Capturing Online Video

In order to capture video, either your Outsource Request Video or a portion of another video, follow the instructions in the following tutorial

Diigo It!

Today's Learning Target:  

• I can research a variety of non-print textual information and media to cite strong and thorough evidence relating to my designated topic area to support analysis of what the textual material says explicitly. (CCR - 11.RIT.1)

Today' Activities/Updates:

• Walk the Wiki quiz will be tomorrow.  Continue to familiarize yourself with all aspects of the Flat Classroom Project 11-3 Wiki, as you will also begin editing and adding information to your respective team page tomorrow. 
• Today is all about research and finding information about your specific Topic (the number) and Subtopic (the letter) and bookmarking to the Diigo Flat Classroom Group.
• Use key words about your topic and subtopic to search the internet for current information.
• You may find useful internet search tips here.
• When you find an article, image, etc. that is beneficial to explaining your topic/subtopic, use your Diigo toolbar in FireFox to bookmark it, using the appropriate tags.
• Steps for bookmarking:

• Click "bookmark" in your toolbar and you will see this
• Add a 1-2 sentence description of the article or website you are bookmarking in the description box.
• For tags, be sure to enter mcahs-diigo so that I may find it as your project Diigo assignment
• You will need to add additional tags based on your specific Topic and Subtopic.  The tags for each can be found here - the Tagging Standards for the project.
• Under "More Options" click on "Share to Group"
• Click blue arrow drop-down and select "Flat Classroom Project"
• Click "Save"
• You need to bookmark a minimum of five sources today.
• To be safe (in case you haven't tagged correctly) when you are finished with the assignment, email me a link to your Diigo profile and I will be able to see your individual bookmarks in once place.  
• In other words, if you go to your name at the top of the page and click your user name, then go to your profile like this

  

          

          you will then see your profile listing your bookmarks.  Copy the url on this page and email to 

          me.  Mine would be http://www.diigo.com/profile/nesticos.

RSS and PLE

Today's Learning Targets:

• Integrate & evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media formats, as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. (CCR - 11.RIT.7)
• Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively. (CCR - 11.W.8)
• Learn how to effectively manage, consume, use and respond to so much information.

Vocabulary:  RSS (Real Simple Syndication), PLE (Personal Learning Environment), synchronous communication and asynchronous communication

Today's Activities:

Watch RSS in Plain English by Common Craft

**You do not need to do this in Google Reader first, instead - Create your start page/iGoogle page in your MCA Google account (Log into your email, click on "More" on top.  Click on "Even More" and then click on iGoogle)

• Play with the page a bit and remove widgets you don't need/want to make room for project feeds.

• Subscribe to RSS feeds for your wiki pages and the Ning and put them on your iGoogle page.  To begin, let's add the following:

•   2required wiki feeds: topic edits, topic discussion

• 2 required Ning feeds: your profile page, latest activity on the Ning

To find your group discussion, click on the discussion tab on your team age and then the "Notify" tab.  Looks like this (attached).  I may have to show you how to find the RSS for your topic edits.  You have to find your teams page in the Site Menu (from menu on left side of wiki) and go to the Notify tab on THAT page.  It can be confusing.

A Flat World and Our Place In It

Today's Learning Targets:

• Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of wha the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. (CCR 11.RIT.1)
• Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings. (CCR 11.RIT.4)
• Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text. (CCR 11.RIT.6)

Today's Activities:

READ & RESEARCH

• Be sure you've walked the wiki and completed yesterday's assignment, bookmarking the pages to your Diigo account.

• Always use the FCP11-3, flatclassroom and mcahs tags.  Depending upon your topic as you continue to research, also use the proper tags for your topic according to the project Tagging Standards.

• Locate your team's Topic Overview Wiki and identify the page range of The World is Flat that pertains to your topic.  Read your assigned section of the book.

• As you read, think about your subtopic (A, B, C, D, etc.) and how this flattener has impacted your subtopic.  Record notes and important points in Evernote.

CONNECT

• Complete the Handshake Discussion post with your Topic Team's Expert Advisors.
• Before posting any discussions on the wiki, please review these Online Discussion Board Netiquette Guidelines.
• Go to your Team Wiki (Where you actually edit and place your work).
• Click on the "Discussion" tab.
• Click on the post titled "EA-Handshake" and post a response in that discussion thread.
• If you go to Group/Topic 2, this is what it looks like as you click through:
• Do not post in a separate thread.  Moving forward, know that posts that are titled beginning EA are especially important as they will contain feedback from your Expert Advisors.

• Once you have completed, screenshot (take a picture of your post), log into your MCA email and share it via Google Docs with Ms. Nestico.
• Due before class on Thursday.

Walk the Wiki

Today's Learning Target:  I can efficiently and effectively navigate online spaces to locate and utilize a variety of media and information.

Today's Activities:

• Go to the FCP 11-3 Project Wiki and find the following pages.  When you find them you should bookmark each of them in Diigo, including a description, and the proper tags, including fcp11-3, flatclass, mcahs, and wiki_walk
• The Home Page
• The Team Grid - Where you go to see all team members in every category.
• Your respective Team Wiki page where you find overview information about your topic.
• Your respective Team Wiki page where you will edit and place your work.
• The discussion tab page of your Team Wiki where you can read and respond to comments 
• Where to go on the wiki that has instructions and tutorials for virtually anything you want to do in the project.  
• You will have a quiz on this later this week on Friday.

Wiki WIki

Today's Learning Target:  I can produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (CCR 11.W.4) 


Today's Activities:  

• Before moving on, you must finish your digital handshake video, upload it to your NING profile as a video.  Then, create a blog post on the NING (from your profile), and embed the video into your blog post.  Write a few lines in the blog post that tells about you and your video.  Include a reflective statement about what it is like to create a piece of multimedia to represent yourself in this way.
• There are two major sites we will use throughout the project, the NING, where we will communicate with students in other schools about the project, which looks like this

• And the Flat Classroom Project Wiki, where we will collaboratively research, write and create products about our respective topics and global flatteners according to Thomas Friedman.  Joining the wiki is a two-step process.
• Students go to http://www.flatclassroomproject.org/ and go to Join in upper right corner (there is no join this wiki on left).  This space looks like this:

• Remember to use proper naming conventions for username:  SuzieN_MCA and include a message when requesting that you are one of Ms. Nestico's students.  
• Flat Classroom administrator approves you (this may not be automatic)
• Once approved then go to the project wiki e.g
  
  • Once approved then go to the project wiki http://fcp11-3.flatclassroomproject.org/ 
  • The FCP 11-3 Project wiki looks like this:
  
  
  
  
  • When on the project wiki page go to Join this Wiki on top left (you must be logged in to your flatclassroomproject.org account already so their name should appear at the top of the page).
   
• Please be sure to save both of these in your Diigo account so they are easily accessible on a routine basis.

Introducing Yourself to the World

Today's Learning Target: I can produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (CCR 11.W.4)  

Today's Activities:  

• Write a story about yourself that will serve as a script for your "About Me" Digital Handshake for Flat Classroom.
• Your story should include the following:
• Information about you (remember - no last names!), things you like, things you do.
• Your story should include your "sentence" from the Dan Pink exercise, "What's My Sentence?"
• A statement about why you think doing a project like Flat Classroom is beneficial and why it could be of help or importance to you in the future.
• A statement about what you think the project is about and how it will work.
• Once your story is complete, begin looking for and saving pictures that match your story.
• Here are some examples of past students

Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project



Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project

Creating Your NING Profile

Today's Learning Target:  I can create an online, safe, professional space where I can share my work and digital artifacts throughout the Flat Classroom Project.

Today's Activities:

• Join the Flat Classroom Project NING
  

http://flatclassroomproject.ning.com/

• Click "Sign Up" in upper right corner.
• Use your school email address to register (it is OK that your last name is in the email as it will not be displayed.
• In the profile information, when it asks for your "Full Name" do not put your last name.  Using myself as an example, you would type in "Suzie N."
• For your username, use the following naming convention, "SuzieN_MCA"so that to other teachers, you are easily identifiable.
• For "website" enter the school's url.
• For "blog" enter your class blogspot blog url as we will be cross-posting some of our work.
• Once complete, spend some time personalizing your profile.  You may upload a profile photo, but it should be a clear, professional-like head shot.
• If you are not comfortable using your own photo, you may use tools like http://www.voki.com/ or http://illustmaker.abi-station.com/index_en.shtml or http://www.mms.com/us/becomeanmm/.

Really? The World is Flat?

Today's Learning Targets:

• I will understand more about New York Times author, Thomas L. Friedman, and what he means when he says, "The World is Flat."  
• I can explain the differences between the Globalization 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 eras and the driving forces behind them.

Today's Activities:

• Begin watching the MIT video/lecture where Thomas L. Friedman discusses his book, The World is Flat and summarizes the global economic flatteners.
• Take notes regarding key concepts and also concepts about things which you are unclear.
• We will watch up through 11:30 minutes of this video today and discuss.

Flat Classroom Project

Today's Learning Targets: 

• I can write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning & relevant & sufficient evidence (11.W.1)
• I can conduct short, informal research to answer a question or solve a problem and I can synthesize multiple sources on the subject that demonstrate I clearly understand the subject under investigation. (11.W.7)

Today's Activities:

• Read the post before this and be sure you have completed Friday's assignment.
• Once that assignment is complete, look at what you wrote and turn it into a well constructed, two paragraph blog post on your blog.
• Tag the post with these tags:  flatclassroomproject, flatclass, fcp and fcp113.
• Assignment is due at the beginning of class tomorrow when we will begin discussing Thomas Friedman's, "The World is Flat"

To Flatten of Not to Flatten?

Today's Learning Target:  I can conduct short, informal research to answer a question or solve a problem and I can synthesize multiple sources on the subject that demonstrate I clearly understand the subject under investigation. (11.W.7)

Today's Learning Activities:

• As discussed, we need to make a group decision regarding when we want to participate in Flat Classroom.  Consider the points we discussed yesterday.
• Watch the Flat Classroom Keynote MCA students created based on their experience

• Read this Information about the Flat Classroom Project
• Read the specific information about the Topics within the project (scroll down toward the bottom)
• Click around some of the links, comments, student profiles, videos etc. on my Flat Classroom Ning profile.  Explore what you think is interesting. 

Your assignment is to email me whether or not you feel the class, as a whole, should participate in the project now.  Try not to look at this from an individualistic perspective. You should write at least two paragraphs justifying your position in detail and email it to me no later than Sunday evening.

Getting Our Tech ToolBox Together

Today's Learning Target: I can identify different purposes for a variety of different technology tools that will be useful in organizing and consuming information for class throughout the year.

Today's Activities: Read the following blog post Effort In = Reward Out by a favorite Pennsylvania Principal of mine in the Lancaster Area, Lyn Hilt.

• Pay particular attention to the categories Lyn uses of creating, collaborating, communicating, connecting, reading, and curating.
• View the Tech Tool Box LiveBinder and look at these tools, as well
 

Class Toolbox

• Choose 1-2 tools from each category to explore and we will discuss together as a class.
• Following discussion, we will decide as a class several of these tools to use.

What's Your Sentence?

Today's Learning Targets:

• I can learn to write in narrative form, with purpose, to develop experiences using effective technique, details, and well-structured sequences. (CCS 12.W.3) 
• I can use technology to produce, publish and update an individual or shared writing product. (CCS 12.W.6)

Later in the year, we will participate in globally collaborative projects such as Flat Classroom and NetGenEd.  Works like A Whole New Mind by acclaimed author, Daniel Pink, are used as a portion of the project's content components.  That said, let's take a look at Daniel Pink and think about what motivates us.

Daniel Pink's video below asks us to think about two important questions: 1) What's my sentence?  2) Am I better today than yesterday?

Today's Activity:  Compose your first blog post using the prompt:

• What's my sentence?  Think about this seriously.  You are leaving a legacy, a digital footprint.  What would you want people to really know about you?  
• What one sentence would define you?  Are you too much of a 'muddles paragraph'? 
• In your blog post, be sure to include exactly what you've decided your sentence to be at this point in your life.  
• Also, be sure to reflect on the process of answering this question.  Was it easy?  Difficult? Frustrating?  Share what this exercise was like for you. 
• Let's blog!

Need examples of what said?

Let's Blog!

Today's Learning Target:  I can create a digital platform on which I can write an publish class content professionally.

Today's Activities:

Image Credit: http://thecustomizewindows.com/2011/03/tips-and-tricks-to-start-and-continue-a-professional-and-successful-blog/

• Go to Blogger.com
• Using your school email address, set up a Blogger account
• When setting up your Blogger profile, do not include specific location information
• You may upload a photo, but it should be an appropriate head shot
• For now, name your blog as your name (ex. Suzie N.)
• Name the url the same as the blog name (ex. suzien.blogspot.com)
• If the url is taken, add a number to it (ex. suzien12.blogspot.com)
• Do not add a description yet
• Choose Template, colors, etc.  Make it your own.
• Do not connect your FaceBook account
• Once finished, complete the following Google Form

Blog What?

Today's Learning Target: I can identify three purposes of a blog and understand the basics of creating one.

Activity 1: Watch the following video to understand the basic purpose of a blog.  Be prepared to identify three reasons or purposes for blogging.



Activity 2:  Watch the following video and begin establishing your Blogger account