Flying through January

Hi everyone. Just wanted to get some ideas out of my head. January is the coldest month in Winnipeg and a great time to make kids work even harder. They have nothing better to do right!!

All the grade 8's will be doing a video project this year. They get to choose the topic but as a team we will be pushing them to do more socially relevant topics. Here is what I have completed so far. Do you have some other topics that would stimulate conversation with 13 year olds.

2 Minutes to Make a Difference.

The school also just bought a new laptop. We are the proud parents of a new macbook. I am going to find new and interesting ways to get kids to use this tool. I am thinking live blogging of classes and using the isight camera to do some video tutoring. The LA teacher is also starting to see the power of these tools. The laptop will find a nice home with her over the upcoming months.

Eportfolios are in full production. Boy there are lots of things to do.

In math the tv station using mogulus might finally get off the ground. I just need to escape basketball season. 8 games in league, 7 tournaments on the weekends.

There is only one speed at Sargent Park go go go go go as fast as you can.

Anyone want to collaborate? I could work you in!!! Really I am not doing enough yet!

A day listening to Darren on the Radio

Yesterday I had the privilege of participating in the back channel chatterous room as Darren was interviewed by Richard Coultier. The radio station he works for has the highest market share in the province. Darren had an audience. I was very impressed by the understanding of the topics that Mr. Coultier had and his passion to try to create change.

At one point Richard mentioned 1 to 1 laptop initiatives. He then started to ask the government for money to provide these needed pieces of technology. This was nice to hear but not what is needed right now in this province. We need training for teachers to incorporate new styles of learning into their classrooms. The $$ that would be spent on creating 1 to 1 would be enormous. You could get more bang for your buck if you trained new teachers in the technology and provided opportunities for older teachers to add 21st C learning into their pedagogy. Could you imagine if a small group of teachers who know how to use this technology was set loose on the general teaching profession in this province. Perhaps then we could see some change.

One of the best parts of participating in these forums is that you add new people to your network. I would like to recommend that you add Neil Winton. He is an educator from Scotland who has lots of great ideas and energy.

We do not have and Alec or Dean in this province. We do have an Andy, John Darren and myself who would be in place to do change. Our salaries are a drop in the bucket compared to starting up a 1 to 1 laptop initiative.

I say this because I am using 8 year old emacs in my room and having success. It is not the newest technology ( I would love new computers) but it is how you use the technology.

The conversations happening in the chatterous room were incredible. New connections were made by many of the teachers. There were over 25 educators from all over the world in this room. There were some incredible conversations. Now lets suppose some teachers were listening to the radio that day. I do not think that 30 of them were. How are we to get the majority of the teaching population to understand the power of using this medium in your teaching. Perhaps the large radio audience will ask questions at their parent teacher meetings and school visits.

To listen to this interview you can go to a few places:
CJOB
Wes Fryer made a podcast of the interview and he also has a great post summarizing thoughts put forward by Dean, Sheryl Wes and Darren.

Thanks for reading. I hope change is in the works....

7 things about me..... for I have been tagged

Alec tagged me the other day in the 7 things you do not know about me meme. Let's see what I can drum up.

1. I love to cook. It is a passion of mine and a way to release the stresses of the day. Nothing says AHHHH like dicing an onion really thin. My 2 favorite cooking magazines are Cooks Illustrated and Fine Cooking. I have catered for my parents 5oth wedding anniversary and served over 60 people. I am famous for my breakfast food. Meyer Lemon Scones and Sticky buns are house and street favourites.

2. I like to run. It seems to be my sport of choice right now. I run the Timex Series in Manitoba and won my age category this year. I also had a best time in the half marathon 1:35.04 and made a pledge to myself to run a full marathon if I ever broke my previous best time set 29 years earlier. I plan to run one this year. Regina is the destination of choice since there are so many wonderful people in Saskatchewan ... and it fits my training schedule. (Perhaps Alec will put me up on a sofa bed!!! for a night)


3. I am the father of twins. I love to call them Tommy and Timmy from Arthur but their names are Colin and Alex. They are interesting boys who pester their older brother and make him a better person. Twins are fun.... really if you want to try the experience I rent them out for 1.50 a day!!


4. I met my wife working in a restaurant. She was a waitress and I was the bartender. We hit it off right away and enjoyed our 20th anniversary this year. Working in a restaurant is one of the best things I ever did. It trains you to multitask, work with interesting and sometimes difficult people and trains you to be an amazing person. I hope that all of my kids get a chance to work in a restaurant. They will be better people for it.

5. I was not the worlds greatest math student in high school. Yet I am a math teacher. What gives? Perhaps it was school in general that did not excite me. I was a nationally ranked swimmer from the age of 14 on. This meant that I spent more time at the pool than at school. When I was at school focusing on my studies was not important. This is why I have a passion to make math interesting to kids and get them wanting to learn. If I had wanted to learn perhaps I would of been a better student.

6. I really sucked at University the first time. I went to Calgary for a swimming scholarship and did reasonably well in the pool. (We won CIAU or the university championships in my first year.) While swimming went great my school work..... suffered. I came home to Winnipeg after the first 2 years of university with a 1.4 GPA. After taking a year off the University of Winnipeg accepted me and gave me extra credit for some of my courses. I pulled my GPA up to a 3.4 by the time I finished my education degree. Interesting that I had to be 20 before school meant anything to me. I hope that University professors out there are making there courses interesting. Oh to take a course for Alec. that would be fun. I would write extra long assignments to keep him up reading all night!!

7. I love running in the winter but I really love staying at the beach for 3 weeks in the summer. Manitoba is a magical place. Yes it is full of mosquitoes and annoying insects but for 3 weeks we leave all electronics behind and go to Victoria Beach. Just an hours drive from Winnipeg life at the beach is the best. There are no cars in the municipality. All transportation is done using bikes or your feet. In the weeks leading up the to trip the kids are excited. When the trip is over the kids immediatly ask "How long until we go back to the beach!"


Thanks for the tag and for making me think about what makes me "me". I will do many people the favour of ending the meme here. I will not pass it on to anyone. But I will enjoy reading all of your memes in my reader. Happy New Year everyone.

Pay It Forward

This is a repost of an assignment at Sargent Park Mathzone. The goal of the next few activities at Sargent Park is to build a team of leaders that will be able to step into the shoes of some amazing grade nine's this year. If we are successful in awakening the leadership potential of the grade 8 students the school will continue to run well in September. These kids have tremendous potential. I hope they follow through.


Pay it Forward

On behalf of all of your Grade 8 Teachers I would like to thank you for making the Christmas season Happier for so many people. You rallied the school and we donated over $500 in pennies to Pennies to Heaven. We collected 8 full garbage bags of winter clothing and filled Mr. Penner's truck with items for the Christmas Cheer board. Your pamphlets, posters and assemblies made the difference this year. So once again THANK YOU.

Now for your next assignment.

Pay It Forward. We watched the movie on Friday and you were given the task to "Pay It Forward" over the break. You will create a blog post showing what you did. You can upload a picture or movie of your "Pay It Forward" action.

Both the picture and movie upload buttons can be found on the toolbar at blogger. You do not need to upload to youtube.

You need to label your post payitforward and complete the following questions in the body of the post:

• After viewing the movie Pay It Forward you are being asked to do the same. Think of ONE act of kindness you would like to do for either a person youknow or a stranger. the goal is to make a difference in someone's life. Think about the following steps:
• Who are you going to help?
• What are you going to do?
• Where are you going to do this?
• When are you going to do this?

Those questions should be answered in the first paragraph of your post.

You then will place the picture or movie following that paragraph.

Finally I would like you to use the following questions to reflect on your "Pay it Forward" action.
These questions will help you create a second paragraph.

• What happened?
• How did you feel?
• How did the person/people react?
• Did you ask the person/people involved to "Pay it Forward"?How did the person/people react to this?
• If you did not ask the person/people to "Pay It Forward", how come?

Your final paragraph need to answer this one question....

• Can one person make a difference?

Thanks for Paying it forward. This is due before you arrive back at school in January.

What to use to upload videos

There are so many options now when it comes to uploading videos on the web. I am still a big fan of viddler because of the layered commenting feature. Here your comments appear like pop up videos as the video is played.

The students all post at youtube and this makes it meaningful to them. Recent changes have allowed for many different applications to be made using youtube. One being a choose your own adventure style. This layering effect to link videos together interests me in seeing how this could work in a classroom. Here is that video...



Also you can edit how the embed appears in your blog or wiki. You can edit out the related videos which can in some cases be inappropriate. Click the little blue gear beside the embed and you have this option.

Flickr allows you to upload video but you are limited to the size and length of the video. Short pieces could be uploaded here. These are my two boys singing and dancing. This is convenient because most of us have flickr accounts already. Hassle is the file size and time limit though. Shame because the quality is quite good. This was shot on a flip ultra.






Now I am trying out vimeo. It allows for HD video to be uploaded and the higher quality video is appealing to me. You are limited to 500 mb a week but for important uploads... perhaps this is the ticket. Here is my son singing at the concert this week. He loves to sing and ... scratch.



Untitled from Chris Harbeck on Vimeo.

All of these options. Wow we have come along way in a few short years.

Kickyoutube

I just read a post at Jeff Utecht's twitter stream. It was all about kickyoutube. Now in one easy step you can download youtube videos to your computer. Simple place the word kick before youtube in the url.

Abba video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibtOshtX7T0

Now do this and it will be on your desktop.

http://www.kickyoutube.com/watch?v=ibtOshtX7T0

It is that easy. There are multiple file options for the download. Just select the file type and click the green go download arrow on the left.

Now I will go back an reminisce about rollerskating in the 70's.

The Facebook Generation

I had really good students last year. They were prolific bloggers who did amazing work. But if you look at the difference between January to June and the new year... September to December there is a difference. These students are using the blog even more than last year. From 1000 hits a month to over 5ooo now. I must admit most of these hits are from my own students but a few are from you out there.

Welcome to the Facebook Generation. These kids are wired and needing a place to find an audience. With a proper blog and a few strategic comments the world of 2.0 will be a place for you too!

With the new year just around the corner start a classroom blog. Create a community for your students to belong too. They will eat it up and you will be amazed with the results.