Finishing up FCCT- My Global Project Design Idea

This has been a long time coming.  My basic idea is to leverage the existing scratch community to connect student classes globally.
 Link to Published Presentation
Link to Design Planning Document

Third grade test pilots

I tried out my idea for a collaborative Scratch project, using the third graders as guinea pigs. This was our initial result:
The kids worked in the desktop version of Scratch. I uploaded their projects to the beta site and saved all the sprites in the new backpack feature.

What I liked: I really like the backpack and can see it as a very useful feature, but what I didn't like was that when I uploaded a new project tp grab the sprite, it replaces the old one. SO all the uploading of sprites seems to have to take place at once... or I have to save each iteration. I think probably saving each iteration makes more sense, but is something I need to play around with.
The kids had no trouble at all doing this in one 40 minute period. They made the sprites, with a minimum of 3 costume changes for the animation. I had written a short script to make them dance, but many students made changes to this. The whole concept seemed to make sense to them.

I pulled background images from wikimedia commons of places in the area. This class is familiar with all of these places from their Berkshire diorama projects. I pulled the song for the background from a piece the kids did with Responsive Classroom and their music teacher.

So.. how can this work with other classes? I would envision an initial handshake similar to this project to introduce the classes, then each student could do their own animation as an individual handshake. The classes could work in groups, similar to the current AWL project, but the medium to present would be scratch... background images from photos and a walking , talking sprite to convery the comments.

Still not sure of a lot of details-but liked some of what I did on this so far.

FCCT 13-1 Video Project

My topic was Wearable Technology- The Story. To be honest, my first reaction when I saw that we were using the Horizon Report for higher ed was Why? Why not the K-12 report? I have felt like many of the challenges were more focused on skills for projects for older students vs. the AWL or K-2 age groups and I thought, "Oh great, something else that won't be applicable to my work." But... I was wrong. I found the whole topic of Wearable Technology fascinating and learned a lot. Will I use this information in my teaching? Probably not, but it was fun to learn something new and I will now keep up with this developing field. It brought up new questions for me, and I would think it will for others as well. A whole lot of time, energy (both mechanical and people power) and money has gone into and will go into wearable tech. When I look at the investments some companies are making just to make silly (to me) dresses that have blinking LED lights, or a dress that shows your facebook or twitter feed in real time... my first thoughts are- What are you thinking? People around the world are starving, running out of potable water, not being educated and you are using precious resources for this piffle? Then I learned about medical wearable tech and found out that a glove designed to teach someone to play a piano by stimulating the fingers- is now being used successfully with quadriplegics and some can now button a button, go to a restroom, etc, independently. There's a really cool glove for blind people that can tell them if there is a person in front of them and how far away the person is; another gadget can scan regular print and turn it to braille. There are new materials with embedded sensors to record bio-metric data. Can you imagine being able to tell that a firefighter in a burning building was getting into trouble, before he/she could realize it...or that same EMS person could have the building blueprints flash up on his personal screen on an eye-shade and help him find a lost child using blueprints and heat sensors. So, my initial reaction that this was cool, but silly and yet more self-indulgent navel-gazing tech by and for the wealthy folk of the world, has changed, somewhat. Forget arguing about privacy, whether google glass will affect the dating scene or even if it can take very cool videos of your adorable children. Take a step back and say, wow, new tech that can help people. Isn't that the point of all this... to find ways to make lives better- not just cool LED dresses, but cool ways to help make everyone's lives better?



Wearable Technology- The Story from Maureen Tumenas on Vimeo.

Now, off my soapbox... what did I learn about using wikis and collaborating on this project? It was hard. Really hard. And it's not done yet. Trying to work with people that you have never met and who are on a different schedule/timetable than you are and have different expectations, etc. is very difficult. I have given wiki assignments to my students in the past. Their main problems were sabotaging each other and having little wiki wars. I knew that I would not do that, nor would any one do that to me. That was true. However, my collaborators and I are on different schedules and one person decided to drop out at the last minute. What I will do next time- meet in a hangout or some other more f2f place before beginning work. Hash out who is doing what, how we are going to communicate, what each person is bringing to the table, what areas of expertise are represented, and a lot of other questions. I like firm deadlines. Without them, I tend to procrastinate. Actually I procrastinate anyway, but deadlines work for me. Others need more flexibility. I need to work on being proactive, advocating for what I need to get my work done successfully, without being pushy.

Lastly, I used a lot of other people's material in my video... purposefully. Fair use is a muscle that needs to be exercised by more educators. My fair use arguments include: transformative use, used a small portion and most definitely did not affect the market value of the original.

Challenge #8: Collaborate and Communicate

I work with a school in El Salvador on a project which is hosted on a wiki, but it is cooperative, not collaborative. It is more of a repository, than a place for discussion and collaboration. My experience in FCCT on collaborative wiki editing has been a solo adventure thus far. I think that this is a major problem with collaborative work- trying to get everyone together, even asynchronously and having everyone invested in the work.

My examples with my students are from the 2007-8 school year, when I tried out wikis with my 7th and 8th graders. The 7th grade wiki was much more of a collaborative wiki by design-and turned into wiki wars. My 8th graders worked more cooperatively, but each had his/her own page that she/he was responsible for .... this was immediately after the wiki wars in 7th grade. This worked well- but was not collaborative.

Cooperation is a side by side operation, and although the students help one another, they are not dependent upon the work of others and do not edit it. Collaboration is a very different relationship, where you are dependent upon the work of others to get your work done and you actually have to work together- more of a give and take. Collaboration can be modeled and practiced...is that the same as being "taught"? I was frankly amazed at the level of competition within my class and appalled at the wiki wars. My students do not like to work with one another and when their "grade" depends upon the work of another, it is really not pretty.

Most of my recent experience is collaborative editing in Google Docs. Bill and I used this for our quad-bloggging project, co-editing, leaving comments, etc. This was a collaborative effort. In school I have my 8th graders work on a Field Guide to the Everglades before they go on a one week trip in March. Each student shares his/her document with me and with their science teacher. We both comment, ask questions, answer questions and edit- much in the same way one does on the wiki. We also use this in 9th grade history, where all the mjor papers are turned in on Google Docs, commented on by fellow students as part of the editing and review process. This is more of a cooperative effort.

Challenge #5 Go Mobile

This is a hard one for me. Until fairly recently we had no cell coverage out where I live, and I refused to get a cell phone that wouldn't work most places. Now that they built a tower that I can actually see from my house- I no longer have that excuse- but still won't use a cell phone. For me, it is just one more added expense for something that I don't need. However- I love my ipad, my ipad mini and my ipod and my kindle fire ( no, actually I don't love the fire- clunky, lousy battery).

But - using my mobile devices or allowing the kids to use them in the classroom is a whole other story. I allow the kids to use devices whenever appropriate- going out in the hall to record, making music on garageband, etc.. I use my ipad mini all the time- taking photos of the whiteboard, using the animoto or Edmodo apps. Taking quick photos or videos of the students at work, documenting work... the list is endless.

One new device I just got recently is the chromebook- like just about everything about it- except no java... I kind of wish there was some way to run portable apps on it as well.

This is a project that we did using ipods/Ipad mini to record and animoto (app) to pull it together. The 3rd graders come in about once a week (not a regularly scheduled class, but they live next door) and we introduced them to Storybird and then used the ipad mini and ipod to take the photos and videos, threw it all together with the Animoto app.



We also used ipads/ipods and animoto for our AWL handshakes in the Fall in 4th grade


This was an experiment last year with the 3rd graders in French class trying out MindSnacks App. The CEO emailed us!

Challenge #4: Communicate with new tools

The new tool I used recently was Google Hangout. I had only used it to view some PD online, never to work with another person live. Bill helped me, showing me the ropes. Now I really want to explore this tool in much more depth, as I can see how useful it can be. This is a recent post from Bill about using Google Hangouts.

The asynchronous tool I used was the new version of SnagIt. It can now record video as well as just take screen shots. A handy dandy tool.The only thing I didn't like was the rough audio- don't know if that is my mic or if it picked up the ambient sound of the machine or what. It posts, quick and easy to youtube or screencast.

Challenge #3: Connect and Reflect

Reading through the information in Chapter 3 brought back memories. The first projects I ever saw online were the Projects by Jen, like the Pumpkin Seed Count, the Oreo Challenge and more. This is a quick and easy way to get involved in an elementary project. It brought back memories of KinderKorner, one of the first online places I used to meet others teaching Kindergarten and to begin to share materials. I remember talking to Chris Craft about the Life Round Here project, when I met him at NECC. It also introduced me to the wonderful blog of Kim Cofino. Although I never got to be involved in these projects, I was a lurker, followed how they were set up and how they seemed to work. I did finally get one of my colleagues to join a read around the world project. The projects we tended to do, given the constraints of time, were shorter lived... connecting to Mary Beth's students in Philly around a tux paint holiday scenes shared on VoiceThread. I remember hearing Cherrie MacInnes present, maybe on a WOW show or Seedlings, and  emailing Cheryl Oakes to get more info, but I couldn't get the classroom teacher to commit to doing this.

One of the projects mentioned really sparked my interest. It was the Hudson Falls High School WWII Living History Project. Living so close to Hudson, NY, I would have thought I might have read about this, or heard about it in the local news, but I hadn't. The reason this project resonated with me was two-fold. One I have an abiding interest in the topic, enjoying the Paperclip Project video This is a 5 minute preview... you need the Veoh player to watch the whole thing, or rent/buy it from Amazon.


Watch Paper Clips in Educational  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com.
The other reason is because it is inter-generational, perhaps hailing back to my interest in folklore and Foxfire as a college student, but more recently because of a project I have done several times for Grandparents Day at my school. I have had my students interview their grandparents and make a Glogster poster about them. These are the best interviews I have ever seen my students do. They talked with their parents and in some cases interviewed them about grandparents that they never knew. They interviewed grandmothers in Mexico, in Spanish, had a parent translate some it, and used these in the posters. One student made a 20 minute movie, an interview, with his grandparents. These brought tears to my eyes and to those of my students, their parents and the grandparents, capturing bits and pieces of the lives of this generation, which will sooner than we would like, be lost forever.

I think the biggest barrier I face as far as getting involved in this type of project is time. I only see the students a couple times a week, and the expectation is that I will not give homework. I have yet to find a classroom teacher at my school who is willing to add this type of project to the curriculum.