Thursday, April 26, 2007

pvlearners.net & pTUNE

Well, we've made the techno connections between "pvlearners.net" and "pTUNE". "pvlearners.net" is the online learning community/interface using Google Apps, currently being piloted between PVUSD students and teachers. "pTUNE" is the online interface for pod (audio) and vod (video) casts for the PVUSD community. Both represent significant technological and partnership feats, wherein we have the potential to help shape 21st century learning in a big way. Please explore pTUNE (pvlearners.net is a whole 'nuther gig) and begin processing on next steps.

I've added a few pod and vod casts to pTUNE to give you a sense of the possibilities - please don't consider the examples as permanent content. How we want to organize (tabs, albums, chapters, episodes, etc.) for optimal use is now up to us.

• Launch your web browser and go to http://start.pvlearners.net
• On the right side, you'll see a link to pTUNE, click it.
• This should launch the iTunes program on your computer.
• You'll be into PVUSD's area of iTunes U.
• Horizontal tabs let you scroll between Administrative, Curriculum, PD, etc. (we can change/add/delete, as needed)
• There are files that you can "Get", by clicking on them.
• Once clicked, downloading occurs and you are put into another holder within iTunes and can play the file - learning iTunes is beyond the scope of this email.
• If you want to go back to PVUSD's area within iTunes, click on the "iTunes Store" on the left pane.
• If you click on a video file, it will play in a small window in the left corner - click on the window and it "grows" to a larger size.

These resources (storage, applications, use and presence) are provided free to us. The techno world wants to engage with us and see how K12 puts these tools to use. Enjoy....more to come......Jeff.....

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Google Maintenance - April 26th

Hello Jeff,

We wanted to inform you that we are planning to conduct routine maintenance to Google Calendar between 8AM and 9PM on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 . During this time, this service may be unavailable to some of your users. Please inform your users about this planned maintenance appropriately. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to improve Google Calendar.

If you have any questions, you can contact the Google Apps Support team through the Google Apps Help center (http://www.google.com/support/a/).

Sincerely,
The Google Apps Team

Please do not reply directly to this message. Please contact us through the Google Apps Help Center (http://www.google.com/support/a/) if you have any questions.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Google Apps - Online Tutorials

Some nice online tutorials for Google Apps can be experienced at

http://www.google.com/support/a

Go to the online tutorials in the lower left hand corner. Might be good for your students - quick and to the point.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

You Already Knew: But What Do You Do?

A little take on "Did You Know", but with at least some ideas of applications we may begin exploring in pvlearners.net (such as video, RSS, etc..). I'm enjoying this, almost as much fun as blogging - anything is better than email....;-)



Jeff.....

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Web 3.0 Component - 3D Web

You might want to think about something I've been studying a bit - some are calling it part of "Web 3.0", or "Second Life". The 3D web....

3D Web

Jeff.....

Friday, April 20, 2007

pvlearners.net Ideas

I have started this thread to get a list of ideas or ways that this technology opportunity can be used in the classroom. I am describing how I have tweaked existing assignments to incorporate the use of technology. Please add to it as you come up with ideas. Even if you are at a different level or teaching a different subject, your ideas may help me come up with some of my own.

1. Students are submitting homework by email. I will also correct it and return it in the same manner.
2. For a classification activity students generally draw a chart to show relationships of shapes. I am giving them the option of using the google spreadsheet to do the same thing or use the SmartBoard software. I made the 'shapes' on a template and will email it to them. They can them create their chart using the shapes with the smartboard software and print it or show it on the screen for assessment.
3. I am providing a template for some class worksheets. Students will be able to use the template to type and electronically submit their work instead of writing it out.
4. I have created a pvlearners webpage as a portal. One of the links is a calendar of the homework assignments to which they can subscribe and add to their pvlearners page. I also have a link to the vodcasts I have created explaining some of the assignments.

That's all I have been able to think of in 4 days! Please add a comment with any ideas you have for your classes so I can get some more ideas. I am all thunk out at this point.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Parent Permission for email

Here is a draft of a "Parent Permission" letter for student email. In that the newest use policy language I found was in the 2007 Student Handbook, I used that for reference. Of course you should change this for your own school/needs...if you elect to use it...


April 18, 2007

Roadrunner School

RE: Student email Accounts at “pvlearners.net” Permission

Dear Parent/Guardian:

In the ongoing quest to promote the success of our students technology skills, PVUSD has allocated school email accounts for Roadrunner student’s grades 8 - 12. We are very excited to be part of this pilot program and are confident our students will learn valuable life, social and workplace skills at Roadrunner School while developing computer proficiency in transition beyond high school.

The PVUSD network is provided for students to conduct research and communicate with others in academic pursuits. Access to network services is given to students who agree to act in a considerate and responsible manner and in accordance with the PVUSD Student Handbook; “Electronic Devices” use policy. (http://cmweb.pvschools.net/siteweb > Parents > Student Handbook; page 5)

Student email accounts have been established through Google Services and are subject to the terms and conditions of Google. (http://start.pvlearners.net > Google Terms of Service)

Documentation for both PVUSD and Google use policies are available at Roadrunner Schools front office.

Students will be responsible for their own conduct and will agree to act responsibly. The PVUSD Technology Department will provide and maintain all student accounts and its administrators will have access to student content. Should any suspicion of this account being misused occur, it will be investigated and subject to the findings; access may be suspended or terminated at the discretion of its administrators.

Please feel free to contact me, if you have any further questions or concerns. We are delighted to provide this opportunity for your child and look forward to expanding their horizons into the 21st Century of Learning!

Sincerely,




--------


I, ___________________ grant permission for online communication for my student:

_______________________________
Parent Signature Date



Please return this form to ----- School. Thanks very much for your consideration.

Firefox Browser is Better

Just to make the pvlearners.net experience the best it can be, I suggest using the Firefox browser. This is especially true for docs/sheets, as Safari is not yet compatible with this particular tool. Jeff....

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

podcasting by phone

It's free and easy - podcast by computer or phone - mine below was made tonight using my cell. Folks can subscribe through iTunes if you want. Hmmh, kids giving instant data back on their field trip from their phone, digital literacy stuff, add the RSS feed to one of their gadgets in pvlearners.net. You could have a class podcast site, where all students could podcast through their cell phone and pick everyone's cast up through pvlearner account. Have fun at;

www.gcast.com
(get an account and pod away)

My first cell phone pod cast....


Subscribe Free
Add to my Page

To Add my phone podcast as a gadget in your pvlearner account, do the below (you can delete it later - this is just an exercise):

• Click on the Subscribe Free button,
• then on the Add it to Google,
• copy the url of the feed and go into your personal Start Page of pvlearners.net,
• click Add Content Button,
• then Create a Section,
• paste in the URL and 'viola, it's on your personal Start Page of pvlearners.net.

Imagine students and project based learning with this technology - iPBL (21st Century Project Based Learning). Teachers giving homework through their phone to their podcast which each student has on their personal Start Page of pvlearners.net. Jeff......

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Adding Powerschool

Since Bryan, Julie and I use Powerschool...what are the chances of adding that to the list over by pOGB, pIGB gang... this way kids could logon to their grade jazz too.... (yikes what am I saying then I'll have to keep my grades current...maybe)

Google and Video

Summary

With your Google account, you have unlimited storage to Google Video - sweet....;-) Students do as well - can anyone say digital portfolios of videos/podcasts? How about teacher lectures/lessons? Similar to where we're heading with pTUNE, but differences described below.


Directions
  • video.google.com
  • click on video and/or upload your video link
  • log in with google credentials
  • browse button to find your ".mp4" file (use QuickTime Pro [need Pro version] to open ".mov" file made from Keynote, iMovie, etc. and converted to ".mp4")
  • give title, description, genre, language, select view access (I chose unlisted to avoid searches finding it, but ??)
  • accept terms and conditions
  • upload file (time depends on file size, network speed, server busy times, etc.), but a few minutes
  • takes from a few minutes to several hours to convert the ".mp4" to Flash, but you can wait a few, or log back in with above instructions, and if your video is ready or being processed, you'll see what's up in the administration area of this process.
  • if "Live", then email the link to yourself, others, copy the link and paste it on a web page, etc.
  • the real cool part is click the "embed code", copy and paste the code right into a web page in ConnectMe (see below examples)
  • publishing with "embed code" on a ConnectMe web page avoids wandering student eyes that could be triggered by the google interface to view the video.

My Examples


http://cmweb.pvschools.net/~jbillings/videos/monopole.html
(video shot with a camera phone and uploaded)

http://cmweb.pvschools.net/~jbillings/videos/HTHlecture.html
(made with QuickTime - I need to remember bigger font sizes)


Issues

  • Conversion to Flash lacks some video quality, so we will continue to pursue pTUNE (which can upload higher quality), but Flash is network friendly and quicker downloads.
  • Please don't introduce to students yet - want to see all of our postings herein, discuss with OC3, TAC, Cabinet, etc..
  • Eventually, I will put a link straight to the login of video upload, on the Start Page of pvlearners.net. This would at least avoid having to pick up some thumbnails of any potentially inappropriate videos during this process. I've found some good stuff on Google Video - a lot less inappropriate stuff than what is on YouTube, so it might be a little safer to explore this application.

Potential is big, so try a few and let me know how I can help and give me feedback here with a post, please....Jeff.....

Changing Password

Much to my disgust, Debbie found a way that students can change their password - bummer. However, students should note, and be told, if they find out they can change it, that the technology department can still grab their account, override any password they entered and see what's going on with their account. Teachers won't be able to grab the account if students change the password, but the technology department can.

Now, what we're going to have to do in the meantime, is I will upload our pilot accounts about once a week, so if they change it, it will be changed back to their external password. Hopefully, the more industrious little munchkins will get tired of messing with it, if they find out.

If this pilot is promising, the technology department will start digging deeper into SSO (Single Sign On), like what we're doing with IDEAL - from ASU, the authentication is passed back to our server and we control the process. I'm just trying to avoid messing with that right now. For more techno information on this process, feel free to study the below link a bit.

http://code.google.com/apis/apps/sso/saml_reference_implementation.html

This will have the effect, that students can change it all they want - the next time they log in, guess what, still the external password.

Additionally, I have tested the following to verify things are okay with overriding, updating, etc..

• I logged in with our student test account and added an event to the calendar.
• I then logged out, logged in as the administrator and uploaded the student test account again - override the previous username/password with the same username/password.
• Logged back in as test student and the event to the calendar was still there - makes sense as each account is unique.
• Then I logged in as the test student, entered a second calendar event, and changed the password while logged in as the student.
• Logged out and tried the old password for the test student - it didn't work.
• Logged in with the changed password and the 2nd calendar event was there.
• Then I logged in as the administrator and reuploaded the credentials for the test student.
• Logged in as the test student with the original password, and the 2nd calendar event was still there.
• This updating/reuploading of student account login credentials appears to not mess with the information that's there - so, this looks like a good thing. We'll be doing this several times over the next months, so we'll have plenty of time to verify as we go.
Jeff.....

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Forwarding your email

One thing that some like doing with multiple email accounts floating around, is to forward them all to one account. This might be handy to do with pvlearners.net for your teachers. Send emails to pvschools.net, so that they have one location, but can interface with email from many accounts. You may or may not like it, but just an idea. Check out "settings" when in mail interface and then "POP and Forwarding".

iTunes and Age Appropriate

We have not allowed students to download from iTunes. Are we going to let them download the free music? Are we sure it is ALWAYS elementary appropriate?

The question of iTunes being on the Start Page is a good one. Yes, we have the ability to customize the Gadgets on the Start Page. But, as soon as the user is in, they can change their own interface anyhow - so they can add it back. My thought is many times music, and art, and language, and video will not be age appropriate, nor appropriate period. That is in fact, part of what we have to teach them and the challenge on the web, digital literacy. I can certainly take that gadget away, but bad words are in Dictionary.Com, bad things are on the web, bad things are in YouTube, so ??? I hope this logic makes sense, it is certainly critical to embracing digital literacy in my mind. However, the dialog is good to have - none of us have a crystal ball, so feel free to counter any of the above - I'm just trying to learn – learning helps all of us….

My First Blog

I agree with the "teach them the good " part. We have a good start with the lectures about KidBiz email, if they hear it enough and know that they are using the district and school pages and know that we can see everything they do (basically) they will be more careful. The kids are becoming more aware of right and wrong. They do not want to lose the privilege. I know we have had some issues, but I'm getting the mindset of let them explore and not be so uptight. Being a liberal conservative is making me crazy. I want to protect the children from bad but know as soon as they walk out the door they are exposed to more than I can imagine and there is nothing I can do about it. If we can start opening the world to the good things maybe that will outweigh the need to explore the bad stuff. A great example for me was when I let the GenYes kids download Google earth and Sketchup. They are in awe and it has been wonderful to see some of the work they have done. The down side is that they want to do it instead of their classwork.
In regards to iTunes: The educational podcasts are great. Will we use iTunes for the podcasts? Still trying to get a handle on everything.

Adding Content

How do I add a tab and add stuff to this page? I have several items on my personal google page that I think we might want students to have available like, daily history, top stories, dictionary.com.

Each user can actually add whatever "gadget" content they want (so long as the web filter doesn't block them while at school). Once you're logged in, you'll note a little "Add Content" link in the upper left, but this has to be done by each user. The "Start Page" is customized by the Administrator (Jeff), and it's for all users. Once users learn how to add RSS, XML feeds through this "Add Content" link, then anything that provides a feed using that technology (and it's growing quickly) can be added. This "customization" ability is built into Google Apps, nothing I can do about it. I thought long and hard about this, and came to the realization that we can try to control all we want, but if we don't engage them online with tools they are or will be accustomed to having, then we'll lose them. They will simply go to their "more preferred and customized" portal/interface. The fact is they can get to this "other stuff" with about two clicks anyhow, no matter what we try to control.

Does this concept make sense? What Google, MySpace, You Tube, and others have learned with Web 2.0 technologies is that the ability to engage is what gets people coming back. If we water it down too much, then students will know it, won't engage, and what difference will it make then? The trick then becomes how do we get them to put the technology (same technology can be used for good or bad) to use for the good. Make sense?

I will go ahead and add the "dictionary.com" gadget to "Custom" - users can add it to their customized panels (middle and right column - I control the left side) by going to Add Content, selecting Custom and then selecting Dictionary.com.

Can we import student gmail addresses?

Yes, there is a contact import link when you're in the contact management portion of gMail. System supports CSV (comma separted value), so you can have a student (think GenYes project) enter them in his/her online "sheet" or offline in Excel, and export as CSV file. Then share and import file appropriately (with other classmates).