Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...

How do we know who is using technology in a school?

I disburse and evaluate surveys
Note who is coming to my professional development
Keep track of who is filling out technology work orders
Pay attention to who stops me in the hallway
Listen at faculty and core meetings

But now I am administrating the bulk of the faculty network, I can easily see size of the users home directories. 

I was surprised to see some of my low-technology-aptitude teachers had massive (300+ MB) home directories (and this is after deleting cache files, too).  I’ll be targetting them for additional support and training.  Maybe we have some people on the cusp of using technology, who need a little encouragement!

I would encourage other instructional technology folks to check out home directories as a metric to gauge computer use!

Off for a week for holiday. 

I’ll stay here on Martha’s Vineyard...might blog, might not. 

Warmly,

Bill

Every Friday, we have some time during lunch recess in the computer lab.  Students are allowed to come up and play games, surf the net, or listen to music.

Today, we had a fifth grade in the lab doing some math problems (here), and as such, had limited seating available.

The result?

During lunch I witnessed an EXQUISITE planning process amongst 9 boys.  Teams were created, different boys planned how they would take multiple routes to the computer lab to get their first, and roles were assigned in the game. They ate their hotdogs & chips at light speed, and, without waiting for lunch to end travelled over the sound barrier to the lab.

They, of course, failed to plan on the following contingencies:

1) Other people on the stairs
2) Our “don’t leave the lunch room until lunch is over” rule. 
3) Each other (as they stumbled up the stairs)
4) The number of available computers (only 11 were being used, we had 18 free)

In the end, I asked them all to come to the office, and we discussed proper behavior .  I’m happy to report we had no injuries, just some excited boys.  There was an animated discussion and debate about what actually constituted “lunch over” and “running on the stairs” ("Mr. MacKenty, I wasn’t running, I was just moving quickly!"). 

And as I was walking up the stairs, laughing out loud at the ludcridity of the situation, I was again reminded why I love working with kids.

This might be a stretch for those of you unfamiliar with text-based gaming, I’ve tried to annotate the events to help unfamiliar users.  I’ve also slightly edited the screenshots for readability.

The kids have groked MUSH syntax. Our syntax error rate has decreased substantially.  We finished CG and boarded the USS Lexington, an intrepid class starship. 
Here’s a screenshot of our fully manned bridge.  All hands are ready.  Jay is our engineer, Andres is on helm, and Dan is our tactical officer.  I’m Duncan.

__________________Bridge - Deck 1 [USS Lexington]____________________________
/ _________________________________________________________________________|
| /
| | The bridge of the USS Lexington is a smallish oval-shaped room. The
| | fore wall is dominated by a large curving viewscreen that wraps
| | along fully half the width of the room. The sides of the viewscreen
| | are segmented into subscreens for auxillary displays. In the center
| | of the room is the traditional Captain’s and First officer’s chairs
| | with their own small consoles on swivel-mount arms. In front of
| | those is the sweeping wide dash-like console of the flight-ops
| | officer. Behind, on a slightly raised platform curving around the
| | aft portion of the bridge, are two semi-enclosed console areas for
| | operations and tactical. Other minor console clusters are mounted
| | on the starboard side of the bridge wall. A set of frosted glass
| | double doors on the starboard side leads to the Ready Room. To the
| | aft of those doors are steps leading down to the main blast doors
| | leading back into the main corridor. 
| \__              __________________                      ________________________
| __| Contents |__________________| Obvious Exits |________________________|
| /
| | Bridge Console 2 (andres)        Turbolift (T) - [Turbolift]
| | Bridge Console 3 (dan)           Door (101) - [Briefing Room]
| | Bridge Console 4 (Jay)           Door (100) - [Ready Room]
| | Viewscreen
| | Captain’s Chair 1 (Duncan)
| |
| \_________________________________________________________________________
\_____________________________________________________________________________|

Now I think it’s worth pausing here, and trying to describe the scene.

There are 3 8th grade students, absolutely glued to their screens.  We aren’t sitting in the Edgartown School computer lab, we are on the bridge of a starship, preparing for our first flight into space!  Keep in mind, this is completely textual!!.  No graphics, no sound...just text.  What happens next is really outstanding.

The encounter ended as class ended.  The encounter was a fantastic opportunity, and the kids are absolutely hungry to play more.  We’ll really start to dig into navigation and moving around in the next lesson.  For now, though, we have seen how games can provide a rich and compelling learning experience! 

There are many different ways to “get” a blog.  Below are blogs which may be better suited to new users:

blogger
myspace
Live Journal
Yahoo 360
Word Press

If you have the technical aptitude, feel free to look at some of these fantastic solutions.

Expression Engine
Drupal
Seredinpity
Movable Type

We’ll be using blogger to make a simple blog, highlighting some common elements all blogs share.

Lets start with this movie (10.45MB Quicktime video) which will help you make a blog.  Note even moving slowly, and with one mistake the entire process of making a blog takes under three minutes!!!!.

Now we’ll get into posting to our blog. Please watch this short movie (3.3MB Quicktime video) to understand how easy it is to post to your blog!

In the next series, we’ll talk about securing our blog, comments, and sharing your blog.

The San Francisco Chronicle has published a wonderful story on games in education with a mention of yours truly. 

I shared an experience when I kind of screwed up with games in education, and I’m delighted they printed it. I hope other teachers read this and see it is ok to take risks!