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Sue Parler
New Jersey, United States
I'm currently in my 32nd year teaching at DePaul Catholic HS in Wayne, NJ. I teach Game Design, Cryptology, and Spanish -- yes, it's an odd mix -- even I admit it. I am the IT Coordinator at DePaul Catholic as well, which means I manage the network, the student information system, the website, and the 900+ computers in the building. Yep, keeps me busy.
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Sunday, October 24, 2010

PostHeaderIcon FV_AR Pitch


A part of my AR Project is to encourage teachers to better utilize available technology.  Here's my pitch:

Saturday, October 23, 2010

PostHeaderIcon PE6_Unity and MonoDevelop 3



Well, I'm still working on Penelope, but in the meantime, I've at least discovered something that I  understand 100%:  Blocking volumes -- well, that's not what they're actually called in Unity, but that's what they're called in UnrealEd -- an engine with which I am thoroughly familiar. 

To the left is an image from the Unity interface that uses blocking volumes.  The image is a 2D image. The green cube primitives are used as "walls" in the school labyrinth thereby blocking the ball. 

Last year one of my 3D Game Level Design students created an excellent 3D map of our high school.  I plan to use a 2D rendering of his map  as my labyrinth.  

We have a five minute passing time between periods.  If I add a timer and prescribe a student schedule, it would be a cool game for our students to play through.  By adding "collision detectors" in the incorrect rooms, I am able to script the ball to re-spawn in a specified start spot that we'll call "homeroom" as the clock continues to tick.

The right-hand image includes the camera view so you can see how the 2D labyrinth looks from the playing perspective.  This image is a test image I pulled from Galion Schools in Ohio

The game is pretty cool and takes advantage of the iPhone accelerometer.  The ball responds to the twists and turns of the iOS device as the player attempts to wind his/her way through the maze.    It would be a very cool recruiting tool to demonstrate the combination of student/teacher collaboration through technology.

Although I abandoned Penelope temporarily, I'll pick it back up as time permits.  For now, I'm ecstatic that my builder skills were put to effective use in a new engine: Unity iPhone.  I can get excited about anything, but thinking about creating a DePaul Catholic labyrinth game -- well, yes, I'm stoked.

PostHeaderIcon W4 Week 4 Readings

Most of the readings I used this week revolved around interpersonal skills.  Not surprising, there is a clear relationship between the synergy of a team-based approach and successful online learning. 

This image is of my LinoIt page.  The small image on the bottom right is the page in its entirety, where the four new reading summaries are in the upper right-hand corner of my "LinoIt World".

PostHeaderIcon PE5_Unity and MonoDevelop 2

OK, so these last two days have been pretty frustrating.  I have a script error that I've spent a day trying to debug.  I've gone as far as copying the script from the sample completed project, but still no luck.  Without finding the source of the error, I can't load the project to my iPhone, which is pretty disappointing.  I've visited the Unity forums and it seems like I may not be the only one with this particular error, so with a little more digging, I'm sure I'll come up with the solution.  In the meantime, I've been trudging forward. 

As far as the scripting language and becoming familiar with the IDE, it's getting a bit more comfortable. Every programming language has its little syntactical idiosyncrasies, and this one is no different.   Every programmer has his/her little personal conventions, and this tutorial was written fairly well, but clearly has the thumbprint of the author on it.  All in all, it hasn't been that bad -- save that one error.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010

PostHeaderIcon PE4_Unity and MonoDevelop


Using Unity 3D iPhone, which is the 3D game engine, and MonoDevelop, which is the integrated development environment (IDE), I was able to create a playing world that is comprised of a textured, lightmapped plane; a camera; a shadow cast; a stand in model for the player; a collision area for that player; and two joystick controllers.  Whew.

So far the joysticks are not attached to move anything yet, but they behave as joysticks in the fact that I have constrained them to a defined area and they will snap back after they are released.

The joysticks were all coded in with MonoCode (see left), while the construction of the plane, cameras, and models were done by physically constructing them in the Unity environment.

So far, I'm having a blast.  Can't wait to keep going! 

Come back on Friday for another update!
Sunday, October 17, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP12_OMM2 Fireworks

Flash, Flash, Flash -- that's all we hear about.  And Flash is good, but with the advent of AS3, some of the best things is Flash now rely on some pretty heavy-duty code.  How about considering Fireworks as an alternative?

PostHeaderIcon PE3_iOS Unity iPhone


First, a bit of an explanation as to why the fascination with the iOS.  This is posted on my AR Blog for month 4, but I dont suspect much of a crossover audience here, so I'm re-posting it.  It was a sidebar to my AR blog, but it's relevant here:
I’m learning something that probably no one else has any desire to learn:  programming iOS devices -- specifically iTouch, iPad, and iPhone 4.  The motivation for this came from my Cryptology class last week when I was teaching QR code (a two-dimensional barcoding system developed by Denso-Wave for cataloging Toyota parts).  I had given my students a copy of a newspaper article that featured QR code in which there was an example.  One student that we’ll call Frankie asked, “Hey Ms. Parler, do you know what this says?”  I replied that it was the author’s website URL.  About a minute passed.  Frankie wildly raised his hand -- quite unusual for Frankie as he has rarely been engaged in anything other than baseball throughout his four-year existence at DePaul.

I said, “Yes, Frankie?”. 

“Promise you won’t get mad.”

I looked at him.  How much trouble could he have gotten into in the last minute?  “I won’t get mad.”

“No, really, ya gotta promise you won’t take away my phone”, replied Frankie.

Students are not permitted to use phones on campus.  Nor are they permitted to use iPads, iPods, etc.  If we see a student with a phone, iPad, iPod, etc., we are supposed to confiscate it and send it to the office.  The first time they get off with a warning.  The second time there is a fine (meaning tariff  - not a comment on quality) system.  So, clearly Frankie had accessed his phone in the last minute.  “OK, I won’t take your phone away. What did you discover?”

“I scanned this code thing with my phone and it took me to the guy’s website.  It’s so cool.  Do you want to see?”  Frankie was engaged.  Suddenly cellphones were being whipped out all over the place.  Three other students discovered they had the app as well.  My next day’s lesson included a QR-encoded message they they could decode using their phone cameras.  Now a total of nine kids had the app.  OK, yes -- it’s not exactly according to the rules, but I ran with it.  Next semester, I’ll post the assignment on Blackboard as a discussion topic, so I can stay within the rules and still engage the disengaged.

So, I’m trying to figure out how I can write an app for those of my kids who have iOS devices to light the fire.  Hey, whatever it takes.

So far, I have a ball and waves that react to the accelerometer.  See PE 2 for the short video.  Today I began a tutorial that I figure will take we through this final post and the three PE posts for next week as well.  It's an actual game tutorial developed by Unity to help folks like me that know something about Unity, but nothing about Unity iPhone.

I'm putting in the stand-in now.  Using a stand-in helps developers move quickly through development without wasting time on art.  It also allows us to test gameplay without relying on aesthetics.

So here she is for now:

And with Week 4 just a little lighter in work than Week 3 (it couldn't possibly be worse!). I'm looking forward to finishing Penelope by then!

PostHeaderIcon W3 Week 3 Readings

This week my focus was to find articles that may appear contradictory to my AR Project.  So I found articles that tested technology skills across multiple disciplines, but found only an improvement with regard to Language Arts skills.  Another article refuted games as a vehicle to meet instructional objectives.  All in all, a frustrating, but interesting week.
Saturday, October 16, 2010

PostHeaderIcon PE2_XCode and iPhone


OK, so I decided to play -- excuse me -- learn something about iOS programming this week.  I'm not completely without some object-oriented programming knowledge having dabbled in JavaScript, DHTML, Action Script 3.0, Java, and of course, C, C++, and C#.  And when I say "dabble" translate that as having superficial knowledge in everything except the first three.

One look at the XCode IDE which incorporates the iPhone Simulator, the Interface Builder, and a dozen other things and I'm quick to realize that I'm not in Kansas (Microsoft's Visual Studio) any more.  Between Object-C, Cocoa, and throw in the Unity Engine in as well, and my head was spinning for the first few hours.

So I did what every developer does -- I took a walk.  It was either a walk, or throw the iTouch through the window -- I opted for the walk.  It was a great fall day.  So I returned refreshed and determined.  The 30 second video you see here is the result of about four hours of intensive work -- OK, play.  But it left me ready to roll up my sleeves and dive in again. 

PostHeaderIcon BP9_Tagxedo

Yeah, yeah -- who needs another word cloud generator?  Well, if you're into Wordle and you've seen Tagul, then hop on over to Tagxedo.  

I'm not a big word cloud fan, but once I began to play, it was fairly addictive.  I created the word cloud to the right from my blog page.

It requires Silverlight, which, in my estimation, is Microsoft's version of Adobe's Flash.  As a virtual newbie to the Mac world, I didn't even know Silverlight would work on OS X, but lo and behold it does -- just what I needed another developer's tool to play with!

By the way, if you are going to play with Tagxedo, don't bother installing the version of Silverlight that's out on their website - it's not the current version.  Go to Microsoft's site first; do the install; then go to Tagxedo.

Tagxedo allows you to enter your words, take them from a file, or take them from a URL.  Similar to Tagul, when you hover over a word, it pops up, which gives this cloud a bit of interactivity.  Like many word cloud generators, you can omit common words and control the list in a variety of ways.

Aesthetically, you can control font, color, the orientation of the words, background color, and my favorite -- the shape.  So imagine celebrating the completion of your Abraham Lincoln lesson with a word cloud generated within his image.  OK, yes -- I'm pretty visual, so it's appealing to me.

There are variety of ways to save your Tagxedo word cloud as well.  I opted for a .png, which loses the interactivity, but apparently you can save it as a web page or you can embed it as well -- both of these methods would preserve the interactivity pop-ups.

If you're a word cloud fan, Tagxedo adds another dimension.  If you're not a fan, it's still fun to play with.

PostHeaderIcon BP11_Comment to Anne Alsup

 
In one of our recent discussion boards, Anne Alsup posted a great video of a seventh grade girl taking us on a tour of her PLE.  It featured a wonderful graphic interface.  This week, Anne researched what the student had used and found Symbaloo.  Read my comments to Anne's post here.


In the meantime, if you are very, very bored.  You can see my home-made Fireworks edition of Symbaloo here:  http://www.depaulcatholichs.org/myBookmarks.htm

PostHeaderIcon BP10_ Comment to Dennis Woodward

As the administrator of our current Student Information System (PowerSchool) and Learning Management System (Blackboard), I make it a point to check out other systems to be sure we're spending our tuition-driven income in the right direction.


Dennis Woodward came upon a potentially great find in Schoology.  Read my comments to his post here:  Sue's comment to Dennis.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010

PostHeaderIcon PE1_iOS Development Tools: Unity 3

OK, I took the plunge. And I blame Karl. It’s all his fault that I have an iPhone… and an iPad. Ok, ok... yes, I have the new iTouch as well – but it’s still all Karl’s fault.

Until last June, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Windows PC User. Yes, I once had a Mac – the Mac SE. It was my first personal computer. It was a 9” monochrome computer. I think it had a 512KB hard drive – yes, kilobytes. I did foray into the Mac world one other time and bought a G4 laptop that I used exclusively for Final Cut Pro video editing.

Other than straying off the Windows path on those two occasions, it’s been a long string of 3.1, 95, 98, XP, Vista, and 7 operating systems for me. Yes, I managed to escape the ME debacle.

Then last June -- June 27th to be exact -- I opened the Full Sail computer of choice: The MacBook Pro. And I hated it. Everything was in the wrong place. By the end of MLR, I at least knew a few shortcuts and just about where everything was. Then came MLT and Karl Peterson joined our previously established Team Xtreme. He did a very cool presentation of iOS devices in Education.

So…

I bought an iPad. While I was waiting for its delivery, I bought an iPhone. While I was waiting for its delivery, I bought the new iTouch.  OK, I have to admit I had previously owned an iPod (first generation video), a Nano (just for the Nike piece), and the original iTouch (which I ruined when my ChapStick melted through it – sigh).

But I still blame Karl. His presentation was just so captivating. He was the first person to whom I sent a message with my new iPhone too. It said quite simply “I drank the Kool Aid”.

So today, I signed up to delve into iOS. It’s scary. I had to apply for an Apple Developer’s Certificate, create an Application ID, create a Provisioning Profile, and Associate my three devices.

I’m using Unity as the game engine, which I’ve worked with before, but never on a Mac. Nor have I ever used XCode -- Apple's Integrated Development Environment -- and a necessary component to a successful Unity project.


Unity recently (the last week in September) released Version 3. I had previously worked with version 2.6, and before that 2.5. Any software developer will tell you that increments to the right of the decimal point are relatively minor, while to the left of the decimal point are generationally major.

Well, combine the generational change, with the OS change, with the device change and it’s like me speaking Russian -- large learning curve.

But the potential rewards are well worth it. For those who may be entirely unfamiliar with Unity, it is a 3D game development engine. Yes, I plan to create a 3D educational game, suitable for the iPad, iTouch, or iPhone. Don’t expect the second coming of Angry Birds (would that be Angrier Birds?), but if I can get a good game of a QBert nature up and running in two weeks, I’d be beyond thrilled.

I’ll keep you posted later this week with a few screenshots of how I’m doing. Or a photo of the hole in the window my iTouch made in frustration.
Sunday, October 10, 2010

PostHeaderIcon W2 Week 2 Readings

More LinoIt -- great tool to stay organized.

This week much of my research was focused on pinning down terminology.  I'm using the term "Authentic" which I will have to define.  Other similar terms include "Real World" and "Problem-Based Learning".  Before I begin the Lit Review, I need to decide which term (and why that term) on which to focus the research and action plans.
 

PostHeaderIcon BP8_OMM: ClassTools.net Arcade Game Generator

ClassTools offers a variety of cool tools, but this one was particularly interesting to me.  The Arcade Game Generator allows authors to create a variety of arcade style games.  With a paid membership ($21.54 for six months), you can save games to either embed or save a URL.  Here's the one I used in this video:  Have Fun




Friday, October 8, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP7_Comment to Ashlee Park

 Ashlee Park has found planbook.edu, an online collaborative planbook for teachers.  See her post and my comments here.

PostHeaderIcon BP6_ Comment to Brian Thomas

DePaul Catholic's Wikispaces Tech Help Page

Brian chose Wikispaces, a collaborative Wiki, as his Web 2.0 tool. See my comments to his post here.
Thursday, October 7, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP5_Dipity


Dipity, a very cool tool.

OK, this tool has so much potential, it's scary.  Yes, it's a timeline tool -- but not just any timeline tool.  It's the coolest timeline tool you'll ever see -- and it's free.  I played around with it using my Action Research project timeline.

It couldn't be easier to add an event.  Add text, images, links, audio and video with this user-friendly, minimal-learning-curve interface.

You have the opportunity to set viewing permissions for your timeline as well.  If you would prefer to keep your timeline private, as I did with my AR timeline, you can.  You can make it public, or restrict it to specific users.

Once you've built the timeline, you can view it in multiple ways.  There's the timeline, flipbook, and list views as seen here:



So you don't work with timelines, huh?  What about documenting an ongoing project?  One of my teammates is doing a study of an ecosystem over time.  His main focus is to use iMovie as his documentation device.  But Dipity could work for adding additional research to his project. Or it could be what ties the whole project together.

If you teach math and have your students involved in an authentic teaching/learning project, this is a great way to have them document the steps they took to problem solve whatever the issue was.

Certainly the uses in history are obvious, but how about linking that with literature?  We teach US 1 and American Lit to our sophomores -- what a great collaborative project to timeline the history AND literature of that time.

When I teach reflexive verbs to my Spanish students, I often have them write 15-20 sentences taking me through a day in their life (I wake up, I get, up, I brush my teeth, etc.). Well, throw out the paper and pencil this time -- how great would it be to have them write a little, speak a little, add a photo or two, and add a video.  I just planned out my multimedia project for that chapter.  This is awesome!

OK, so yes, I'm excited about the possibilities, but I have to stop playing with Dipity so I can go play with other Web 2.0 tools I've discovered this week.  TTFN.
Monday, October 4, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP4_Web2.0Tools


Tikatok allows users to create a book online.  Write, embellish, order the book -- it's that simple.  Its primary emphasis is to have children write their own creative stories which they can illustrate with their own images uploaded through a very simple web interface.

Parents can create books about their children as keepsakes or as gifts for family members.

The graphical user interface is very intuitive plus there are helpful hints as to how your story could be developing throughout the book.  The image below shows just how easy it is -- and it really is as easy as it looks.


Your question might be, but why would I want a book?  If I were a geometry teacher, I may do a project-based learning activity in my class that puts angle bisectors to work like this:  There are three parking lots in your town and the promoters for a concert want to build the stage so as not to overburden any one parking lot -- how do you determine where to build it?

Let the kids frame the question, hypothesize a solution, test the theory, and illustrate the solution.  Done.  Publishing it all in a book gives material proof (pun intended) of accomplishment.

As a Spanish teacher, I'm using it to summarize each Chapter in our textbook.  I have my class broken up into "Guilds" and each Guild takes a portion of the chapter to review.  The top-ranking Guild gets first choice.

Here's an example that uses Comic Life as our illustration of two people meeting:



The one drawback is that the book is limited to ten print pages.

You can create an account for free, but you would need to purchase the finished product. The pricing of a hardcover edition of the book is $18.30.  The softcover edition runs $15.26.  You can download an eBook for just $2.99.  I was so excited about it, I ran to our Chaplain and he has each class creating its own prayer book.  The possibilities are endless.
Sunday, October 3, 2010

PostHeaderIcon Me as Learner


I’m probably every teacher’s worst nightmare as a student – and I have been as far back as I can remember. We have movies (yes, movies!) of my first birthday party where I saw a candle for the first time. Apparently I was quite intrigued by the flame and made several attempts to touch it – all thwarted by my ever-vigilant mother. Then Dad said, “Let her touch it.” Of course, there was no sound with those movies, but through the combination of reading my dad’s lips and the horror on Mom’s face, you get the gist of the conversation.

And I was permitted to touch the candle. So started my pathway to self-discovered knowledge. And I’m still traveling that path today.

I constantly received N’s (needs improvement) in the “Completes what s/he begins” area of my grade school report card. I started everything, but as long as I knew I could complete it, I moved on – teach me more, because I already know that stuff. And when the teachers insisted on staying on task, I went off along my merry way experiencing my own learning.

I took apart everything. Sometimes I would even put in back together. I have a picture of myself at three hanging in my office - screwdriver in hand, sheer delight expressed, as I was taking apart a Baby Ben alarm clock. I captioned the picture “Hang on to the Wonder and Awe”. At three I had no fear of failure – just wonder and awe. And I’ve attempted to live each day hanging on to that desire to learn. So far, it’s been a breeze.

The World Wide Web was made for people like me – more information, faster, vaster, no borders; no limits – all at my finger tips. My dad bought me “The Answer Book” when I was six. He told me to look things up for myself. And I did – and still do.

So the educational system that would work best for me has little direction and limitless boundaries. It is purely personal. It is not without any degree of ambition. It is not without any degree of focus. It is simply driven by the student, which means that whatever the student chooses to learn has a built-in significance – to that particular student.

If you acknowledge that 1) You want to learn, and 2) Limitless information is readily available, then Media Literacy is paramount to the process. The recipient of this information must be able to analyze the validity and reliability of the information. The other component to Media Literacy is to be able to then produce media – adding to the (educational) literary body of work. I liked Wesch’s concept of since the information is readily available, perhaps a better take would be how do we harness that information and make something new out of it.

Would a CMS help me in my insatiable quest for knowledge? If it were well constructed to guide a student’s path – not dictate it. If it allowed students not only gain knowledge, but challenged them to use it with real-world applications. If it cultivated the sharing of ideas to create a group synergy that far exceeds the accomplishments of any single participant. Then yes. But it is not the CMS that does this – it is the instructor that designs the course. The instructor paradigm shifts from knowledge expert to knowledge guide.

Welcome to the journey.

PostHeaderIcon W1 Reading

As I began my Action Research Project I knew that time was my enemy -- it always has been, and this journey should prove no different in that respect.  I also recognized that organization could prove to be my only ally in my battle with time.

So I explored different ways that I had been successful in the past with organization.  There weren't many.  I have a tendency to endeavor to be so finely organized that it is impossible to keep organized.  The process takes precedence over the purpose.

Then I picked my head up from my computer and looked around my workshop (I repair Tablet PCs among my other duties).  I saw my "tape wall".  Here I have a strip of blue painter's tape labeled "bad", a purple strip labeled "parts", a green strip labeled "ready to repair", and a white strip labeled "good to go".  That's how we identify the stages of repair in my shop -- with painter's tape.

I had already broken my AR project down into its principle parts:
  1. Using technology
  2. Authentic learning
  3. Active/engaged participants
  4. Changes in content delivery
So if I applied my "tape" principle to my AR research, I would be able to stay at least minimally organized.  Hmmmm... how to?  Stickies would work -- I use stickies all the time on my Tablet PC and I had recently obtained the uTrack App for my iPad.  But I wanted something I could access from anywhere in case I came across something to note -- I needed a web-based application.

And I found LinoIt -- online stickies.  So below you will find my Week One reading requirement as seen on my LinoIt wall.  The articles with the white APA formatting textbox below them are those done for this week.  By the way, LinoIt does not allow for italics, so while the "words" are there, the exact APA formatting is not.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP2_iGoogleScreenShots

The second Blog assignment for this week called for us to set up iGoogle as our Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and to post screenshots of our Home, Full Sail Online (FSO),  Action Research (AR), and Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture (ETC) tabs.



The value of a PLE is that it allows students to take control of and manage their own learning.  The unfortunate part of this assignment is that the environment setup was dictated to us.  Acknowledging that no one system will work for all of us, I would think that once we have satisfied the requirements of this assignment, we can now regain control of exactly how our own PLEs will look and function.  
Thursday, September 30, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP3_Diigo Group

As per the requirements of this assignment...
  1. I have joined Diigo and the Ripples group (screenshot one shows my group memberships).
  2. I have created my own Diigo group and am awaiting acceptances of the invitations I sent out to join (screenshot two shows my Authentic Tech group)
  3. This serves as the Blog Post for BP3_Diigo Group.
While Diigo may be a great tool and serve some well, it comes a tad late in the game for me.  I can see the value of containment and organization of content.  However by month four of my Action Research Plan, if I am disorganized, I'm dead in the water.  So I've already set up a means for my Critical Friends to communicate with me.  I use Zotero to organize my online research.  

I recall my first experience in Introduction to Research with Dr. Wyly.  I can easily recall the angst I felt when we were informed we needed to form a group.  A group?  I'm an only child... I like computers because they don't talk to me... I play singles tennis, not doubles... I don't do groups.

So in my first week of my pursuit of a Masters of Science, I had to form a group?!  With people I never met?  This was not a good thing.

OK, by the end of the course I got it.  The cohort made me responsible to not only myself, but to others as well.  If the need for "best work" was not inherent in me to start, I knew there were four others counting on my best effort.  And I gave it.  Our initial group is still together. In course two, we welcomed another member.  Despite the fact that ETC has not called for a cohort, we still are very much a team.  When we needed blog followers, we were there for each other - no mass E-mail invites were needed -- we are a team.

So despite the fact that I do research alone -- and enjoy it that way, I know that somewhere down the road in this course, I'll better understand the purpose of sharing it with others. The one benefit I can already foresee to publicly sharing resources comes from other like-minded people who are members of your Diigo group.  They benefit by your resources, and in return, you benefit by theirs as they post ideas and comments to the group.

Will I use Diigo beyond the scope of this course?  That remains to be seen.  For now, I'm willing to ride the wave.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010

PostHeaderIcon BP1_Google Reader



My Action Research Project revolves around engaging students through Authentic Assessment.  Grant Wiggins (photo at left is from http://www.grantwiggins.org/)  is a nationally known expert on assessment and authentic learning.


One of the greatest dangers in education is to be complacent about methods. The concept of "I do it that way, because that's the way I've always done it and it works" paves the road to well -- no so politically correctly said -- mediocrity.  Yes, Geometry hasn't changed since the days of Euclid, but the kids sitting in front of you have.  They learn differently, they process differently, and they should be assessed differently.


Grant Wiggins gets that.  And he's spent a lifetime convincing others.  Pearson Publishing -- the textbook company -- is convinced.  Convinced enough to bring Wiggins on board to develop a textbook series Understanding by Design.

His Essential Questions are now a staple of lesson plans across the country.  If you are an educator, his Authentic Education is well worth the read.  You need not agree with it in its entirety, but it will get you thinking introspectively about how you do what you do.

Between his Blog and his Tweets, Wiggins keeps his followers in the loop about his movements, and the latest movements in authentic teaching and learning.  Well worth following.


MMORPG.com 


This may appear to be an odd feed to follow.  However, going back to my Action Research Project, I realize without even beginning the first cycle, that if the goal is to change assessment, content delivery will have to change as well.  Hmmmm... perhaps I should  re-read Grant Wiggins' Backward Design.

Massively Multi-player Online (MMO) games offer interactivity and submergence into an alternate realm.  Image students being as excited about going home and studying Algebra, History, or Spanish as they are playing Guild Wars.  A 3D virtual world, authentic learning game can do that.  Throw in the power of anonymity that the web has to offer and you've got them.

MMORPG.com keeps its followers up on the latest trends in gaming.  I follow them to see what I can incorporate into my classes.  I've used Guilds, where I place the students into a team -- a Guild -- and they challenge each other on projects.  Two Guilds enter into the challenge arena.  Their battle is the completion of the project according to the rubric.  The two remaining Guilds are the judges.  It is an engaging activity that would never had come to mind if not for an interest in gaming.

MMORPG.com is the most active feed I follow, generally putting out two dozen new articles per day.  Once you become an avid follower, you'll quickly dismiss those items of little interest and be able zero in on those that may be able to be tweaked for educational engagement.

TED.com
As students of Technology, Education and Design, it should come as no surprise that one of the first feeds I subscribed to is TED -- Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The logo at right (from http://www.ted.com) -- as simple as it -- says it all -- Ideas Worth Sharing.

Amazingly, TED is a small non-profit based.   I say "amazingly" only for the fact that nothing about TED is "small".  Their conferences always draw big names, big ideas, and big crowds.  For anyone even remotely interested in new ideas or new spins on old ideas, the blogs at TED are worth following.

Edutopia

Edutopia is sponsored by the Lucas Foundation. The vision of the foundation is to showcase and reward innovative interactive learning environments.  For a teacher long on desire to effect change, but short on time, Edutopia is a collection of ideas -- the best ideas.

Ironically (or is it just karma?), the first feed that came down from Edutopia was a Grant Wiggins interview.  But that interview really underscores the only problem I have with Edutopia -- they recycle.  No, I don't mean I have a problem with environmentalists -- I mean they recycle the articles.  It's very easy to assume that Wiggins interview was current.  But is isn't -- it's from 2009.

That being said, the RSS feed does include all comments that may have been posted to the article, so be sure to read the comments not only for their content, but also for insight as to when this article was originally published.

ISTE

The International Society for Technology in Education.  What more can I say?  ISTE exists to enhance teaching and learning via the effective use of technology.  If I can't find a thing or two at ISTE to assist in the Lit Review for my Action Research Project, then it's time to hang it up.

I've been a card-carrying member of ISTE off and on for years.  I've used surveys I've written based on ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards as springboards for both student and staff tech training.

Unfortunately the news feeds come down only once or twice a month.  In a field such as technology where things change in a nano-second, I'd like to see more -- and more often.

But for all that ISTE has to offer, it's still a feed worth following.