating learning about software with learning content is a good one, as it "kills two birds with one stone." Our students are learning the "what" and "how" at the same time. The flip side to that, though, is that if the students are stressing over creation of the software product, will they really absorb the subject content beneath the software? In this case, given the laborious nature of this assignment, I tend to doubt it. Better to give them the crossword already prepared and let them play with it and collaborate to answer it, if you want to avoid boredom and resignation.

If you do desire integration, I think you have to use a much easier software task than something so intricate as designing a crossword puzzle in Excel. It is not that the concept is inherently flawed, but I simply don't think Excel is the right platform for this dual type of learning envisioned, software and content simultaneously. It might be better to give them lists of terms, have them define the words collaboratively, and then hunt down images on the web which they could assemble on a flickr page of their own or even a newsletter format such as LetterPop. Or mind-map the vocabulary words, breaking them down into consitutent elements as branches, or forming associations with the particular words as branches. Or they could research the vocabulary terms in books and online resources and use a wiki for group expressions of definitions and specific examples.

Mind-Map on the Holocaust

For assignment 3, I prepared a mindmap using Bubbl.us, for use with the 10th grade Global History & Geography unit on the Holocaust, entitled "Causes of the Holocaust." The link for the mindmap is:

http://bubbl.us/view.php?sid=125435&pw=ya.QoWkKBstM2NzJkRWppYmt0YkZaWQ.

I chose this concept because the causes of the Holocaust are not linear but multiple, convoluted, and multi-faceted. In outline form they take on an almost linear, inevitable feeling, but in reality, nothing was as inevitable as it may seem. The mindmap gives the impression of random factors merging together which is what I want to convey. I would like to perhaps go over the major themes in the mindmap with the students, such as Historical Anti-Semitism, Hitler's Personal Qualities and Hatreds, etc., and let them go online as this is free software (unlike some of the others you recommended, such as mindmeister, et. al. [I would like to keep it free for accessability to all]) and fill out the branches with significant factors of their own. That way, students can take ownership of their own causes within the general heading branches, making the inquiry more relevant and personal than mere memorization. Not only will the mindmap help students crystallize their thoughts for essay writing and discussion of this most important thematic unit, but it will enhance learning in the sense of recognizing chaotic forces and demonstrating that it was the combination of factors rather than any one particular cause which led to the horrors of the Holocaust. This is high level taxonomy thinking that I want all of my students to engage in, as they shouldn't be learning what alone but thinking about why.

This activity demonstrated to me alternative menus for conveying similar information and themes. The visual learner obviously benefits from this graphic image, but I think it benefits all students, particularly the "digital natives" of this generation who enjoy imagery. Participation in filling out the branches encourages inquiry on the students' parts, as they will have to decide for themselves what should be inserted, perhaps conduct their own internet research, and this activity could be made part of a collaborative lesson with groups filling out the branches.

Bubbl.us was a decent software for this purpose, easy to use, and easily reproduced and shared. I prefer the flowchart program, however, as it is much more flexible and adaptable to multiple purposes with the ability to integrate clip art and digital images. You control the bubbles and arrows in flowchart, whereas the program controls you to a certain extent in bubbl.us. If I was to do this activity again, I think I would have them use flowchart.com, also free, and ask them to construct their own mindmap with arrows, images, text, or clipart, as they see fit, to foster creativity. The works would be a piece of art as well as historically useful to explain the diverse causes of this significant 20th century occurrence.

Week Three

Reflections on Week 3 - Educational Issues

The review of instructional systems designs models was fairly helpful, but I couldn't help thinking that alot of what is stated in these models is formulaic, and should be almost instinctual to a caring, thoughtful teacher in planning how a lesson , a unit, or even the school year is going to unfold. Alot of the differences in the ADDIE and ASSURE models had to do with when you review and revise, the linear nature of the former contrasted to the holisitic approach of the latter, and the systematic theory versus the systemic theory. I thought lawyers used excess semantics, but educators, particularly educational theorists, take the cake. "Iterative," come on, how about repetition, a more familiar word?

The ASSURE model was helpful to me because it provided a concise blueprint on how to set up an integrated lesson with technological resources targeted to your objectives and learning outcomes. Its emphasis on evaluating your learners is sound differentiated instruction practice, and to me it gives you a mental "sounding board" to think out how you will meet the diversity of learners and the digital natives' preferred modes of intake while still conveying the intellectual heart of your lesson. It is a roadmap to make sure all your points are covered and your media/technologies are on track, and it is also a great way to plan an inquiry based lesson.

The four models of instruction which I will use here are 1) Behavoral; 2) Information Processing; 3) Personal Development; and 4) Social Interactive (Joyce, Weils, & Calhoun). For each, I will jot down a few ideas for technologies which might be aligned with that particular model:

• Behavioral - internet resources, videos, CD's, overhead projectors, smart boards, slide projectors, computer drills, essentially direct instruction assistive devices
• Information Processing - internet access, educational software, mindmaps and flowcharts, excel spreadsheets, del.icio.us, webquests, Word for writing summaries, blogs (all to enhance concept understanding and inquiry thinking)
• Personal Development - design software, mindmaps & flowcharts; productivity & presentation software; personal web pages and blogs; web publisher; search engines; streaming audio & video; podcasts (all to enhance creativity and personal evaluation)
• Social Interactive - microphones and video cameras; joint access to internet resources; dedicated chat rooms; wikis; forums; whiteboards; presentation software; simulation programs; instant messaging; image & document uploading (all designed to enhance cooperative learning and social behavior and values)

The 5E Constructivist lesson plan from the webquest you provided was fun to experiment with, as it provided almost a bulleted format for a short lesson plan covering the essential elements of inquiry based learning. The engage looked to me like an anticipatory set, or a quadrant one discussion in McCarthy's 4-Mat approach; the exploration allowed experiential learning; the explain an opportunity for the teacher to come back to the lesson and crystallize explanations and solidify students' perceptions; elaboration the opportunity for students to make the learning their own, apply concepts to different paradigms, and perform; and the evaluation phase to assess learning and participation. The emphasis throughout is passing the teaching from the teacher to the students, so that they can feel, touch, and embrace the concepts.

I am doubtful you could teach with an inquiry-based approach all the time. State standards force you to keep such a breakneck pace that you must rely on direct instruction to convey all the necessary materials and concepts in a limited timeframe. But I very much liked what Arthur L. Costa stated in the inquiry learning site you gave us, to wit, even if you start with two days a week of inquiry lessons, that will be a tremendous boon to your students and their creative thinking and learning. There is no question that students can not be passive like they are in direct instruction, they must be active learners as they are in inquiry (with social interactive features), and to meld the two styles is possible and highly beneficial. And even with direct instruction, you can add a bevy of technological aides and resources to your lesson to spice it up for the digital natives.

Reflections on Week Three (W/E 6/5/08)

Well, as these uncharted realms of technology open up to me, I am getting a little more comfortable in the mediums, yet I am spending inordinate amounts of time on the computer. I wonder whether teachers can really devote this much time to computer programs, unless of course they are naturally or by virtue of preparation/sheer repetition, well versed in all of these software programs and technological means. The ideas have great merit, but I don't know how well they can be integrated into the classroom given constraints on teachers' time. We can try, and that is the important thing I guess.

The highlights for the week for me were the point in the ENG article about the incredible amount of financial resources dedicated to building computer infrastructures, yet the far lesser attention and time commitment to insuring that the hardware is used to its fullest by teachers in creative and innovative ways; the digital textbook article which pointed to some new and innovative "books" coming our way; the inquiry based learning website and the allusion to all of us learning, as infants on up, in an inquiry fashion; and the Ken Robinson video, which was entertaining, uplifting, and so on the mark. The dangers of mislabelling someone because they are different were brought home to me in the Ken Robinson video, specifically his depiction of the tactile-kinesthetic learner who instead of receiving medication went on to dance school and became a pre-eminent choreographer. Great stuff. Throughout our search for technologically meaningful passageways for our learners, we must remember that they are different, and access information and learn differently.

Our group functioned admirably once again, displaying the intestinal fortitude and innovation that each of these individuals brings to the table. Our collaboration on the two projects, the School 2.0 project and the 5E lesson plan, was seamless and we put forth two good final products in my view. Cooperative, inquiry based learning at its best.