Duke University Alice Symposium

The presentation I gave at Duke University last week went well. What a beautiful place! I left my iphone in the taxi on the way to the airport, but the driver was kind enough to take it back to my hotel, and the hotel people are mailing it to my home. Gotta love those North Carolina folk!

I talked with the Alice people (Steve, Wanda, Pam, Don) about my idea to get tech/art schools to partner with Alice and have students create more objects for the galleries that teachers can use in their curriculum, and they gave me a green light. On the way home from NC, I had a layover in Phoenix, and met with the provost from the University for Advancing Technology in Tempe. He is enthused about the idea, and hopefully we can get something set up. I'm going to look into setting up appointments with other art schools in the Bay Area to see if I can get others on board.

One exciting find at the Alice Symposium was that Alice 2.2 now has all the bugs worked out and is ready for download from www.Alice.org. We've been using 2.0 this year, because it was more stable. Alice 2.2., however, provides the ability to create video files of the Alice worlds that can be shared on the Web. You can view a student-created Alice world here that relates to 6th grade Language Arts/Social Studies standards, created this past school year in the Union School District. Other samples can be viewed at the "Critical Thinking with Alice" website.

New Learning Theory Translated into Spanish

I just received an email from the editor of Innovate Journal, notifying me that my article on my new learning theory has been translated into Spanish by Universidad de Concepción in Chile!

The English version can be found at Innovate Journal. A link to the Spanish version can be found here. To hear and see the Webcast I had with Innovate Journal regarding my new learning theory, visit the Innovate Portal site.

Presenting a Paper at Duke University, June 17, 2009 - and Other Summer Plans

In June, I'll travel to Duke University to present a paper at the Alice Symposium (Alice is a 3D animation program), and I'm very excited about this opportunity. I've never been to North Carolina! My goal is to develop collaboration between teachers to create Alice 3D animiation tutorials that can be used by middle school teachers to help engender critical thinking in core subjects that relate to standards. I'd also like to stimulate partnerships between the developers of the Alice program and tech schools that teach 3D animation modeling. In this way, perhaps we can develop a larger bank of 3D objects that the Alice program can use that include characters and environments middle school students encounter in their core subject areas.

During the summer, I have also applied for an IISME fellowship to work with Adobe in order to gain a better understanding of the business world, in hopes of bringing this knowledge back into the classroom next fall. I will also be teaching some classes at RAFT during the summer, so it's shaping up to be an exciting next few months!

Journal Article on My New Learning Theory

The April/May 2009 issue of Innovate Journal (an online, peer-reviewed educational magazine) published an article on the new learning theory and instructional design model that I developed over the past four years while working on my doctorate. The magazine held a Webcast last week, and have now archived it, so by going to the Webcast link and logging in, you can hear it for yourself. Just go to Innovate Journal to view the article and to navigate to the Webcast. You just have to sign up (free!) to log in.

SVCUE Silicon Valley CUE Conference Feb. 28, 2009

For those of you in the Silicon Valley area, join us Saturday, Feb. 28, at The Harker School, 8am-3pm for a mini-CUE conference. More information is available at svcue.org. Besides the great sessions available to you, there will be over $7,000 worth of door prizes given away! Workshops include sessions such as PBL with Office, Google Docs, Moodle Basics, Geocaching, Geography Awareness, Document Cameras, and many more. Hope to see you Saturday!

CUE Palm Springs, March 5-7 '09

The theme for the March 5-7 CUE conference in Palm Springs is "Driving Student Success." I'm looking forward to hearing the Keynote speaker, Dr. Robert Marzano, and attending many of the great sessions that will be offered. See for yourself at http://www.cue.org/conference/schedule/.

I will present a session on the free 3D animiation program, Alice - and how teachers can learn to use the program along with their students, as students work through a tutorial on critical thinking. The tutorial can be re-vamped to use with any grade level, 4-12, in any subject that has a controversial issue. For a download of the PowerPoint and handouts I will use in the session, see the links on www.timetrek.org.

Jigzone.com - Make Jigsaw Puzzles for Free

pedagogy19k Jigsaw Puzzle
I just heard about a Website that will enable you to make your own jigsaw puzzles for free! Click on the picture above to see how the puzzle works. The site is called jigzone.com. Simply upload a picture file, and you will get a link to a puzzle of your picture that you can post anywhere. I heard about jigzone while listening to Joan and Ben's SMART Board Lesson Podcast. Students can then manipulate this puzzle on the computer to complete the picture. If you have a SMART Board, the picture could be on the SMART Board as students walk in, as a way to introduce a lesson. Those who come in first could go up and manipulate the pieces to put it together. If you don't have a SMART Board, have the puzzle on a computer in your room for students to manipulate.

I'm going to use my puzzle on a SMART Board at the beginning of a teacher training on Word, where we will discuss the different tool palettes. A way to use this puzzle idea in Language Arts would be to create a picture with two or three vocabulary words, and align pictures above the correct words. Having students put these puzzles together gives them some time-on-task with viewing the vocabulary words and thinking about their meanings, while they have fun putting the puzzle together at the same time. You could also challenge students to create their own puzzles, typing in vocabulary words and finding pictures to accompany the pictures. I created my pictures and text using Photoshop. The person who shared this idea said he created his picture by using a free photo editor called PhotoFiltre. This application, however is only for PC. Go to Google's Piscasa for a free MAC photo editor.