Sweet Dreams (of Technology)

Last year my wife and I entered videos into the eInstruction video contest to try and win a $30,000 technology makeover. We entered this international contest every year for three years. After a long, hard competition my wife's video won the elementary division. Even though my video didn't win I really liked the way it turned out. The kids did a great job showing some of the tools we used to make a music video. If you've never seen it here it is:

Sweet Dreams (of Technology) revised from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

P.S. I was very happy my wife's video won in case you were wondering :)

What's it all about?

Summer does strange things to me. Maybe it's the ability to stay up too late and wake up whenever I want. Maybe it's the lack of routine or daily challenges. Somehow I tend to lose focus on what I should be doing and what needs to be done.
Last year was very rewarding and very trying. Our school and entire district was rated "exemplary." I know how hard everyone worked to make this happen. And yet, I believe sometimes we lose focus on what is important. We have teacher meetings, learning communities, professional development, paperwork, and all of the new things that "we should be trying." Administration constantly adds to the stack of "non-negotiables" without ever taking anything away. We get so involved in being a better teacher that sometimes we lose the primary focus of that goal. We talk, we plan, we execute and if we're really good we evaluate and change the things we do. We take workshops, we discuss how we can move up, over or out. We serve on committees, lead teachers and teach leaders. Even though we are busy all the time I feel like we sometimes still forget what is most important. Do you know what it is? What our primary goal in education should be? Can you put your finger on what sometimes gets lost in all of our good intentions? It's the kids. That's why we're here. That should be the bottom line for all of us as teachers. We need to ask the simple question "What is best for the kids?" We need to look at our grand plans through the lens of "Does this best serve our kids and their learning?" We need to focus the most energy on doing those activities that will make an impact on the lives of those kids that we are responsible for. All these other things we do have importance but if there is no relationship to student learning then what are they all about? As we all breath in a collective sigh and prepare ourselves for the new battles before us, I think it's important to ask the question of what it is we are fighting for. I think i've made my choice...have you?

Melissa educators take tech to the max for students | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

Karen and I got a nice writeup in the Dallas Morning News. I was happy to see the recognition for Karen's accomplishments. Bear in mind that the ones mentioned are only the most recent. We had a very good year!

Melissa educators take tech to the max for students | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

A Look Back

As I started building my Wiki page and gathering my videos together I began thinking about some of the first ones I did and what got me started doing them in the first place. I started out with Dr. Loopy and the Blinding you with Science series. It's funny how such a simple idea can grow. I started out thinking I would just do a couple and ended up with 12 full length videos and several in which I cut out smaller bits that could stand on their own. They are all available on my Wiki, Vimeo, Teachertube and Schooltube pages which can be accessed at the top of this page. I hope to complete a new one this summer! It would be the first I shoot with HD and I have so much more experience now that I can't imagine what it will look like. Here is an example if you have never seen Dr. Loopy.

Blinding you with Science #5 Magnetism from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

Another series I enjoyed doing was on Classroom Teacher and Librarian Collaboration. I divided the topics into smaller sections and they have been popular with librarians who show them at staff orientations. You can see the full length version here. The smaller sections are available on my Wiki.

Librarian and Classroom Teacher Collaboration from Doug Valentine on Vimeo.

The New School Year

A new school year is about to start and despite my good intentions of doing so much planning this summer, I find myself in the same position I do every year...where to start. Perhaps I'm not being fair to myself. I'm much better at being given a specific task to overcome than I am at planning from nowhere. I'm sure once the school year starts there will be more than enough to do but right now I feel a little...lost. Maybe lost isn't the right word. Maybe "unfocused." We will be getting a new Principal, Assistant Principal and several new staff members this year and that's always a challenge. Sort of like starting over again. Maybe I just feel this way because my birthday is the 22nd and I'm taking stock of what I have done and what I still have to do. You would think things get easier with time but when you are constantly evaluating, innovating and evolving what you do it's just not like that. I guess I set the bar high with what I expect from myself and right now I need to get a little further back to get a good running start. Wish me luck!
In other news...I found a little tool I like to help teachers collect all those sites i give them in one place. It's called Symbaloo and it is a neat little way to customize a desktop with shortcuts to important websites. You can even e-mail it and then update it. Hopefully I will be able to demonstrate some apps and them give them a way to store them easily so they can call them up whenever they need to. Check it out!

School Video News

We currently have a profile in an online magazine called School Video News. They provide tips and information on good practices in school media production. They are featuring our Shortie Award winning "Starship McKillop" news broadcast and a reworked version of a video we did for an earlier contest called "Sweet Dreams (of Technology)Check out our article!
Starship McKillop Profile

Working on a Wiki

I have had a wiki for quite awhile but I have not been keeping it up. What with summer and all I decided to revamp and work on collecting a lot of our video work into one place (besides the Starship McKillop Glog Page). Anyway, this is a work in progress: Doctor Loopy Wiki
I bought myself a Sony Vaio laptop for my birthday and have been using it to update the pages. I LOVE this laptop! It was on sale at Tiger.com. It has the power I need to edit and has a blu-ray built in. It also has a little program that makes videos similar to Animoto. I will post one when I get it together.

ISTE Smackdown

One of the sessions I wanted to attend most at ISTE was our SIGMS smackdown. It was a very quick overview of tools and tips that librarians around the country are using right now. If you are interested here is a link to an article on the tips:
ISTE SMACKDOWN
or if you'd like to see a video of the entire session check this out. Yours truly makes an appearance about an hour and four minutes in:
ISTE VIDEO

More Hot Dog book reviews

Some of you may come here in search of my animated book reviews. Each week I give 3rd and 4th graders who have done well in the library the opportunity to do a book review for our Starship McKillop Glog site. I've gotten a little behind in posting some of these. Yesterday I found a few I still need to post but I thought I would show them here as examples of what we do. These reviews are great because they protect the identity of the students while giving them a very personal way of expressing their opinions online.

Using Old Technology

You know, in this web 2.0 world it's fun to sometimes go back to old technology. Kids today are unfamiliar with 8-tracks, albums, dial telephones, and in the case of my wife's third grade class...floppy disks! They had no idea where to even begin to put one into a computer. So I go waaayyyy back sometimes and do lessons using what I can my "long ago and far away" machine. It's a circa 1957 Predicta black and white television. Using this, I can teleconference with characters from the past and interact with "history." The kids really love it. One of the lessons I used last year was based on the book Abraham Lincoln Crosses a Creek. In this book we have an account of Abraham Lincoln nearly dying at age 10 when he tried to cross a creek with his best boyhood friend. It's an interesting book to study historical fiction vs. fact and makes the kids think about what history really is. A little research shows that the character of his boyhood friend did exist and that the book is based, at least partially, on a true event. Anyway, I start out my lesson by showing this video on the Predicta:



Yeah just an old black and white video. Big deal. Where is the color Mr. Valentine? But now imagine seeing it on this:



or this:



It makes all the difference. The kids get a general background of what was going on at that time and the television (my system of delivery) really gets their attention before I read the book. Of course there are details in the news that I pulled from the book to make it tie in nicely. At the end we have a discussion on whether the book was a true account or not. Just as they reach some conclusions I pull out research and photos about the boyhood friend in the book and watch their faces change. They are interested, they are wanting to know more. And that is where I give them material to do their own research. It's fun and the 50+ year old technology was what got them hooked.
LESSON: You never know when that overhead projector might be useful in a new way :)