Alice Mercer

Show #21: Pre-Service Teachers and Technology

coordinator2 — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:48:15 -0500

This show featured Clif Mims, a professor at Memphis State University, and Bethany Smith, an Instructional Technologist at North Carolina State University. Both of them work with pre-service teachers to help them learn about how to effectively use technology in the classroom.

We started off with our backgrounds, and what we were required to do vis-a-vis technology in our pre-service. Then we looked at these essential questions:

Are pre-service teachers being well prepared for entering k12 classrooms today.?
Are pre-service teachers bored in college lectures? Does this affect entry into the field?
What are your recommendations for best preparing pre-service teachers?

Bethany felt that teachers needed to have a PLN through Ning, or another service, to go to. Clif thought they needed to see examples of teacher who are using technology successfully. Alice felt that with the advent of more scripted/prescribed curriculum, teachers needed to see what project-based learning looked like. It was a great discussion, and the text chat log below includes comments from teachers who are taking a class on education technology.

It's Elementary #20 Live from EduBloggerCon / NECC 2008

coordinator2 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:38:23 -0500

Alice Mercer and Maria Knee, co-hosts of the show, were live from the Bloggers' Cafe at NECC and joined by Derrall Garrison. They interviewed several EduBloggerCon participants about their day and impressions of the event. Despite several connectivity issues they brought several people into the show including Gail Desler, Maggie Tsai, & Jo McLeay. You can find links we talked about in our diigo
Links:
The NECC Ning http://necc2008.ning.com/
NECC main site http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/
eduBloggerCon Wiki http://www.edubloggercon.com/NECC%202008
Bud Hunt's BackChannel https://www.chatterous.com/accounts/login/
Summize http://summize.com/
Plurk http://www.plurk.com/
Mogulus http://www.mogulus.com/

Leave comments and visit our blog at http://itslementary.edublogs.com Join us the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month at 4pm pacific, 7pm eastern, & 23:00GMT at www.edtechtalk.com/live

It's Elementary Show #19 - Year in Review

mariaknee — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:55:21 -0500

The It's Elementary team shares the successes and challenges of their year.

Points of interest:

Technology is not a something separate, but an integral part of our teaching
We use it to help kids make connections to the rest of the world
Some issues were how to get kids used to writing, and not just playing on computers, how to plan and allocate time on the computers, and how much choice to give kids.
How annoying, and brain-dead e-rate filtering programs are to deal with.

Leave us you comments and visit our blog http://itslementary.edublogs.com Our next show will be a live report from NECC 2008. Stay tuned for date and time.

EdTechBrainstorm.2008-06-05

Doug — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:54:59 -0500

Happy 3rd Birthday EdTechTalk.com

The "Happy Birthday" edition of the EdTechBrainstorm.

It,s Elementary #18, Video Conferencing

coordinator2 — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:25:18 -0500

We had a great discussion with James Sigler

1. James Sigler shared his background and how he started video-conferencing, including some pertinent points

It involved serendipity and a willingness to try something new, rather than a technology plan...

2. Why do it?

Our guest and host shared about the learning connections they've made, and students make using this
We discussed the standards, like NETS Communication and Collaboration and looking on how our students are communicating with authentic audiences.

4. The It's Elementary team share their experiences

5. And shared barriers to effective implementation or sustainability, blocking and coordinating schedule/time zones came up as the big issues.

We then threw it open and had the audience join in.

Our Next show will be on Monday June 9th, Year in Review. What were your sucesses and challanges? What are your plans for 2008-09? Visit our Blog at http://itselementary.edublogs.org

Chat Below

EdTechBrainstorm.2008.04.10

Doug — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:08:26 -0500

This week, I'm joined by Jason Robertshaw and Alice Mercer as we discuss plans for EarthCast08

EdTechBrainstorm.2008.03.13

Doug — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:45:45 -0500

Back with Alice, Jose, and Matthew for more thoughts on the CUE Conference from Palm Springs, CA. James Sigler and Matt Montagne also stop by to join the conversation.

It's Elementary #15 - Video in the Classroom

coordinator2 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:52:39 -0500

We welcomed Mathew Needleman who discussed Video in the Classroom. Maria was unable to join us due to her mother's birthday (happy birthday to you!), Alice discussed attending Mathew's presentation at CUE last week. Her blog post is here it includes links to his presentation. We touched on...

Why to use video in the classroom
How to structure projects for success
Resources to help you with projects
Problems we had, and how to deal with them

Links

Mathew's video work: http://www.videointheclassroom.com
Digital Storytelling by Room36 Jose:
http://ia340929.us.archive.org/2/items/JoseRodriguezADigitalStoryAboutStorytelling/HumphreysDigitalStory.mov

Royalty Free Images for projects
http://www.pics4learning.com
http://www.morguefile.com
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons

Content Links/Tutorials
http://www.flickschool.com, Marco Torres's site
http://www.videointheclassroom.com for monthly digital storytelling carnival
http:www.unitedstreaming.com for AFI's training films
Microsoft MovieMaker
Microsoft PhotoStory

Visit our blog at http://itselementary.edublogs.org

Chat Below

EdTechBrainstorm.2008.03.06.p1

Doug — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:25:07 -0600

Live report from the Computer Using Educators Conference in Palm Springs, CA.

EdTechWeekly #66 - EEE PC, Streaming Courses, & the McDreamy of EdTech

admin — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:15:25 -0600

EdTechWeekly #66
EEE PC, Streaming Courses, & the McDreamy of EdTech

February 24, 2008

This Week's Del.icio.us Links

Chat Log Below

It's Elementary #12 Using RSS (Really Serious Stress relief)

coordinator2 — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:39:13 -0600

Our guest, Jennifer Dorman, gave lots of great information about using RSS in education.

We defined RSS feeds (sorta like a magazine subscription, but online);
We discussed why you would want to use it as a teacher, and in your classroom;
We shared examples of how we use it (sometimes for ourselves and our professional development, sometimes to automate information given to and from students); and
We talked about opportunities and challenges.

You can find our planning wiki here.

Some featured bookmarks from the show are here:

From Jennifer Dorman:
RSS for Educators wiki page
RSS Presentation file
RSS in Plain English (from Lee LeFever at CommonCraft, examples it really simply)

A more extensive list of bookmark is here on Diigo.

One issue that came up was the lack of RSS on content pages geared towards students. We've used feeds from Highlights, and Discovery Science. If you have other elementary-age content that has an RSS feed, please share it on in our Diigo group, or here as a comment. Thanks!

Chat Log Below

It's Elementary Show #11 - Tagging to a New Taxonomy

mariaknee — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:50:06 -0600

With our Guest Steve Hargadon. Steve shares his insights about tagging with us.

Our discussion included use of tagging in blogs, pictures, in social bookmarking, at conferences, and with our students.

Steve talked about the purpose and structure of tagging. We use tags on content we produce so that it is useful to others on the net. The use of tags in social bookmarking such as del.icio.us and diggo are examples. We are able to see how others tag content on the web. We can tag our own content using similar taxonomy or create our own. Steve reminded us that there is tension between using standardized tags versus a more independent free flowing tag system. We can use technorati and or Blog search engines like google to make sense of all the content.

At NECC 2007 session specific tags were proposed and adopted by the community. This standardized form of tagging allowed for aggregation session specific content. The same system is also used in classroom 2.0 to standardize the way blog posts and other content is tagged.

Our next show will be on January 14th, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. Pacific / 7:00 p.m. Eastern. at Edtechtalk

Chat Log Below

It's Elementary Show #10 - Copyright, It's the Law!

mariaknee — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:34:39 -0600

Our guest for this show is Aimee Bissonette whose legal practice focuses on copyright and trademark law, as well as rights licensing issues. Alice presents a case study to inform teachers about copyright and how it affects multimedia projects that you post on the web.

Chat Log

EdTechBrainstorm.2007.10.18

Doug — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:21:04 -0500

This week we discuss the subject of homelessness, and I play a clip from an interview that I during a social services fair in Victoria, BC as part of Homelessness Action Week.We also talked about the self-advocacy work being done by and for homeless individuals at Homeless Nation

I was joined by Dave Cormier, Alice Mercer, Jeff Flynn and Arthus -- thanks to them and all who joined us in the text chat.

EdTechBrainstorm.2007.10.04

Doug — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 01:30:47 -0500

I'm joined by Alex Ragone, Cheryl Oakes, Cathy Evanoff, Lisa Durff, Susan Ettenheim and Alice Mercer as we consider some questions that Alex has for edtechtalk webcasters ahead of a k12onlineconference presentation he has coming up.

It's Elementary -- Equinox Webcastathon 2007

coordinator2 — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:04:48 -0500

Come and listen as we talk about our projects. This is our Back to School Special. The It's Elementary Team; Lisa Durff, Maria Knee, Alice Mercer and Jose Rodriguez. As the Webcastathon begins to wind down the Chat Room was buzzing. We had some of our regulars and special visitors from New Zealand. Hope you enjoy the show!

Chat Log Below

It's Elementary #5, Oodles of Moodle.

coordinator2 — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:27:43 -0500

It was another great show with James Gates of Tipline - Gates? Computer Tips taking us through Moodle, and it's features. Jim was excited and passionate about this subject as you'll be able to tell from the show audio.

Jim started with a slideshare on Moodle in the classroom:
http://www.slideshare.net/jgates513/moodle-for-elementary-grades

He then talked us through the slides which highlighted the features in a moodle.
It's a great walled garden system that has a number of modules that you can pick and choose from.
There is even a great basic wiki, and word list/glossary builder feature.
There is a free moodle services available at http://globalclassroom.us/

Our Diigo links for this show include some school sites using moodle. Many have guest sign-in that will let you look at pages without editing privileges.

Please join us on September 24th, 2007 for a discussion of social networks in Education with John Pederson.

Chat Log Below

It's Elementary Show #4: Essentials for Web 2.0 in the Classroom

alicemercer — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:51:37 -0500

This was our Back to School Special. We discussed the following;

We explored the differences between a traditional classroom and a Web 2.0 Classroom.
We discussed the new NETS standards for technology. We looked at student profiles and what students are expected to do in the different grade levels.
We talked about how we use Web 2.0 tools in our classrooms.
We then opened up a round table discussion.

Other resources from the show:

Our show outline can be viewed here

Our next show will be on Monday September 10 at 4 p.m. PDT/6 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT, on the subject of the use of Moodle in the elementary classroom with our guest, James Gates of http://eduspaces.net/jamesg/weblog Join us then, at http://edtechtalk.com/chat!

Text Chat Log Below

It's Elementary #3 Podcasts - Just Listen to Me!

coordinator2 — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:13:58 -0500

We had a very information packed discussion full of insights and suggestions with our guest, Wes Fryer. Our show included discussion of the following:

We discussed what podcasting is and why you would want to podcast.
Examples from each of our classrooms (Kinder on up) of podcasting and our insights from that experience.
Wesley then shared resources on podcasting.
We then opened up a round table discussion.

Wes made his own podcast of the show, and has show notes on his blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

Other resources from the show:

Our show outline can be viewed here
Our Diigo links which include more podcasting resources than we could cover in a 30 minute show. Check them out if you'd like more information.

Our next show will be on Monday August 27 at 4 p.m. PDT/6 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT, on the subject of essentials for Web 2.0 in the elementary classroom with our guest, Christopher Shively, from On the Trails to Teaching and Learning. Join us then, at http://edtechtalk.com/chat!

Chat Log Below

It's Elementary #2 Webquests, Analyze This!

coordinator2 — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:55:20 -0500

We had a great show discussing Webquests in the elementary classroom.

First, we shared the wiki that we used to plan this show. Then we defined what a Webquest is and talked about Bernie Dodge, who is the "father" of Webquests.

Lisa shared a Webquest template and Jose Rodriguez, shared the Webquest he is using with his summer school class. We then went through some resources, which can be found on our Diigo list.

Here is a great slideshow on Webquests:
[slideshare id=73726&doc=webquest-template4036&w=425]

We were then joined by Lisa Parisi who discussed work she had done with her students using the internet for inquiry based research.

Chat Below

It's Elementary #1 - Blogging, Just Do It!

coordinator2 — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:59:45 -0500

Our first attempt at Webcasting! Hosted by Alice Mercer, Lisa Durff, and Jose Rodriguez.

We were joined by Paul Harrington, Jason Hando, and Maria Knee talking about their blogs.

Paul shared about his blogging with Allanah King in New Zealand and his blog.

Jason shared about his first blog, "24 Stars". Work done on an outreach trip with students to Thailand.

Maria shared about blogging in Kindergarten on her blog.

Please join our next webcast on July 23, 2007 at 23:00 GMT on the edtechtalk channel where we discuss webquests.