With the winter Olympics going on, I’m sure that many of you have mentioned the events in your class. But why not take it a step further and use Olympic resources in your class? Why not look at the Google medal map for the total medal count while secretly learning some geography skills? Or look at the ski slopes in Google Earth and determine the elevation of the slopes, take it even further by setting up math problems that revolve around the ski slopes. Below are some of the resources I found:

• Get inside the games with Google
• Official Vancouver Olympic site
• Google Earth Olympic file (can be downloaded from this site)
• Winter Olympic Education resources

I was catching up on my reading this week and in the ISTE publication Learning & Leading with Technology Nov. 2009 issue I was drawn to the section on new multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs). I have long felt very strongly that these settings held enormous potential for advancing student learning. It was three years ago, as part of my doctoral studies at the University of Rochester, that my good friend Jeremiah Frink and I conducted an ethnography study at a popular gaming parlor in Rochester called Arena 51. During this study I had the opportunity to see first hand the sophisticated complexities of games that took place in MUVEs.  I was also struck by the types of kids who were playing…..they were not the loner, quiet, friendless,  introverted type kid that I envisioned.  In fact it was just the opposite, the people were all very social.  I really questioned my paradigm about gaming being all about shoot/kill and involving social misfits.  In fact what I learned was these MUVEs hold the potential to illustrate and actively engage students in a social atmosphere that takes on very sophisticated concepts.  Imagine a true MUVE through a human body with cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure……or the brain…

In 2008 the Pew Internet & American Life reported on a study that found

• Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day.
• 97% of American teens ages 12-17 play some kind of video game.
• 99% of boys say they are gamers and 94% of girls report that they play games.

Gaming is a ubiquitous part of this generation.  So I was excited to read that the World of Warcraft, arguably one of the most popular MUVE game of kids is being used by schools to explore literacy, math, writing, digital citizenship, and 21st century skills.  Suffren Middle School in Suffren NY is a leader in this endeavor and it is exciting to see them engaging students in a learning medium that will continue to have a growing presence in their lives.

Yesterday I had the great pleasure to meet with the IB teachers of Fairport.  I really enjoyed this meeting and the great questions posed by the group.   The theme of the presentation was providing real time access to real world resources 24/7.

The presentation slides above contain links to some of the sites that they will be able to utilize once their network infrastructure is completed this summer.

Imagine having your students watching a video on the Amazon River, from the perspective of being on a boat on the Amazon. They explore the diverse geological and cultural surroundings as the camera moves down the river…yet in this video format the students can move their view 360 degrees as the boat floats down the river. Check out the interactive video below from Yellowbird and mess around with the views as you watch it….it can be a paradigm shifter for how we make videos for kids.

Friday we met with IBM & VPN to review the final verifications of the newly installed 802.11n network at JP. They did an excellent job and we now have a wireless environment that will enable students to access technology in every instructional space in this building.  On Friday we had data throughputs over 155 MPS in the library.

This new network does have important caveats that we all need to be cognizant of.  This network is met to maximize bandwidth and connectivity for teachers and students.  This is not meant to be a public wireless network, like one might find at a coffeehouse.

• We are ONLY running 802.11N over “A” 5ghz . We have turned off all 2.4Ghz B and G radios.
• We have one Wireless Network called “Fairport Schools”
• We have only allowed the X200 teacher laptops and Mobile Labs access to the network at this time.
• We have no guest Wireless enabled anywhere, nor have we let any other piece of hardware other than and X200 on this network.
• We  see a LIVE view of every connected wireless device. This provides a high level of technical detail that will be beneficial in troubleshooting and maintaining quality wireless services.
• We will  bring up guest services after we have a proven, successful district wide structure that fully supports the difficult demands of the high density mobile classroom.

Major kudos to Ross Ciulla, Tom Devitt, John Poland, Jason Scott, and Brett Provenzano for their significant contributions to this project.

Photo by C Haglund

Earlier this year Google Wave got a lot of attention when it was introduced to the web.  There was quite a but of buzz and speculation about this being a “really big deal”, but after using it for a few months I understand why this excitement has cooled off as it is nothing more than a portal type dashboard to existing technologies.

While somewhat disappointed with Google Wave, I am very excited about the new paradigm that Google Chrome OS presents.  This is a operating system that allows someone to be on the Internet in 7 seconds from pressing the “on” button of a computer.  This OS goes right to the cloud and does not go through the laborious and lengthy start-up that Apples and PCs put their users through.  There is a good YouTube video on this OS

An important part of our visionary framework is to have technology that is web accessible.  This places an emphasis of putting our instructional resources in the cloud for students so that they can access their resources on any web accessible device.  Today it takes about 75 seconds for a student to turn on a computer and access the Internet.  Using Google Chrome OS students could shave 68 seconds off this time.  Assume a student does this 100 times in the year, that fress-up  6800 seconds for the student that other would have been spent staring at a screen waiting for the computer to startup.

One dimension of our technology work that is often overlooked is developing data systems that provides teachers and educational leaders with timely information that helps inform our actions to improve student learning.  This year we have been developing an articulated RTI K-12 strategy that will be very helpful for teachers who are already feeling very stretched.  A keystone to this strategy is using a new program called EXCEED by Spectrum K-12.  This work has included identifying all the assessments that are utilized with students K-12.  We have identified over 240 assessments used by teachers, most of which is New York State required assessments.  This product will allow teachers to easily access the vertical and horizontal data required to make informed decisions on the IST plans they create for students.  This software will then track the progress of the student, alerting teachers when the student falls off their desired levels of improvement.

In other words, we are trying to provide powerful tools that empower teachers with important student data in a time efficient manner which will also equate into improving student learning.

I was searching for a comprehensive list of Web 2.0 tools to share with our staff and students when I happened upon a matrix organized by Jane Hart.  This matrix presents a nicely organized array of tools that can be used by anyone with Internet access.  I am sharing this with the TVT group also as they filter out some of these tools which may be worthwhile to offer on an enterprise level.  This is important for us to offer such tools that are ad-free.  Almost all “free” tools comes with ads, and ad-free alternatives cane be offered for a fee.  Take a look and share on the ones that you feel are worthwhile for our district.

SchoolTube has become a fast favorite for teachers in the district who record video for their students and/or parents. SchoolTube allows you to upload your video and then embed it directly to your website, blog, or wiki. Not only can you upload your own videos, but you can search for videos other educators have uploaded.

To get started, go to SchoolTube.com to register. When asked what school/organization you belong to, type in Fairport and select Fairport Central School District. Below is Mike Fortner’s final TVT video:

For more Fairport videos, visit our Fairport SchoolTube channel.

The use of eReaders in school presents some exciting opportunities for students. One is the access to millions of different published works on a single device.

A second reason is that classrooms of students, with different reading levels, can read the same titled book, but at a reading level of which matches each respective student. For example, if a class of 20 11th grade social studies students were to read George Orwell’s book 1984. In this class are two students who are reading at a 6th grade level. The teacher, with 20 eReaders could have 18 students read the book 1984 as George Orwell wrote it and the other 2 could read a version written at the 6th grade level. In this manner the students can all learn and discuss the implications of “Big Brother”, “newspeak” and “doublethink“.

A third reason is the new dense wireless network in the libraries throughout the district. These environments are very suitable for such initiatives as Google books where it would only take a few seconds for a student in the library with eReader to download a book.

The market is changing rapidly on eReaders. The TVT group is exploring iPod Touches now. We will also bhe looking at enTourage eDGe™ and the Sony Reader Daily Edition because of their wireless features.