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That's What Friends Are For

David Fisher — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:50:00 GMT

Lots has happened with me and technology this school year. Many of these things I can credit to a great friend and teacher, Lee Kolbert. Lee and I taught together for years, and remain, at times, cohorts in crime when it comes to technology at the school level. I can say this because it was Lee's introduction to VoiceThread that led me into so many other amazingly wonderful educational technology experiences.

Over the past year, I had read and sort of viewed some of the social networking sites. I sort of knew what Twitter was, but had no idea that a tweet was what was written there. Facebook was just something that you did as a family or person looking to connect with old friends. So, it's no wonder that so many people, today, ask what this stuff is. Well, for anyone that needs to get a great handle on this, check out Lee's most recent blog post on social networking.

But wait, there's more! The best introduction that Lee made this year was to Discovery Education and its DEN Star Program. If you're unfamiliar with their DEN Star Program, go check it out here.

I became a DEN Star Educator at FETC in January this year, thanks to Lee's introduction to the Discovery folks. They are a great group of former classroom teachers that now spend their days working on the best methods of integrating technology into the classroom, and lots of other cool stuff. Yes, it includes Discovery Streaming; but there is so much more than that. Check out the link above and the community. Become a DEN Star Educator and you'll see what I mean.

There are many 'perks' being linked to the DEN Star Network. One of these perks is Discovery's willingness to invest in their Stars. During the summer, Discovery Education hosts a national institute somewhere in the country. This is a week-long networking, training, and sharing program with DEN Star Educators from all over. I am really excited to write about this as I will be attending my first summer institute this summer in Sausalito, CA. I'm excited on many levels: First, it's in California and I live in Florida. The networking possibilities during this program, I'm sure, will be awesome. Being able to spend time with Discovery people will, not only be informative, but personally rewarding. And, learning from colleagues is always terrific!

As the institute draws closer, look for more posts about it, the people going, and the itinerary. Maybe I'll see some of you there!

And again, thanks Lee!

By Invitation Only

David Fisher — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:53:00 GMT

Like many people I know, Google has become their email, contact, and calendar solutions of choice. They're easy to use, always accessible (as long as your district firewall doesn't block them), and reliable. They are, however, not so easy to use if you use Entourage on a Mac.

Well, let me rephrase that. Entourage and Google Mail seem to coexist without many problems. As a matter of fact, Entourage integrates seamlessly with Google Mail. The Entourage calendar and Google Calendar are another story altogether.

For months I have been trying to get these two calendars to talk to each other. I've searched Google, Microsoft forums, and any other forum or site that I could find. No one seemed to have any good idea about how to make this work. The general consensus is, as far as I could see, that there is really no good reason that these two calendars can't communicate with each other. There is, of course, the notion that either Google or Microsoft has to hold something out until such time that the new calendar breakthrough product is available.

Like you, I don't want to wait for that day to arrive. I want a solution now, especially since all of my Google services come directly to my Blackberry (Yes, I'm on a Mac and not on an iPhone; an entry for another day)

Here's what works for me, and may work for you if you don't mind a few extra keyboard strokes in the process.

By Invitation Only: For every new appointment or item of importance that has to appear on my calendar, I now enter it on my Entourage calendar and invite myself to the event at my Google email address. That ensures me that all of my calendar items are with me wherever I go, with me on any computer that I can access at any given time, and on my Blackberry. It may sound like a cumbersome way to get things done, but it works for me. And for the moment, it seems like the only way to make this happen.

If after reading this you have another method that works for you, let me know. I'm not married to this process, just taking advantage of it for the time being.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln!

David Fisher — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:32:00 GMT

Yesterday was a great day to be in my classroom!

It started out like any other day, but changed drastically at 10:30 AM EST. Here's the background so you understand: We have been working with an awesome teacher from the Chicago area, Carol Broos, on a Lincoln project using VoiceThread. My kids and a class from her school partnered up to learn about Lincoln. Each pair studied a topic of their own interest and placed their research on VoiceThread. If you want to have a look at the VoiceThread that started it all, click here to see the thread.

Over the course of the past month, my class and Carol's spoke a couple of times over the Internet. The kids just thought it was the coolest thing to be able to see their counterparts half-way across the country. Putting a face to a name is a powerful thing, as us adults know.

Finally the big 200th arrives! Carol's school planned an assembly to celebrate the big day and invited us to 'sit in' via a video link. Well, that just knocked my kids' collective socks off, not to mention my principal.

We started at exactly 10:30 as part of a nationwide reading and speaking of the Gettysburg Address. This was followed by Carol's students performing Americana music and dance, video presentations, and other entertaining things. My kids loved it!

The biggest surprise for me was that not only did my principal arrive on time to watch some of this, she actually stayed for almost the whole show. Also in attendance was my friend Lee Kolbert, who helped arrange this partnership. So, thanks again, Lee! I really think that my principal really saw the power of technology for learning, especially when the learning wasn't directly tied to a high-stakes test. How do I know? Well, the last minute notification that I had to talk to the faculty at yesterday's meeting about what I did was the first clue!

Now that this one is done, it's time to move to the next project. I hope that it's as much fun as this one, and as mind-blowing for my students, myself, and my principal!

So, happy birthday, Mr. Lincoln! You'd be happy to know that even you're not around to see it, you're still creating positive changes in people that will hopefully last a lifetime.

Welcome to The Pragmatic Technologist

David Fisher — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:04:34 GMT

Welcome to my new blog, The Pragmatic Technologist!

As some of you know, I was using a different platform and host for my other blog. After many weeks of attempting to log in to that platform from home with constant problems, I decided to move to something and more efficient. In addition, I have to thank Dean Shareski for this. After hearing his presentation at FETC in January, I knew it was time for me to claim my space in the digital world. So, thanks Dean!

I imagine that you wondering how I came up with the name for this blog. I would! Well, I think of myself as a technologist in my classroom. I use as much technology as I possibly can. When something new comes out from the district, or if I see something cool at a workshop or meeting, I will ask how I can get my hands on it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Either way, I know that my students are going to get much more out of what I do because I really believe in the power of technology in education.

On the other hand, I'm also sort of old school. Sounds strange coming from a person who just wrote the paragraph ahead of this one. Just as important is one's ability to manipulate a keyboard is one's ability to use it to craft a well written text or piece of literature. That's the pragmatic part. Students still have to know the basics in all areas of the curriculum in order to make the technology really work for them. A calculator won't do what you want to if you don't know how numbers and operations work.

So, let me put it together for you: I want my students to be able to use technology as a tool to make their lives easier and more productive. At the same time, my students have to prove tome that they understand the information they need to know in order to move from my classroom to middle school. Pragmatics and technology: an unusual combination perhaps, but an effective on as well.

Now that you know a little bit about how I think, let me tell you what kinds of things you'll find me writing about here. To start, how I use technology on a daily basis in my classroom. As the introduction to The Wide World of Sports used to say, "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat!" You know what I mean. Some days it all works seamlessly, while other days you would probably like to take the computer and toss it out the window. I'll also write about web sites of interest, technology of interest, lessons that were just awesome, and lessons that didn't involve technology at all.

Having technology available is one thing. Using it pragmatically makes all the difference. Again, welcome to The Pragmatic Technologist!