Moments

Leigh Graves Wolf

So, I had quite a few “moments” today –

We had our first TeachMeet this morning – 45 awesome people from around the world sharing tips, tricks and tools for making each other better educators.
Bill showing the wonders of flipbook at the #teachmeet

That was pretty awesome….then at the end of the day the Year 1 students in Rouen skyped with the Year 1 East Lansing group. The Rouen group was giving feedback to the East Lansing group on their Content Connections Websites and Inquiry-based Student Projects.  Cross collaboration between programs is something we’ve been trying to integrate over the past several years, but we haven’t quite been able to get it right.  This afternoon (for us in Rouen, morning for East Lansing) I think we got it right.  It was so energizing to bop between the skype conversations going on and the students interacting with each other…truly an ed tech moment for me.  BIG thanks to Michelle, Sara, Jodi and Alison for making this happen.

#maet cross Atlantic peer share

After a long week, most of the students made it out to Bar des Fleurs to enjoy a beverage and the company of their peers and professors in a relaxed atmosphere – it was a beautiful evening.  As I wandered home I was searching for a quick take-out dinner.  I wandered past a Lebanese restaurant not far from my apartment.  I entered and ordered fattoush and falafel.  The owner quickly realized I was not French and asked where I was from – I said Michigan and he (Mo) nearly leaped over the counter to give me a hug.  He called out his wife (Abba) and she generously greeted me with smiles and a hug.  They lived in Dearborn for ten years and his brother owns “Crazy Pizza” on Telegraph.  The size of this world and the connections between all of us never ceases to amaze me.  We spent a long time talking about Dearborn and I told them of my love for Lebanese food.  They asked me to come back again before I leave and promised to prepare an extra special dinner for me because I was like family. I will not hesitate to take them up on the offer!
Falafel et fattoush

All in all, amazing day.  I’m one lucky girl.
Mo and Hiba

Pro Travel Tip #24: “how to use a top loading Indesit washer”

Leigh Graves Wolf

I’ve washed a lot of clothes in my days – but this has been the most challenging laundry experience to date. I was confronted with an “Indesit” washing machine in my apartment.  I did the usual google thing to try and figure it out (I ALWAYS google first before asking for help!) That came up short so I kept trying…and I think I finally figured it out.

Now when the next poor chap who googles “how to use a top loading indesit washer” will hopefully have better luck than I did!

(apologies for the somewhat shaky iPhone video, I held it as still as I could!)

http://youtu.be/Vw249e03o5s

 

Then & Now: Video Editing and Production

Leigh Graves Wolf

In 1994 I made this video using a high end (at the time) VHS camcorder,  linear editing system, in our high school tv studio editing suite, using first generation Video Toaster software to create the graphics and transitions.  From start to finish, I think the project took me about 3 months.  The video runs 2 minutes and 28 seconds.

In 2011, I made this video using the front facing camera on my iPad and the iMovie app.  Including the time it took to come up to speed on iMovie (it was the first time I had used the iPad app) and the time it took to upload to YouTube on my home wifi, the whole production took about 1 1/2 hours.  (That was also with about 6 takes to play with different lighting.) The video runs 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

http://youtu.be/4cqwJRHGPws

I love that I can document this change over time, compare and contrast, and reflect.  Change? Keep bringing it on.

Vous êtes invité! Free EdTech conference (in France)

Leigh Graves Wolf

If you’re an educator and your travel plans include France this summer – be sure to stop by the 4th annual RELATe (Rouen Educational Leadership and TEchnology) conference the afternoon of July 13th at Rouen Business School (our host for the summer)!

The conference is organized and presented by the Year 2 Overseas MSU MAET students as a requirement of their CEP 815: Technology and Leadership course (see the assignment here).  The 2011 RELATe site will be up the week of June 27th and the conference schedule will be up shortly after. The conference is targeted towards anyone who works in the field of education (K12, higher ed, and beyond.)

Below you will find archives of the past 3 conferences:

2010 RELATe http://sites.google.com/site/maetrelate2010/
2009 PLATE http://2009plateconference.weebly.com/index.html
2008 PLATE https://www.msu.edu/~arcayjoh/msu2008/plate/new/index.html

(The conference was formerly known as PLATE (Plymouth Leadership and Technology for Education) conference when we were in Plymouth, England!)

You can follow our hashtags #maet and #maety2 for announcements (and the RELATe hashtag once it’s determined!)

If you’re interested in coming, fill out this simple form to register your interest! We will send more updates as the schedule emerges: http://goo.gl/E9CYz

Here’s a teaser from last year’s RELATe conference:

Workflow – ifttt

Leigh Graves Wolf

Ifttt

Instead of a “test post” – thought I would share some #edtech tips as well :)

I’ve used a few different apps to manage my linking – twitter to facebook, delicious to twitter, etc. A few weeks ago, I discovered ifttt.  I’m posting here to make sure my blog is linked in correctly.  Theoretically now I can manage everything through their trigger dashboard! Things are mostly working (instagram is having a few issues w/twitter) and I need to work on the default descriptors…but…I think we have a winner here in ifttt!

I have 5 invites if you would like to try it out!

Restaurant Review: The Root Restaurant & Bar

Leigh Graves Wolf

Very rarely can you get it right on the first try…tonight was a rare occasion.

After a long day, Scott and I decided it was best if we ate out…neither of us felt like cooking or cleaning.  I suggested we head to The Root.  Scott was skeptical, every time we try a new restaurant in their first week of being open, we’re disappointed.  I whined, and whined, and eventually he caved in :)

I have been anxiously following the opening of The Root Restaurant and Bar on Facebook for months.  As a foodie and lover of local fare, the promise of The Root was right up my alley.

From top to bottom, beginning to end, this was an excellent experience.  The highlight of the meal was when the chef James Regatto came out to ask about our meal. (The only other time this has EVER happened in all of my travels and dining adventures was when we ate at Pierre Gagnaire.)  We sat at the bar, the staff was welcoming, menu is INCREDIBLE and LOCAL.

Needless to say, we will head there again – and I know next time we’ll need to make reservations…once the word gets out, this place will be packed every night.

WebDev Cafe Slides & Presentation

Leigh Graves Wolf

I had a great time this afternoon presenting at the Web Dev Cafe Spring forum on Social Media for Developers. I was honored to share the stage today with Cliff Lampe, Ethan Watrall and John Hill.  The WebDev Cafe “serves the community of MSU Web professionals by facilitating group discussions with information/opinion sharing, convening meetings and events, and offering feedback on policies as well as large-scale applications.” (You can learn more and join in the conversation here: http://forums.msu.edu/forumdisplay.php?f=32)

I was asked to share the strategies we use in the MAET program to connect with our students.

The presentation was recorded and you can watch here:

Thanks again and be sure to connect, ask questions and continue the conversation here or on twitter!

“Technology in the Classroom” pre-panel thoughts:

Leigh Graves Wolf

my first computer program

I was kindly invited by Kevin Johnson to speak on a panel at the annual MSU Certification in College Teaching Institute tomorrow.  Kevin directs the phenomenal Teaching Assistant Programs at MSU.  (If you’re a doctoral student at MSU be sure to check out the College Teaching Certification Program.)

I’ll be joined on the panel by Scott Schopieray and Mark Urbain-Lurain.

Scott’s notes can be found by visiting: http://edtech.cal.msu.edu/events/past/ccti2011/

The charge of the panel is to:

Respond to general guided questions about what you think “works” technologically in classroom teaching (in a variety of contexts), examples/demonstrations of a technique(s) you use that have had success prompting students learning, AND a “thing (or two)-that-really-interests-me” tip or suggestion(s)

I will be focussing my comments on assessment and feedback.  From a pedagogical standpoint these two areas are of paramount important to me. In my teaching with the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program I focus much of my energy and efforts in improving my proficiency in these two areas.

I will share the following examples which I have used in both face to face and online teaching.

Google Docs “Developer Notebook”

Essentially, the developer notebook is text based companion (or “journal”) to a project based course.  The notebook is shared between student and teacher and all feedback is kept within the notebook. From an instructional and assessment standpoint the notebook serves as a cornerstone of the course content and allows the student (and instructor) to see growth over the semester.

More detailed information on the developer notebook can be found in this post:
http://www.leighgraveswolf.com/2010/02/19/google-docs-as-a-developer-notebook/

Verbal & Visual Feedback

As a companion to text based feedback or feedback on rubrics, I also use audio and screencasting (with Jing) to provide feedback.  Screencasting is especially useful when assessing multimedia projects because you can comment on specific areas of the project and actually show what/where you are commenting. Delivering the feedback in an alternate method engages students and provides a different form of assessment that connects with many students.

Two examples/explainations on my use of verbal and visual feedback can be found here:

http://www.leighgraveswolf.com/2009/11/04/adventures-in-verbal-feedback/

http://www.leighgraveswolf.com/2009/12/12/socially-mediated-feedback-the-experiment/

Late Breaking “Just Hatched” idea:

In our summer planning faculty meeting today, Mike DeSchryver and Sean Leahy shared an excellent assessment idea that they have developed for our summer face to face teaching.  It’s called “Read and Tweet” Essentially, students will take time out of the day (and in the evenings) to do the assigned reading and tweet questions, ideas, comments while they are doing the readings.  These tweets will be used to a) asses their understanding and engagement with the texts and b) be used in class discussions. Last summer we used HootCourse with great success to parse out discussions on Twitter and I believe Sean and Mike are planning on using HootCourse for this project.  Keep an eye out on the #maet hashtag for the results of the experiment!

Please feel free to share your best practice examples or advice below – over 100 students are expected to participate in the session.  I hope some of the participants will comment here tomorrow and I hope others in my PLN can add to the conversation!

I got by with a little help from Rachael Ray

Leigh Graves Wolf

disclaimer: yep, I post and tweet about food and I’m not going to feel bad about it. I’ve been taking pictures and blogging about food since 2004 before Twitter even existed!

The past few months have been ridiculously busy and we have been caught in the (take a deep breath, run on sentence coming) get home not sure what to eat order crappy take-out or let’s go out real quick and spend way too much money on food we can make better at home rut.

The challenge with cooking at home is that it takes a little bit of planning and I’ve been completely wiped out.  One more thing to plan would cause a) cognitive overload and b) a meltdown.  As I was running errands on Saturday I opened up the latest issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray at the grocery store.  Poor Rachael gets a bad rap sometimes, but, in her defense I’ve never cooked a bad meal from her recipes.  As I was flipping through, I ran across her Weeknight Meal Planner. It had a list of what to buy for the week, all the selections looked pretty darn good and the whole cost was less than $40 (for two of us.) I didn’t have to think about a thing!

I started the week on Sunday (since we usually like to go out with friends on Friday.) Short of having Rachael come over and cook the stuff herself, it was an awesome experience!  Every day when I got home I didn’t have to think much and had dinner on the table in 20-30 minutes.  For the first time in a long time I used up every single thing I purchased and physically feel SO MUCH better because I know exactly what I’m eating and where it comes from. I even learned a few new tricks – I had never thought about grilling sweet potatoes or avocados before, they were excellent!

(On a side note, I love Bittman’s How to Cook Everything app, and he also has shopping lists with his recipes, however, it doesn’t give a weekly list w/running themes so I can use everything up.)

So, I just wanted to say thanks Rach – you were a much needed guide on the side to help me get back on track!

 

How to hack it on Twitter

Leigh Graves Wolf
by Andrea Zellner and Leigh Graves Wolf (cross posted on each blog)
Class Artifacts

Recently we have had conversations with fellow grad students about the value of Twitter.  This post is targeted towards those of you who may have a foot in the stream, but aren’t quite sure how to navigate the waters.

One colleague tweeted [approximately] “I’m so done with Twitter, all I get is spam.” A quick check through their last few tweets revealed exactly the reason why – they had @ (at replied) a friend saying someone else had called him a part of the male anatomy. (That word was spelled out.) This will GUARANTEE that @lady007 will follow you along with all the other eager spambotettes.

If you’re going to talk about something popular (like an iPad, iPhone or heaven forbid Justin Bieber) or need to use a term that could be interpreted in other contexts as something vulgar, you may want to consider blanking out parts of the word (i.e. iP4d or B**ber) this will “trick” those spambots crawling around.  (It doesn’t work all the time, but goes a long way in preventing a good chunk.)

They also expressed frustration that no one was talking about their area of interest.  Here’s the “think aloud” I (Leigh) went through to help them connect and find conversations:

Say you’re interested in contemporary curriculum pedagogy and discourse.  Searching for this on Twitter is probably going to be a tad difficult.  A twitter search may not prove to be fruitful.  Here’s what I (Leigh)  would do –
1. check out the AERA SIGs (http://aera.net/SIGs/SigDirectory.aspx?menu_id=26&id=4714) and find the SIG related to that topic. (In this case – Critical Issues in Curriculum & Cultural Studies SIG (28)
2. Take a quick glance at the names associated with the SIG.
3. Search for those individuals. In this case, two of the contacts are on Twitter.
4. Follow those people.
5. Boom, you’ve started planting seed to cultivate a Twitter community.

Now, to grow further if you want to target others that may be interested in that specific group/topic you can start using a hashtag. (maybe #AERASIG28)  You could also cull the recent tweets from #AERA11 (the 2011 AERA conference) to see if you can connect with other people with similar interests in that conversation stream.  The wonderful thing about twitter is YOU create the conversation, YOU cultivate the community.

Additionally, in another conversation, a student expressed frustration and felt it was hard to get a “foot in the door” at companies/non-profits outside of the K12 world. (For those of us pursuing the non-tradtional academic route.)  I(Leigh) suggested seeking out and following the organizations you’re interested in on twitter so you can:
a) get insight into their corporate culture and
b) present yourself to them as someone who is engaged in conversations in the field.

Finally, any social network functions as a gift economy: be sure you are giving as much as you want to get. That means tweeting out links to interesting papers or books you are reading, replying to others’ questions, posting comments on blogs or @replying them with feedback on their posts, and generally involving yourself in starting your own conversations on twitter.

Here are some additional resources to help you on to smooth sailing:

  • Special focus hashtags and chats:
    • #scholarreads : for scholarly articles
    • #phdchat: discussing all things PhD
    • FYCchat: first-year composition chat
    • List of educational hashtags: http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html (h/t @rehabrajab)
    • Get to know the hash-tags that are used in your area, if there are none, don’t complain – create! There is a tremendous opportunity that can be filled by you.
  • When looking for academics in your field, try Google searching their NAME + Twitter: that often reveals their twitter name more quickly than an advanced twitter search.

Let’s continue the conversation:
Who are your favorite academics on Twitter in “niche” areas?
What suggestions do you have for someone trying to cultivate a conversation stream?

via GIPHY

For more general Twitter how-tos: