What is the difference between California standards and the Common Core?

There is a lot of overlap.  However, the Common Core standards are based on college and career readiness standards.  The Common Core:

• Focus to a greater extent on text complexity and drawing information from sourcesAs I interpret this, students now have to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different text sources (including digital) and comprehend information that comes from media  as well as text.
• Address reading and writing across the curriculumThere’s reading in science as well as reading in language arts.  All disciplines require writing
• Where’s the technology?Technology is a tool rather than a set of isolated standards.  I like this.  The Common Core speaks generally about students choosing a variety of texts (including digital) and publishing writing in a variety of formats including digital.

My sources:

• Common Core:  Where’s the Tech?
• Common Core Tech Standards
• California Common Core FAQ

I had the opportunity to receive evaluation copies of three iPad apps that I have included for a long time on my app wish list.  Each app currently costs $29.99 so they are relatively expensive as far as apps go.  I’ve been working with each of them for about two weeks and I’ll explain here what they do so you can make a decision on whether they would help your production.

Artemis (Director’s Viewfinder) HD

With Director’s Viewfinder, you select your camera and choose the lenses that you own.  The app shows you how much of the image you will see (referred to as Field of View) when using lenses of different focal lengths on your camera.  Most DSLR cameras crop the image because of the relatively small size of their sensor.  This app corrects for that cropping and shows you precisely what you’d be seeing with your lenses.

On a single screen you can see what the scene would look like when using any one of your lenses.  This is much easier than changing lenses  on a DSLR multiple times to find the best lens.

You can also take a picture of the scene at a particular focal length and record information about the focal length on the frame.  The captured frames can be used within the Storyboard app below to show you exactly what you’re going to see on screen or you can simply print them out or e-mail them to crew members.

Physical Director’s Viewfinders can cost hundreds of dollars and this app is far less than that.  If you are using a DSLR as your camera, this app is pretty much indispensable.  We are using it both for deciding which lenses we will need to purchase and to plan out our shots.

It’s been practical as well as educational.  I am used to shooting video with a fixed lens so I have a lot to learn about focal lengths.  I’ve fired up this app several times just for a refresher on how different focal lengths would affect the image.

Director’s Viewfinder from Artemis is not universal so you would need to purchase both the iPhone and iPad version if you need both.  The iPad real estate makes for a far better app experience but then again, the iPhone camera is generally easier to use and of better quality than the iPad’s camera.

Storyboard Composer HD is the app that I imagine would be most valuable to typical classrooms doing moviemaking.  You take a picture of a location (ideally the location where you’ll be shooting) and then you can insert people into the image.  You have the option of inserting men or women and positioning them forwards or to the side.  You can also easily simulate camera motion (pans and zoos).  We’ve been using the app in combination with Director’s Viewfinder…inserting images shot with Director’s Viewfinder into storyboard composer and completing sample storyboards there.

You can easily export PDFs of your storyboards which will be helpful for sharing boards with crew members.

Storyboard Composer HD is universal so you only need to buy it once for iPhones and iPads.  The bigger iPad user interface provides a better ease of use.  However, as I said, unless you have the newest iPad, photos you take with your iPad will likely be a little grainy and so the iPhone is preferable in that respect.

I still haven’t decided if it’s easier to storyboard using software or using paper and pencil but I am someone who has had much experience with the latter.  If someone has never storyboarded before this is an excellent tool for teaching them how to do it and it provides an advantage in terms of accuracy, sharing potential, and and clarity of vision.  It’s clearly the best software storyboarding tool I’ve used so far.

Movie*Slate (Clapperboard and Shot Log)

Whereas the other two apps are useful in the preproduction stages of moviemaking, Movie*Slate is for your production use.

Movie*Slate is a digital clapperboard and has many advantages over a chalk clapperboard in that it automatically advances the shot numbers and provides the time onscreen.  Although Final Cut Pro X has a feature to automatically sync audio and video captured from two separate devices, in the event that anything goes wrong it will be invaluable to have the accurate time information provided by this app.  The app also allows you to take notes after each take which will help in the editing process since those notes can be exported.

There are several bonus features like screens for focusing and setting exposure.  The app can also be greatly expanded through in-app purchases for sound and timecode which I haven’t tried.  Movie*Slate is universal but the small size of the phone probably makes for a less optimal experience if you need to be able to read the text on screen of your video camera.

Summary

It’s awesome when you find that there are apps that can transform the iPad into new tools.  All three of these apps are well designed and provide useful functionality for your production.  The apps work well as a team but if you can only afford one you must decide what your production needs are and what can be accomplished (albeit less efficiently) without the apps.

If you have any questions about the apps I’m happy to answer them below.  If you have movie making apps you’d like to suggest you can leave them down below as well.

This morning Adobe is announcing updates to its Creative Suite which includes Photoshop, After Effects, and Dreamweaver, among others.  You can watch the announcement live here where it will rebroadcast continuously today or view the archived version here starting tomorrow.

The highlights from the announcement for teachers include the following:

Creative Cloud

The Creative Cloud membership allows you to download software, sync files across desktops and mobile devices, and host web sites (an alternative for now defunct MobileMe?) .  Schools and/or districts can purchase Creative Cloud memberships easily for employees that even allow them to install software on their home computers.

The student/teacher editions costs $29.95 a month and volume licenses can be purchased.

Emphasis on HTML 5

Adobe is now fully focused on HTML 5 and is making it easier to convert Flash files to HTML 5.  New tools also should make it easier to create HTML 5 documents from within Dreamweaver and new included apps.

Updates to all Applications

As you would expect, there are updates to all software applications in the suite and all of them sport a new updated, cleaner looking interface.

I’ll post more when I’ve had a chance to play with the new software.

A Dreamer Becomes a Hero

Like many, I was inspired by the video making the rounds about a nine year old boy, Caine, who built an arcade out of cardboard boxes in the front of his father’s auto parts store. What is striking is Caine’s passion, his perseverance, his creativity, and the point at which idle work in his father’s shop turns into genius. The video which has been widely seen has generated a large college fund for the boy.

Passion

I love the part in the video when Caine describes how he made alterations to a game to make it harder.  Many of the students I see in reading intervention classes seem to give up on most things after only one try.

Sometimes it seems like our students are apathetic.  But maybe they’re just apathetic about school.  Do we know what they’re passionate about? Do we encourage them to find their passion? And do we let them follow passions far enough that they can go past the necessary point of frivolity and blossom into something substantial?

Let me ask a deeper question.  Are you as a teacher, passionate about teaching?  Do you as a teacher have something that you are passionate about?  I write this as I am finishing writing a script for my first film project in ten years not to be made in a classroom.  I love teaching.  But my passion is making movies.  If you’re not feeling some passion in your own life, how can you encourage it in children?

It’s a safe bet that for most of our students, school is not their passion.  We forget that decoding words is not the fun part, discovering and applying knowledge is.  Long division, multiplication facts, and timed tests are not enjoyable but problem-solving, brainstorming, and code-breaking might be.

The Past

I’ve done a couple of things in the past to offer moments of independence in my classroom:

• Independent Work Time (students choose their own activities after completing assigned ones)
• Writer’s Workshop (you write whatever you want but you have to publish on an agreed upon deadline)

The Future

I want students to take an interest.  I don’t’ care so much what they take an interest in.  I don’t want to give up class time for them to play games.  However, I do think I can give up class time for them to research, create, and explore while I guide, encourage, and motivate.   They can’t create Caine’s Arcade, it’s already been built.  I want them to create their own projects.  I’d like to give up as much of 20% to this notion.

I hypothesize that the lost time will be made up for in increased productivity and job skills when it comes to the assigned curriculum.  I could be totally wrong.  What do you think?

My latest creative interest has been iPhoneography. Last year I purchased a DSLR camera, lenses, cases, accessories, and more. I took a class and I’ve even gotten pretty good at using the manual settings. However, on a recent vacation I found myself reaching for the phone much more often than I did the DSLR. It’s small, it’s fast, and it’s immediate. I would take photos with the iPhone, have them transfer wirelessly via Photostream to my iPad back at the hotel and then edit the photos with the iPad.

The DSLR photos are certainly sharper and the lenses give me much more flexibility than I have with the iPhone. However, I much prefer the editing apps on the iPad than my desktop tools. The tactile nature of touching and swiping make it a breeze to quickly add effects.

My favorite photo editing apps are Photo Wizard HD and Snapseed. Both apps are frequently available for free if you wait long enough. The best app for sharing photos is Instagram. With Instagram, I am able to quickly share photos to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s built in social network. The feedback, or lack thereof, from other users encourage greater picture taking.

My photos are now so much more dramatic and I feel like I am have photographic success. I am trying to post at least one photo per day. I find that the process of taking pictures is leading to greater creativity overall in my life. Imagine what it could do for your classroom.

I’ll write about the conference itself shortly.  However, I woke up today with my head full of ideas about great tech things I want to try in the classroom and in my life.  I’m sometimes frustrated because there are a lot of things I want to try with a limited amount of time.

I created this form to help me prioritize the things I hope to work on over the next months.  I imagine this could be used by anyone engaging in any personal or professional reflection.

What I’m Already Good At

Narrative moviemaking
Video editing
Creating effective presentations
Using HTML 5 to create apps

What I Want to Work on Next

iPhoneography
DSLR filmmaking
Creating simple databases attached to HTML pages

What I Might Work on in the Future

iBooks

What I Don’t Need Yet

Edmodo
Scratch

What’s on your professional to do list?  Feel free to share whether it’s technology related or not.

Here is iPad Apps Installed List.  The location column lists the folder in which I installed the apps.  The apps shown in the picture below may vary slightly since this is a screen shot from the iPad I’m using and some apps aren’t necessarily installed on everyone else’s device.

Not every app is used often or used at all.  I did a lot of downloading of free apps and sent them out to teachers to see if they might find use of them.

Here are step by step directions.

1.  Visit favorite web site.

2.  Select share icon to the left of address bar.

3.  Choose “Add to Home Screen”

4.  Confirm that the name makes sense (for web sites with long names, you may have to abbreviate) and click the word “Add.”

5.  Find your favorite web site on your home screen.  By default it will appear at the bottom of one of your pages but feel free to move the app to a folder or another page.  You can also rename it later if you wish.  (Click and hold on any icon until it starts to slightly wiggle  to move the app or rename).

It’s just drill and kill simple math facts with fancy graphics and music but it’s fun.

I’m torn on whether to mention the name of the app here (I will list all the apps we use in a future post).  However, imagine an app with a first class movie soundtrack, mission impossible-like graphics, and an excitement that is not present in many other apps.  Yes, I do consider it “drill and kill” but as an app of this kind, it’s best in class.

I received this self-righteous response from a twitterer I don’t know and won’t mention:

How can anyone consider drill and kill fun?  Lets move onward & stop promoting these kind of apps!

I don’t consider this particular app fun.  My math intervention students do.

The twitterer went on to tell me that what I was doing was “immoral” and suggested I have students make an iMovie or Doodlecast about how they found their answers instead.

Let me back up and explain a little bit how I used the app.  With our single iPad hooked up to a projector at the beginning of class, my intervention students trickled in from recess, students shouted out answers to questions as they came up on the screen.  I sometimes guided students to count backward 9-2 or count up 9-5.  We discussed adding and subtracting doubles (3+3, 8-4) and near-doubles (3+4, 8-5).  Then as a treat, small groups of students used the iPad individually to complete some of the games.

If we bought the iPads just to do games like these I would say that we’ve wasted a lot of money.  The first PD I lead for teachers on using the iPads (after the one about how to turn the device on) is how to use iMovie.  I begin the PDs discussing both Bloom’s Taxonomy and Needleman’s Technology Taxonomy:

However, to say that we should not use any apps that encourage the memorizing of facts stinks to me of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I wrote a post Are You Smarter Than a Google Search? suggesting that how you collect, synthesize, and apply knowledge is more important than having it memorized.  However, the idea that you don’t need to have any knowledge at all is ridiculous.  While I encourage kindergarten teachers to teach the meaning of numbers (e.g. 3 is 2 and 1 more) in addition to teaching students to count.  However, I also see that students who do not know basic math facts struggle when doing anything else related to math.

“Drill and Kill” is just one of the many things you can do on an iPad.  If it’s the only thing you’re doing then you might as well invest in a good set of flashcards.  I don’t want it to be the toolbox but I do think it has a place in the toolbox.

If you think I’m doing it all wrong.  Let me know in the comments.

Also worth reading is Diane Darrow’s mapping of iOS apps to Bloom’s Taxonomy.

School Accounts You’ll Need:

1.  A generic e-mail address.  You can use a school’s generic e-mail address.  However, I would not use any employee’s e-mail address since it’s impossible to guarantee that any employee will be at a particular school forever.  This is part of the not mixing institution and business accounts.  I signed up for a generic e-mail address with gmail.

2.  An Apple ID account associated with the generic e-mail address you set up.  Create this account without associating a credit card with the account (unless your school uses a credit card to make purchases).  This will be your school’s iTunes account for all practical purposes.  It will be used for purchasing free apps and redeeming codes purchased using your Volume Purchase Account (see below).

3.  A Volume Purchase Account (VPP).  This is the account in which you deposit iTunes gift cards and then purchase apps in bulk.  If you’re in a large district, your district likely already has a program manager.  You need to ask that person to set you up as a program facilitator.  If you try to sign up without that person, you’ll get an error through the Apple web site.

To repeat, you deposit gift cards into the VPP account and then redeem the download codes you receive through your school’s Apple ID.  Unlike at home, where you can legally install purchased apps on all your devices after buying them just once, at school you need to purchase the app as many times as there are devices.  However, they are often offered at a 50% discount when you buy 20 or more.

Although you buy 20 codes, you really only redeem one of the codes.  The other 19 codes are saved in case your school is ever audited for legal compliance.

We do not share any of the passwords for these accounts with the teachers at our school.  Teachers will receive updates to school apps and new apps we’ve purchased for the school periodically.

Personal Accounts You Should and Shouldn’t Use

Some schools do not allow teachers to install their own apps on the school iPads.  Teachers at those restrictive schools may come to feel like the iPad is not their own.  I opted to allow teachers at my schools to install apps from their personal accounts on their iPads.  I want them to feel like the iPads belong to them and for them to become experts at using the devices.

Individually Purchased Apps

Teachers can simply log out of the school account and log in to their own account to install apps they’ve previously purchased or purchase new apps.  It’s less expensive for a teacher to purchase a single app than for the school to buy twenty-four copies of it.

FaceTime and iMessages

Teachers should immediately log out of the school’s FaceTime and iMessages account under their respective tabs in settings.  Teachers can either log in using their own accounts or stay logged out.  Otherwise, iMessages sent by a single teacher will automatically appear on everyone’s iPad.

iCloud

Teachers may wish to log-in to iCloud and choose which services they wish to use (e-mail, iTunes match, photo stream, contacts, calendar, etc.)  They don’t have to enable all of them but will likely want to use some of them.

Find My iPhone

Since we expect each teacher to take responsibility for not losing their iPads, I strongly encourage teachers to install the Find My iPhone app and use it to track the iPad should it ever be lost.

Setting Up the iPads

I purchased approximately 40 free apps and installed them on an iPad (more on what those are later), organizing the apps in folders by subject matter so that teachers feel more comfortable exploring even if they don’t know what the apps are.  I then set up each subsequent iPad to restore from the original iPad’s backup.  This ensures that each iPad begins with some structure and organization even if future apps will not necessarily end up in the correct folders automatically.

iPad Apps in Folders

What’s in a Name?

At my science magnet, we named the iPads after famous scientists and at the arts magnet we named them after famous painters.  Naming the iPads allows us to keep track of them easily.  Naming them after teachers or room numbers would be a mistake since both of those things can/will change over time.

I then connected each iPad to the school’s wireless network.

On a sign-out sheet, teachers sign their names next to their iPads name and serial number.

Teachers put their own Smart Covers on their iPads.

Further Reading

I’m very grateful for the following two posts which helped me immensely in the process:

Langwitches: iPad Deployment and Teacher PD

LAUSD iPad Deployment Worksheet (do not e-mail the people linked to from this worksheet unless you’re in LAUSD)

Update

Once teachers have added their own apps to an iPad and you go to sync it with the school computer you will see a notice asking you if you want to authorize the computer for the new apps.  Don’t authorize!  You will get a scary warning that appears to indicate that the “unauthorized” apps will be removed from the iPad.  However, they will not actually be removed.  Go ahead and hit continue.  Don’t be afraid.

Update #2

Apple has released a white paper on iPad deployment that’s worth reading.