Comets and Coding

(This short video offers an introduction to the ESA's comet exploration mission.)

   
   The news a few days back that the European Space Agency (ESA) had successfully landed a scientific probe on a comet gave me pause.  The mission seemed ridiculously audacious and challenging.  It involved a spacecraft launch a decade ago that needed propulsive boosts provided by a couple of planets to reach its rendezvous location over 300 million  miles away.  The spacecraft, Rosetta, was set on a course to meet up with a comet named Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. As Rosetta came into orbit near the comet, it launched its lander, Philae, towards the comet's surface.  All this while the comet is speeding through space at upwards of 80,000 mph.  Somehow, someway, Philae landed and began to relay scientific data back to mission control.  Pretty amazing!
   I grew up and in a very specific time of space exploration. Only two countries, the United States and the Soviet Union, were involved in exploring outer space. There was a high-stakes competition between the two countries dubbed "the space race." Who first left earth's atmosphere, who first orbited earth, who first orbited the moon and who first landed on the moon mattered immensely at that time.
   It's very different now. Other nations have successfully launched spacecraft, as have consortia of nations and even private entrepreneurs.  Goals have changed as well.  A comet rendezvous mission in deep space was unthinkable 40 or 50 years ago. Today, it's a reality.
   As regards to space exploration and education, one central theme persists. During the time of the space race, there was a keen interest in how students were educated. In particular, educational professionals scrutinized science and math curricula and recommended changes to promote higher level learning.  The reason? The space race required our best and brightest minds to fully participate at the frontiers of science.
   Today, we understand the fundamental role computer science education plays in preparing students for professional lives connected to space exploration. There is an increasing awareness that, at least in the U.S., computer science programs have grown slowly.  To that end, many interested individuals and organizations have jumped at the opportunity to find ways to promote computer science learning.
   The Hour of Code program fits into this framework.  It's a program with wide support. It's designed to introduce students to programming.  And the Hour of Code organization states in its mission that it wants to see computer science as a core course offering, taking its place besides English, history, math, science and world language. In a time of on-site comet exploration, it's a curricular idea worth considering.

Photographer Matt Wang (http://www.iflscience.com/space/graphic-shows-size-rosettas-comet) compares the size of the 3-kilomoter comet to the skyline of Los Angeles. But in deep space, the comet is still a very small object.

My Favorite Site Contest - Honorable Mention Submissions

   Over the last several weeks, a contest was organized, promoted and judged, and winners were awarded prizes.  The contest asked faculty to submit favorite web sites or apps. Our Student IT volunteers, a group of nine students (grades 9-12) judged the entries and chose one winner for each of four categories: creative, education, news and technology. The winners and their submissions were reviewed in my previous post. I hope you've had a chance to take a look at the sites/apps. All four are excellent.
   Because so many submissions were outstanding, I wanted to add a list of Honorable Mentions. These are sites/apps that were near misses.  All earned justifiable praise from our reviewers. And again, all are worth a look if they are not familiar to you.
   In the creative category, a few sites merit attention. Animoto, submitted by Mary Tuohy, allows the user to quickly create videos from still images. You can add music and text to enrich the content. It's a site and app.  Prezi, submitted by Joanna Hayes, allows for the presentation of information in a particularly dynamic way. As perspectives shift, viewers are forced to consider their own perspectives on a topic.  Kristen Armstrong's recommendation, Recitethis, allows the user to add quoted text to a variety of other platforms. The results can be useful and fun, and helps viewers engage material. 
   In the education category, Elise Smith suggested an app called Subitize Tree. (Currently, it's selling for 99 cents.) This app promotes numerical literacy and number sense for younger mathematicians. Irv Taylor recommended the Code Academy site for people who'd like to "learn to code interactively,  for free."  Linda Park offered several sites that focused on language use. Forvo is unique among them because it is built around the auditory component of language acquisition.  Listen to how words and phrases sound around the world. Finally, in this category, Lynn Prosen's ChemCrafter iPad app allows you to mix chemicals and see reactions, all from the safety of an app.  I guess it's the Chemistry version of a virtual dissection in Biology.
   In the news category, There were several sites designed to bring news items of your choosing to a central location.  I submitted Zite and Mike LaBrie submitted Feedly.  Both are similar to Fred Corona's winning submission of Flipboard, though Flipboard's navigation software is especially impressive. And Larry Bostian's igHome allows the users to create a personal dashboard that might serve as an excellent home page in your browser.  With the exception of the web site igHome, these are free apps.  Some of our student judges were impressed to learn that CNN has set up a news section on their site for middle and upper school students. Joanna Hayes pointed us towards their site.  
    The technology category had only four submissions, but in addition to the winning Dropbox, Isabel; Corbin's suggestion of Diigo merits a look. It's a social media site for educators. It allows you to organize information and sites for personal use, and also to become part of larger communities sharing resources of mutual interest.  I receive a Diigo feed every day, and virtually without exception, I find information of use and interest.
   So in addition to our four winning submissions, there are quite a few others that are deserving of your attention. When you get some free time - and yes, that might be at some point in the distant future - check out our Honorable Mention submissions. They, too, are worth a look.
  

My Favorite Site

   A few weeks back, I organized a contest for GSB faculty. Faculty members could nominate up to three favorite web sites or apps.  Any nomination would be assigned to one of four categories by the submitter: news, creative, technology or education. Over forty submissions were received.
   The contest elicited many interesting, valuable sites. In order to judge the sites, a team of seven student volunteers each looked at about twenty sites.  In this way, each site received multiple reviews.  Each site (or app) was judged for ease of use, attractiveness of interface, navigation, content and how well it works.  Multiple scores were averaged yielding a simple 1-10 total score for every site reviewed. Any score over 9.0 meant that several students judged the site to be very strong in all components.
    In the creative category, a website, Colossal, submitted by Sarah Isusi was the winner. In Colossal's banner, "Art, Design and Visual Culture" are the identified interests of this site.  There's excellent video content and spectacular photography. The Design section offers some very original ideas that might offer inspiration to artists of all stripes. Be sure to click the "More" prompt for a wide variety of site options.

 

   In the technology category, Lynn Prosen's submission,  Dropbox, was judged tops.  There's nothing particularly new or noteworthy about Dropbox to its millions of users. But there is a very easy-to-use interface, consistent performance and the convenience of an ability to sync across multiple devices and platforms.  Many of the student judges used Dropbox, and perhaps this skewed their judgements. But what they have come to learn is that Dropbox provides cloud storage for free (or inexpensively, depending on how much storage you want) and thus far has proven 100% dependable. Dropbox is more than a website; you can download an app on computers, phones or tablets and then your files are synced across all devises whenever an edit occurs. I use it. I'm a fan. It really does work very well.  Below, a screenshot of my Dropbox.

   In the news category, Fred Corona's app, Flipboard, was judged a winner. Flipboard is a news aggregator; it brings together articles of interest from diverse sources.  It's very customizable.  For instance, your Flipboard could gather articles (and video and audio content) on music, gaming, history and health. You might add social media networks like Facebook or Instagram.  Another user might have completely different content in his or her version of Flipboard.  Everyone user creates a new, individualized Flipboard.

   Two other submissions were very similar to Flipboard. One is Zite. The other is Feedly. Both essentially do what Flipboard does. Obviously, with three unrelated submissions, this concept has some fans. It's worth checking Flipboard (or Zite or Feedly) to create your own custom "magazine." 

   In the news category, Joanna Hayes suggested the NY Times Learning Network. As the banner reminds us, it's all about "Teaching and Learning with the NY Times."  The short articles are invariably stimulating and can easily provide starting points for discussions, creative projects or further research.  This is a part of the NY Times not included in the paper version. But by navigating to the web page, you'll be rewarded with excellent content.  I'll put in a pitch for the terrific  infographics section included in the Learning Network. There's some great tips to using infographics in your classes, and exceptional content as well.

   Congratulations to our four winners and thanks to everyone who took the time to submit.  A full annotated list of submissions is posted and shared on OneDrive.  And a special thanks to our student judges, members of the GSB Student IT group.

   

PSAs - GSB Filmmakers Deliver the Message

http://viewpure.com/S51cwrmEnCM (animal welfare)

http://viewpure.com/Q0uFOejzVf4 (cyber bullying)

http://viewpure.com/0jKvyhBquTA (theft)

http://viewpure.com/Y85FtNwqOzk (bullying)

http://viewpure.com/y0GuB0aK90c (gum chewing)

http://viewpure.com/lM0mAuwIpRc (fan rage)

   Above, six links to six student films.  They were all created over the last several weeks as part of a Filmmaking class assignment.  Students were asked to create a PSA, a public service announcement. As stated on our class site, "What are PSAs? PSA stands for Public Service Announcement. A PSA might be broadcast on the radio, on TV, in a movie theater, on the Internet or elsewhere. A PSA is designed to draw awareness to issues of personal or societal concern. They seek to help people to behave better or to contribute positively to their community or to become aware of pressing issues.  Some of the many issues PSAs might address are bullying, the dangers of driving under the influence, the link between smoking/drinking and health, and the importance of sound nutrition."
  Students could pick their topic of choice. Films range from about 30 - 90 seconds. Especially noteworthy is the fact that for five of the six filmmakers, this was essentially a first effort.  They've learned the fundamentals quickly and I am certain their filmmaking skills will develop quickly.
    Usually, if I was including video in this blog, I'd embed the video so you'd see an opening scene and could simply click on the video to play it right out of the blog page.  But for these videos, I used Viewpure to isolate the video content. (Because Viewpure does not supply embed codes, only the links are posted.) Why Viewpure for these videos? Because I think they might be effectively used by teachers to show to other students. Some possibilities: the character education work done in the lower school, middle school health classes and upper school advisory meetings.  The Viewpure interface will eliminate the sidebar clutter that is part of a YouTube embedded video.
    I hope you'll take a look and enjoy the work of our US filmmakers.  And if you'd like to use films to help students think through social issues, then these PSAs are really doing their job.

Office 365...beyond the transition

   It's been about a month since we adopted Office 365. With that change, all employees and students grades 5-12 gained access to cloud-based email, calendar and document management. After a month, it seems timely to pause and assess the transition.  Keep in mind that all my observations below are anecdotal, gleaned from daily conversations about Office 365.  It's my plan to more formally survey our users, but I want to wait to get past the initial learning period.
   In considering this wholesale move to cloud-based software, I would divide users into three categories: students, teaching faculty and non-teaching employees. Students generally have adapted to the system without much fuss.  I saw some eyes roll with the realization that there was yet another password to create and remember. Many students were also not especially keen about the length of their user names. In this system, the user name is the full email address, and many students have lengthy user names.  Students, as a group, are reluctant email users.  And if they're checking email, their first instinct is to look at an already established personal account. (Personal accounts are generally gmail accounts.) So getting students to check a school account can be a challenge.  But one of the advantages of Office 365 is that it links other functions to email, notably document creation and storage.  The idea that students have 24/7 access to Word docs (and Excel and PowerPoint) is valued by students.  By default, they open the program that also opens their school email.
   Our teaching faculty have quickly adapted to the new system, but not without some reservations.  Email, in general, is considered a very positive part of the change to Office 365.  Previously, virtually all faculty regularly checked email at school and at home. But the two displays were totally different, and the programs acted differently. Now, in Office 365, the interface is identical all the time.  That change is much appreciated.  Faculty seem less comfortable using cloud-based document management.  Creating and working with a new document, like a Word document, is a bit different than in the past. Questions about whether or not to download documents or simply work in Office 365 persist.  Understanding when best to share a document is a work in progress for many users.
   Non-teaching employees have probably encountered more hurdles than other users, and are understandably less enthusiastic about the change. Tasks that formerly might have taken one or two steps might now take two or three steps. Emailing large groups (e.g.: all the parents in the school) required a work-around that was not obvious at first glance. Many of our non-teaching employees are what might be termed "power users" of the system. They are in offices everyday working on their computers. They become masterful at particular software products. When change happens, it's especially challenging to these GSBers because there's no real time to learn the new software. Their work continues every day. so they learn as they work through problems, and in the process lose some short-term efficiency. I'm confident that soon enough, today's challenges will become tomorrow's dim memories, but in the meantime, I'm particularly aware of this group's transition.
   I'd remind everyone that the change to office 365 was done for good reasons. You can review the reasons by jumping to my August 11, 2014 post.  I know that we've gained a rock solid system for GSB that will serve us into the years ahead. But transitions are always challenging, and this one is no exception.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

   Jump back about six years.  GSB was getting ready to roll out an Intranet, a password-protected set of interconnected websites including sites for every class. Though Intranets were standard fare among colleges, they were far less common at the K-12 level.  Edline was our provider.  After a school wide contest, our Intranet had a name: KnightSite.
   Over the ensuing years, we've been charged with learning and using a variety of new web-based systems.  Instant Alert, also about six years old, became the tool we used to notify the GSB community about emergency closings and delays and other announcements of importance. The following year, Pick-A-Time was brought online as a scheduling tool for Parent Conference days.

   As teachers and students increasingly became dependent on KnightSite, its functional limits became more apparent.  At the same time, a decision was reached that it was time to refresh the look of our school's public website. We switched providers to Whipple Hill for both our public site and for KnightSite.

   Over the next couple of years, Whipple Hill was actively engaged in revamping and upgrading the look and navigation of its software.  This meant that annually, teachers needed to learn how to use new features.

   And of course this year, with the roll out of Office 365, there is yet another system to learn. Office 365 will replace our email system with a more reliable system. But it offers far more: a cloud-based set of creation, sharing and storage tools for information.

    Depending on your division or specific job, you may also have had to learn one or several of the following systems over the last six years: Accelerated Reader, FAWeb, Discovery Education, Destiny and Naviance.
    Though we work in a school and call ourselves teachers, it might be more accurate to say we work in a school and we are both teachers and learners.  It is simply impossible to opt out of learning these new software tools. They are part of our profession the way a chalkboard was 50 years ago.
    More than most, I appreciate the way our faculty and staff have taken on the challenges of learning and using new systems. They can facilitate organization and communication, but also require time and perseverance on the part of new users. It might be worthwhile to take a moment and appreciate not only what you've taught to so many students, but what you've learned as well.

Office 365

   I use this blog to communicate with members of the GSB community, especially faculty, about technology topics that may be of interest.  Posts generally appear to coincide with an academic year.  For the upcoming 2014-15 school year, the initial post comes a bit early because a significant system change is underway. I'd like to offer information about this change.
   We are changing the way we access and use the Microsoft (MS) productivity suite, MS Office.  MS Office includes such widely used software applications as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (email).  Currently, MS Office is installed on each school computer. Users can create documents and save them to local hard drives, to a network drive or to a personal device like a thumb drive.  If you choose to access your email off-site, you utilize Exchange, MS software that connects your remote computer to the school's server that holds email data.
   As I write this post on August 10, we are in the middle of a project that will change the way we access MS Office.  Moving forward, we'll be utilizing Microsoft's cloud-based version, Office 365 (O365).  With O365, you'll be able to create a document in programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint from any computer with internet access. When you save the created file, you'll continue to have exactly the same options you currently have with one addition; you can also save the file to a personal storage folder accessible from any internet-connected device.
   Before I continue with more information, I'd like to be sure the terms I'm using are understood. A cloud-based system simply means that software or data, or both, are stored in a remote server that could be anywhere in the world.  The software and data are accessed through a user name and password.  A personal storage folder in the cloud is a familiar concept to many GSB users.  Dropbox and Google Drive have popularized the concept. A locally hosted system means that the software and data reside at the physical location of the user.  Generally, the software and files are accessible only from that location unless access from remote locations is specifically allowed.
   Why make this change? Though there are several reasons, the foremost is reliability of email.  Currently, our email delivery is not as reliable as we'd like.  It probably delivers email safely and accurately over 99% of the time, but the standard we aspire to is a rate of 99.9%. We are currently vulnerable to power outages and brown-outs and hardware failure.  With O365, these problems would essentially disappear. But O365 offers more than reliability. It holds the potential to fundamentally change the way all of us, including students, use documents. (Students will get O365 accounts as well.) After creating a document, it can be shared with others. Group editing can occur. Comments can be inserted and replies offered.  In short, O365 holds the promise for creating a new learning environment untethered to the classroom.
   Why O365 and not Google Drive? It's a question that we carefully considered over the last months, but ultimately, we thought O365 is a better solution for a number of reasons.  The specific software applications of O365 (Word, Excel, etc.) are close to identical to the locally-hosted version we currently use.  So when we cut over to O365 and you begin using a cloud-based version of Word or Outlook, there will be no learning curve to get started.  Though the Google productivity suite is very similar to what we use now, it's different enough that some training might be required.  No training is better than some training, every time. Also, the big challenge in this project relates to email, specifically the hundreds of gigs of data that needs to be transferred from our local server in Hockenbury to Microsoft's server. Every user's inbox, folders, calendar, etc. is being copied into the O365 servers dedicated for our use. Partly because our email server already runs on Microsoft equipment and partly because the way Google manages the transfer, it is easier to transfer to O365 than to Google Drive. Finally, with O356, we'll be able to keep our current email addresses. With Google, changes would be mandated.
   What lies ahead? Over the next couple of weeks, GSB users will be instructed on how to access email utilizing O365.  You'll be given a user name and password and a web site log-in address.  Materials will be available to get you started.  Our currently timeline has us making the switch to O365 as early as August 14. But there are no guarantees; the date could change.  After the switch, you'll need user name and password information to access email.
   We'll be using the news feed of KnightSite to keep everyone appraised of changes.  Best to log-in to KnightSite regularly beginning August 14 for news about this important change.
   Want to get oriented with a quick video? Click below.  A quick web search will yield much more information if you are interested.

Video Editing and Production

   Classroom technology has changed rapidly in the last few years, and as devices have changed, so has classroom instruction. I can think of no more clear example than how video production has permeated classroom curricula at all levels.
    In the lower school, a number of recent projects show how young students are learning about topics through the use of video production.  In the 4th grade, a video project had students making films about topics related to appropriate computer use; one film was about cyber-bullying, another about plagiarism and another about cyber-safety. This past week, I've watched a number of Upper School Units ready films about various Unit experiences.  And through the year, in all divisions, student video projects are regularly produced to add depth and understanding to a topic under consideration.
    No doubt, you've seen student films and maybe assigned video-based projects.  But do you  know what's involved on the production side? Exactly how difficult is it to make a movie?
    The biggest single reason accounting for the explosion of video projects is the easy availability of good video cameras.  For most student filmmakers, this means using their phones.  Smartphones, pretty much without exception, have built in cameras that can be used for still or video photography. The resolution is usually excellent, though the audio usually lags far behind.  But another important reason why video project work has caught on is that video editors are also cheap (or free) and widely available.  At school, the two most used video editors are iMovie (an Apple product) and Movie Maker (a Microsoft product).
     Both iMovie and Movie Maker are similar, however one only works in the Apple operating system and the other in the Windows operating system.  In both, you work in a timeline.  You can drag and drop still images or video clips.  You can add a separate sound track, or separate audio clips, again by dragging and dropping.  You can create title slides and credit slides. You can use transitions to bridge sections of you film. You can add some special effects as well.  In the end, in either editor, you'd export your timelined project to create a file on your computer or a DVD.  The file could be posted to YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
     I teach a Filmmaking class in the Upper School. There are occasionally students in the class who have never worked in a movie editor.  It usually takes one or two classes to a student to know enough to begin working.  In other words, it's a gentle learning curve with lots of quick progress if you're using Movie Maker or iMovie. But to be accurate, iMovie is a little more difficult to learn because it's a richer program.  But it's still pretty easy to learn and worth the very moderate extra effort.
    The pros don't use iMovie or Movie Maker.  They're far more likely to use Avid or Final Cut Pro.  I've never used Avid, but I do work in Final Cut Pro.  It's more difficult to learn and master because it can so do much more than the basic editors.  But for those with interest, the end products seem well worth the effort.
    Interested in learning more?  If you have a Mac, it's likely you have iMovie already installed. Many of our school Macs are bootcamped, so you'll need to be working on the Mac OS side to access iMovie. If you're using a PC, you can look at your programs to see if you have Windows Movie Maker. If not, it's a free download.  I'd be happy to help you get started if you'd like some assistance.

The GSB Cavern

   In the Lower School, some available space has undergone an extreme makeover and become a simulated cave environment.  It's a teaching tool for Lynn Prosen, our science teacher, as she takes classes on tour to educate students about the ecosystems of caves.
   The cave, dubbed The GSB Cavern by students, is the handiwork of Lynn, Joanne Bodnar and Hope Napolitan.  You can watch the video posted above for an in-depth look at the cave.  In the video, the cave tour is hosted by two fourth graders, Isha and Kelly. Both were poised, knowledgeable guides.