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Three Offerings from ISTE

ISTE has timed a good number of books for that magic time, Summer, when I can read ’til my heart’s content. I don’t have the the NET-T in my hot little hands yet, but anyone who’s interested has seem the megaphoned from NECC last week. No, the three I have in mind are Visual Arts: Units for All Levels by Mark Gura,  Database Magic by Sandra Dounce, and Tablet PCs: in K-12 Education edited by Mike van Mantgem.

Visual Arts: Units for All Levels

By Mark Gura (160 pages ISTE, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56484-242-8)

ISTE asserts that the audience is Grade K–12 teachers, preservice teachers, technology coordinators, school and district administrators, teacher educators.

This book is in the familiar format of curriculum series that ISTE publishes. It is synched with new NETS-S and with The National Standards for Art Education (Visual Arts). Typically it is divided into two sections. The first is Mark’s framework for the incorporation of technology in the visual arts classroom. It is very formal. I kept looking to get to know the author here. Well, I had to wait until Section 2. Seeding each subsection with a wonderful quotation and using illustrations carefully Mark provides twenty instructional units. Since I teach Lit on Film, and a suggested project in that course is the production of a claymation or stop-motion film,  I gravitated to Unit 17 “Transformation by Clay Animation”. It will provide so much for my students who choose this project, transforming he manner in which I look at the possibilities. All of the Units meet the standards set by this one, in my mind.

Database Magic

By Sandra Dounce (180 pages ISTE, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56484-245-9)

The author and the editors at ISTE are aiming for Grade 4–12 educators, curriculum specialists, teacher educators, professional development personnel, preservice teachers, school and district administrators.

A CD is included with A good many Microsoft Excel and Access files. If you are familiar with Neo-Office the Mac version of Open Office you will able to utilize the Access files if you are a Mac school.

The book is in the curriculm series structure and is synched with the new NET-S. Section 1 fills almost a third of the book. Though written in gentle terms, I believe it is recognized that the teachers are going to have rather steep learning curve with databases, especially true databases. Sandra uses the first five of six chapters in Section 1 exploring databases. The final chapter focuses on the database functions in Excel.

Section 2 has sixteen units iusing the Excel spreadsheets and the Access databases included on the accompanying CD.  The second section opens with some background and a look at the spreadsheets and databases included on the CD. Sandra has gone to great lengths to not only profile the units in detail but to create a number of worksheets for each lesson.

Understanding databases and being able to create and use them is a critical 21st century skill. The most popular apps on the WWW today could not exist without the creation and integration of databases - from vitual campus visits to Facebook.

Tablet PCs: in K-12 Education

Edited by Mike van Mantgem with Dave Berque, Edward Evans, Tracy Hammond, Kenrick Mack, Mark Payton, and David Sweeney (100 pages ISTE, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56484-241-1)

The audience for this book is the usual cast of characters: K–12 teachers, technology coordinators, library media specialists, instructional leaders, preservice education students, and faculty.

For those with no exposure to tablet PCs, this may seem like a niche concern. It is near and dear to my heart because one of the case studies presented is from Vermont Academy, well within biking distance in the village of Saxtons River Vermont.

The book, in a mere hundred pages, answers the the what, when, and how of the use of tablets. This includes technical facts and lesson plans.

If you are exploring being a 1:1 school or fortunate to have the funds to add a COW (Computers On Wheels), you might want to seriously consider tablets instead of ’simple’ laptops.

Larry Ferlazzo

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ - Larry has average almost three posts per day over the last month. I’m sure that this has gone on for ages. He started with “The Best of…” series that continues on, and he has an awesome English Website.

Silvia Tolisano

http://langwitches.org/blog/ - Silvia posts so many high quality, informative posts that I am amazed. She does her “links of the Day” and average 1.5 posts per day over the last month besdes that “links” post. She has a gift for breaking down software and is tireless in annotating images to amplifiy these efforts.

Miguel Guhlin

Miguels blog “Around the Corner” at http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/index.htm - is a joy to read. He tore loose this weekend and published six posts. His interest is not caregorizeable, but whatever he writes about draws my attention. My favorite from the weekend was “Ubuntu Story”.

1. Yudu Freedom Publishing at http://www.yudufreedom.com/

2. Proppian fairy tale generator - http://www.brown.edu/Courses/FR0133/Fairytale_Generator/gen.html

3. Math Playground http://www.mathplayground.com/

ISTE 

What do you think of the books that are published by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)? Bearing in mind that I am an unpublished author (I’m bearing it in mind, so you needn’t.), I will keep my snootiness to a minimum - those who can’t write publish reviews instead.

BOOKS

On the whole, and I have a shelf of them, I am pleased that I have bought the books. Some have pleased more than others. The newest book - English Language Arts Units for Grades 9–12 by Dr. Christopher Shamburg is actually, I trust, in the mail. But I have some thoughts about three of the most recent ones that I would like to share. 

Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools  by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum is a book that one would imagine would be great if it were serialized, because of the speed at which the WWW evolves. I have been planning a one semester intro to Web design and I am going to use the Appendices to expand the concept of a Web presence and associated tools for these high school students. The tenth chapter has twelve wonderful tutorials for educators. The first nine chapters discuss the tools of the moment and some really rich discussion about the Web and education. Chapter 6, ‘Leadership and New Tools’ is worth the price of the book, as far as I’m concerned. Many of us have had something to say about the tyranny of top down management. What we say probably differs by where we are in the Great Chain of Being. The authors espouse, quite convincingly, that school and district administrators are the difference-makers in the 21st century paradigm.

John Hendron’s book, RSS for Educators, caught me off guard. The title is so pedestrian that I sighed when I ordered it. It is, however, a wonderful book, written by a person with the soul of an artist. After a wonderful introduction, he breaks his considerations into three sections:

• School applications: blogs, wikis, podcasts, and VoIP and synchronous communication;
• Core software applications: Audacity, GarageBand, blogging, news aggregators;
• Classroom Apps: blogging, wikis, podcasts, newsfeeds, advnaced RSS.

He has two excellent appendices - resources and a glossary. 

Since Michigan made passing an online class a graduation requirements and statewide online schools are sprouting like mushrooms after a rainy week, public school administrators and teachers need to considering the importance and efficacy of partivipating in online education. Cathy Cavanaugh and Robert Blomeyer have edited What Works in K-12 Online Learning. Susan Patrick, President and CEO of NACOL writes the forward. The book has eleven chapters from educational philosophy to online phs ed. I am so pleased that ISTE brought this out in a timely manner.