Week 15: Final Presentations Round 1...Blended from the finest

Assignments: If you are missing an assignment, Dr. Foreman will email you...if you don’t receive an email you are fine.

Journal: Posting in the journal is part of attendance. Were we supposed to post in the journal or the forum about the assignments...the answer: JOURNAL. Post whether you completed all the assignments in the journal.

MENTAL NOTE: WHEN YOU TURN IN YOUR FINAL PROJECT, IT IS REQUIRED YOU ILLUSTRATE HOW IT RELATES TO A SPECIFIC LEARNING THEORY.

FINAL PRESENTATIONS:

Jill: How to Become an Active Listener
Webninar – An online seminar used an eLearning tool.
Tips:

1. Observe/respond to body language
2. Notice voice inflection and tone
3. Use open-ended question
4. Be attentive to schedule and concerns
5. “Am I listening or waiting for my turn to talk?”
   

After watching a short video with poor listening, we turned away from each other and analyzed how well the participants actively listened. This turning away simulates a Webinar where we can interact but not see. This analysis moved onto communication definition and analysis. We then worked on using active learning in communication. We watched another video, this time the better active listening and analyzed the positive points. Hearing the benefits people listed were interesting...why do we listen? We then talked about the Webinar activity...it is a bit impersonal and detached which made it hard to communicate honestly, but learning to get over it is part of the learning process.

Claudia: From Learning Theories to Learning Organizations
We reviewed the most applicable theories to learning organiziation: Behaviorism, Cognitive Information Processing, Constructivism.
Fundamentals of a Learning Organization:

1. Shared Vision
2. Personal Mastery
3. Mental Models
4. Group Learning
5. Systems Thinking
   

She then talked about key strategies for Learning Organizations. We then talked about Plan-Do-Study-Act Loop: A learning organization model.

Rob: Content Management Systems and Learning Management Systems
Rob updated the ITEC 800 moodle site for next semester...He is the culprit. He took the content from Dr. Foreman’s previous ITEC 800 site and integrated it with moodle.
Each week:

1. Blog entry from the previous week
2. Reading assignment as a forum, so students can interact about the topic
3. Assignment due that week
4. Forum for that week
5. Trivia Quiz
6. Graphic illustrating something covered that week
   

He then showed a custom moodle site he installed and configured it himself. He basically copied the content from the ilearn ITEC 800 site and was able to take all of it.
- Content Management Systems are systems that allow people without web development skills to put content online (I think that it is actually there to simplify the process so everyone is on a equal playing field, so skill set is not a factor).
- Learning Management Systems do all of this, but are interactive and thereby make them a learning experience...Moodle is a LMS.

Maura: Blended Learning
Blended learning is a combination of any form of instructional technology with face to face instructor-led learning. The goal is take the best of both and create the most effective learning experience. Example: classroom instruction with online experience. You run into the issue of synchronous vs. asynchronous learning (learning as content is delivered or with a time delay). M-Learning- using mobile technology to enhance learning, for example, after a face-to-face kickoff, all material was online and accessible via the web and pdas. Constructivism is the main learning theory for blended learning because of its differentiation. Implication of using: fewer in-person interaction, more work for the learner and the instructor, courses may never end...

Britt: Teaching for Understanding
Teaching for Understanding is a method for designing curriculum to help maximize understanding by students. Understanding is more about HOW TO rather than ABOUT. We then broke up into groups where we discussed understanding...what is something you understand? How did you come to that understand it? How do you know you understand it? We then discussed our results with everyone...Getting understanding requires thinking and doing. Assessing understanding also requires thinking and doing. Students should be able to think and act flexibly with what they know.
4 Key Elements:

1. Generative Topics – What do you want learners to understand?
2. Understanding Goals – What do you want the learners to understand about their topic?
3. Performances of Understanding – What will students come to understand about the topic?
4. Ongoing Assessment – How do you know if they understand?
   

We then learned about high level thinkers...those who can take their skills and apply them. Teaching for Understanding builds these skills. Working with this framework, teaching is thinking based, not knowledge based and very student centric.
Check out the website: http://pzweb.harvard.edu

Nicole: Instructional Technology and Sign Language Interpreter Training
- She started with her Digital Storytelling movie. It was interesting movie about her experience in South Africa at a Sign Language Conference.
Those who seek to become Sign Language Interpreters should take interpreter training...doing this requires the use of Instructional Technology heavily. Training programs are 2-4 year programs with high expectations of interpreting students. A large portion of the community consists of mentoring and continuing education, in addition to basic video skills because of the large amount of video in the training. A large portion of training is now including IT...in fact there are Interpreter Technology Training. Each trainer needs to be able to record, play, and hear their work for training and fine tuning purpose. The technology is moving away from VHS/Analog to digital, web based, such as iMovie and webcams. They are even working on natural language processing through audio to sign language display.

Susan: Wikis
Going off the information she gave a few weeks ago, we got to learned more.
Wiki: simplest database that could possibily work. Since they are editable, how can you protect the information...simple answer, those who are interested in valid information are more involved that those who are interested in sabotage...it take care of itself, but you can set security settings, too. Wikis are open editing in simple text formatting language. They store previous versions of the site. Security is low. Multiple authorship, communal, collaborative, and constantly changing. You can easily edit the site and view previous versions. Famous Wikis: Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com)...the first ever was WikiWikiWeb (http://www.c2.com)...Corporate Version: Twiki (http://twiki.org/).
How to use them:

• Writing a collaborative research paper
• Peer editing through the wiki
• Beak-out groups at workshops/conferences can quickly publish and share their ideas with the rest of the group.
• Collaborative knowledge base like a class glossary on moodle.
  

Check out her wiki: http://itec800wiki.schtuff.com/


Dr. Foreman then talked about learning styles:
She discussed with 3 main theories:

• Auditory
  

- Learn from spoken instruction

• Visual
  

- Have to be shown visually

• Kinesthetic
  

- Learn by doing
No one uses one of the styles exclusively, and there is usually significant overlap in learning styles.

It is our responsibility as teacher to discover the learning styles of our students so we make sure to teach to those learning styles. We don’t students to be pigeonholed by their inabilities to learn from the methods the subject is being taught.

We investigated an Powerpoint presentation about analyzing learning styles visually by breaking down learning preferences in linear space then collaborating the data. For more information, visit the iLearn site and download the powerpoint. Also, check out the learning styles web site: ( http://www.advisorteam.com/temperament_sorter/register.asp?partid=1)


Highlight of the week: This more comes from the reading from the week before and thoughts on Constructivism. I like the idea of constructivism in its holistic and deep seeded approach to learning. That being said, I worry about it. We are so interested in finding that Silver Bullet, that single explanation to solve every teaching need. I don’t think that exists...Every situation requires its own style. We lean too heavily on Constructivism in education in this country and I think many of students are coming without enough basic or vocational skills as a result.

Thoughts?


Visit the ITEC 800 website at:
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/index.htm

Visit moodle at:
https://ilearn.sfsu.edu
===================================
Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School
http://www.wornickjds.org/tech

BLOG Week 13: CDT, Motivation, and Constructivism

Thanks a ton to Maura who wrote this blog entry since I was unable to come to class this week:

November 16, 2005

Let’s take care of business first…
For final projects
Presentations will be on Nov 30 and Dec 7. If you would like to present on Nov. 30, email Dr. Foreman. All final papers/projects are due Dec. 7. Presentations should be less than 10 minutes. If you present on Nov. 30, you get a few extra minutes.

Have you turned in all your homework?
Go to your journal, and let Dr. Foreman know what homework assignments you have turned in. She will post on Moddle all the assignments she should have from each of us.

First part of class:
Dr. Foreman started class by asking if anyone learned anything this week that they would like to share. She spoke about the aha! moment. Did you find yourself connecting something that you learned before with something that happened to you recently? Michael, Nicole and Vaidis shared examples of tools they are using or have used at work, which they have learned will improve their ability to do their work. Jon’s research project is on just this topic, technology diffusion, so he introduced us to the term “early adopters”, people who buy in early and easily to technologies that help productivity at work.

Dr. Foreman continued with a discussion on constructivism, and 3 theorists associated with it:

Theorist Learning Theory Instructional Theory
Bruner Discovery learning If little schema, use discovery learning
Ausbel Reception learning
Vygotsky Scaffolding If more schema, motivation for learning is greater
With no scaffolding or schema, can’t have aha! moment

As a teacher, we need to know which strategy to use? This is why we do an audience analysis.

How can we provide scaffolding to students, offer the right amount of help? From the group that read ch. 7, we heard about the ZPD, the Zone of Proximal Development. What information is missing in order to learn to solve the problem? The farther away, the less scaffolding that is available.

Entry behavior-----------------Goal
What is the distance between these two?
Need to provide instruction to bring these two closer together

What is difference between learning theory and instructional theory?
Theory is a lens. What are we looking at?

Learning theory – focuses on learner, what is going on in learner’s mind, how the mind works. The three big that we learn in this class are Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism.

Instructional theory – focuses on what the teacher does, what is the instructional strategy, what is best way to design instruction. All the theories we learn in this class are learning theories, except for Gagne’s theory, which is instructional

WHAT to teach? That’s the Curriculum
HOW to teach? Those are the Instructional strategies

Dr. Foreman reviewed Gagne’s Taxonomy, in further discussion about WHAT we teach
Verbal – verbal information used to explain
Intellectual – rules, discrimination, association
Cognitive Strategies – when to use what? Strategies based on experience. This is what experts do. Problem solving based on patterns and accumulated experience

Attitude – beliefs, value, motivation
Motor skills – physical behavior, demonstration of physical skills

Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction is then used to teach, which is the HOW. But this si best used for training, or teaching short lessons or simpler skills.

For complex teaching, like online design and instruction, Gagne’s 9 events don’t work so well. Component Display Theory (CDT) (see ITEC moodle sight for link) by David Merrill, Gagne’s student. (Gagne set up Instructional Design departments at universities in Utah and Florida.) Merrill challenged Gagne’s taxonomy as too global, not very good for computer-instruction design.

CDT is two-dimensional instructional design model
What level of performance is needed for type of instruction.

Levels of Performance Find

(Discover)* Accomplished story teller invents good story based on what they’ve discovered. E.g. brought conflict in at exactly right time in story. Invent

a new way to balance your checkbook Research findings, Ph.D. work

Use Apply the rules for writing a good story, may not necessarily be a great story Demonstrate

the steps; show how to balance a checkbook Do experiments to see principles in action.

Remember Learn facts Remember definition, e.g. story telling; know the elements of telling a good story, such as conflict Know

the steps, like balancing your checkbook Memorizing principles

Teaching what?
Fact Concept Procedure Principle
Gray boxes: used very often
Yellow boxes: not often taught, reserved for higher level, graduate level work
*Top level: True constructivism

Now, based on the table, test what you’ve learned:

Performance-Content Analysis
Performance Level
Remember: requires the student to search memory in order to recognize some item of information that was previously stored
Use: requires the student to apply some abstraction to specific case
Find: requires the student to derive or invent a new abstraction

Content Categories
Facts
Concepts
Procedures
Principles

Identify the performance level and content category for each example
For example, answer to #1 is RF, for Remember-Facts
1. On a topographic map what is the symbol for a church?
2. Define positive reinforcement.
3. Read the following short story. Identify the paragraph that best represents the climax of the story.
4. Figure out a way to group students in a classroom that assures a range of ability, sex and ethnic background in each group.
5. What are the steps in balancing a checkbook?
6. Demonstrate how to clean a clarinet.
7. Write a computer program that will index and retrieve the class list.
8. What happens when water evaporates? Explain in terms of molecular movement and heat.
9. Read the following case study of an ecological system. In this system, the rodents are increasing in number. Predict some possible hypothesis based on your knowledge of life cycles and the interdependence of species in this ecological system.
10. Set up your experiment to assess the effect of tobacco smoke on plant growth. Report your findings.

Scroll to end for answers.

Second part of class:
We broke into groups to teach each other about chapters 7 and 9. We spent 30 minutes putting together powerpoint presentations to teach each other.
Ch. 7 presentation by group #1 on Interactional Theories of Cognitive Development (link to powerpoint on Moodle)
Ch. 9 presentation by group #2 on Motivation and Self-Regulation in Learning (link to powerpoints)

Answer key:
1. RF
2. RC
3. UC
4. FC
5. RP
6. UP
7. FP
8. RP
9. UP
10. FP


===================================
Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School
http://www.wornickjds.org/tech

Week 12: Research, Google, Wikis, and Cognitive

Ok...so we are not going to the library...the library is coming to us...and those who haven’t had enough time in BH 170 with Digital Storytelling, we are residing in there...

MENTAL NOTE #1: Write journal entries about class. There will not be prompts. Just reflect on what was covered in class...

MENTAL NOTE #2: Patrick is making us look bad...he is just too good of a student.

In the light of getting going on our independent research topics, we had a special guest speaker: Athena Nazario, a librarian from the Department of Ed. If you would like to get a hold of her, email her at anazario@sfsu.edu

Athena began by introducing to The Yes Men about two guys that pose themselves as members of the WTO in order to flush out some of the indecencies. They created a web site (http://www.gatt.org) that looks EXACTLY like the WTO website (http://www.wto.org)...these guys so successful in their endeavors they were invited to represent the WTO by outside parties who thought they were real...their website used to come up first on Google if you entered WTO as a search criteria instead of the official WTO website.

Given the open nature of the web, opinion and inaccuracy is a something that is always a danger on the web. This is why we still have a library and the library has a website ( http://www.library.sfsu.edu). You should create a library pin, to do this go to library pin/library record link on the web page. This will allow you to view records in the library easily.

Books:
To view the book catalog at SFSU, click on InvestiGator...to gain access to book catalogs from other schools, click on Link+ (twice). You can request books from other institutions and they will deliver it here. You need your name, user id, and pin...you can keep the book for 3 weeks and renew it online (only once)...so is that 6 weeks then? For documents, click on Document deliver then request books and you can see the 3 ways to get books from other libraries.

Note: Research Advice & Instruction -> Research Guides — CHECK IT OUT

Articles:
ERIC – Educational Resources Information Center (check out one of the handouts..THE ONE THAT SAYS USING ERIC). ERIC is a database that indexes and abstracts articles from education journals and documents from non-journal sources, from 1966 to present. These are all peer reviewed...it sounds like something pretty useful...REMEMBER that Google only searches for web pages and has its own definition of relevance bases on words appearing in the page.
- With the ERIC interface available off the SFSU library web site, the results are organized by tabs (Journals, Peer-Reviewed Journals, Conferences, Books)

For specific documents, click on Document delivery...check out Ingenta. This will allow to search for an article or document that can be downloaded or faxed to you. Although they cost money, SFSU will eat the cost as long as it costs <$35. If the cost is over $35, you can use the Illiad system to get a copy of the article, BUT IT TAKES ABOUT A MONTH.

For a full list of databases that our school has access to click on Databases -> List all databases.

When searching a database (NOT google), if you want to search for multiple concepts/words, you need to insert an AND..i.e. John AND Jack, not John Jack...without the AND the search will look for the string John Jack.
- For synonyms, use an OR, i.e. Pig OR Hog
- For combination of a prefix or suffix, use a *, i.e. Comp* will search for any word that starts with Comp

Journals:
Check out CUFTS ( http://lib-cufts.lib.sfu.ca/CUFTS/sbt.cgi) for specific journals. Go to Electronic Journal Listing under the Database section in the library main site.
- In ERIC...something that is marked ED is an ERIC document and not a journal entry, so the entire document is available.
- For those that say they are available online, but turn out not to be...go to the second floor in the library to check out the document in Microfiche. Documents before 1995 are available there.

Check out PROQUEST to learn about information related to your field, dissertations and theses. Go to the Database search and enter proquest.
- Results with page preview and page image are full text...others you will have to request through illiad.

Check out the following databases:
Education Abstracts
JSTOR
Academic Search Elite
Communication and Mass Media Complete

Currently there are no Instructional Design or Instructional Technology databases...but there will be...right now we fall under both Technology and Education

Check out Athena’s web page for good links and contact info:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~anazario/

Highlighted sites:
http://www.theyesmenmovie.com/
http://wto.org
http://gatt.org
http://democracynow.org
http://truthout.org
http://www.library.sfsu.edu
http://www.eric.ed.gov

This information is covered in part in ITEC 797, which most students push off to the end of their Master’s program, but should taken earlier.


Susan introduced us to her research topic: Wikis. Wikis are websites that anyone can come in and edit. She is using http://wikispaces.com to host her wiki (for free). She showed us the ins and outs of wikis and how powerful and useful they can be...I can’t wait to see her full presentation.

Check out her wiki:
http://itec800.wikispaces.com

We got a chance to log into our wikispace site and add content...this is powerful...and easy.


Digital Storytelling DVD Update:
If you WANT your digital story on the DVD please email mattyh@alumni.calpoly.edu this week and I will include you...
...if you want a copy, please bring $5 to class (for materials) and I will make you a copy.


We are all going to get a chance to learn from each other in these research topics. There is such a broad range of topics being brought forth is going to be such a benefit for our class. I can’t wait to hear the presentations on these topics.
- For us this will all lead to our own personal learning theory.


And now on to Cognitive Development:
We watched a video (produced some time in mid-1980s if I had to guess) about children and cognitive development. It spoke of how children and babies develop. Babies are dependant on others for their survival, so how do develop? What are born with? What do they develop?
Cognitive Theory: babies have innate inborn abilities, then experiences the world and builds on those abilities. Babies develop their understanding and perception of reality through experience.
Schema is the way we try to organize ideas. Babies build their schema related to reality through experiences within that reality.
Assimilation – taking in pieces of information and reacting to it.
Accommodation – Change in state or schema once information has been assimilation
Equilibrium – provides the motivation to learn more about our world.

Piaget’s Stages of Development

1. Sensory Input
2. Pre Operation
3. Concrete Operational
4. Formal Operational
   

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK: Are we breeding children that can’t find information...but they know how to search for it? Research is becoming a lost art, in my opinion, but searching effectively or the immergence of the googling society is so prevalent that we are breed information searchers rather than researchers.

Thoughts?


Visit the ITEC 800 website at:
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/index.htm

Visit moodle at:
https://ilearn.sfsu.edu

===================================
Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School

Digital Storytelling...Once Upon a Saturday in Late October

8:55 am...I was actually early...a couple of us were. There is a ton of food...that is one of the best reasons to come...

9:20 am...We have printed our scripts and are ready to share in the circle...is mine going to be as ill-prepared as I think? Leslie told us to keep in mind that we are speaking to a specific group as a specific person...remember who you are and who you are speaking to.

The scripts alone, without the digitized elements, are so powerful. People really came prepared for this...these should turn quite well. Leslie reviewed a couple of the scripts and went into depth about the content and tone of the script...how will it play out on screen?
Leslie’s comments and suggestions about my work was VERY helpful and succinct. Her questions and suggestions were very thought provoking and helped reshape my project.

While listening to other people’s stories, I am so intent on hearing the message and feeling the story I am not worried about the way the story is told. I am listening to HIM or HER, not IT. This is an interesting lesson to take in...what do we really hear when we listen to a story?

“When all else fails, write a letter to someone.”

10:30 am...We broke up into 2 groups to speed up the process of peer evaluation for our work. While the setting was more intimate, Leslie worked with us and her control over the group remained. I partially wish I was in the other group because I felt their ideas were probably more free flowing than in our group where we listened to Leslie.

We are focusing so much on the scripts, and I have to ask the question...how important are they? Are we going to spend equal amounts of time on visuals and audio? Or is this an exercise to deal with the story? If this is designed to tighten the story why are we concentrating on the tone of words...only words?

11:30 am...break...

11:45 am...back to it. We are working on revision and scanning. People are putting the finishing touches on their scripts and getting their last minute photos scanned in for the digital project.

12:30 pm...Sound studio demo...we are starting the project creation...pre-production is over. Leslie is giving us a demo of Sound Studio, which is very intuitive...which is nice. She is talking about sound quality and file management. Once you have your voice in the computer...make sure you Normalize. Doesn’t sound to hard.

I am anxious to get to the technical portion of the project. I feel comfortable with my story and script and I am chomping at the bit to get it going...and finished. I can see it in my head and I want to get it done so I don’t lose anything.

12:45 pm...Leslie is letting us go...but she has to tell us about iPhoto and iMovie. In order to get your photos into iMovie (easily) you have import your photos into iPhoto and create an album. Once that album is created you bring them into iMovie.

IN iMOVIE, MAKE SURE YOUR KEN BURNS EFFECT IS OFF...otherwise there will be a lot of cleaning up to do. You can use it if you want...but add it later. Make sure your default time for the photo is 5 seconds.

She is talking about the timing convention: Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames there are 30 frames per second.

Now, she is talking about the clip view and the timeline view...remember that in the timeline view, you are looking at the clips based on clips and length...clip view it is just order.

Titles...try ‘em out. They are pretty simple...maybe you start with the title.

When you see a red line, it is RENDERING, so let it finish...it is making the clip or title or whatever ready for viewing.

In order to get your audio into the project, go to FILE -> IMPORT and import your audio. It will import directly to the timeline at the playhead.

Between clips, you may want to use transitions...ONLY FADE IN, FADE OUT, WASH IN, WASH OUT, AND OVERLAP because they don’t destroy the clips they use...any other ones are USE AT YOUR RISK.

Leslie suggest that you get a rough draft first before you get your transitions in, but has been told not to do that, just make it the way you want it. We are editing around the voiceover audio...so build from there.

She is talking about editing audio and splitting clips...

1:00 pm... AND THERE OFF!!!! Everyone is working like crazy to get their work done.

5:15 pm...after tons of work and and issues with saving/exporting WE ARE DONE...and getting to watch them...

They have turned out amazing...now I am heading home...let’s see if we can do something with the finished products later...stay tuned.

-Matt





===================================
Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School

Week 11: More lesson plans -- From paper airplanes to juggling...brought to you by the number 9...am I lying?

PREVIEW: Digital storytelling blog coming soon...

More presentations today...

1. Brian:
Order of Operation – He taught all about PEMDAS. Parenthesis Exponents Multiplication Division Addition Subtraction...then he gave us a mnemonic device to remember the order: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. He then gave us to a couple of examples to do on scratch paper. We ran into a little disagreement on answers, but he kept his cool and laughed about it...I applaud you.

2.Vaidis:
The Sun – With the aid of Flash, Vaidis taught us about The Sun. He started about talking about stars...then moved onto the sun. He talked about facts about the sun. First, it is a star. The Sun is 91 million miles away. It takes 8 minutes for the sun’s light to reach us. Sun’s diameter is 870,000 miles. The Sun’s surface is 11,000 degrees (F), the center is 27,000,000 degrees. The sun is made up of gases. The Earth receives 3 billionths of 1% of the Sun’s heat.

3. Matt
Juggling – With a member of the crowd, Matt showed us how to juggle. You start with 1 ball and throw it from your dominant hand to non-dominant in a nice arc to eye level...then switch. After that add a second ball...it takes practice.

4. Dorothy
Removing a page from a catalog – She showed us a poorly removed page...then she taught us how to remove a page with thread. She handed out magazines to try out...we need to cut a piece of thread twice a long as the page length. Place the thread between the pages you want to save...fold over. Put pressure on the page...pull the thread together.

5. Quetzal
Loading a film camera – In case digital cameras go out of style and you have to teach someone how to load a camera, he taught us how to do so. We all know what film is and what a camera is...then he gave us a mnemonic device Feed (the film into the reel) Insert (the film into the other side of the camera) Lock (the cover down) Move (the film forward until the film frame says 1).

6. Rob
Multiple Homepages in Firefox – Since Firefox has tab browsing available, you can have firefox load with multiple homepages. Normally, you just go to preferences and go to homepage. To do multiple, create a new bookmark folder, give it a name (i.e. Startup pages), and add bookmarks for the pages you are looking to use for your homepages. Go to preferences and under homepage choose from bookmark ... Choose the startup page folder instead a simple bookmark...when you come back to the homepage it will open several tabs. He even had a webpage: http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~wonderob/itec800/

7. Azure
Knitting – It turns out most of the men in the class had never knitted before...hold me up in shock. She taught us parts of the knitting: the yarn is called Skane, sticks are needles...the first thing you have to do is Cast Off: you need a tail (slack) then tie on a needle two times...make sure to have some slack (18- 24 inches). The needle with the cast should be in your dominant end...the non tail end should be wrapped around your forefinger and the tail is wrapped around your thumb (your thumb and forefinger are in an L-shape)...after that you put the needle under the thumb...my testosterone took over after that and I got lost. Vaidis has told me he is now an expert, so if you have questions, ask him.

8. Britt
5 Spanish Classroom Commands – After a very nice greeting in Spanish, Britt gave us an overview of what we would be covering and told us the English was going to stop soon. She gave us 5 commands in Spanish that we could use. Included in this she gave us non-verbal cues to use while using these commands...for example, when you save Levántense ustedes you should stand up to demonstrate. Then we played Simon Dicé (Simon Says)...I won!!! So did like 20 other people tho. Then we filled out the handout by translating the Spanish phrases into English.

9. Patrick
Health insurance – There were a couple of people who didn’t have health insurance. The goals of the lesson was to describe the 3 types of health insurance policies: PPO, HMO, Major Medical. PPO: Perferred Partner Organization. HMO: Health Maintenance Organization. PPO...you can go to any doctor you want, but it costs the most (plus it is complex). Keep an eye on the monthly cost, the deductible, and the co-insurance (the percentage the insurance company is going to pay). HMO...your network of health, but you can’t leave the network for attention. Keep an eye on the monthly costs and the co-pay (the $ amount you have to pay for a visit). Major Medical...basically a PPO, but with a HUGE deductible and low monthly payments. Only use the MM if you have major issues. He then gave us scenarios/cases and had us choose which plan would be best.

10. Nathan
Lying – Most Americans lie at least 5 times a day. We came up with body triggers that show when people are lying. Clue 1: Body language — looking away, fidgeting...Clue 2: Inconsistencies – look for mistakes in the details...Clue 3: Resistance – look for defensiveness...Clue 4: Accusation – shift of blame...Clue 5: Use your intuition – your gut can be right, listen to it...Clue 6: Ask if they are lying – they might own up...Listen carefully to the person Instincts, use ‘em Ask questions for consistency Repeat details, make them do this. We then broke up into groups and played 2 Truths and a Lie to see if we could figure out which one was the lie. I have never lied...so this was difficult...:) Actually, no one got my lie.

11. Maura
Paper airplanes – What a grab!!! She talked about an airplane that is perfectly engineered and won’t fly a mile...then showed us the planes. She gave examples of folded paper (including an amazing dollar bill t-shirt). Using paper examples taped to wall to keep us up to date. After we finished we tested our products by sending them across the room...it was quite fun. Mine had a broken wing or a poorly trained pilot because it veered to the left.

12. Diana
Adding 9s - Magic 9s...this only works with 9s...we are going to talk about adding 9s to single digit number, for example, 9+1, 9+4, etc. With Magic 9s...from the smallest digit, make it one less and put a one in front of it. 9+7...6...16. Then we worked a partner to recount what we had learned, then put it into practice.

13. Adam
Maps – He made feel like 5 year olds...on purpose. Then we talked about places we would like to go. Once in that frame of mind, he asked how we would know how to get around...maps of course. Then he explained how a map is a representative model of a real place. Each map has scale...in order to determine the correct information, you have to pick a map with an appropriate scale. He then talked about relative position and finding places on a map. North is up, South is down, West is left, East is right. Relative location is showing where places are located relative to others. Absolute location talks about the exact location by giving a coordinate. Now, assuming there is a Martian in the room, draw a map to the bathroom and give directions.

14. Judy
Magic Knots – After passing out small strings, she showed us some interesting knots that went away. The magic appear knot...there is too much to explain. It was a neat trick where in one fell swoop a knot appeared from the rope she was holding in one hand. The she showed us the magic disappearing knot...I have termed that if there is string or yarn involved I should take a time out...Very interesting demo.

Leslie Rule came back and passed out evaluations for the students that worked on the Digital Storytelling. Bring them back next week.

Next week we will meet in BH 168...but we are going to the library. So if you are late go there...but keep your voice down.


Highlight of the night: What makes a good lesson? Being engaged or good information? Because I have been engaged and not learned a thing...same thing for good information...

Thoughts?


Visit the ITEC 800 website at:
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/index.htm

Visit moodle at:
https://ilearn.sfsu.edu

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Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School