Academy of the Pacific

www.aop.net 
Tags



September 17, 2009
 

The Power of the Word(le.net)

If you haven’t checked out Wordle (www.wordle.net), you should. On first glance it’s a cool little website that makes funky word clouds based on frequency out of anything you give it: an English paper, your blog, a speech, etc. But then I started to really look at it and read how a few other people have been using it in the classroom and that got my mind going.

My wordle for this blog:

Image001

First and foremost, I think this is a great tool to see relevance in anything that you may write. What was the main word(s) that you used? Is that your target audience? Is that the point of your article? Clearly in the short existence of this blog I think I’ve hit the main keys that I was aiming for.

In the writing of a paper for class, students can use wordle to break down their writing styles. Are they using certain words too frequently? Is that intentional or deliberate? Perhaps the topic of their paper doesn’t appear frequent enough? This is a good step to take between revisions and a nice meter for discussions.

Many teachers also state that this is a great tool to use at the end of a project/year when you’re reflecting back. Having a student create a wordle for their paper or presentation allows everyone to focus on the big picture of the topic instead of the little details here and there. That’s not to say that the details aren’t important, but a lot of times the message is lost within the details. We can be sure that the one big thing about their assignment, the main topic, is clearly understood by the viewer. How about when students do an end-of-year survey for their teachers? In a snapshot you can see any major issues and an overall reaction of the class.

Let me end with a disclaimer: I actually made a wordle with the text from this post and discovered I was using a few words a bit too frequently. Normally when I’m distracted by other things I tend to ramble and my thoughts don’t come out as clearly as I would like it to be. I thought words like: words, clear, clearly, topic, article, and writing should have been the main topics. Yes I am cheating but let’s see how I did:

Image002

Filed under  //   assessment   class   classroom   cloud   education   text   tools   web2.0   wordle   wordle.net   words   writing  

Comments [1]

September 16, 2009
 

Free Seminar with Dr. Tony Wagner

The Hawaii Association of Independent Schools will be hosting a free seminar with Dr. Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap.

When: Thursday, November 3, 2009
Where: Mid-Pacific Institute, Bakken Auditorium
RSVP: Call HAIS @ 973-1540 by 10/21/09

About The Global Achievement Gap, review from Amazon.com:

""The Global Achievement Gap" is thoughtful and inspirational. It describes how, in these changing times, schools too must change if the US is to remain a strong economic and intellectual leader in the world, and it offers creative solutions and examples of success. This book will capture your head, your heart and, I hope, your future actions. This is a VERY important book for anyone who cares about preparing young people for success in a rapidly changing global society. Every school board member, administrator, teacher and parent in the nation should read this book."--Anne L. Bryant, Executive Director, National School Boards Association

http://www.amazon.com/Global-Achievement-Gap-Survival-Need/dp/0465002293/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253132053&sr=1-1

About Dr. Tony Wagner:

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~clg/aboutus2.html#tonywagner

Filed under  //   achievement   book   children   education   free   gap   global   guest   hais   hawaii   parents   seminar   speaker   tony   wagner  

Comments [0]

September 4, 2009
 

Teaching Our Children - The Internet

Recently I was asked on Twitter by @scotzen about the teaching of online tools / websites to our children. The conversation was about various online production tools but I think it's safe to say we can include other sites such as Myspace and Facebook. Since 140 characters limited my responses, I thought I would elaborate a bit more here.

So what is the right way to teach our children about how to use the slew of tools on the Internet? While I don't claim to have all the answers (or even the right answers at that), I think it's probably best that children learn how to use these tools from a parent or teacher and not on their own. That way, you can show how to use each tool as they should be used in the proper context, and any questionable materials / uses that arise out of it can be quickly caught and used as the perfect teachable moment. I don't think we should just let our children learn on their own. Would you drop your son or daughter off in the middle of a big, strange city without any direction or supervision?

Put it this way -- Television programming has always been a controversial topic with each generation thinking that what's shown on TV is too graphic or mature for the younger generation. What I found a lot of parents doing is watching TV with their kids and filtering any content that might seem questionable and then taking a moment to then talk about it with their children. 

The topic of Myspace and Facebook in schools has always been a topic that, for the most part, has just been blocked and ignored. And for now, I think I'll take that same approach. However, I do believe that blocking isn't the right solution when it comes to social networking sites in schools but I think that deserves it's own post at a later point in time as I see many benefits of allowing students access to these sites while on campus.

Filed under  //   children   educate   education   howto   internet   kids   media   online   social   teach   teaching   tools  

Comments [0]

September 3, 2009
 

Education in the 21st Century

Yesterday while at a conference titled, “Schools of the Future,” we were shown a video of Sir Ken Robinson giving a speech at the 2006 TED Conference. One quote really stood out for me. He stated:

“Children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days, what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it.”

So what should our children learn and how should they learn it? While I can’t answer that question, I think we can all agree that the Internet is here to stay and that knowing how to use the tools that are available online will be a key to their success. This is what I hope to bring to light on this blog – various online tools and their uses and benefits as well as any problems and concerns that I can foresee, especially for our younger children.

You can view Sir Ken’s full speech at the link below. If you’ve never seen it before, I highly advise that you do. He is both entertaining and insightful and well worth the time.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Filed under  //   SOTF   TED   conference   edtech   education   future  

Comments [0]