Unleash Your Inner Artist!

Daniel Pink encourages us to nurture the creative side of our brains in A Whole New Mind, a stimulating book that draws attention to a new skill set possibly needed by workers in this age of globalization. Interestingly, Pink notes that MFA degrees are becoming more relevant than MBAs in the working world and he describes six concepts worthy of aptitude development: design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. Pink gives practical ideas for developing facility in these areas and others have suggested that A Whole New Mind is the ideal companion to Thomas Friedman’s A World is Flat.

Teachers looking to develop these sorts of skills in their students might want to consider a truly unique piece of software called Art Rage 2. Art Rage 2 is a painting program developed by a New Zealand based software company, Ambient Design. It is unlike any other painting program as its tools mimic real painting tools. For instance, the oil paint tool employs a paint-like texture and runs out of paint as you drag the "brush" across the digital canvas. Other
implements include chalk, felt pen and crayon tools and each is adjustable in terms of color, width, and pressure. The most unique feature of Art Rage 2, however, is the ability to load tracing images. A digital image can be uploaded to appear underneath your painting canvas. This makes it a cinch to trace with the tool of your choice or to simply turn the image to blendable paint. Tools can be set up to automatically select the correct colors from your digital image or you can choose your own hues. Pictured here this blog posting is an example of a “chalk” drawing I did in Art Rage 2 and the original digital photo I took last summer while visiting Monet’s garden in Giverny, France. Perhaps Claude would be rolling in his grave if he knew of modern day technological advances!

Art Rage 2 is completely engaging for students. My students are currently finishing self-portraits, which we are publishing to an online gallery. Many kids have even downloaded Art Rage 2 at home as the basic version is free and available for both PCs and Macs. I recommend upgrading to the paid version ($19.95), which allows for layers and additional tools including glitter. What kid (or adult!) cannot resist glitter?

The classroom implications are limitless. I can see students using this software to create their own maps, label blank maps, trace Google Earth imagery, record scientific observations, and to create graphics for other projects such as digital slideshows and web sites. My eight year old daughter came home today from school with blackline mandalas to color today, and it just occurred to me that these pictures could be uploaded and colored using Art Rage. Try playing with Art Rage today and add other potential project ideas to the comments section of this blog posting!

Tomorrow's Leaders

If you are reading the ITM, chances are you are looking for new ideas and strategies for integrating technology in your school. While ITM bloggers and readers are excited to share tools and strategies we've discovered, I'd like suggest that you not leave untapped an important resource that's already an intregal part of your school --TOMORROW'S LEADERS.

Are you tapping into the your students as valuable resources? The National Education Technology Plan was developed with input from Student Voices. Ideas from students in Student Views on Tranforming Education and Training Through Technologies provide insights that a generation of "digital Immigrants" could not have envisioned on their own.

Why not include student input as you update your local technology plans? In his article "Vision to Action: Adding Student Leadership to Your Technology Plan", Dennis Harpers makes note that

"Students make up about 92% of people in attendance in any school. Most technology plans focus on the role of the other 8% (teachers, administrators, adult technical support staff).

It is no wonder that

“Students report that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction. For the most part, students’ educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building, outside the direction of their teachers.”' Pew Internet & American Life Project (2002).

The investment we made in our Student Technology Leadership Teams ten years ago have produced a return many times its original cost. Not only has the school benefitted from the services, ideas, and energy students brought as we developed solutions for maintaining growing networks of computers, training staff, and designing innovative ways to integrate technology, but students gained invaluable opportunities to develop leadership skills. Dennis Harper's Gen Yes includes several models for integrating student leaders in your schools. States such as Kansas, Wisconsin, and Kentucky have developed state-wide student tech leadership initiatives. No need to wait until your state develops a program, programs such as TechSavvyKids and SWAT started as local initiatives. Examining these models can help you find strategies for including student voices in your school.

Today's students are "The Infinite Thinking Machine" - let's provide them with the skills and the opportunities to develop into tomorrow's leaders.

Tags and the Infinite Universe of Information

One tool for turning the infinite universe of information into knowledge is the tag. Unfortunately, few students and teachers - or few people for that matter - know what a tag is or why it might be useful for easily making sense of overwhelming amounts of information. It turns out that tags and the act of tagging (no, not the urban practice of spray painting graffiti in public places... well it's a little like that) are also difficult to explain.

In fact, when I use the new googlepedia extension in Firefox to search both Google and the Wikipedia at once, I discover a general lack of clarity on the subject... at least at the time this post was written.

The Wikipedia article on Tags is, well, tagged for not meeting quality standards... the introduction is too long. How is one to explain the concept of tags succinctly when the Wikipedia article, which has been edited over 500 times, doesn't seem up to the task?

The top Google results appear little better at first glance. The excerpt shown from the top site, Technorati (which tracks updates to millions of blogs), seems to presume the reader already knows what a tag is: "Here you'll find the top tags, sized according to popularity. We're currently tracking 11.1 million tags." Whoa. That sounds overwhelming, not helpful, and it doesn't seem to help explain what a tag is.

However, if we click through to Technorati's Tag Page we actually find that "Tags are like labels that people use to categorize their blog posts." If we click through to the next result in Google, Flickr (a photo sharing service), we learn that "You can give your photos a 'tag', which is like a keyword or category label. Tags help you find photos which have something in common. You can assign as many tags as you wish to each photo."

So, tags are like keywords? Yes. By assigning a tag to a blog post, a photo, or any other piece of information, you can make it easier for others to search for and find that information when they need it. But tags generally have an important additional feature... tags are clickable. By clicking on a particular tag, you can find all blog posts or pictures (or whatever type of information you are searching for) that are associated with that tag. For instance if you click on the flower tag at Flickr, you'll see any picture that has been tagged with "flower."

At the next Google result, del.icio.us (a social bookmarking site... for sharing bookmarks or favorites online), we learn about a tag cloud, or "a list of tags where size reflects popularity." It turns out there is a tag cloud right here on the ITM... see it on the right-hand side of the site... under the video images? (This tag cloud is automatically generated by ZoomClouds.) Right now the most popular tag on this blog (by far) is "students," followed closely by "digital." You can tell at a glance that these are two important words or topics here at the Infinite Thinking Machine without having to skim all of the blog posts and shows. And, if you were only interested in posts about a certain topic, say... video, you could click on the video tag and see only those posts that discuss video. This saves time and helps you make sense of the mass of information here at the ITM, doesn't it?

So, there are a few ways tags might play a role in the way you and your students interact with information online. First, whenever you post anything on a blog, photo sharing site, social bookmarking site, or other service that supports tags... take the time to tag whatever you are posting. This will help you (and others) find it again later by either searching for the tag or clicking on the tag in a tag cloud. Second, of course, you can locate things that others have posted or shared by searching for or clicking on a tag. Finally, you can also use a tag cloud to learn at a glance what a given web site is about. These three things can save a good deal of time when searching for information and determining it's relevance to the task at hand.

Are you getting the idea at this point? Let's check your understanding, or rather, my explanation... how might you (or your students) use tags to make sense of information encountered while completing an assignment? Do you know of an example of students or teachers using tags? Share your ideas (or your questions) in the comments for this post. (The link for comments appears at the top of the post.) I look forward to reading your contributions.

What Happens When We Share

In his recent post, The Internet as a World of Wonder, Wes Fryer steps back in awe at the "empowering nature of the Internet today" to "connect people and bring them closer together in virtual space." The Read/Write Web is transforming the world we live in, providing educators with a growing number of wonderful collaboration tools, such as those referenced by Lucy Gray. Along with new tools, The ITM bloggers are providing educators with examplar models, sound strategies, and best practices for using collaborative tools.

One model project, The Vermont Midi Project has been using the power of the Internet to connect musicians and music composers with K-12 students producing more than musical talent. Over the past ten years, this project has crafted the art of online collaboration and tested strategies for Reflection and Critique and Mentoring. The project website also shares authentic and concrete examples of the Online Mentoring Process in action, providing a glimpse into best practices for educators preparing to use online tools for sharing.

Along with examples of "What Sharing Looks Like," educators also could benefit from inspirational stories of "What Happens When We Share". Stories about the impact of online collaboration on students such as that of aspiring composer, Matt Podd, can provide tools to help address the "fear of using social software" which can sometimes be a barrier for innovative educators ready to use online collaboration tools. Sharing his music in the VT Midi Project's password protected site provided Matt with the skills and confidence he need to participate in the more global Sibelius Music Community. The power of the Internet to connect provided a student from a small rural town in Vermont the opportunity to have his music compositions played in four different countries and experience to compete with students from more urban cultural centers for limited slots in the college admission process for music composers. As your digital toolkit grows, don't forget to pack it with inspiration and best practices.

More on the Wide and Wonderful World of Wikis

Kim Cofino is an IT teacher and the IT integration specialist for Mont’Kiara International School in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This past August she read Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom, and discovered the new world of Web 2.0 for schools--in particular, the power of wikis.

Most people have heard of Wikipedia, the wiki-based collaborative and free encyclopedia, but don't really understand what wikis are, and are maybe a little intimidated by thinking they will need to learn a lot in order to work with wikis... Not true! For a simple overview of wikis, click here. And consider taking the plunge, because wikis are truly incredible and empowering.

Kim took the plunge, and helped the science teachers create a wiki for the 6th grade students across three different classes to model the creation of a medical clinic. The "Strings" (orchestra) class wiki has students researching different kinds of music to present to each other. She also has an IT wiki and a study skills wiki, both of which allow the students to become the authors of the material. And she is working on a wiki for IT teachers in middle schools to collaborate together on the use of technology, called The Tech in the Middle.

Listen to a "Take 5" short interview where Kim describes her work with Web 2.0 here. Get free educational wikis at Wikispaces. See examples of other educational uses of wikis here. Read Tom March's previous post on Wikipedia. And take the plunge!

ITM 3: Living in 3D

ITM #3 is finally here! In this episode we share tips and tools related to visual design. So put on your cool 3D glasses and let's go for a ride.

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Show Notes:

NASA's team at the Lewis Center for Educational Research runs the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) in a desert region outside Los Angeles, CA. They conduct a full educational program where students team with scientists to conduct cutting edge research leading to discovery. This is a great learning opportunity for kids to control and operate a deep space radio telescope. GAVRT provides training for teachers and detailed lessons plans, such as Mapping a Radio Source. And you can even see the live video feed of the GAVRT operation control center.

Since we're talking about space, you might want to check out NASA's education site, the NASA Kids Club, Space.com, and the xPrize Foundation.

The EVS-Islands website is produced by "Mr. Minton" - a teacher from San Diego, CA. With the help of his students, he is creating and sharing vector-based images of shorelines from around the world. Basically, he's combing basic shoreline maritime maps with real satelittle images and turning them into stunning, colorful maps that can be used by the rest of us. Much of the work is done with 20-30 students afterschool. His map collection is impressive, and you can download and use all his maps for FREE. He even gives us detailed map making techniques, so we can can join in the fun.

Sharing videos on the Internet is extremely popular with kids. If nothing else, you need to check out YouTube, MySpace, and Google Video, just so you know what kids are up to these days. While much of the videos are produced for fun, a growing number of teachers are using video sharing websites in the classroom. These websites make it extemely easy to post videos, and, in some cases, you can even control who sees them. How are you taping into this craze? Post your thoughts in our comments section.

And don't forget about sites like the Internet Archive, which houses thousands of PUBLIC DOMAIN videos that students can download and re-edit. Some of my favorites are Thomas Edison's news reel on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1952 classic"Duck and Cover" , and a 1963 production on how to use film in the classroom.

SketchUp is FREE software that empowers students to be 3D designers. SketchUp is a great tool for easily teaching kids to construct 3D models of buildings, trees, cars, and anything else they can imagine. You can use it as a stand-alone tool or in conjunction with Google Earth and the 3D Warehouse. On the main SketchUp website you can find a gallery of student examples, case studies, tutorials on how to use the tool, an educators forum, and even a book on how to use it in the classroom.

As one of the original inventors of the Internet, Vint Cerf is widely recognized as a leading thinker on how 21st century technologies are transforming our daily lives. Learn more about Vint on Wikipedia. In this segment, Vint talks share his thoughts on how technology is changing how we design things.

Learn more about the convergence of design and technology at the Designing Interactions , a book, DVD, and website from Bill Moggridge, one of the founders of IDEO. Check out the other feature articles on design on the IDEO website.

ITM 3 Homework: See if your kids can help you find out what the image is and where it is located. It's tougher than it looks. If you don't have any luck finding the answer, let me know, and I may release a few hints in the comments section. : )

Thanks to the students from Mr. Hernandez' class at Price Elementary School in Anaheim, CA, for helping us explain what the Infinite Thinking Machine is!

What’s in Your Digital Bag of Tricks?

In this era of burgeoning internet resources, how does one choose the right tools when developing a professional work flow? Assistive tech expert Brian Friedlander recently shared via his blog a web site that catalogs a plethora of Web 2.0 applications called Go2Web20. While I am a huge fan of these user generated content sites, I am sure the available choices must be overwhelming for some of us! It occurred to me that every teacher seems to incorporate “a bag of tricks” into their teaching repertoire and while keeping it simple, I’d like to share a few resources that I’ve found to be essential additions to my own digital repository.

The other Lucie mentions in her previous ITM post a web site called NoodleTools. NoodleTools, and in particular the tools NoodleQuest and Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need, have long been in my digital bag of tricks. Both of these services match digital search tools to the needs of the user, and I appreciate that guidance.

Another amazing resource has been ALTEC’s 4Teachers web site. Numerous tools for both teachers and students are available here including an online quiz creator, a floor plan designer, and a lesson plan builder. Because much of my teaching revolves around digital projects, I regularly use this site’s rubric tool, Rubistar, to create and store evaluation tools online. I also am a big fan of their customizable project-based learning checklists.

I also often find that comprehensive resource databases are helpful when looking for activities and lessons for my students. My personal favorite is the Michigan Teacher Network which contains annotated descriptions of educational web sites. Visitors are also able to rate and comment on these sites as well.

And finally, as a computer science teacher, I use a great deal of software. I recently found a nifty Web 2.0 app for cataloging the software I use and sharing it with others. It is called MyProgs and you can look specifically at some of my software mainstays here. Best of all, for my fellow RSS geeks out there, you can subscribe to this list of software in your newsreader and you will be able to track any updates.

The aforementioned sites are just a few of the resources I’ve incorporated into my professional life and I’d love to hear what you consider essential to your success as a teacher. Please share any ideas in the comments section!

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