A Suitcase Chromebook Cart

Tomorrow I am running a workshop on Chromebooks at a small local PD conference called the Taste of Tech hosted by the Illinois Learning Technology Center 1 Central (LTC1C).  My challenge was finding a way to transport 25 Chromebooks  for the participants to get hands-on with.  My district doesn't own anything portable enough for me to use, so I had to get a little creative.  My solution involved a suitcase, some of the packing materials from our Chromebook shipments, and an x-acto knife.  I'm happy with the results :-)   Since the Chromebook batteries last all day, I don't have to worry about bringing the power cords!

Student Choice Leads to Creativity

I am a huge advocate for allowing students to have a choice in the methods and tools they use to convey their learning.  This gets away from the idea that lesson plans and assignments have to be scripted by the teacher and can be challenging for some to implement.  But the end results can blow you away and supports and encourages students to be creative.  With the teacher focusing solely on the learning objective and then getting out of the way, students can and will become more engaged because they are making their own choices and become more invested in their learning.  For some students, creating a slide deck may be the best option.  For others it may be a podcast, a digital storytelling project, a VoiceThread, a Glogster poster, or even a timeless diorama.  The options are limitless.  I believe that students that can take on a task, challenge, or problem and then choose their own way to demonstrate and communicate their solution or what they learned will far better prepare them for their futures than if they can simply follow directions.

I was fortunate to recently attend ISTE 2012 and was excited when I learned that there were going to be two Ignite sessions.  I quickly added them to my schedule and was not disappointed.  For those not familiar, Ignite presentations are exactly 5 minutes in duration during which the presenter talks while 20 slides are displayed for 15 seconds each.  The presenter does not control the slides as they automatically advance, which certainly results in fast-paced and energetic presentations.  I absolutely love this presentation style!

During the second Ignite session,  Ben Smith (@edtechben), a physics teacher from Pennsylvania, gave a great presentation about allowing students to have choice and how it leads to creativity.  The best part was that the entire Ignite session was recorded and posted so that even those that couldn't attend the conference can be inspired by the talks.  All of the presentations are worth watching, but if you only want to focus on the student choice and creativity presentation by Ben Smith, skip to the 44:00 minute mark in the video below.

Video on Demand:

New User Interface For Chromebooks

Google just released version 19.0.1048.17 on their Chromebook Dev channel which includes an all new user interface.  Here are a few photos of what this looks like:

We will begin testing out this new version of the ChromeOS on one of our nine carts starting tomorrow.

Don't Get Stuck Digging Ditches

My father repeatedly told me when I was a young boy that if I wanted to dig ditches for a living then I should dig ditches, but he didn't want me to get stuck digging ditches because I didn't have any other options.  That always seemed to make sense to me every time he said it.  Now that the tables have turned and I am a father of three wonderful kids, it is one of my hopes and dreams for them to be able to make their own choices and do the things they enjoy.  Moreover, being an educator and a district administrator, this is something I hope for all children and students.  A big factor to obtaining this goal will be their education.  So, what kind of education will they need?  In a recent lecture event delivered by Tony Wagner to the THINK Global School, he shared some of his findings related to what business leaders are looking for in employees today.  Since, as Mr. Wagner suggests, "knowledge has become a free commodity" and "now, suddenly, everyone has access to all of the information in the world at their fingertips" it only makes sense that education should be different.   Mr. Wagner's research has resulted in the development of what he calls the Seven Survival Skills for Careers, College, and Citizenship.  Those skills are the following:

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
3. Agility and Adaptability
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Effective Oral and Written Communication
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination

If these are the skills that employers are looking for, shouldn't it be the responsibility of educators to foster their development?  Often times I find myself getting too wrapped up in what I'm doing that I lose sight of the big picture.  I always try my best to remember to take a step back and ask the simple questions.  Why am I doing this?  What am I trying to achieve?  What really matters?  Tony Wagner's seven survival skills will certainly become answers to some of my questions and help me stay focused on that big picture.

I highly recommend all educators watch Tony Wagner's Creating Innovators lecture event to learn more about his seven survival skills and their impact on education.

Augmented Reality Glasses Coming Soon???

Although much of my time these days is either spent planning and preparing for our district to go fully 1:1 next school year when we issue Google Chromebooks to almost all of our students or coaching my seven year old son's two different soccer teams, I do try to keep an eye on the future.  At the rapid pace that technology is evolving, it's almost impossible to keep up and yet I feel it's my job to make sure my district is prepared for, well, who knows what.  The who-knows-what that I've been most interested in are the developments being made with augmented reality.  Wikipedia defines augmented reality as being the "live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data."  There are already a number of products on the market that utilize augmented reality and I truly believe that they could become the next major transformative tools in education.  So I found it both funny and ironic today that, during a presentation to our faculty, our Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction (@LeydenASCI) used a video clip from Back to the Future showing Marty McFly on a hover board and suggested that that this type of future may not be all that far away and then soon after the presentation learned that Google announced that they have begun testing their new augmented reality glasses.  I quickly remembered an inspiring video I came across a few years ago from a graduate student titled Augmented Reality - The Future of Education and am excited to see how his vision is now close to becoming a reality.  Thanks Google!

One students dream back in 2009...

is getting closer to becoming a reality today thanks to Project Glass.

Do More With Google Maps

I just came across the following presentation by Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) on his Free Technology for Teachers blog.  This is a great introduction into getting more out of Google Maps.  Some of the features he covers include the following:

• Changing views and activating information layers
• Adding Maps Labs features
• Measuring distances
• Creating and saving a personalized map
• Adding collaborators to a personalized map
• Adding placemarks
• Embedding links, images, and videos into placemarks
• Drawing paths between placemarks

I thought I knew Google Maps, but always manage to learn something new from Richard.  A big thanks to him for sharing his slides and his knowledge.

Social Networks Explained Through Donuts

Here's a great explanation of many social networks by Douglas Wray on Instagram.