Five Minute Film Festival: Video Boot Camp | Edutopia

Five Minute Film Festival: Video Boot Camp | Edutopia http://t.co/J0SzHT4pdP #holtontechtips

— Mary Dobroth (@MrsDobroth) January 25, 2015

from Twitter http://ift.tt/1eLJdaW
January 24, 2015 at 07:56PM
via IFTTT

COURSE PAGES - READY FOR SECOND SEMESTER!

Today marks the first day of second semester! If you teach semester long classes, chances are you might want to share some of the resources you have already created and posted with your second semester classes. finalsite makes it VERY easy to copy your home page from one class to another and to share your resource folders between classes. In fact, in just a few minutes you can have your second semester course page set up and ready to go!

Copying Home

Once you have set up your home page, you can easily copy the entire set up to another section. In the upper right corner of the home page, next to Customize, select “Copy”. This will open the "Copy Dashboard to Other Groups" window, where you can select the sections to copy the home page layout onto.

NOTE: This will override any other prior customizations on that home page. Copy carefully.

  

COURSE PAGE TIP SHEET: Customizing Home

Sharing Resource Folders

Enabling a folder to be shared creates a clone of that folder that appears on as many sections as selected. Shared folders are always connected - once something is edited or updated in a shared folder, it changes everywhere that folder can be seen.  

Open the Edit Folder window by hovering over the folder you plan to share and selecting the Edit Folder icon (pencil)

To share the entire folder with one or more of your classes, select “Share this folder with several of my groups”, select all of the classes you would like to share the folder with from the drop down menu that appears and “Save Folder”. The folder will automatically appear on the resource page of the classes you have selected.

NOTE: To share the entire folder with another teacher, select “Enable other groups to share this folder”. This will allow a teacher to bring that folder onto their own course page. However it is important to remember that sharing a folder allows a sign folder to appear in more than one place – any changes made in one place will be reflected everywhere the folder has been shared.

 

COURSE PAGE TIP SHEET: Sharing Resource Folders

As always, please let me know if you have any questions - I am happy to help!

WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO LEARN IN 2015?

Last year, Edutopia challenged teachers and administrators to learn something new in the new year.  This inspired me to share some of the webinars I planned to participate in during the month of January 2014.

Continuing with this idea, this year Edutopia posted New Things to Try in 2015. "With all the research on how unlikely it is that making New Year's resolutions actually works, [edutopia] wanted to offer something a little more realistic". Edutopia's new year's post provides "teacher-tested ideas for new things to try with your students in five days, five weeks, and five months."

To help you start off the new year by learning something new, I thought I would share some of my favorite ways to learn about new ideas, methods and tools! I certainly do not expect that you would want to check out all of the resources below immediately, but the list is a great place to start. Pick one or two of these resources to regularly check out - you might be surprised by what you find!

EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS

t|h|e Journal - Transforming Education Through Technology
SmartBrief on EdTech <edtech@smartbrief.com>

BLOGS

Aditi Rao - teachbytes blog and teach with these Pinterest board
Catlin Tucker - Blended Learning & Technology in the Classroom
Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything 
Educational Technology Guy - Educational resources, ideas and tips
EDUBLOG AWARDS BEST TEACHER BLOGS  (edublog.com)

PINTEREST

Mary's Educational Technology board

Aditi Rao's teach with these board

TWITTER

@edutopia

15 Twitter Feeds Educators Should Follow (eschoolnews.com)

FACEBOOK

Edutopia - https://www.facebook.com/edutopia?fref=nf
Scholastic Teachers https://www.facebook.com/ScholasticTeachers
Top 10 Facebook Pages for Educators (gaggle.com)


How about you? Where do find great educational resources? I am always looking for resources to add to my list!

3D Printers Add a New Dimension to Classrooms via @EdTech_K12

3D Printers Add a New Dimension to Classrooms | EdTech Magazine http://t.co/akmCMH43EH via @EdTech_K12 #HoltonTechTips

— Mary Dobroth (@MrsDobroth) January 14, 2015

from Twitter http://ift.tt/1eLJdaW
January 14, 2015 at 12:32PM

via IFTTT

3D PRINTING IN THE CURRICULUM WORKSHOP

Emily Letras of The Bryn Mawr School recently hosted an AIMS workshop, 3D Printing in the Curriculum.  The half-day workshop was a great way to learn more about 3D printing, to get ideas for meaningfully incorporating 3D printing into the curriculum and to meet others from around the area that are interested in doing the same.

Emily divided the workshop up into three sections - STATIONS where we could explore for ourselves different aspects of 3D printing (including why prints typically fail), scanning and tinkering, TINKERCAD time to explore computer modeling and finally we heard from teachers who shared CURRICULAR EXAMPLES of how they have used computer modeling and 3D printing in their classes. Emily ended the workshop by sharing a variety of phenomenal RESOURCES.

I was especially impressed that Emily repeatedly talked about how important it is to remember that a 3D printer is just one tool in a larger project. It is a useful was to accomplish a goal within the context of a larger project, but like any technology the goal of the project is what is most important. Why are the students using the 3D printer? What curricular goal does it accomplish? We shouldn't be printing just for the sake of printing, anymore than we should be using any type of technology just for the sake of technology.

"A 3D printer is just one tool in a larger project – A useful way to accomplish a goal with in the context of a larger project"

CURRICULAR EXAMPLES

GEOMETRY - to explore scale and proportion Bryn Mawr students designed, modeled and printed furniture for a doll house. The students were able to quickly see if there errors in their calculation and had the additional benefit of giving their final product to the lower school students.

ENGINEERING - Bryn Mawr students were given the option of using the 3D printer to create models for design projects. While some students chose to create models out of all sorts of materials, some students chose to 3D model (using Blender or TinkerCad) and print their designs.

GEOMETRY - to gain a better understanding of fractals 8th grade Holton students modeled and printed sierpinski triangles (check out the full post here)

HISTORY - As part of an intense, 9th grade history project where students create museum exhibits, students were given the option to 3D model and print their models rather than make them by hand. Students created aqueducts, the Colosseum, and a variety of architectural features.

RESOURCES

Emily's Site - information and resources from the 3D Printing Workshop. Information on choosing a printer, filament, software, scanning, and curriculum. [https://sites.google.com/site/aims3dprintingworkshop/home]

The Digital Harbor Foundation - a foundation that "fosters innovation, tech advancement, and entrepreneurship by helping youth develop digital age skills through maker activities and tech workforce readiness" 
[http://www.digitalharbor.org] 

TinkerCAD - free, easy to use 3D modeling software. After creating an account and logging in, click on the "LEARN" tab at the top of the page to go through step-by-step lessons to quickly become a TinkerCAD master!
[https://www.tinkercad.com/]

Doodle Fab Ninja - possibly the coolest thing ever! Easily convert a JPEG to a SVG file that can be imported into TinkerCAD for modification before printing.  Anything from hand drawn images to logos and typeface can quickly and easily be turned into files ready to print.
[http://www.doodlefab.ninja/]

For more great resources and tips about all things technology, follow Emily on twitter @emilyletras! 

Emily, thanks again for a great workshop!