Chalk Talk

http://sketchcast.com/channel/casselmank/

The first Sketchcast is Olivia (my advanced Algebra I student) and the second Sketchcast is from Morgan (my regular Pre-Algebra student). You can also access my Sketchcast channel from the above link.

but what else is new?  Dave’s brother, Don, who was 59, passed away yesterday from a massive heartattack.  We thought that all of the service and viewing and things would be later in the week, but everything starts Tuesday in Tennessee.  We fly out Tuesday morning and return early afternoon Thursday.  I am very thankful that my DVD for the state was mailed out Friday afternoon and has already been delivered and signed for.  I am trying to prepare lesson plans for three days(one of which is field day), grade tests and quizzes (my sweetheart of a mom is helping me here), make answer keys for my final exam reviews, find something somber-ish to wear, pack, calculate highest averages for our awards assembly on Wednesday, prepare to rearrange my tutoring schedule, blah blah blah.  On top of that, I MUST videotape kids working on my Web 2.0 project and develop the paper that they will use the guide them through the project all before we leave the house at 4 am Tuesday.  It will be a couple of very long nights ahead of me.  I just hope my poor hubby can keep it together until Thursday morning.  He has been pretty stoic over the past 36 hours or so…Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

may be the name of my first born daughter.  I LOVE this instructional design model.  It is most definitely critical to include the analyze and evaluate portions or really – what is the point?  I just added to our group’s reflections about the survey and put in a table where the ADDIE model was broken down by component.  Very exciting to see in this form just how far we have come.  I am still stuck in the develop phase of my actual project for class.  I was hoping to conquer develop tonight and then implement on Tuesday.  I might be pushed back a day or two.  Mabe I can pull it all off.  I was hoping to finish this all up in Wimba on Tuesday afternoon, but I think the weather looks best for my taping of the lesson to send to the state for Tuesday morning.  Once this is all done, I can breathe easier for a bit.  Until the next thing sneaks up on me.    And really – everything is due by June 9th?  Yikes…

Kathy, Amy A and I stayed late last Tuesday rallying the troops (really – just me) and getting our heads on straight (again – my melon).  I feel pretty confident with my write up of the lesson to turn in and the direction in which I am heading.  I just need to write the student directions and construct the video recording of the student(s) trying out the lesson.  My problem now seems to be finding time to do everything and get everything done.  I now need to record a lesson for the State portion of my T.O.Y. application and get my MAIT work done along with the day to day tasks that I need to accomplish.  We also stayed last week to work a little bit wth Widgets.  I don’t think I can make it to much of class tomorrow night because I am tutoring until at least 6:45/7 pm.  And Wednesday is our class trip to Washington DC where I need to be up and functional at 4:30 am.  I will miss seeing everyone for our “last class”.  Are we really not meeting on June 2 or 9th?  Needless to say, I may still be working… 

has grown four heads.  I am a bit overwhelmed and confused at what my team and I are doing with the survey and analysis of the data.  I understand that we are using it as a jumping off place for another course in the future, but I am unclear as to what the immediate application is.  I definitely need the structure of due dates and things broken down into chunks to be a successful student.  I feel as if I am floundering throught the work that needs to be accomplished and am at a bit of a loss as to where to start and/or continue from here…

So our little group of four decided to conduct a survey to find out what our target audience has experience with as far as the Web 2.0 tool world goes.  You can find the survey at the following link until we reach our 100 person maximum…Survey.  I think I am planning on using a blog to assess my students, but the survey will give us some insight into our students’ needs and desires.  I am still not sure what types of questions I want to post or how often I will post them.  How should I count it as part of their grade?  Should it be an actual math problem or more of a thoughtful reflection?  We are bummed that we couldn’t get into the advanced version of zoomerang, but none of us felt like shelling out the 19 bucks and our “connection” fel through.  Maybe another time soon though…

So we are off and onto a new course after all of the work we put in during the Spring semester.  Sketchy syllabus that is very free in it’s structure.  This is causing me to freak out a little and take a very laid back approach to this course.  Not a good place for me to be.  I need to be focused and product driven, but I feel like I am floundering a bit.  I hope that our “workshop” time will be productive today and that I can get myself pushed in the right direction.  Do I wanna go for a mashup?  Blogs?  Re-investigate sketchcast?  Review applets to connect to concepts taught in class?  Start off with a student survey to see what they are most interested in?  ACK!  Like a diner – too many decisions to make and I melt down… 

Tonight’s class was all about creating games using the Bill of Rights and researching self-guided information about the Iditarod sled race in Alaska.  Amy O did an impressive job with ARCS and even went as far as contacting the author of the model for research!  You can definitely tell that there is a deep love of the incorporation of this model with Amy O.  She tried to show us video footage of the application of the lesson in a classroom of Gifted and Talented students and discussed the use of the ARCS model in different content areas and grade levels at Belhaven Middle School.  Great research!

Amy M had us bundle up in our winter gear to get ready for the Great Race.  She then asked us to begin a K-W-L chart for Constructivism with what we knew about the Iditarod.  We knew generally what the race was but when we started talking about what we wanted to learn about the Iditarod, the questions just kept coming.  Amy grabbed our attention with a number of videos with dramatic narration and impressive pictures.  We were hooked.  We then spent time cruising around the Iditarod website gleaning information about the race and the mushers.  Excellent lesson!

Amy A then spent some much needed time reassuring class members about their Personal Learning Theory Paper.  She discussed how to format the paper and provided helpful general hints about the project.  Dr. Ackerman also spent individual time with me making sure that I was headed in the right direction with my PLT paper.   I learned that I was trying to feed and clothe a nation with the number of directions my paper was headed, but that I needed to just worry about the guy down the street who is cold and hungry.  I am glad I stopped in my progress on the rough draft before I had taken my train any farther off it’s derailed track.  Enough familiar to strange for you?  I now feel confident to move forward in the proper, focused direction with the paper.  Check back with me Saturday when I am knee deep into it.  Thank you so much for the concrete feedback, constructive criticism and encouragement.  You are MY cheerleader!

I had the pleasure and privilege of attending this year’s ETTC “From My Classroom to Yours”at Stockton College on Wednesday, March 18.  I always think that it is a complete and total crap shoot (catch the reference?) as to how good/great/horrid the presentations will be.  Usually the conference is held in May, but was bumped to considerably earlier in the year.  It was about time for this self-proclaimed “Queen of Professional Development” to have another day out of the building.

The first session was “Mathnology or Techmatics” and how mad am I that I didn’t creatively coin those phrases!  Keith Grimley, from Belhaven, did a wonderful job sharing products and projects as well as ideas for the classroom.  These are things that I can use!  I really enjoyed looking at his performance tasks and now desperately want the TI-nspire Calculators.  They are similar to the Renaissance Responders and other classroom “clickers” but a MILLION times better!  You can have your class answer warm ups and questions and be able to save and track their answers.  The format can be multiple choice, short answer or numerical.  Amazing.  You can also have interactive graphs and explore algebra and geometry on the TI 84 in this way.  Can you say jealous?

The second session was on Thinkfinity that is sponsored by the Verizon Foundation.  This session was a replacement for one that was canceled.  I chose not to replace it with “Wanna Wimba?” which was presented by our fearless leader, but the Thinkfinity was well worth it and the presenter, Theresa Gibbons, was incredible!  It is an amazing education search site that pulls from the greatest other educational sites available.  You can create an account to save your searches, but everything is FREE!  Worksheets, Assessments, Interactives and more…Check it out!

Session 3 – different story all together.  Let’s just say that she lost the entire audience after about 35 minutes.  It was a big disappointment.  Lots of kid’s projects and products.  Denise MacDevette was our presenter for 21st Century Learning Starts with Student Lead Projects.  She was from Tech4Learning and even though she said she wasn’t there to “sell” us any products, the products her company peddles are needed to create the student projects she displayed and discussed.   Mostly ILA and Social Studies based.  Bleech…

Lunch is always a good time and Stockton does provide a wonderful spread.  Kathy and I were able to visit with Dr. Ackerman for a teeny bit and I ran into a former ACCC student of mine with whom I had lost touch.  Vanessa is a very kind a caring soul who is now teaching Spanish at Egg Harbor Township High School and of course she had nothing but sweet things to say about me.  Hope to run into her more often!

After lunch, Kathy and I ran around to get our cards punched for the door prizes.  Stay tuned to see if we win any amazing prizes.  I did win a t-shirt last year.

The final session of the day was called “Set your Sites on Google” and was about creating a web page using your Google account.  I am so invested in SchoolFusion that I am not sure that I would start another webpage for school, but I am interested in possibly starting one for my husband, Dave, and I to share pictures and updates on our life.  TechieSue (Susan Ross) from Middle Township was an excellent presenter and it was a completely hands on experience.  Check out my site in it’s baby stages.  SOOOO much information in such a short amount of time.  I plan to have Dave access the calendar to see what plans we have so there isn’t any question of where we need to be when.

After the final presentation we waited anxiously to see if we would win the iPod touch or the digital cameras or even the flash drives.  Neither of us won those, but we both won t-shirts!  What are the odds?  Now, if they did the drawing in what I see as the correct order (cheesy prizes first, great prizes last) we would be holding digital cameras right now!

Overall – a great day and great presentations.  I am looking forward to next year’s conference already!