Bob's Look at Technology

Summercore Chapter 5 Ideas from other schools

rvitalo — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:58:47 +0000

I really enjoyed this chapter and hearing about the initiatives at Chapin. How has it been met by the teachers? How are they using the laptops? What about the IPods? I know similar attempts at other schools and colleges have sometimes run out of steam.

To Copy or not to copy, that is the question!

rvitalo — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:34:00 +0000

As Head of School I have found it essential to take every opportunity to reinforce the message that we don’t copy. That means at the copying machine, when I reference a book or article or when we highlight a particular piece of software. It’s easy as head of school to make sure that we pay for all of our software that is used in the school.

I have also encouraged different faculty members to speak and write about how they manage this issue. So when teachers talk about plagiarism and students we also have them talk about how they source material and how they limit use. Are we there 100%? I don’t think so but it is a lively topic.

Lynne’s Delicious list is terrific. I especially like the article on “Do we teach Facebook?” Why not enter into the whole social networking fray? We want to teach social responsibility and that is now a part of our world.

On to Tuesday!!! Wikis and Blogs.

rvitalo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:41:51 +0000

Read Chapter 14 last night on Blogs and Wikis. Eager to learn how to use RSS. I think I will go with Google Reader. I am also interested in how to get the RSS to my Blackberry.

There has been growing interest in getting Wikis going at BCS. I think the ease of collaboration is a natural.

Monday morning and Web 2.0 or, Look mom I’m blogging!

rvitalo — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:53:45 +0000

It is a real treat to be back at SummerCore after 17 years. My last stint helped me tremendously to get excited about what technology can do in education.

Lynn said it best this morning when she expressed that the reason to be thoughtful about technology is that it is shaping our students. Yes, they are the digital natives and the rest of us are the digital immigrants. They love it!

Teachers want to do a great job. There is a natural reluctance to depart from what is known to try the new. The challenge is to sustain what has worked and have the courage to be innovative.

Today we ran through all 33 questions which dealt with lots of nuts and bolts. Not essential info but good to set a framework. We then went through wikis and blogs and were sent to set up this blog.

Lynne and Steve quickly ran through many of their favorite web sites. I think some of our teachers might be interested in these:

This first site is Free Rice and is a vocabulary game and a way to fight world hunger. I can see this as a great service project for the entire school to get involved in. Another great sire for a service project is Kiva. What a great idea to get people to reach out and help others by lending money and getting them to be more independent.

Another great site of interest is YouTube You Choose 08 and would be a great tool for history classes of all ages.

Another great resource is the SummerCore website and all of Lynne’s suggestion on Delicious.

The site that I would like our teachers in the Lower School to pursue is ixl which is a math site for all grades.

Rotten Tomatoes