Reflections on Teaching

This thread will be about reflections on “Design Matters” and practices in my classroom. Before looking forward on what I need to change, I wanted to look at my current practices to see what is working, and what needs adjustment.
First, I am teaching my students about design:
[slideshare id=120052&doc=layout-designss4573&w=425]
This has already been shown to sixth graders [...]

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I was asked to create a PowerPoint to show off what I’m doing in the computer lab to parents. There is a ~monthly meeting the principal has with parents. I said I thought I could do a short video (2 minutes) about as easily as the PowerPoint.
Rather than start work on that over break, I [...]

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Dan Myer points to this GREAT post from Kathy Sierra on the theme of mediocre to kick-ass. Can I express my deep regret that I did not discover Ms. Sierra until she quit blogging after some very public cyber-harrassment and threats?
Here is my reflection on this…
One thing I’ve noticed about podcasting is that you can [...]

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I’m hitting a roadblock trying to articulate what/how I should be teaching the kids. I feel like I know what I should be doing myself, but what should the kids be doing specifically that they aren’t already. Part of it is that the most design oriented project students are doing now is s-l-o-w-l-y wrapping up, [...]

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Dan Meyer has a post in his ongoing jihad to improve slideshow design and delivery where he suggests jettisoning the words in your slideshow and just use pictures while you tell the story, and give your participants the backup materials in the handout. This has a lot of appeal over handing out your slides that [...]

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Ms. Mercer’s ELD Class is my newest blog for ELD, where I come back with a BAM! Check out the podcast (yeah) my first of the year. I have been sleepwalking with this class (the only one I have every day), but I’m phoning it in NO MORE! I had been counting on a lousy [...]

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What we do should have utility (function, form, and purpose) and significance (something that makes it stand out). These were the over arching principals of his presentation. There were five sections, or strands to the presentation. He touched on the two principles in each of these sections.
Planning: You may not know about technology, but you [...]

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I will be doing analysis and reflection on Dean Shareski’s marvelous piece for K12Online, “Design Matters”. To begin, I created a Pageflake based on his presentation, plus some other videos that have some connections in my mind, to Dean’s work.
I will be doing a series of posts here in the next view days (and maybe [...]

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