Comic Sans & Papyrus: Finally an intelligent and succinct explanation

Thank you Karen Kavett! Finally I have a generally non-abrasive and intelligent way to share this with colleagues and students! I've had to re-post these vids from Youtube to Schooltube so they can be viewed in my building. I'll leave the rest up to Karen...

Comic Sans
 

Papyrus
 

Projects, Paradigms, Preconceptions & Survival??

A brief survey of the stuff that is coloring my decisions this 9 weeks in class & another plea for online community for my students...

Paradigms, Context, & Survival...
Now it's video clip time. I just want to share with you a bit of the context in which my thinking has been framed lately, before I talk about why I'm blowing up my curriculum and pursuing things that are driving me crazy. Many of you have seen this stuff before. If you haven't, watch these. They're good for you, like fiber & anti-oxidants all rolled into one delicious sweet roll:

Sir Ken Robinson.


Diane Ravitch - This video reminded me of  this article, which came across my Flipboard the other day, thanks to my awesome PLN... (supplemental reading)
 

Jane McGonigal


Projects, PBL, and Online Community
One of the awesome things about being Middle School BCIT instructor is the freedom I have to teach a skills based curriculum in whatever context I choose. I've been providing a projects-based curriculum for some time, as a result of my constant diet of Edutopia, ISTE, & the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Until recently, this consisted of a Sustainable Design project for Seventh graders and a Visual Design project for Eighth Graders.

As a result of my current pondering, reading, & media viewing, I've decided to open up both projects (plus three more, including Game Design) to both grade levels.

This is understandably a lot of work and requires an insane amount of management. The forward investment in screencasts alone is overwhelming! I was prepared for all of that. What I wasn't prepared for was how passive my students have been trained to be over the last six years of standardized curriculum. They're excited to try something that interests them, but many of them need to learn how to manage a project that someone else isn't micromanaging for them. Further, many students do not understand that online communities can be used to help them learn & succeed at new things. My WoW & Skyrim folks actually have the best understanding of this. What does it say when our system has trained students to be passive, while the video games they play outside of school teach them to be active?

The thing is, these students are BRILLIANT, and we need to tap that brilliance before it gets completely squashed by NCLB and all the associated evils. I want to do my small part, but I need your help.  If you have a class that can participate in community with my classes on any tech related topic, comment her or tweet me. If your students can benefit from Edmodo groups on the topics below, please join and get your students into the groups:

• Graphic Design (ask for specific graphic design help: Ps, Ai, etc.)
• Google Sketchup (ask for specific Google Sketchup help)
• Yearbook (ask for specific Yearbook help)
• Game Design (ask for specific Game Design help: Scratch, Gamestar Mechanic, etc.)
• Product Design (product modeling, mood boards, branding, & package design) 

I have a lot of teachers so far, but very few students. My students want to talk to other students about the work that interests them. That's so exciting! Please Join us. I am willing to make more groups than this, jus as I am willing to consider more projects.

New Videos on Tracing Floorplans in Sketchup

One of the projects students may choose in my CIT 7 & 8 classes is Sustainable Design. The Goal: Design and advertise a home for a 4-person family living in the US using (around 3,000 sq. feet max) at least one Sustainable Architecture principle or Green Energy Source.

As a part of the project, students will demonstrate a variety of technology fluency skills in the context of completing the following components:

1. Research (tagged to your student Diigo account and our class Diigo group).
2. Scale Floor Plan drawings (rendered in Google Sketchup or MS Visio)
3. Student Choice 1:
   • Promotional Materials
   • Interior design Moodboards
   • Landscape Design Plan
   • Elevation Renderings in Sketchup
4. Pecha-Kucha presentation of project as endcap (last week of class).

In addition, students will regularly participate on an online community on Edmodo that includes multiple schools across & outside of the country.

One of the challenges of providing a choice of complex projects in which students may demonstrate skills is managing the instruction of myriad specialized applications. I've been accomplishing this through Schooltube & Screencastomatic. Here are three of my most recent tutorials on drawing in Google Sketchup.

Step 1: Importing a Sample Floorplan into Sketchup

Step 2: Drawing interior & exterior walls

Step 3: Push / Pull & 3d awesomeness...


These are part of the larger series listed here:

1. Step 1 - Import & Prep your Floorplan
2. Step 2 - Finish Interior and Exterior Walls
   • Optional: (addendum for Complex layouts)
   • Optional: (addendum 1 for shipping containers)
   • Optional: (addendum 2 for shipping containers)
3. Step 3 - Push / Pull Walls etc.

New Edmodo Groups

As teacher-professionals, we have many communities in our own Personal Learning Networks or PLN's. We can use hashtags in twitter, for example, to float ideas, ask questions, and share best practices in our field. Our students don't often have the same luxury. This is a valuable 21st century skill that tools such as Edmodo only go so far to address.

I've recently opened up some Independent studies to my students, and I want them to experience community on a large scale around their project of choice. I want them to be able to share their work, their frustrations, and their ideas with a community beyond the walls of my school.

I've put together two groups so far (more to follow) in Edmodo, and I'm opening them up for others to join. I've shared them with the "Computer Technology" community on Edmodo, and I hope to have more teachers and students join our groups. I'd also like to eventually create groups for other projects my students do. The groups I've put out on Edmodo so far are:

• Game Design (corresponding project page on class site)
• Yearbook Design (corresponding project page on class site)