Black Diamond » Sample

Responses to Don Tapscott’s Keynote

Steve — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:47:08 +0000

“Unprecedented Force for Change”-Dan Tapscott’s Keynote – Horizon Project 2008
Student #1
- These are my thoughts exactly! I for one am not willing to sit around and watch the world go by. I am a part of the generation that is an “unprecedented force for change,” and we are actively inducing and creating change that will be beneficial and relevant to the world today and tomorrow.
- Teachers are no longer “transmitters of data,” but active participants in the student’s learning process. The point of education is not to teach to perform well on tests, but rather to teach an individual to think, process information, and communicate, to create a knowledgeable individual that can be successful in the real world.
Student #2
- If school became an interactive place where both students and teachers put their two cents in: teachers teaching students, students teaching students, teachers sharing ideas and students executing these ideas-school would be great.
Student #3
- I am aware that in all other areas of impact technology has taken its course and replaced the traditional hierarchies, which we would now consider to be the “teacher oriented” educational plan, but the real issue is, in so many places education is rigid and all about regurgitation of information. How do we look past that?
This is a test. Several comments were highlighted in Diigo and sent to my blog. This consisted of the original blog entry and replies.

Audacity Inservice

Steve — Tue, 08 May 2007 09:56:16 +0000

I was involved in an inservice where the focus was on Audacity software. We had a small group but the mixture was interesting. We had about 1/3 computing teachers, 1/3 music teachers and 1/3 linked to a library or audio / visuals within there school. It was a fabulous experience and it was soooo nice to be on the other side of the fence for a change.

Sheepishly, I admit that the end products of the music teachers were much better creatively as compared to we computing teachers. But we beat em with resolving technical issues! The end products were surprisingly good, diverse and made for interesting ideas to use in the classroom. The calibre of the participants was staggering. I was the only one to try to read off an old radio script.

I start with Audacity in the classroom this week. It will be fun and games and I am looking forward to it!! I love experimenting with Year 7’s and Year 8’s!

superman1.mp3

Animated Gifs Clever

Steve — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 01:24:04 +0000

Here are 2 clever animated gifs: (MS Gif Animator can be downloaded for free).

Sample 1: Puppet Person

Sample 2: Body Boarding

The creation of animated gifs can be carried out in a Technology Mandatory class.