Reactions to Time Logs

The Capstone Committee has requested that students keep both a time log and a reflective journal of Capstone process. When I told students about it today, some were outraged. One thought that it made more sense to do rather than keep tedious records of time. Alex said that he understood the motivation to have some kind of record of activity but that differences among projects mean that no one solution would work for everyone. Allie reminded us that the whole point of this is for students to take responsibility.

Can we use a default plan, keep either a time log or a reflective journal or some combination of the two? If participants think that does not work for them, then they are responsible for describing and developing a solution that meets their needs and advisors.

Progress building capacity - Capstone

Met with both Capstone Pilot students and with MAMS ITeam today and got encouraging signs of students developing their understanding and capacity to undertake more challenging work:

Capstone:

• Sara inspired us with her descriptions of Capstone work she already has underway.
• Several students have already sent out inquiry email messages and have been waiting patiently for responses that have not yet come. They are ready to pick up the phone to see whether they can get better responses that way.
• Dan said that his jazz ensemble had just produced a performance CD. They are now looking for more gigs. Noted the challenge of getting members out of school for Capstone performances. We briefly discussed video and other ways to share the performance part.
• Haley described what she wants to do and Sara was able to help her with knowledge and experience that she has developed from her parallel work at Maine Region Ten. Sara offered to introduce Haley to her teacher at Maine Region Ten. We paused to reflect how this is a very important example of how we can scale this operation: share knowledge and share process so that others can appreciate it and extend.
• Nick described his plan to find and execute off-season conditioning but then went on to say that he planned to integrate his work in the WebTeam class with his Capstone Project. He (and others?) will build a web site to share appropriate parts of his conditioning portfolio.
• Luke tried to contact the Marine Resources Officer in order to get expert assistance with learning about and working on the invasive species challenges.
• ...

We are using a Facebook group MTA Capstone Pilot to support some of our work on the Pilot. We chose Facebook because students already use it and check it more frequently than other ways of communicating. Since Facebook limits access, we will need to make a special effort to share with broader communities.

TinEye- Image search for exploring attribution?

I wrote about using Google Goggles to find the source of the image that we used for Capstone visuals. ITeam members were impressed when I showed them how my phone could find the image. But they typically don't have smartphones that are capable of running Goggles.

In reviewing Nevit's contributions to WikiMedia Commons, I learned about TinEye.com, a browser-based reverse search engine. I want ITeam members to get some experience with powerful applications of technologies that will help with a problem they face in school. So, I tested TinEye on the same photos that Goggles found. When TinEye could not find the modified image (arrow added to point to the keystone), I cropped back to the largest part of the unmodified image.

An Awesome screenshot annotated to show the contrast with Goggles results.

Contrast it with the original:



By Shizhao (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

If TinEye can survive the competition with Google Goggles, then I suspect it will be able to locate photos like this. While we wait for the dust to settle, TinEye provides some Cool Searches that illustrate the power of artificial intelligence for current and future challenges.

Capstone retreat and student participation

The Mt. Ararat H.S. Capstone Committee has planned an all-day retreat off-campus in order to focus on the development of resources necessary for the implementation. Unfortunately, the two student members of the committee expressed reservations about taking that much time away from school because of the challenge of keeping up with demanding course-work. The situation illustrates the challenge that students face in having to choose between two conflicting demands: during junior-year, when students are trying their hardest to establish exemplary records, conventional school work almost always wins. It is extremely difficult to introduce a new culture when the existing one is so firmly established and reinforced.

I wonder if some of the seniors that are doing pre-pilot projects might be available. They face some similar challenges but might be willing to come for part of the day and recruit a collaborator who would bring valuable perspectives, too.

Tools for Place-based Learning Projects

We are trying to develop our capacity for Challenge- and Place-Based Learning. Tim H. helped me test the Trails App on his iPhone. When it worked reasonably well, we used it at the Summer Technology Institute as one of the sub-projects of our Vital Signs Project. This is an extension of that effort:

Picture geotag? at EveryTrail


Plan your trips with EveryTrail iPhone Travel Guides

Respect Awards - New York 2010 - Danielle Smith

"GLSENvideo — May 28, 2010 — Danielle Smith is honored as this year's Student Advocate of the Year, presented by AT&T, at GLSEN's seventh annual Respect Awards - New York."

In this speech accepting this national award, Dani describes the process by which she became a student leader. Peers, teachers, administrators, parents and community members can benefit from seeing this autobiography of leadership development and asking themselves, "What can I do to help develop leadership skills for myself and others?"



Where do we see other students and colleagues take the responsibility for informal leadership that would otherwise not be noticed? What can we do to share these so that they become the norm rather than the exception?

New Skills- Linda Darling Hammond's List

Linda Darling Hammond has published a new book, Flat World and Education: How America's commitment to equity will determine our future, that applies the principles of Tom Friedman's Flat World concept to Education. In chapter one, she lists skills that will be needed in the 21st Century. She attributes the list to Peter Drucker and Tony Wagner. But she writes her list in ways that are succinct, compelling and easier for students, parents and others to understand.

Skills that will be needed in this new economy include the capacity to:

• Design, evaluate, and manage one's own work so that it continually improves.
• Frame, investigate, and solve problems using a wide range of tools and resources.
• Find, analyse and use information for many purposes.
• Collaborate strategically with others.
• Communicate effectively in many forms.
• Develop new products and ideas.

Sally Loughlin and I are trying to find ways for students and teachers to use this or a similar list in assessment for learning including self- and peer-assessment.

She reported using this list in recent discussions with members of the local Rotary Club and observed that the list resonated with them. Their discussions led to a focus on students communicating with members of our communities similar to those that the Study Circle Pilot groups' recommended as actions to develop.

Snow Day Technology Leadership

Last March, a heavy snow caused school closures across Maine. But we discovered that the work of ITeams could continue despite the snow using network communication and collaboration. Sylvia Martinez, President of GenYES, commented on that post suggesting that we expand the practice.

When the phone rang at 6:00 this morning with Superintendent Wilhelm's announcement of school closure, I knew we had a new opportunity to follow Sylvia's suggestion. With the full expansion of the MLTI program to the high school and access to new tools, we have even greater opportunities to lead with technology. Let's see what we can accomplish and document with this opportunity.

This year we also have new tools to support this collaboration; I am writing this message in a Google wave shared with several ITeam members. And now I am extending the text in the Blogger editor. When I tried to transfer that message here to the blog, Blogspot stripped the links and formatting in both a copy and paste and a drag and drop. So, we need some more work on making tools operate more seamlessly.

But if you teach me to organize, ...

Reuven Carlyle, is a member of the Washington State Legislature. He also blogs about his work and perspectives on governing with special reference to support of education. In a recent post in a series on education, on Community organizing for change, he posted an image of a poster about organizing. He did not cite the work or identify the artist. I tracked that information down and tried to add the embed code to a comment so that others can easily find Ricardo Levins Morales and his larger body of work. The Wordpress comment tool did not allow me to add the embed code as the artist's site requests. I add it below to complete the process.

Click on the image to see more work of this artist.

Thanks to Nils Peterson, Gary Brown, and the Diigo Group CTLT and Friends for the reference.

Seth Godin describes ways drive change at TED

The TED Conference invited Seth Godin to present "The Tribes We Lead" at TED in February. They posted the video of his presentation in May. At 8:45 (minutes:seconds) he presents a diagram that ITeam members recognized as similar to our work on infecting people with good ideas.

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During the talk, Godin refers to Kevin Kelly's concept of 1,000 True Fans:

The Technium: 1,000 True Fans

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Note that TED talks now include a linked-transcript that helps navigate between text and videographic respresentations. I tried to capture the time-code anchor url but the system did not provide it and I could not find the hand-coded equivalent. You need to open his presentation on the TED site to open the transcript window.