Summercore Blog

lschryver — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:19:56 +0000

I chose an extremely practical page, “Using reviewing Toolbars” (p. 262) and used it with Word, so that it became a quick tutorial. I first saw use of the Reviewing Toolbar the year before last by Heidi, our Global Programs Director, who used it extensively while we were drafting various documents for our maiden Global Investigators Trip, and I have been wanting to learn how it works. Now I know how, and I will try this method for indicating corrections that need to be made, and compare it to my current method. This may well save me time. Yea! Thanks!

Homework Wed night-ideas from 3 schools

lschryver — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:08:06 +0000

The chapter on ideas from Concord Academy, Chapin School, and Noble and Greenough was practical and helpful. It was interesting to compare vision statements and guidelines, as well as Fair and Acceptable Use policies. I noted the user-friendly nature of some of these policies and wonder if we should try to adapt ours into some such format, or at least have a student-friendly version of it. We want our students to read and be familiar with our Fair and Acceptable Use; the more user-friendly we can make it, the more likely students are to read it.

Google Earth notes, June 25

lschryver — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:38:24 +0000

Notes, Summercore, Wednesday, June 25

Class : Google Earth

Ways of using Google Earth in classroom :
• Heather : Tour of DC before DC trip for 8s (guided tours)
• Sarah : Air Quality
• Carolina : to show glacier ‘between Argentina & Chile b/c it’s in danger (people trying to steal gold)

Instructions for using it : see chapter on Step-by-Step for instructions ; see also summercore wiki site for ways to use Google Earth

*2nd editiion of Google Earth now has street views—amazing detail ! Constantly updated.
Look on « layers » and check « 3D bldings » and « Street View »
Use this for showing streets of Paris, Bordeaux, French places around the world

ON LEFT SIDE of Google : controlling area
Top area : search area
Bottom : layers that come w/ Google Earth ; they’re like transparent overlays, and they constantly change
To turn off all the layers, click on « Primary Database »
On new editiion, Lynne suggests always turning on both Street View & 3D
Weather feature added in newer edition : can show clouds (in real time), radar conditions, and weather forecast Doppler radar = tells you not only where clouds are but how they’re moving, and amount of precepitation within clouds. The more you zoom in, the more info you get.
Borders and Labels (will show states and name them)
Gallery
Global Awareness – provides info on hot spots, issues of day. Ex. Darfur
*Can check « Alternate Place names » (to get names in french)
*Don’t turn on TOO many layers—can look to cluttered, so learn to turn on and off as necessary

MIDDLE AREA of left side= Guided Tours
Created by anyone—hundreds and hundreds of them
Saved in kml =Keynote Markup Language
Example : Odysseus’ ten-year journey. Under « Places » – can click on it. *Also Bayeux Tapestry tour.
A class could create a tour.
Go to Preferences, then click on TOURING tab : should always have Show Balloon when tour is paused. Then look at Tour Pause ; you can change the length of time the tour pauses along the journey.
Option : if you don’t want to take the automatic tour, you can also click on each ‘slide’ rather than have it move automatically. (Similar to PPT)
Examples of lessons for teachers

Guided Tour of Paris, France : Scavenger Hunt
Gave them a certain # of euros ; had to find a place to eat, go to cinema, find metro stops along the way, then write journal write up in blog about their day

Find business :
Type in café and it shows several cafes in area ! You can click on them and get info.
OR to to google maps and get even get to links to their web sites
then, cinema. Anytime you click on one of the places, it opens another screen and takes you to Google Maps and sometimes it has a web site link

Another projecet with a history teacher : ancient Egypt, great Pyramids.
First, showed great pyramids. But then used the view to discuss why built in their locations. Then, guided tour of King Tut’s tomb in Goodle Sketch

Check out 9th grade Google Earth tours made by Chris, Peggy, Laura

HOW TO FIND THE GUIDED TOURS :
Go to earth.google.com
Click on Gallery. You’ll find tons of tours created by people all over the world.
Alternative way to find them Go to google.com
Go to Advanced Search.
Go to « File type « and choose KML
NOTE : THIS IS HELPFUL JUST TO LOOK FOR PPTS in any subject (passé composé, etc. BUT choose File Type PPT, not KML)

*Once you find the links, they’re not links to a web page. You have to DOWNLOAD them. SO, hold down right control key (ctrl) and choose « SAVE LINK AS » Save that file (onto desktop temporarily ?) When you double click on it, it automatically opens up Goodle Earth and goes to Places, My Places

One more feature : click on the Saturn icon. Cick and you get to Google SKY. Tours of Google Sky !

Summercore HW-fair use & Copyright

lschryver — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:38:10 +0000

While some of copyright is a no-brainer (software, copying CD’s), some of it remains gray for me. Am I in the minority? I found Lynne’s link to the Teachers First site on copyright and fair use to be helpful, but I would love a more interactive approach. Could we devote even 20 minutes at an early faculty meeting this year to a mock quiz with case-study questions, some easy, others not so evident? Perhaps Steve and Mary could come up with sample scenarios, and solicit others from faculty in advance. Examples: For Lauren’s imovie project, she has several purchased CDs with French music. Can students use one of the songs as background for their imovie? or It’s an hour before Lauren’s French II class and Flickr has the perfect image of a French deli-type store for her SmartBoard lesson. Can she use it if she copies and pastes the url?

It would be interesting to see how faculty respond (without putting anyone on the spot) and I would find it very helpful.

Summercore Day 1

lschryver — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:20:29 +0000

French billiards

Flickr! That is the first practical bit of knowledge gained from my HW readings. I checked out the site right away and realized it was a potentially far better resource for my SmartBoard images than google images. The reading excerpts on various web sites reminded me how far behind I often feel on the latest and greatest web sites I can use for teaching.

Other chapter excerpts provided a basic glossary of computer terminology, although I realized at this morning’s opening $33 prep session that it’s not enough to read about them but to put in the time to memorize them. (Not just for the $33….)

Finally, I am really looking forward to the step-by-step chapter for itunes, Smartboard, imovie, etc. That will very helpful later, as my feeble brain does not retain info as well as it used to….

P.S. The French billiards youtube video is cool.

Tuesday evening: Aha, I finally understand the difference between a Wiki and a Blog and I can see the advantages of each. I think I will begin with blogs, and I agree that starting off with a teacher-created one is easiest. This might work for adding a little something more creative to HW without it being time-consuming. For example, the youtube video on billiards could work. What you hear in the background in French is an argument between two of the announcers as to whether what the billiards guy did is a waste of time or not. Students could comment on that, giving their own opinion, and try to guess how much time the guy spent setting that whole thing up.

I had not even heard of RSS feeds, to be honest, but I understand how they work and can see the time-efficiency of using them.