Learning Solutions

Ever wonder what the world would look like if Garfield was not around? Dan Walsh did, and turned it into a rather interesting blog, Garfield Minus Garfield:

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

Dan admits he was not the first to think up this concept, but he did champion and popularize it.  He even accepts strips from the public:

Q. Can I submit a strip?
A. Of course you can! Send your strips or your ideas for a good candidate for a strip to garfieldminusgarfield (at) gmail.com
Please note that while I really appreciate submitted strips, I can’t publish individual credit for them as I don’t have the resources or time to record each submission.

Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, seems to be okay with the idea, as documented in his interview in the Washington Post

This would be a great activity to foster the idea of differing perspectives, and strengthen Photoshop skills.  Students take a comic strip, scan it, and then use Photoshop to take out a particular element, creating an entirely new meaning.  Peanuts minus Charlie Brown?…LuAnn minus LuAnn?…Blondie minus Dagwood?…

eSchool News reports:

In a national survey that reveals K-12 students’ use of technology at home and at school, students overwhelmingly agreed that access to digital media tools and the ability to collaborate with peers both inside and outside of school can greatly enhance education.

“Speak Up 2009: Creating Our Future: Students Speak Up about their Vision for 21st Century Schools,” the latest education technology survey from the nonprofit group Project Tomorrow, identifies the emergence of “free agent learners”—students who increasingly take learning into their own hands and use technology to create personalized learning experiences.

The article points to three elements needed in the classroom:

• Social-based learning: Students want to leverage emerging communications and collaboration tools to create and personalize networks of experts to inform their education experience.
• Untethered learning: Students envision technology-enabled learning experiences that transcend the classroom walls and are not limited by resource constraints, traditional funding streams, geography, community assets, or even teacher knowledge or skills.
• Digitally-rich learning: Students see the use of relevancy-based digital tools, content, and resources as a key to driving learning productivity, and not just about engaging students in learning.

I would argue this report is applicable to the Higher Ed community as well.  I have lost count how many times this type of information bubbles up from the K-12 environment, only to catch universities off guard by the expectation of their students.

I discovered this site at my kid’s open house at Wall High School.

Brightstorm is a learning solution providing video content for students.  Subjects covered include: SAT and ACT prep, Algebra, Geometry, Trig and Precalculus.

As stated on the website:

For students, they’re given the choice of teachers and the opportunity to learn from some of the best teachers. With an on-demand format, students can go at their own pace, choose their own order, and easily jump to any section in the video to parallel their own class to tailor to their own learning needs. Each course includes interactive quizzes, facts as well as bonus materials like practice problems and study guides that they use with the videos to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.

Brightstorm is sponsored by Korea’s KTB Ventures, and as reported by TechCrunch, has quite a few competitors:

But there are plenty of startups trying. Here in the U.S., there is PrepMe, ePrep, Teach The People, and Grockit. In Asia, there is iKnow in Japan and perhaps the biggest success to date is Korea’s Megastudy.

Originally offering paid courses, they have now launched the free math help.  from their press release:

Brightstorm’s mission is to bring great teaching to the world. The company recruits the best teachers in the country, and then works with them to create high-quality, video-based learning solutions. Brightstorm’s free math help offering includes over 1,800 videos of great teachers explaining every topic contained in Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2 and Precalculus. The videos are short, averaging about 5 minutes each, to correspond to the attention span of the online generation. For each math topic, the teacher has a short video explaining the concept and then a few short videos walking through sample problems.

The whole purpose of this is for that student who goes home, is working on their homework assignment, and for some reason they’re just not getting it

Brightstorm’s free math help is a major step toward achieving our vision of a world in which millions of students learn through technology

In today’s networked world, there is no reason why a student should struggle with their math homework. Students should be able to have easy access to great teachers explaining the concepts they’re struggling with. That’s what Brightstorm’s free math help solution is all about.

Before this program was started, it would have been hard to find a site that was reasonably priced on which you could find everything that you needed. Now, with Brightstorm’s math help, students can find something good

Brightstorm math help really covers everything from Algebra to Precalculus

If you’re in the high school math curriculum, you can find what you’re looking for.

Creating great math videos is only half the battle

Content is only good if the learner can find it quickly, so user-friendly search and browse have been a major focus for Brightstorm math help.

It’s kind of like your back-pocket math teacher, who can explain those difficult concepts to you.

You can review the video, and watch it over and over–from your home.

Learning with our great teacher videos is only the beginning

Ultimately, Brightstorm’s free math help will serve as a foundation from which millions of learners can connect and learn together.

“The whole purpose of this is for that student who goes home, is working on their homework assignment, and for some reason they’re just not getting it,” says Brian McCall, Brightstorm’s Geometry teacher. “They have to get their homework done, but they don’t have that teacher right next them. Now, with Brightstorm, every student can have a great teacher at their side.”

“Brightstorm’s free math help is a major step toward achieving our vision of a world in which millions of students learn through technology,” says Brightstorm CEO Jeff Marshall. “In today’s networked world, there is no reason why a student should struggle with their math homework. Students should be able to have easy access to great teachers explaining the concepts they’re struggling with. That’s what Brightstorm’s free math help solution is all about.”

Brightstorm continues to look for more teachers to provide lessons.  The next Teaching Idol?!?

Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC), has posted the following for their upcoming online conference:

FETC Fall ’09 Virtual Conference & Expo is coming to you live on Thursday, October 22, 2009. This FREE 100% online educational event gives you the opportunity to participate in highly informative virtual sessions from the convenience of your office, visit the Virtual Expo Hall and chat with real live exhibitors, and preview and evaluate the latest hardware and software available today.

This extraordinary online educational event delivers valuable presentations and unlimited networking opportunities straight to your desktop — all at NO CHARGE!

Attend this 100% online event to enjoy:

• A dynamic exchange of best practices and tips for success
• Expert speakers sharing their views in an effective, interactive way
• A virtual networking lounge to reconnect with colleagues and make new contacts
• Real-time access to other participants through instant messaging
• Technology product and service demonstrations in our virtual exhibit hall
• Free content downloads and presentations to go
• And much more!

Attend as many sessions as you like, visit the virtual exhibit hall at any time and network when it’s convenient for you.

More information and registration

I came across this article about a great learning solution for supervising teachers advising student teachers in the field.

From eSchool News:

Using a web camera connected to a laptop computer, and a Skype video conferencing account, the (University of Southern Mississippi) assistant professors can observe and evaluate 18 online elementary education students who are working in the field.

“We started the program because we saw a need,” said Assistant Professor Kelley Samblis. “There were a lot of teacher’s assistants [who] were not able to come to school, come to face-to-face classes. So we thought, let’s offer an online venue for them.”

This next part is probably the most revolutionary technique I have heard about in a while.  If you have seen the show “Howie Do It”, this takes it into the classroom:

The assistant professors can communicate with their students through a Bluetooth earpiece and give them instant feedback. “If there’s a problem, we can just whisper in their ear with the headpiece when we’re talking on the microphone,” said Assistant Professor Holly Hardin Hulbert. “But if not, we just let it alone and we talk to them as soon as it’s over.”

You literally have  an expert inside your head.

I applaud the University of Southern Mississippi for thinking outside the box.

Discovered this site from a tweet by Wes Fryer:

This Bald Eagle nest cam provides an intimate view of a wild Oklahoma Bald Eagle nest in Sutton County. Children and adults from around the world can observe life in an eagle nest, and scientists can make observations that will help better understand the life history of our national symbol.

This nest is on OG&E (Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company)  property at Sooner Lake near Stillwater, Oklahoma. The original dead nest tree used by this pair of eagles fell down. OG&E, with technical assistance from the Sutton Center and financial assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, erected an artificial tower which these eagles have adopted successfully.

The eggs in this nest were laid February 6 and with the first egg hatching March 21.

Quite amazing to see up-close the feeding habits of the parent eagles.  The eagles spend much of the day gathering food and tidying up the nest.

Webcams are a great learning solution to bring the world into the classroom.  Students can observe and document the early life of an eagle, using the same tool as professional scientists.

I see this as a perfect example of Alan November’s idea of homework should be a contribution to the classroom’s repository of learning objects, instead of individual effort.

As seen from webcam

From Chronicle of Higher Education:

A new company called Academic Earth offers free online videos of lectures from some of the world’s most renowned scholars teaching at leading universities. The company has simply grabbed the videos off the universities’ own Web sites and plans to offer tools to students who want to talk about the content — along with a chance to grade the quality of the lectures.

With just a cursory glance of the site, I was impressed with the content and user experience.  These are entire courses, not just a handful of lectures.  Academic Earth is easy to navigate, and gives you several viewing tools to enhance your viewing of the lectures.

Currently, there are six schools with content: Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton.  The videos are hosted on the blip tv website under the Creative Commons License.
This is a great opportunity to look in on an actual lecture, and get a feel for the instructor. You can even embed the videos into your own site:

Urging policy makers and school leaders “to take bold steps … to improve education for America’s 21st-century leaders,” the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) has issued new guidance for reforming the nation’s schools with the help of technology.

With input from more than 100 national policy makers and all 50 state educational technology offices, SETDA’s action plan sets forth the following 10 recommendations for national, state, and local education leaders:

1. Ensure that technology tools and resources are used continuously and seamlessly for instruction, collaboration, and assessment.
2. Expose all students (pre-K through 12th grade) to STEM fields and careers.
3. Make ongoing, sustainable professional development available to all teachers.
4. Use virtual learning opportunities for teachers to further their professional development, such as through online communities and education portals.
5. Incorporate innovative, consistent, and timely assessments into daily instruction.
6. Strengthen the home-school connection by using technology to communicate with parents on student progress.
7. Provide the necessary resources so that every community has the infrastructure to support learning with technology, including assessments and virtual learning.
8. Obtain societal support for education that uses technology from all stakeholders–students, parents, teachers, state and district administrators, business leaders, legislators, and local community members.
9. Provide federal leadership to support states and districts regarding technology’s role in school reform by passing the ATTAIN Act.
10. Increase available funding for the e-Rate so that schools can acquire telecommunication services, internet access, internal connections, and maintenance of those connections.

eSchoolnews reports:

LearningExpress has created a new blog, called The Writing Teacher, for sharing ideas and expertise on helping students become better writers. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 33 percent of eighth grade students in the United States are writing at a proficient level. To help change that, The Writing Teacher includes writing input, content, and feedback–all encouraging participation by those who teach writing every day.

The blog’s debut article, “Research-Based Best Practices for Teaching Writing: A Discussion with Steve Graham,” features advice from a literacy professor at Vanderbilt University. “We are a knowledge-based society. Knowing how to effectively plan, draft, edit, and revise your communications and then self-regulate the whole process are fundamental skills necessary for success in school and the world of work,” said Graham. “Too many students progress through school without becoming proficient in these skills. We can do better.”

http://www.thewritingteacher.org

Now’s the time to GET OUT THE VOTE! The first round of judging in the 2nd Annual Interactive Classroom Makeover Contest has been completed and the 15 finalists have been chosen – five in each of the three grade categories (K-5, 6-8 and 9-12).

With nearly 300 video submissions from 40 states and four countries to review and “grade,” our judges narrowed the field to their top 15 and we’re now ready for you, your friends and associates – and anyone else you can think of – to go online and vote your choices at www.eimakeover.com. These votes will help determine who wins the Grand Prize classroom “makeover” worth more than $25,000.

If you haven’t already viewed some of these videos, you’re in for a treat. Each submission is an amazing demonstration of collaboration and creativity, and delivers an important message about technology in the classroom to educators, students and parents around the world. (More than 350,000 people have already visited the site and had an opportunity to watch the videos.)

Click the links below to view and vote for the finalists.

The voting will close at 11:59 am EST (16:59 GMT) on Friday, November 14, and the winners will be announced on Wednesday, December 3.

Please cast your vote now…and encourage others to do the same.