Mr. Hehr's IT Blog of Wonderment

You want me to Tweet?

2010-09-28T20:53:00.000-05:00

The Wonderment of Twitter

One of the difficulties of living and teaching in rural Iowa is we have few colleagues to collaborate with that teach the same things we teach. There is no substitute for being able to talk with fellow teachers, to bounce ideas off of, to learn from, and sometimes to vent to. So, the best way to build a great group of folks to learn from, from all around Iowa, the US or the world... Twitter!

Twitter isn't just about Ashton Kutcher and what $@#^^$ My Dad Says. Twitter is a great collaborative tool that you can use to build your own Personal Learning Network (PLN). This site will allow you to customize who you follow, who to collaborate with and who you interact with. There are TONS of sites and resources on building your PLN. One of the main goals of the upcoming PD day with 1:1 schools is to start building your PLNs and inorder for this to work and be the most effective, we all need a twitter account! So, head on over to Twitter and create a log-in and get started following people!

Useful links:
Twitter Hand-Book for Teachers
A Teacher's Guide to Twitter
9 Great Reasons why Teachers should use Twitter
Twitter 4 Teachers

Twitter Users at South Hamilton
@karlhehr - Karl Hehr
@DonaKimberly - Kim Huegerich
@jsteino - Jeff Steines
@soniaheins - Sonia Heins
@karenwaid - Karen Waid
@donovan_science - Patrick Donovan
@lyleschwartz - Lyle Schwartz
@radclone - Trev Houck

A twitter list of South Hamilton CSD Staff on Twitter. As more teachers from South Hamilton get on Twitter I will add to the list.

Last bit of useful information: the hash tag for South Hamilton is #shcsd.

Newsletter Article for Summer 2010

2010-07-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

The Wonderment of Newsletters

The first year of South Hamilton’s 1:1 is in the books and was a great success! There were many students that did not want to turn in their laptops and start their summer break. The School Board, Administration and Staff all expect the greatness to continue. Since technology never stands still and South Hamilton’s goal is to prepare students for the world in which they will live there will be some new things for next year:

1) All students will be given a gmail account in the fall, this will give access to emails, google docs and many other great apps provided by Google for free. Student email accounts will be firstname_lastname@studnet.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us. To read more about Iowa’s relationship with Google Apps for Education go to http://bit.ly/8YaTJM

2) More classes will be using Moodle to organize courses.

3) Limiting Printing, South Hamilton will be adding Turn it in.com to our teacher toolboxes. This website will allow teachers to collect papers electronically, grade and return paper electronically. This tool also allows teachers to check for plagerism.

4) Addition of Smartboards, due to the recent Microsoft settlement South Hamilton has been able to acquire a number of SmartBoards for the entire district K-12. Some of these will be in by the start of school.

5) Increase in bandwidth, South Hamilton increased their internet connection speed from 10Mb to 20Mb. As students need access to more and more web 2.0 websites we need more and more speed.

6) Also remember to check Mr. Hehr’s blog for continued updates.

One last important item to point out, roll out night for the 2010-2011 school year will be: August 16^th for last names A-N and August 17^th for last names O-Z. This years roll-out will be more workshop based and less paperwork talk than last year. Attention students: It is important to remember that in order to get your laptop back you need to attend the roll-out night with a parent/guardian.

1:1 Conference Resources

2010-04-06T21:45:00.002-05:00

The Wonderment of a Dual Platform 1:1

Resources:

CASPER (JAMF)

Winclone

VirtualBox

XP SP2 (Do you really need a link for this?)

Baby it's Cold outside

2010-02-07T10:33:00.002-06:00

The Wonderment of Condensation and Temperature change.

Came across this in a email I received from SmallDog.com's Newsletter. With students taking laptops to and from school, possibly leaving it in the bus, or in the car, this is a great little bit of information to remember.

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Tip of the Week: Cold Weather Care By Matt Klein

During the colder months it’s important keep in mind that cold objects entering a warm, moist environment (like your home or workplace) will become damp with condensation. As liquid exposure of any type can void your warranty and result in costly repair, and as Apple now installs liquid exposure indicators inside each of its products, it’s vital that you keep your electronic gear safe.

If at all possible, do not keep your laptop, iPod, iPhone or other electronic gear in the car overnight in the cold. We’re beginning to see a few victims of condensation come through the shop, and it’s easy to avoid. If you find yourself with a moisture-covered device, the first thing to do is turn it off and remove the battery. iPod and iPhone users can only shut down and wait as their batteries are not removable.

Legendary data recovery firm (and Small Dog data recovery partner) Drive Savers notes that this exposure to hard drives is particularly serious: “Cold weather can wreak havoc on temperature-sensitive hard drives used in computers, game consoles, MP3 players and video recorders. Condensation buildup on the drive platters and frozen components can lead to drive failure and data loss.

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SO be nice to your gadgets and treat them with care.

Setting up a Wireless Network at home

2009-12-17T08:29:00.003-06:00

The Wonderment of Wireless networking

As much as I would like to help out and visit everyone and setup wireless networks in your homes, I can't. What is great about setting up a wireless network is it is very easy. Every wireless router on the market is basically the same when it comes to setup. There are only a few steps to setup up a wireless router, plug it in and then log-into the configuration page through a browser and follow the setup steps.

One thing to remember is that whoever your ISP is (NetINS, GlobalCCS, MediaCom, WMTel) all would be a great place to start if you need help setting up a wireless router.

Linksys Instructions from Linksys (Cisco)
Belkin Website
Netgear Website
About.com Wirless Router Setup
Setting up a Linksys Router

Re-Wiring your brain

2009-12-01T11:31:00.002-06:00

The Wonderment of Web 2.0 Your Brain

With education and the world becoming more wired and interconnected, why not hack your brain. iTunesU is a great resource for many many many free lectures from Universities around the world, but this ONE from Texas A&M is specifically geared toward increasing your brain function and ability to learn.

Switching tips

2009-05-27T07:33:00.003-05:00

The Wonderment of switching to the MacBook

Switching to an Apple computer from a Windows computer might seem daunting, but in reality it is quite simple. There are many tips and tricks that work on a Windows PC that also work on an Apple computer. There is no need for me to start writing up documentation on something that has been documented already all over the internet, so I will be posting links to sites that I feel will be helpful.

Switching 101
A Guide to Switching to a Mac from LIfeHacker
Apple Find Out How Videos
Shortcut Compendium

1:1 PD May 25, 2009

2009-05-26T12:46:00.002-05:00

Below you will find places to conduct some research and look into how the 1:1 could work in your classroom.

O'Neill High School 24/7 Learning
Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Today
Doing 1:1 Right
Maine's 1:1 Research
Virtual Tours of 1:1 Programs
Technology Integration Matrix
McMEL Resources Wiki

Congratulation South Hamilton Community

2009-05-13T09:28:00.002-05:00

On May 11, 2009 the South Hamilton School board voted in favor of starting a 1:1 laptop initiative at the MS/HS building. So starting in the fall all students in 7th-12th grade will be given a MacBook computer to use for duration of their time at South Hamilton.

There are many questions and many policies and forms that need to be ironed out, so please check back on this blog as well as on the districts newly started 1:1 Laptop Page

Question 1

One of the biggest questions that has been circulating that I will address immediately is the financing. South Hamilton like many schools in the country is having to cut back on budgets and look for ways to save money. This budget reduction come from have the General Fund budget decreased for many reasons. This 1:1 program will not tape into the general fund, but instead be financed through the school infrastructure funds, SILO/PPEL. The SILO/PPEL funds have money in them from sales taxes and are set aside for this specific type of project. In short the money used to finance this project is not money that can be used for salaries.

There will be more infomation forth comming, but if you have questions be email laptopfeedback@s-hamilton.k12.ia.us

More great reousrces for integration

2009-05-07T12:20:00.004-05:00

The Wonderment of crowd sourcing

One of the great benefits of Web 2.0 tools and technology in general is the ability to collaborate and learn from a network of professionals from all over the world. I do not, nor could I ever know everything there is to know about technology or technology integration strategies, but I know people who know things and we share them.

One of the greatest tools to help in collaboration is the wiki. Everyone can edit and add and share to a wiki page. I use many wikis in my everyday hunt for new and better ideas. One wiki I just found out ab out is...

Indispensable Tools

I will be spending some time looking through and picking out sites that I feel warrant more attention, but I highly recommend checking out this wiki and maybe even add to it.

1;1 Classroom Examples

2009-05-06T10:36:00.002-05:00

The Wonderment of teaching in a classroom where every student has a laptop.

The Apple learning Interchange is a website setup to allow educators at all levels K-20 to share ideas and lesson plans for a technology infused classroom. There are many great examples and all are free. Sign-up and get a free account to explore the different ideas.

Apple Learning Interchange
Tour 1:1 Learning Programs
1:1 Profiles of Success

This is just the tip of the iceburg of what is available at ALI. I know that some of these will be a great resources for professional development in the future.

Teachers this one is for you

2009-04-13T19:31:00.002-05:00

The Wonderment of Free stuff for teachers

Free Tech 4 Teachers

Is a collection of hundreds of free resources for teachers to integrate technology into the classroom. I have spent a good deal of time on this site, and have only scratched the surface. I hope to look into this site further and bring in some for our professional development.

Great 1:1 laptop examples and other iTunesU goodies

2009-04-08T00:50:00.005-05:00

The Wonderment of great tech infused lessons

While researching South Hamilton's 1:1 laptop initiative I stepped into a whole pile of awesome. iTunesU has hundreds of resources from universities, museums, and other professional educational sources. The one that I found was through the University of South Florida College of Education. There are tons of videos and descriptions of technology infused lessons available for download and the best part... they are all free.

There are many universities with classes available through iTunesU; Texas A&M, MIT, Harvard, Yale, USF,UC Berkley, UofM, and Stanford to name a few. ALL of the information in iTunesU is free. Topics range from the very complex to the simple. If you don't already have iTunes get it here (BTW it's free too).

1:1 Plans and Community Feedback

2009-04-06T11:04:00.005-05:00

1:1 Plan

The goals for South Hamilton's 1:1 are:
1) Increase Student engagement
2) Increase Literacy levels
3) Increase student access
4) Increase student's educational opportunities

The 1:1 would mean that starting in the 2009-2010 school year every 7-12 grade student will be given a laptop computer to use for the duration of their time at South Hamilton. Every summer the laptops would be returned for maintenance and updating and that same machine would be given back in the fall. All the computers that are currently in labs at the MS/HS would be moved to the elem building to update and increase numbers of computers in that building. This program would be on a four year rotation. After the first four years are up the laptops would be replaced with new laptops and the old laptops would be taken to the elementary and put into carts so each classroom has a laptop cart. So by the year 2014-2015 SHCSD would be 1:1 K-12

Timeline:
4/13/09 School Board Agenda item for discussion
5/09 School board action item
5/26-5/28 Professional Development
Summer 2009 purchase 390 Macbook Laptops
August 2009 community meeting
August 19th 2009 laptops are handed out
PD will continue throughout the school year.

As South Hamilton CSD continues to evaluate the possibility of a 1:1 laptop initiate we need your input. All stake-holders need to be given the opportunity to weigh-in on the initiative, so to accomplish this an email address has been setup to allow for communication with the South Hamilton Administration.

LaptopFeedback@s-hamilton.k12.ia.us

Facebook... Not so bad?

2009-04-02T07:47:00.004-05:00

The Wonderment of Social networking

There are tons of ways to interact with people on the internet; Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Second Life, Ning, del.icio.us, IRC, Gaming sites, Last.fm, and many many many more. One of the big reasons those sites are blocked in schools is "for the safety of the children", which I tend to (sort of) agree with. What if those social sites could be leveraged for education? Below you will find some links to articles about social networking and you can form a conclusion on your own.

USA Today For teens a friend online is usually a friend offline too.
Social Networking in Education (wiki)
Wired Don't tell your parents: Schools Embrace MySpace
Education Trumps Filtering

Youtube Video Goomoodleikiog

Now there are many arguments for and against social networking in the school, but I think with the ever rising tide it would be wise for a forward thinking school system to hop on the 21st Century bandwagon.

Timeline Template

2009-03-31T15:03:00.004-05:00

The Wonderment of the Timeline

This is a timeline template built in MS Excel and can be used to create a timeline for class assignments. It works quite well, with one LARGE exception, no dates before 1900. All instructions are included on the template sheet.

Template Download

1:1 Update

2009-03-31T14:30:00.003-05:00

Update on 1:1 work

Over spring break Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Large, Mrs. Huegerich, and Mr. Hehr all visited Westside High in Omaha Nebraska. Westside has been implementing a 1:1 for 5 years, this year moving into the 8th grade as well as 9-12. The school support 2500+ student laptops. This was a very enlightening experience and I was blown away by the great integration strategies I saw and the complete openess of student education. I only hope that a SHCSD laptop initiative would be as successful as the one that was visited. More visits and workshops are planned for other teachers to see how we need to teach in a 21st Century classoom.

A 1:1 laptop committee was started to help brainstorm and think about implementing a 1:1 at South Hamilton. Ten teachers and administrators were selected to be a part of this descision making group. They will tackle many differnet topics and questions that have yet to be solved. There are many questions yet to be answered; insurance? Professional Development? Legality? Internet in homes? I hope that as a committee these questions can be answered.

My hope is to present my final proposal to the School Board at the May meeting. There will be much more information to come out on this topic, please check back for more posts about the 1:1 here at SHCSD.

Bloom's Taxonomy Redux

2009-03-31T14:02:00.002-05:00

The Wonderment of the changing student mind

One of the many reasons that we are looking at giving every 7th-12th grader a laptop is because the minds of students are changing and how we educate them also needs to be changed. For years (since the 50's to be exact) understanding and learning has been placed on a continuum called Bloom's Taxonomy. Educators were asked where does the students' level of learning fall in Bloom's Taxonomy?

Bloom's Taxonomy circa 1956

Knowledge: Recall data or information.

Comprehension:Understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and interpretation of instructions and problems. State a problem in one's own words.

Application: Use a concept in a new situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Applies what was learned in the classroom into novel situations in the work place.

Analysis:Separates material or concepts into component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. Distinguishes between facts and inferences.

Synthesis: Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure.

Evaluation: Make judgments about the value of ideas or materials.

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Bloom's Revised Taxonomy:

Remembering: Recalling information

Understanding: Explaining ideas or concepts

Applying: Using information in another familiar situation

Analyzing: Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships

Evaluating: Justifying a decision or course of action

Creating: Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things.

Allowing students to create and evaluate based on their levels of understanding gives educators a clear picture of weather the student is on the right track or re-teaching will be required. Below is a great little piece on Bloom's Taxonomy in a digital natives world of learning.

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A Take on Bloom's Digital Taxonomy:

Andrew Churches has taken Bloom’s taxonomy, which was written and developed in the 1950s and adapted it to modern day instructional technology. The end result is a 44-page document uploaded by Churches to Scribd and free to download and read at your leisure.

Blooms Digital Taxonomy v2.12

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work Internet & Technolog Education-Teaching Business-Annual-Repo

More links to further learn about Bloom's Taxonomy and other references used:
More on Bloom's Taxonomy
The Digital Native (wiki article)
Digital Natives
Scott Church

The Wonderment of JMC Student access

2009-02-23T12:18:00.002-06:00

The Wonderment of JMC Student access

I have been asked many times by students to be able to check their own grades with JMC online access. So, I have added a link along the top of the SHCSD webpage called 7-12 Student Access. This link will allow students to watch their grades and check on their progress. If a student wants to get access to JMC they need to see Mr. Hehr or Mrs. Pulis (Office Secretary) and they can set up your account.

The Wonderment of Marketing

2009-02-23T09:20:00.004-06:00

The Wonderment of marketing or Why Microsoft hates the world.

When MS unleashed their newest version of Office on the world they changed the fundamental base of how their files worked. By doing so they are forcing users to upgrade or find ways to open the new .docx/.xlsx/.pptx files. Not everyone has the money to go out and buy a new copy of Office (South Hamilton CSD included). So I have a solution.

If you are "blessed" enough to have the newest version of Office and are sending your friends, family, business associates .docx files you may have been causing those folks a lot of work. The easiest way to prevent issues and the dreaded.... I typed this assignment at home and I can't open it at school scenario is to use "Save-As"

When you create a document in Office 2007 (windows) or 2008 (OsX) go up to your File menu and choose Save-As. This will allow you to choose an older format (.doc) that most people will be able to open wiothout a lot of sweat or heartache. This will also also allow files to be moved back and forth to and from school. (These steps also work if you have Word Perfect or MS Works you would just save-as to .rtf)

But my suggestion to solve the problem is just get a new piece of software, and you can stick it to MS beacause it is completely free. Go to Open Office.org and download Open Office Suite, it has a Word processor, Presentation software, Spreadsheet software, and database software all for free and for ANY platform you can think of. Did I mention it is free? OF allows you to open and save MS word and many many many other word processing documents and edit and save them to a variety of other programs.

Of course there are many other things you can do downloading converts, buying more software, dig out the typewriter, or just handwrite papers. Just remember Just beacuse it is the newest doesn't mean it is the best, and just because MS makes it doesn't mean you HAVE to have it.

More on 1:1

2009-02-17T15:51:00.003-06:00

The Wonderment of 1:1 (cont.)

Apple has always been a big proponent of computers in education and has been at the front with curriculum initiatives and PD to help best integrate technology in the classroom. There have been schools that have gone before us that have already paved the way for 1:1 computing and working with Apple to make them work well. Apple has created a few videos to focus on some goo implementations with insightful reflective pieces. I have will post the link below.

Apple Education Videos

The Wonderment of Learning new tricks

2009-02-16T10:18:00.005-06:00

The Wonderment of Learning new tricks

There is nothing better than learning something new that will help you get things done faster or more efficiently during your work day. I love finding new places to learn new bits of information, and I recently came across one that I have never seen before direct from Apple.

Apple has a great resource called the genius bar in every Apple store they open including the one in the Jordan Creek mall. This genius bar allows users to bring in there laptops/desktops/ipods in for help and service for Apple Geniuses. These folks are called geniuses for a reason and are (from my experiences) very knowlegable about many different topics, as long as they are Apple related. Apple has created a "virtual" genius bar with on-demand videos that will help you learn new tips and tricks to mac your computer do things quicker than you ever thought possible.

Apple Business Theater

The Wonderment of Engagement

2009-02-11T13:24:00.003-06:00

The Wonderment of Engagement ...

This video is getting a lot of play at conferences and locations where folks are trying to inspire teachers to switch their educational thinking.

The Wonderment of 1:1

2009-02-10T10:25:00.001-06:00

At last nights school board meeting (2-9-09) a discussion was had about moving South Hamilton into a 1:1 Laptop program at the MS/HS building. A 1:1 Laptop program will mean that every student enrolled in grades 7-12 at South Hamilton will be giving a laptop computer to take between home and school for the duration of their years at South Hamilton.

I am including a few links for research on 1:1. Please take a few minutes to post a comment about your feelings on a 1:1 at South Hamilton.

Links:
Maine's State-Wide Laptop Initiative
Stillwater Public Schools

This would be a very large program and initiative to start so please if you have any comments post them so we can start a discussion.

I am helping add info to a State-Wide 1:1 wiki that will have more information too, feel free to check into it. It currently has only a little information.

1:1 Wiki

Short SHCSD Survey for parents and Students

2009-02-09T15:09:00.001-06:00

As part of our desire to communicate in the best way possible we have developed a short survey for parents and students to fill out. This is a short survey and will provide us with a great deal of useful information.

Survey

The Wonderment of RSS Feeds

2009-02-09T14:47:00.001-06:00

RSS Feeds:

One of our goals here are South Hamilton is to increase our communication avenues with parents. Our first line of communication is this very newsletter. Currently we have two mailing lists, one for the daily announcements and one for schedule changes due to weather (further information can be found about the mailing lists in this months newsletter). South Hamilton also has a well-used and informative school webpage with teacher emails and contact information. The webpage even has a section devoted to special announcements on the main page with changes in upcoming events, on important messages for parents and the community. Parents/guardians also can access grades, attendance, and lunch balances through the SHCSD webpage. One new communication tool that we added just this year was the incorporation of teacher weblogs. These teacher created pages gives anyone wanting to know access to what is being taught in the classrooms, with assignments and upcoming test dates. We have now added the ability for you to have this information delivered directly to your home computer through the use of RSS Feeds.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and can be found all over the internet. The purpose of these feeds is to have information sent directly to your computer without having to go to the actual website. For example; Mrs. Pulis updates her weblog and as soon as the new information is posted the changes will be automatically sent to your RSS reader on your home computer. The best part about RSS is that there are many FREE readers available on the internet.

Some of the free readers are FeedReader3, AmphetaDesk, NetNewsWire (not free but very good), and Google,has a built in RSS Feed aggregator. Once you have a favorite installed you can add the RSS feed from ANY site that has RSS. To determine what sites have RSS look for this icon.

By clicking the RSS button it gives you the URL to put into your reader. There are many, many other readers and things you can do with RSS feeds, but for our purposes this is it. If you have any questions please email Mr. Hehr at Karl_Hehr@s-hamilton.k12.ia.us or visit the school’s website for more information.

The Wonderment of the Welcome

2009-02-06T14:02:00.000-06:00

I Wonder...
As part of my continued desire to communicate to the community, faculty and staff of South Hamilton CSD I have started this blog. This blog will include a number of different items for a variety of audiences. Please feel free to comment or send me ideas on how I could change or improve this blog.