Adventures in Global Learning

This fall in my Emerging Instructional Technologies course I have been introduced to global learning. I am in awe of some of the projects that I have found as we explored this concept in  education. We as educators have to find ways to meet the Common Core standards of education which has components of global education. The Global Learning Network is one place you can go to learn about ways to create and become part of global learning opportunities.
The one that I have had the great fortune to be a part of is The Flat Classroom Project. My classmates and I were offered the opportunity to judge the eRacism project, a global debate about world issues. The debate has been on the topic of global conservation of natural resources and how these types of policies affect relations between cultures. The debates have been very well done and I have learned a great deal from these students presentations. It is quite a responsibility to judge their work fairly, to put aside your own beliefs and concentrate on the rubric that was to be used for scoring.
As I worked with a lead judge that was located in Africa it was difficult to communicate on a real time basis, so our connections were made through email. In the first round of debates our team was to judge two different debates but one of the  groups did not complete their project. We were to have 4 judges on our team for this round. The lead judge and I were the only two that completed our judging by the due date. In round two we again were to judge two debated and once again one of the two groups did not complete their project. This round we were again to have 4 judges on our team and I was the only one of the four to complete my judging, I was then asked to record on the judging slide my decision on a winner of the debate.
I can only imagine the frustration the coordinator of this entire project must have been going through. The task of organizing teams and judges from around the world had to be enormous. Teams that sign up to be part of the whole project that do not complete their responsibility and then judges that do not show up to judge and/or are not timely in their responses, has to be extremely frustrating. I commend Eva Brown for her patience and perseverance in getting everyone and everything organized, from the training of team leaders and judges in the beginning to the live debate at the end.
My only regret in this whole process is that I will not be able to be a judge for the live event since it will take place during the school day.
This has been an awesome experience and I will look for opportunities to be a part of more global learning projects in the future.


clip art provided by worldatlas.com

Great Learning Opportunities

This fall I have had the chance to take part in some great professional development opportunities. In October I attended the Monday sessions at the ITEC conference in Des Moines. I would highly recommend this conference to anyone looking for technology professional development. As an art teacher I was very interested in how others have integrated technology into their art curriculum.
iPads seem to be the tool of choice in art classrooms. I was very interested in the SloMo app for the iPad. with this application you can create stop motion videos. My students have expressed an interest in trying this, it should be quite an adventure.
I also learned about Sketchbook Express. This is an application that is similar to Photoshop but more user friendly.
So many great ideas for using iPads in the classroom, Little Bird Tales for storytelling, Auto Rap for creating rap videos, Rory's Story, Screen Chomp, Kabaam, Toontastic Doodle Buddy, bluster, Boogle, Work Flick, JibJab books, Word Monkey and so many others.

But one of the  most amazing things I saw was an iPad orchestra. This is not the exact video we watched that day but it is just as amazing.

Last Friday, November 30th, I attended the 1:1 Conference hosted by Iowa AEA267.
I attended sessions discussing personal learning networks for both students and teachers, listened to a panel of school leaders discuss their success and learning opportunities as they implemented 1:1 programs in their schools. Heard the Waverly-Shell Rock Technology team talk about managing iPads in a 1:1 environment, and listened to a fantastic speaker about Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.
You can access the presentation slides for the Web 2.0 tools session at this link: Http://bit.ly/shannonmmiller
You can also follow Shannon on Twitter @shannonmmiller

I also was introduced to Candy Chang and her I Wish This Was... project. 

How can you not be inspired by this story? 

I have found these conferences to be so valuable to my growth as an educator.  A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to be the presenter as  the Eastern Iowa Catholic Educators Tech Trainer conference. If you are interested you can view the Google Presentation that my co-teacher Pam Schmitt and I presented, introducing Scratch in education. 

If  you are ever wondering if these types of conferences are worth the time and money, the answer is yes, I have never come away feeling that it was not a learning experience.