Sustainability retreat.

For Mr. Bennett's Math Class.

Terms of Service.

Questions sometimes arise about the rights of websites that host data.  Questioning the terms of service and reading carefully about your rights is very important when signing up for accounts with websites.  The careful review of the terms becomes even more important when a site might be holding data provided by students.
The U.S. federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prohibits disclosing confidential information about students to third parties without their or their families' permission.  The use of the website Turnitin to clear student papers of plagiarism issues is a good example of possible conflict with FERPA.  Because Turnitin is a private company that holds all submissions and sells the information it receives, the use of this site may create a violation of FERPA for educators requiring its use.  Several challenges have been made regarding this possibility. 

Another concern might be the the terms of use condition that states that all content is owned by Turnitin and the parent site.
Lets imagine that a teacher were to ask a student to write a pro Marx paper and submit the paper through Turnitin and the student accepted the terms(it is not necessary for a student to accept terms to comply with teacher requirements) of Turnitin upon submission.  I would worry that if that student were to become a prominent politician, or the equivalent, their paper might find its way into the light of day.

The following is an except from Dropbox's terms.

"Dropbox does not claim any ownership rights in Your Files. You acknowledge that Dropbox does not have any obligation to monitor the Files or User Posts that are uploaded, posted, submitted, linked to or otherwise transmitted using the Site or Services, for any purpose and, as a result, is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, appropriateness, legality or applicability of the Files or anything said, depicted or written by users in their User Posts, including without limitation, any information obtained by using the Site or Services." 

These seem to be reasonable conditions, (if we can put aside that the privacy statement is not part of the agreement a student agrees to in the terms in Tunitin's case) but what would happen if Dropbox were purchased by a Chinese company?  What would happen if Turnitin were purchased by a Chinese company.  Would the copyrights that apply now be carried over to the new owner?  Would there be provisions written into the sale that could undo the previous conditions? Copyright understanding in China differs from our own because of a "Chinese tradition of sharing with one another, taking from others and the public without any sense of guilt, and disfavoring criminal litigation of copyright infringement as a result of the Confucian pursuit of social harmony(Tian, 2008)."

Spreadsheet Use to Determine Trends in the Classroom.

The use of spreadsheets to document the progress of individual students as well as group trends is a valuable tool for teachers.  The below spreadsheet is a mock of how this tool can be use in the classroom.  In the chart I have prepared, one can see that the test provided a fairly consistent set of  scores reflecting the abilities of the student quite well.  The scores with students Queen and Walter show a lack of improvement over time.  The use of a chart like this to spot issues with students can be useful in identifying students who might need some extra help.  In the case of Katherine, the scores might show an incident at home or a sickness that has led to a temporary setback.

Another important use of Google Spreadsheets is to keep data on the students progress on one place where easy calculations can be made at important moments throughout the year.  By using this product to help the teacher, the old calculator and grade book can be done away with reducing the time needed in reporting.

Piaget project and a view into sensorimotor development.

As a group project this video was developed using Screenr and the Google Presentation we developed to facilitate this lecture.

The use of the Google Presentation was a good tool for this project.  It allowed us to all contribute and bring together the material prior to the next class date.

The Use of Screenr provided a way to make our presentation come alive and the lecture to be easily disseminated on the net.

National and State Ed Tech Standards.

Ed tech standards aim to insure that students are exposed technology to enhance and strengthen the educational process.  By setting a standard of minimum achievement, students will leave school with the a current knowledge base that will provide them the skills to achieve in an increasingly technologically advanced world.  Being able to navigate the constant evolution of the tech world is also a skill that these standards should provide for in our schools.

As a science teacher, the use of technology is will be very important as a tool for research and as a way to connect ideas in the classroom to what others are doing and how others use the ideas and concepts we will be covering.

Areas where technology could be used in my class are;

1) Email communication with families and students to ensure that everyone is informed of where the class is going.
2) Video and audio conferencing to provide feedback to students.
3) Cloud computing for group projects.
4) Wiki type pages could provide a complete overview of the areas covered and to allow students to contribute.
5) Internet research. This can be used effectively to show how information on the internet can be suspect and what the accepted vetting process does for quality.

A teacher must be careful to insure that they are staying up to date on the latest technological advances and uses of technology.  Students needs to leave high school with the highest degree of current understanding to be effective in the next phase of their lives

My Favorite Web2.0 tools. Dropbox and Tokbox.

Web 2.0 is the accumulation of off-site, web-based applications that allow the sharing and collaboration of data.  Theses new tools and products allow users the freedom to work and collaborate off-site in a more user friendly, and platform friendly, environment.

I have selected Dropbox as one of my tools that I will be working with in Web 2.0.  I use dropbox now for downloading photos to allow for the sharing of projects.  A forester at Trout Mountain Forestry and I cut down an Oak at Zena and he is turning it into a conference table for his office in Portland.

Cutting the selected tree.

Barry hauling away the selected Oak.

Benny at the mill making saw logs.

  We were all interested in capturing the project and so we have been photo documenting from the stage of tree selection to the eventual final product.  This includes the cutting and drying at a small family run mill in the Eola hills.  Today, that tree is in plank form and will dry for another three months.

This tool allows the user to share and collaborate on projects as well as store images off-site.

Tokbox is a great tool to share real-time events on video.  The "Watershed" tool allows the user to broadcast live and use interactive tools as well as save and share the broadcast for later use.  A great teaching tool that can allow a lecture to live on.