Although I generally use Firefox for my browser, last week I was facilitating an Edublogs workshop for the Area 3 Writing Project and noticed an issue with embedded files when viewed in IE: the files appear as  blank boxes and no amount of clicking can activate or open them. So I turned to the EB Forum and found the solution: Use Firefox!

But if you must use IE, here’s your workaround: Same as always, you will need to copy the embed code from the media site and then open the HTML editor of your post or page. Put your cursor where you want the media file to appear and paste in the code. Then click on Publish or, if you’ve already published this page or post, click on Save. Do NOT go back into the Visual editor. For some reason, with IE, if you head back into the Visual editor, the embed code changes, which is not good.

I’ve updated the Intro to Edublogs Manual to include the embedding issue - and also added instructions on adding a hyperlink to a comment. Here’s the linik: http://blogwalker.edublogs.org/files/2008/08/edublogs_08-14a3wp1.pdf.

Ernest Morrell is opening the session with 4 discussion questions:

• What will be demanded of students in terms of literacy in the 21st century
• In what ways is the nature of literacy changing?
• How should the discipline of English change in response to the changes in literacy?
• What are the ways that your students practice literacy when they are not in class?
  • filmmaking
  • video games
  • virtual worlds - adopting different identities

Issues:

• “Historical Memory” - Important to teach students that once they post something, it’s there forever
• Very complicated now to figure out what is reliable information
• Switching from the “you need to learn to do this by yourself” to “you need to learn to do this collaboratively.”

Dynamic, challenging time for teaching English and literacy - and meeting increased literacy demands. Teaching 21st century literacies can help us to address many of these challenges while providing opportunities for youth to produce socially and academically powerful texts in ways that were not previously possible - democratizing access to literacy.

Big Question: Motivating students - Expectancy Value Theory of Motivation - 1) Motivation is measure of how confident you are in your ability to perform a task and 2) motivation is measure of how relevant the task is to you. Value + Expectancy = Motivation

Examples:

Elementary Students: Teatro- Theater of the Oppressed (Pablo Freire)- Education for humanity’s sake. Elementary students out of Watts neighborhood of L.A. doing tableau on violence in their neighborhoods. Actors (students) then invite audience in to dialogue. Students were producing both academic text and socially relevant text.

11th Grader English Students - Great Gatsby unit on critical media literacy & the American Dream. Students analyzing images in 50 Cent and Seventeen and learning to read images. Between the gangster image and glamour image, teens die due to inability to read the media. Critical media literacy is a citizenship skill! The American Dream tied to wealth, not citizenship. Assignment = counter media campaign (e.g., female athletes, tough guy tutoring younger students) If you don’t like the media, make a new media - that’s the difference with 21st century literacy. Students must learn to de-construct images - and to create their own.

Critical media production: documentary filmmaking - (www.tcla.gseis.ucla.edu) - Students documenting cultures of their communities. Link between academic literacy and documentary filmmaking. Students become experts on their topics. Requires a high level of literacy to produce a documentary.

Teaching film and television:

• Watching a film in English/Language Arts class (The Odyssey/Godfather example). Using an epic text that talks about ideology of western civilization. Students use analysis of film to inform their analysis of text. Looking at camera angles to “privilege” certain characters. Having students write essays around popular culture.
• Spoken word and hip-hop in the English classroom - If young people are engaged with it, it’s important to talk about. Hip-hop reflects problems we have in society. It’s one of the few youth-created popular cultural forms. Involves complex uses of language and literacy. The Poet in Society Unit - poetry is cool again. But everything we do is mediated by the poetry of our time. Think of T.S. Elliot as a social activist, writing apocalyptic poetry about the demise of civilization. Assignment: comparing Grand Master Flash to T.S. Elliot.

Involving students in researching their own communities, with goal of making world a better place. Using an Inconvenient Truth, for example, as a key piece, moving kids beyond their own issues to issues of world. Engaging in research to make the world a better place = Youth Voices.

Critical Minds Project: English class for 9th grade, low-performing students - “A Day in My Life” was first prompt for these east L.A. students. Turned essays in photo essays > digital film.

“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.” Marshall McLuhan

“The question is not whether English will change, but how it will change.” Ernest Morrell

To see Ernest’s PowerPoint: http://www.ernestmorrell.com/ (user=profmorrell; password=morrell).

I’ll send out a Tweet as soon as I’ve uploaded the podcast for the session.

Kathy Yancy is the opening speaker for NCTE’s Institute for 21st Century Literacies.

• First task: Define literacy
• Second task: Define 21st century literacy
• Third task: Identify 10 key terms that define 21st literacy
• Fourth task: Put key terms onto chart paper in some form. Here’s what our group of 4 came up with (using Wordle.net)

Bonus of opening session: Kyene Beers‘ explanation of “dip in/dip out” approach to Holt Language Arts program - very different than the scripted approach! I’ll be doing a podcast with her later in the conference.

My two weeks at the Holocaust Seminar were amazing, just amazing. Because I need some time to reflect on the depth and breadth of what I learned, I’m planning to share the experience and resources a bit at a time, starting with the way I started most of my days: walking through Central Park’s Strawberry Fields.

Can’t pass up a session with Hall Davidson! Hall is opening the session with a look at the stats on who allows/who forbids use of cell phones. It’s a long list on the “allow” side; a short one on the forbid side (Fidel Castro, the Talian, US school districts).

The ability to immediately send a communication - What’s the application? Kids can be creative with use of a cell phone - hey, they have them in their pockets, duh.

Video:

• YouTube account and put in cell phone - first step in uploading video from cell phone to YouTube.
• Old School: voice messages pushed to community
• New School: Push video messages - you can push out a video - the power of having a human face attached to message. Tremendous difference between text and images.
• Sample video - 3rd grade teacher in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. Video of Henry autistic student, making his first presentation in school, sent to parents via cell phone.

Telephone:

• Jott.com - voice to text - you can send it to Twitter. Anything that can receive text, jott can go to. Application? Intervention officer has automatic transcription of student encounter. Transcription source.
• We’re pretty close to translation cell phones.
• GCast.com - Jen Dorman is doing great podcasts through GCast. Question: what would be a good use of cell phone in education: 888-654-2278 (Enter origianl Number if you’re using someone else’s account 301-785-0719 3) enter password 8534 4) speak) 5) when you’re done, press ## (twice). If you would rather use text, text a story in 6 words.
• PollEverywhere.com - As you text in, your data is being tallied live. You can get the data in a chart or other options.

Next steps: Revise AUPs to include ethical, acceptable use of cell phones.

I managed to beat the crowds and am now sitting right up front for David Jakes’ session on 10 Points for Improving PowerPoint presentations. Dean Shareski just finished the introduction (hilarious) of David, who is now starting with some images of old technologies, such as the ditto machine…and heading into the ’80s with…PowerPoint. Yep, PowerPoint has been with us since 1987!

“It’s not what the software does. It’s about what they do with it. It’s about crafting the message.”

Teach them biology

The brain is innately designed to communicate visually. Brain wired for visual (30%), but auditory in only (3%). Therefore PowerPoint has to be really visual. Move kids away from templates and away from being text-based. Presentations are indeed performances. Don’t remove all text, but limit it. Dual Processing of brain: visual and auditory + Cognitive load: intrinsic(based on how complex material is) and extrinsic (based on how material is presented).

Teach them how to find images

• Flickr – billions of images
• Flickr-storm – type in CreativeCommons in search window and select attribution. Select an image and download tray. Toolbar displays URL. Allows teacher to create bank.of images for students.
• iStockphoto – Pay site – but wonderful photography. For 1$ you’ll get an outstanding image. Advance search provides grid that allows you to select and add text in bottom area.

Teach them design (Dean Shareski)

• How to keep up with all the tools – Using random template that has nothing to do with presentation. So strip the template. Strip away unimportant points. Make the image central and, ideally an image (which will help you retain the information).

Teach them to sell

• Antidote to kids copying and pasting. Kids have to learn how to craft a story, not move content from point a to point b. Kids need to write deeply about their topic. Why not have them write a storyboard, just as they would for a digital story. “Communication ia the transfer of emotion” Seth Godin

Color and font choice matters

• Color is important. It means different things to different audiences. Dave is showing a yellow-cast beach image. Green suggests renewal. Blue = fav color in US. Red signals danger or alert. Blockbuster = blue with yellow border. Deep blue signifies trust.
• Fonts – sans serif vs serif (little feet help your eye travel across text), but when you project, always use a sans serif. Tip: Never use Helvetica with US audience (font of IRS)

Teach them to incorporate multimedia:

• But how to get video from off the web to “embed” in presentation.
• 3 ways to do this:
  • Zamzar.com (avi on PC/mov on Mac)
  • Go into PowerPoint and check steps
  • PowerPt 2003 -07 – YouTube video – creates button to embed into your PowerPoint.

Teach them PowerPoint Secrets

• Go online and search keystrokes – “B” – takes to slide to black or “W” and slide goes white
• Type in # of slide so that you can bring in hidden content (slides)

Teach them to share

“Back of Napkin” – selling ideas by getting people to think visually

• Slideshare – look for exemplars – opening page has “featured presentations.” Show to students and have them critique them
• Sliderocket – you can build your presentation online
• Google doc – upload a presentation to Google docs and share it – Use chat box on right so others can join into to preso from other sites.
• Give photo credits

2008 = lots of ways to communicate!

I’m sitting in a very packed room with Rushton Hurley (I’m actually hiding from the fire code folks up front where they can’t see that I’m exceeding the room limit). Low Tech Advice:

• time limits
• violence and martial arts (think high school boys)
• podcasts and slideshows - ask the students “Is this what you want other people to hear.” Ease kids into projects so they care about a quality produce
• alone or with others - helps kids who don’t have the equipment
• alternatives - you can give students non-video options such as posters (but they’ll want to do video!)

Resources: These resouces can be used as long as you cite them:

• www.partnersinrhyme.com
• www.podsafeaudio.com
• www.jamendo.com
• audacity.sourceforge.net/

Titles and Screenshots:

• using save-as in PowerPoint (use save as > save as type > save as jpg option)
• screenshots
  • Google Earth or Sketch Up
  • PicLens - plug in for your browser - perfect fix for those with “iPhone envy.” Great tool for teaching vocabulary, for instance.

Free Photos:

• CreativeCommons.com- KIds need to read the attribution requirements; otherwise, they’ll go to Google and not only violate copyright but also pick something that will pixalate like crazy.
• Morguefile.com (newspaper term) - Huge file sizes, which are good for video.

Motion Experience:

• Motion should ahve a purpose (pans, faces, eyes)
• What to do if you’re on PC? Use PhotoStory3 - great, great tool and free! Import pictures > customize motion option > save. If you’re using panning, you want the motion to be different all the time (which is shortcoming with default panning (Ken Burns effect). Oh, and you can create music in Photostory. A bit “elevatorish,” but you have options. Tip: don’t use a favorite pop song because that’s what your listeners will concentrate on — not your movie.

Moving Beyond Freebies

• Macs - Final Cut Express
• PCs Adobe Premiere Elements - $99 (BHphoto.com) - It’s a memory hog, so you’ll need a good video card with lots of RAM. Remember to render often, not just save. Big advantage of having multiple tracks. Key frames feature is cool, allowing you to add great effects., such as translucent text floating across an image. Want a good mic for camera: lavalier mic.

Why do we do video?

• another way to show learning
• good for ELL, LD kiddos
• impact (”favorite thing”)
• audience - we need to expand the audience so that kids really stretch

Good news… You can contact Rushton via www.NextVista.org or rh@nextvista.org. Fabulous session!

Davina Pruitt-Mentle and Nancy Willard are leading this section on cyber awareness - which goes beyond cyber safety. PowerPoint of session will be up on NECC ning soon.

Davina: Academic Integrity/Cyber Ethics

Big disconnect between K12 arena and higher ed.

What’s the difference between academic integrity and plagiarism? Academic integrity includes plagiarism as a subset.

Traditional plagiarism includes:

• Buying a paper from a research service of term paper mill (schoolsucks.com)
• Turning in another student’s work
• Turning a paper a peer has written for the student….

New forms of plagiarism includes:

• Using an electronic translator to translate your work into another language and turning it in as your own writing in a different language
• Uisng cell phones/PDAs to text message answers back and forth, take pictures of test, archive notes/cheat sheets digitally, etc.

Statistics and Realities - From Center for Academic Integrity - Donal McCabe is a leading researcher. He reports that at least 80 percent of college students admit to cheating at least once - but colleges are reluctant to report problems of cheating, so stats are probably higher. His high school survey showed 74% of cheating on tests and written work. Almost 97% report copying homework at least once. At both the high school and college levels, few students take cheating seriously nor do they believe that their teachers really care (too much hassle, don’t care, not worth the trouble). Serious test cheating grows from 9th to 11th grade and drops off slightly in 12th grade. Students in midwest report lower levels of cheating than schools in west and northeast. Fact: students have a 99% chance of getting away with it. Over time, cheating has not increased substantially, but it’s becoming the norm. Love this student quote for one of the studies: “Except for English they [teachers] never really care.” Teacher quote: “no real consequences for students if you do turn it in.” Fuzzy AUP/SCCs are a problem, with so few having clear statement on defining cheating or consequences.

Suggestions: Students need more than just a single briefing of the AUP. Be sure to include library media specialist as a partner. Ashley Mouberry-Sieman has study online of differences between high school and college cheating:

• Teachers can help deter academic dishonesty and promote a climate of integrity - teachers can have a huge impact!!! But they must mention the do’s and dont’s throughout the term, not just at beginning.
• Students needs lots of examples of how to paraphrase, for instance. Assignments should scaffold to deter cheating: outlines, notes, including things from class.
• Teachers should talk to students about how plagiarism is detected (e.g., take a sentence and pop it into Google).
• Define what plagiarism is and isn’t.
• Discuss as a legal issue of fair use and intellectual property.
• Do the parent ed piece (this can be tough, as the most involved parents also tend to be the ones that push for grades).
• Talk about the consequences, not just in school, but in the real world too (Wikipedia has tons of examples).
• Check for Joyce Valenza’s exercises
• Warm up snippets for students: Give them samples of student plagiarized samples.
• Assign current and local topics (instead of women in the Civil War, describe an event from your community)

Sites for security issues:

• OnGuard Online
• Get Net Wise
• University of Florida Trailer

Nancy Willard - Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use

Digital Divide + shift to Web 2.0 > huge changes!

Why do young people make poor decisions:

• Brain development - frontal cortex undergoing development. Teen process emotions in “fright or flight” portion of brain
• Disinhibition - you can’t see me; I can’t see you. Lack of tangible feedback about consequences interferes with empathy and ability to make good choices
• Exploration of Identity and Emerging Sexuality - Trying to win the who’s hot contest
• Online social norms - life online is just a game
• Social manipulation - providing a gift, seeking commitment, creating attractive image, establishing authority, encouraging group allegiance
• Youth risk online must be viewed from perspective of adolescent risk - they’re on risk online - and in real life:
  • vulnerable emotionally
  • less resilient in getting out of a difficult situation

Approaches that are not working:

• installing filtering software
• fear-based tactics - teens who meet with sexual predators do so intentionally, knowing they are adults and intending to engage in sex. “Tiny tip of the tail wagging the Internet safety procedures.”
• misleading use of data
• reliance on filtering - won’t effectively block “porn traps” because traps generally link to newer sites- here’s a sound bit from Nancy on the topic of filtering by school districts - ws1139401
• simplistic rules - hey, “just say no” didn’t work with drugs…Teens and tweens need strategies. Unfortunately, most at-risk kids don’t have good relationships with their parents. We need to educate kids - and adults
• avoiding uncomfortable information - shortcoming of iSafe.org is absence of word “sex” anywhere in the training. Adults must open the lines of communication about risky online sexual concerns.
• considering all young people victims

How do we do this cybers afety thing better?

• all use should be in a controlled environment
  • book-marked sites
  • closely controlled communications
  • close supervision
• key safety rules
  • if something “yucky” appears, turn off the screen and tell an adult. Kids and teachers need to know what to do
  • do not go outside the safe sites without permission
  • do not type your name, address, or phone number online or send a picture of yourself
  • ask kids to bring in terms of use of their favorite sites
• Ethical decision-making
  • is this kind and respectful to others?
  • what would my mom, dad, or other respected individual think?
  • would it be ok if I did this in the real world?
  • how does what I do online reflect on me?
• Problem: people who understand risk, often don’t understand technology; people who understand technology often don’t understand risk. The path to bring everyone to the table is cyberbullying - and don’t adopt anything that looks like the D.A.R.E. program. We need to bring in peer leadership too!
• School counselors have children reporting concerns. They need access to the sites in question! Every administrator needs immediate ability to bypass filters! Many librarians and teachers are trying to teach students about inappropriate sites, but can’t override filters.
• WE NEED TO SHIFT FROM BLOCKING TO WATCHING.

Pretty cramped quarters in afternoon session of the today’s EduBloggerCon08 to join Vicki Davis’s Web 2.0 Smack Down session. We’re sharing favorite tools:

• Poll Everywhere - Starting with What Is Your Fav Color poll. Create, save, open poll and public can vote via cell phone. No need to purchase clickers for your classroom! Have kids take the cell phones out of their pockets.
• Chacha.com - Call ChaCha; ask your question; wait for text message question; they have real people behind the service. Uses in classroom? When you don’t have access to the web. 1-800-chacha
• Animoto - Great free service that allows teachers to download 1-minute video.
• PicLens.com - Allows you to take a set of images from Flickr and create a photo wall. Classroom idea: use sets of pictures for teaching a concept.
• CoverItLive.com - Didn’t realize you can create a panel. Classroom application - you can approve panelists comments.
• Qik.com - via your cell phone, you can do live streams. When you start it, it’ll announce it on Twitter too.
• Handipoints.com - Great for keeping tracks of kids “points” for different things.
• Diigo.com - Vicky is sharing Diigo feature to send bookmark to Twitter and to your blogs (using tags).
• Key Chain idea - teachers add tabs to key chain - with “contact me when you’re ready to learn” message on back.
• Webcast Academy - Training for EdTechTalk
• Make Beliefs Comics - Easy - and no advertisements - and developer will be adding “smaller” characters. No need to login; no need for email address. Students can print out or email it.
• www.ajaxim.com - php program that allows you to create your own im network - great for teaching younger students netiquette.
• doodle.ch - Allows you to solve problem of how to see when you can meet. Doesn’t require login or profile. Voting for selecting meeting date is “egregiously” simple.
• Timebridge - Works with Google Calendar and with Outlook - will send out email.
• taggalaxy.de - takes images from flickr and loads them and assembles them into globe, that’s clickable.
• Webkinz - Use to teach younger kids about being digital citizens. Has chat rooms.
• exalead.com - Backchannels options for students
• Plurk.com - alternative to Twitter - bit more of a learning curve, but has more options.

Very high-energy session!

The full title for this session is Digital Storytelling as the Disruptive Change Agent. Wes is starting with fact that student and teachers have little opportunity for feedback - and development - once they’ve created a digital story. Kevin’s Celebrate Oklahoma oral histories project taps into technologies such as a ning for creating the digital storytelling community.

The Oaklahoma Project was set up for interviewing veterans. The project started with GCast to record an interview over the phone (GabCast works too - both are free).

Advantage of uploading and sharing digital stories on the open web, comments are a possibility, connecting and reconnecting family members. We’re listening to the Lillie and John story amazing story - incredibly well written + music - quite the emotional impact. Check out Hank Thompson’s World War II story.

Digital storytelling in the classroom is a golden opportunity to teach positive, constructive use of technology. Maybry digital storytelling awards, for example, have changed student lives. How to get teachers going with filmmaking? Give a deadline and an event (e.g., Veteran’s Day). Time is the number one challenge, but by getting the students involved and having them use time outside of school will also help kickstart a project.