Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 02/25/2013
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achievethecore.org / Steal These Tools
Free tools for implementing common core standards in the US.
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I love how STEMlab teacher Kevin Jarrett shares what students are learning in his STEMlab. The lab focuses on engineering, science, technology, and math and is such a powerful learning experience. I like this format better than just "technology" lab because it integrates what you're trying to be not just a checklist of point and clicks that will be outdated. "This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft."
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Access your pads offline with Dropbox - hackpad.com
You can access your hackpads offline by syncing with dropbox. Very interesting concept.
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Welcome to hackpad - smart collaborative documents - hackpad.com
Hackpad is an interesting tool. It claims to be a wiki but is more google doc-ish. They call them "smart" collaborative documents. You'll still need emails to invite people. It would be interesting to try out because you can link to other pads using the @ sign and it is also suited to iPHone and Android tools.
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Vicki Davis Twitter | Vicki Davis Trending
See your tweets dissected by topic. Here's my twylah page for my Twitter account. You can see common topics and it is organized nicely. I set this up sometime back.
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List of academic databases and search engines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a very comprehensive list. One area where Wikipedia excels (if academics will continue to contribute) is in comprehensive lists of open education resources. This list includes whether it is subscription or free and what type of database it is.
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A symbaloo gallery of some of the best web tools.
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About Fusion Tables - Fusion Tables Help
If you want to play with data and analyze current information, you might wan to play with Google Fusion tables, a visualization tool for Google Drive.
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FAscinating tool that lets you upload data and make predictions. This would have been a lifesaver in 1990 when I took "Artificial Intellegence Applications in Market Research" at Georgia Tech. IF you are working with predictive modeling at the college level, you should look at the powerful feature set available here.
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Statwing | Intuitive Data Analysis
This useful tool analyzes data without the statistical jargon but will make it simple as you analyze it. This is something you may want to use with students as they analyze data from Google forms or other original research.
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Good “Geofences” Make Good Neighbors in Age of Mobile Alerts : New England Board of Higher Education
Geofencing is a new concept in safety notifications. Schools can literally notify anyone entering an area (i.e. notify vendors and parents they must check in with the office when entering a certain area), leaving an area, or within an area of issues. This could be used to notify and protect students, teachers, and anyone on campus in the case of an emergency of any kind. This article is one of the best I've seen about geofencing and how it works, although it is promoting an app (Ping4alerts) it is very useful for safety leaders and it directors to read and understand the potential of this very useful technology. "Hyperlocal alerts are a new capability made possible by the rise of smart devices and “geofencing” technology. A geofence is a virtually “fenced-off” area or geographic location. When this concept is applied to mobile devices, it refers to the ability of users to receive automatic alerts or notifications when entering, leaving or moving within a geographic area specifically defined by a virtual geofence. That area could be as small as a single building or as large as a state or region of the country. System administrators draw a square on a map through their portal interface to designate the location and size of the geofenced in area."
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Greece Timeline | TIME For Kids
Time magazine has some fascinating timelines like this one for Greece.
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Timeline Index - People, Periods, Places, Events...
When researching a period of time, students should know how to "chronofence" or find information along a timeline. While Google nixed this type of search some time a go, there are many timeline makers that let you search for things in the context of timelines. This can be use for science, history, literature, and more.
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8 Excellent Free Timeline Creation Tools for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
The use of timelines is an excellent organizers for prewriting and creating group timelines can help students relate topics and happenings to one another.
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Evernote shared notebook: Flattening Classrooms @coolcatteacher Global Notebook (Public)
This notebook holds many forms, ideas, projects, for flattening your classroom. I like to save original documents here just in case links are broken on web sites at a later date. You can join this notebook or bookmark it to have access to the files contained here (in particular, the permissions forms.)
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My List: A Collection on "Permissions and AUP samples" (permission,forms,aups,aup,education) | Diigo
I've made a Diigo list of permission forms and AUP's that I'll continue to update. This is for my upcoming book Collaborative Writing in the Cloud from Eye on Education. See http://writinginthecloud.wikispaces.com for more information on this.
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Evernote, Dropbox, Edublog Consent form from Canada
Here's a sample form allowing students to use Dropbox and Evernote and Edublog services from a teacher in Canada. NOte that this includes disclosure that the site is hosted outside the country, something important for international relationships as typically websites are governed by their host country.
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Digital Permission Form (1).doc - Google Drive
This permission form has many different tools including weebly, Google dlocs, voicethread, YouTube, Glogster, Xtranormal, Toondoo, and others. I'm not sure that Audacity has to be included as it is a program on the local machine, however. I do like how the teacher asks for permission "I agree to allow my student's work to be used as a positive example of published work for demonstration or promotional purposes." Some parents are afraid their child will be made to look bad in online examples, this covers that concern although it puts the onus on the teacher to make sure he/she vets examples that are published.
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Final Project: Political Cartoon Analysis | Web 2.0 Morton
This teacher's lesson plan fully discloses the tools that are being used, the standards, and required permissions. This is a very detailed example, but one that you may have to use for large projects to get approval in your district.
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Gorman, Susan - US History/Coach / Technology User Agreement Forms
This teacher has permission forms for use of Toondoo, Edmodo, and Glogster, three excellent sites that I also use in my classroom. While I like to combine mine all into one, this is an option for those very conservative districts.
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Another website example of disclosures about the use of Google apps from a district in Oregon. This also references their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and frequently asked questions about Google Apps, another good thing to include.
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Google Apps Consent Form - PASCO
Here's a google apps consent form for another district. It also references the Network Access Agreement (We call ours an AUP - or acceptable use form) which is an important practice that ensures students know they must use the network in accordance with guidelines already given.
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Permission Forms - Google Apps Support
These are the permission forms for the Beaverton School District and Google Apps with specific disclosures about how usernames and passwords will be set up and downloadable permission forms.
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Cardinal O'Hara High School - Parental Permission Form
This website discloses the apps that this school will be using and links to the permission form. It is on the Academic Affairs page. I like the face this presents to the public. Here is what we WILL do and how we WILL do it -- with your permission, of course. Parents have a choice but schools do not - we must offer 21st century tools as part of a 21st century school. There are ways to do this.
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Social Networking Parent Permission Form
While not having a lot of legalese, this form does disclose what students will be doing and gets permission from parents.
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This is a fascinating permission form hybrid because it incorporates blogs, wikis, permission to read certain novels and watch certain videos ALL in one permission form. It would be one that high school literature teachers would want to look at using. I like how it discloses how students are identified. I may adapt something like this.
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Edu Blogging 101 - Permission Slips
A collection of blogging permission forms, while these are a bit older, they do give you a start.
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Technology Permission form for Catholic School system
This permission form is comprehensive and includes permission for online presentations in Blackboard Collaborate, blogging, wikis, google apps, podcasts, videos, social bookmarking and RSS as well as images. It is very comprehensive and useful. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but of the forms I've seen, I think this one is comprehensive.
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Parental Permission for Web 2.0 Training, ONline Collaboration and Media Release (BOCES NEW YORK)
This was a downloadable doc, so I put it into my public Evernote notebook of permission forms and other things about flattening the classroom, this link links to that notecard. This is a permission form for students who are using advanced Web 2 tools, collaborating online, and a media release. If you are in a conservative district, this permission from 2009 may help you.
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Research Consent form for Research
This is an example of a consent form for research for a research student done at the University of Georgia. If you are a researcher, you'll want to check with your university as to the proper way to format and secure permissions, however, as students become researchers, I have questions about securing permission for research. This is an area we need to discuss and understand because students can now be viable, authentic researchers and perhaps may have links to more accurate data collection techniques than researchers. What happens when researchers partner with students to collect data? A whole new world of research is opening up, so research forms are worth collecting.
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COPPA is a reason that many schools shy away from having any children under 13 participate in online sites, however, NeoPets is a website that has done this. This is a copy of their COPPA consent form. In here, you can see how they've tracked and worked with this permission. It does require the parents to fill out and fax or mail the form in to NeoPets to allow children to use the communications portion of the website. This would be a website to review if you're looking at creating a portal or service that allows kids under 13 to post and communicate in ways that tracks their data. I am wondering if Facebook would eventually do something like this or if they will continue to create an environment that encourages children to lie to get on their platform. (i.e. under 13 not allowed)
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Boy Scouts activity consent form
This is an activity consent form used by the Boy Scouts of America. They take students on physically challenging events for weekends and nights. This is a great organization that has worked with kids in nature environments for many years, so it would be a good sample to review.
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State of New Jersey Consent form for images
This is the photo permisison form used by the state of New Jersey schools. I'm not sure if you should be required to specifically notify parents that photo recognition software is available. I do like the different levels of permission but am not sure how they track it in photos, etc. This seems like it would be a bit of a struggle, I guess it would have to be done with the use of colored dots on field trips, etc.
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Artsonia sample permission form
This is an online art museum for student work. This permission form is used by artsonia, a student online art museum. It is a great place to participate and share artwork. Also, I like how artsonia allows parents to moderate the comments left on their child's artwork. This form also asks for parent volunteers. This is a nice way to share your student's best work.
