Filed under: educational technology
Notes on the CECA conference 102306 (downloadable WORD file with a chart on earthquakes)
A report on the CECA Conference, October 23, 2006, Cromwell, Connecticut (the attached WORD document includes a chart for the earthquake exercise and better access to the links)
CECA is the Connecticut Educators Computer Association – http://www.ceca-ct.org/ . CECA seems to be at a crossroads – it has outgrown school or hotel conference spaces. Next year, the conference will be in conjunction with CEMA – http://www.ctcema.org/ – Connecticut Educational Media Association – the professional association of Connecticut school library media specialists/
After the hour-long trip from Willimantic to Cromwell, passing Hartford and heading down 91, my colleague, Dr. Cathy Tannahill, and I arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in time to join the crowds at the registration desks who were picking up the conference materials, which included a iPod Nano kit (http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/ ).
1) The keynote speaker was David Warlick. His “Landmarks for Schools” website – http://landmark-project.com/ – receives 6 million visits a month and is
“dedicated to the idea that the very nature of information is changing, practically before our eyes. It is changing in what it looks like, where we find it, what we look at to view it, what we can do with it, and how we communicate it. Here you will find information and tools designed to help us redefine literacy for the 21st Century.”
Mr. Warlick emphasized that it isn’t the new technology tools that should be the focus, it is how these tools may be used in combination with Web 2.0 – growing applications on the web, to enhance learning and teaching. The session conference notes are posted at http://72.32.86.225/wordpress/?p=111 .
There was an impressive example of using data from the web – in this case, seismic activity data imported into EXCEL to recreate the “ring of fire” on the tectonic plates.
1) Go to http://landmark-project.com/page.php?stamp=&pn=4&psn=&cat=22 – the Raw Data link from http://landmark-project.com/ .
2) Choose the ANSS Catalog Search - http://www.ncedc.org/cnss/catalog-search.html
3) Choose Catalog in readable format .
4) Set beginning and end times – time and date – year/month/day, hour – 0:00:00 is midnight. I chose the month of October 1989 - 1989/10/01, 0:00:00 as the start date and 1989/10/31, 0:00:00 as the end date.
5) Set Min magnitude: – I chose 3 – a small earthquake.
6) I chose only earthquakes. You may play with the other variables.
7) Submit request.
8) Highlight and copy the table that will appear for world-wide earthquakes for the time you chose.
9) Open a blank EXCEL spreadsheet and paste the table. Under DATA, choose Text to Columns, and follow the wizard to set the columns.
10) Use the chart/graph tool to create a chart of the data. Please note that latitude is a vertical measure and longitude is a horizontal measure. I found it useful to move the longitude column to the left of the latitude column in the data. Highlight the data in the spreadsheet.
11) Click on the Chart Wizard in the EXCEL menu bar and choose XY Scatter and the diagram with the legend – Scatter. Compares pairs of values.
12) Click Next and you should see the beginning of your chart with the data range at something that includes the two columns of data – =Sheet1!$C$1:$D$868, the longitude and latitude data.
13) Click Next and label the chart with Earthquakes – the period of time you selected, value of x axis should be longitude, value of y axis should be latitude.
14) Click Next and save as a chart. Click Finish.
15) Copy the chart to a Word document.
(There is a chart in the WORD document.)
One may begin to see the effects of tectonic dynamics for this chart of only one month’s of seismic activity. Note the coasts of the Pacific Rim and the earthquake activity.
Mr. Warlick also provided a good example of why students need to learn to question sources on the internet. A student might search for information on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and find http://martinlutherking.org/ as a resource. Students should be instructed to research the origin of sites. This site does not provide an About Us link but does link to Hosted by Stormfront http://www.stormfront.org/forum/ which is the White Pride World Wide website.
The session on The Flattening of the Web provide a tutorial on blogging, with a recommendation that educators are using
Other online resources discussed included http://k12online.org – What you need, when you need it,
http://classblogmeister.com/ - which has this disclaimer Standard Disclaimer message:
The views and opinions expressed by authors published in this blogging tool are not those of David Warlick or The Landmark Project. This is an instructional publishing tool and not a source for authoritative information.
http://blogger.com – a blogging tool bought by Google
http://www.bloglines.com/ – “Create a personal Bloglines page loaded with the freshest news about the things you love.”
http://www.Gaggle.net – Thousands of schools use the Gaggle Network to provide safe, teacher-controlled email accounts for students.
http://Imbee.com – The first secure social networking and blogging destination for kids.
http://Epals.com – ePALS Classroom Exchange® maintains the Internet’s largest community of collaborative classrooms engaged in cross-cultural exchanges, project sharing and language learning.
http://technorati.com/ – online statistics on technology application uses, including video blogs – Currently tracking 57.4 million blogs
Mr. Warlick explained RSS feeds - RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites – Really Simple Syndication.
The session concluded with a discussion of the power of the Web and other technology tools to expand student learning. Mr. Warwick showed us the Sweatshop Video from the SFETT web site and the URL is: http://www.sfett.com/movie.php?mov=2-sweatshops
2) During the second session, I visited a presentation on the use of video/MP3 players by middle school students to share multimedia projects, particularly on Anne Frank and the Museum of the Holocaust. The middle school students developed museum tours for others who were not able to go to DC for the class trip. I also went to a session for a few minutes on setting up podcasting on a server and another session on web publishing design issues.
Passing the vendors – lots of printers, smart boards, software publishers, including PBS and the Discovery Channel, and a Lego vendor whom I went to high school with in Oceanside, NY – the hotel was filled with teachers, school administrators, consultants, and educational faculty university faculty members, with hardly sufficient seats for the bag lunches.
3) For the third session, I attended a presentation by Stephen Wilmarth, Program Director, The Center for 21st Century Skills – http://skills21.org/ , which is sponsored by the Education Connection in Litchfield, CT. This session expanded on Mr. Warlick’s presentation by emphasizing the importance of ownership by students and teachers of their websites, the potential changes in technology that would allow for greater access, and the need to focus on skills development for students who will be changing positions and responsibilities throughout their lives.
Notes from the CECA conference – 102306 WORD file
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