LC week 10

I spent the better part of Saturday composing my cycle two report (otherwise known as part 2 of my cycle one)according to some discussions that I had with MR and with my LC. We had decided before to show the iteration of my AR work by splitting up my cycle one into smaller sections. I was taking the idea that because of the No D policy that lead to the multiple revision policy which lead to students creating their own rubric. In essence, my cycle one report would be a rather large document generating smaller subsections that each dealt with the topics.
However, as MR left feedback about my report, she thinks it would be better to go back and do it the way I had started it which was all within the same report. Oh well! Nothing like a good rewrite to refocus and solidify your ideas.

Basically, the structure I will follow is that the report will be an overall focus of the iterations that took place as a result of instituting the No D policy. I will then break down the report into subsections only in the data analysis so that the data can be examined separately to see its effects upon the class and me as the teacher.

Also, in the reflection section of my report, I could break it up into various sections if I felt it worked well for my paper. I can see this being beneficial for a focused reflection, but sense each part of the cycle leads into one another, I feel like I often come away with the same reflections and questions about the process as a whole.

Impressively enough and I have to remember to pass this along to my students, MR commented about what great reflections my kids write. I was really proud of them hearing this compliment and hadn’t thought before about how good they are at reflecting. I have done reflections so much in my class and give my kids that class time to do them, so I hadn’t thought about how well done they are until she pointed this out. It really made me feel good, and I am excited to share the news with my students.

We also had a great conversation in our LC about writing as a reflective process and how important it is to write over and over again. Yet, in schools, we do not teach writing this way. We are so focused on the one time only assignment. And for me, that was especially my focus until this past year when I gave my students multiple redos. What a change for both me and my students.

Sadly, I learned that we have to change LCs again at the end of this semester. I really am not excited about that. It seems as though each time we start gelling and working together, then we have to move on. And especially, I don’t think it makes sense so close to our presentations because if the LC we are working with really knows our AR work, they could better assist us in making really effective presentations. I am not sure if a new LC with so short a time before our presentations can make that work. I need to trust in the process and last time when I was ambivalent about a new LC, it all worked out. I hope the same can come true again. Wouldn’t it be great if we could pick our own LC?

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Kingston releases HyperX memory targeted at Netbooks

Kingston technologies unveiled their new Hyper-X 2GB memory module for netbooks using the Intel Atom processor. Part number KHX4200S2LL/2G is a 2 gigabyte memory module with latencies of 3-3-3-8. The module is based on sixteen 128M x 8-bit DDR2 FBGA components.

Kingston created the KHX4200S2LL/2G module with Asus Eee, MSI Wind and Gigabyte UMPC netbook models.

"A netbook or mobile internet device will automatically recognize the preset low latency value of the HyperX memory module and properly boot the mobile device to provide higher performance than standard memory," said Mark Tekunoff, senior technology manager, Kingston. "Netbooks are growing in popularity and Kingston is pleased to present a HyperX module that makes these small mobile devices run faster."

Clock Cycle Time (tCK) CL=3 3.7ns (min.) / 8ns (max.)
Row Cycle Time (tRC) 55ns (min.)
Refresh to Active/Refresh Command Time (tRFC) 127.5ns
Row Active Time (tRAS) 40ns (min.) / 70,000ns (max.)
Single Power Supply of +1.8V (+/- .1V)
Power 1.396 W (operating per module)
UL Rating 94 V - 0
Operating Temperature 0o C to 55o C
Storage Temperature -55o C to +125o C

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LC Week 9

We began by listening to budget cuts from Abrash and my district. We are all feeling the crunch. It is really scary to think about cut backs for all teachers and administrators especially people we know.

I asked the group about spending time going over how they are feeling about their AR and work on cycle 2. Many of us are either feeling overwhelmed or can’t get a handle on where to go.
I talked with Matt, Tanner, and Abrash about the amount of data I had accumulated for what I thought would be my cycle 2 and 3 but unsure of how to write it all up and where to put all my cycle report information. Should I try to incorporate within each of my six week period studies a further analysis of the multiple revision work? Or should I write a “Part 2” of my cycle report to add at the end of my part one which would be the No D policy?

After some discussion and frequent explanations because I wasn’t being clear about what was in my head, we decided to divide cycle one up into the three parts would be the most effective and meaningful way to illustrate and present the results of my multiple revision policy and student generated rubric.

So, that leaves me with a lot of writing and analysis. I really wish there would be time to get this all accomplished. I did a lot of work with the multiple revision policy soliciting feedback from kids, completing a survey and personally interviewing students as well. Now I need to put all that together. Also, I need to think about the aspect with the student generated rubric. How am I going to assess that piece of the AR puzzle? I think the kids reflected on it somewhat, but I haven’t used it this semester with them because of my student teacher and their Change the World paper. Hmm, I just need to do some more thinking and reflecting I guess to pull this all together. Time would be nice too!

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MacBook Pro Goes Green

Everybody wants to be green these days in everything they do. They need all of their tools, clothes, food, and other things to be enviornmentally safe. Well thanks to Apple, now their laptops can be green as well.

Apple's MacBook Pro is designed with the enviornment in mind. First of all, the MackBook Pro is built with mercury-free LED technology and arsenic-free glass. The circuit boards, internal cables, connectors, insulators, shock mounts, adhesives, and other parts are all free of brominated flame retardents and polyvinyl chloride.

Th MacBook Pro is also highly recyclable. It uses a precision unibody enclosure that is formed from a single piece of recyclable aluminum. The display, as forementioned, is also recyclable. Since most batteries are designed to be replaced every couple of years, most of them are discarded. The battery in the MacBook Pro, however, lasts up to 5years or an amazing 1,000 charges!

EPEAT is the Electronic Product Enviornmental Assessment Tool. It evaluates the enviornmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it is designed and manufactured. Every MacBook Pro has earned the EPEAT Gold rating, which is the highest. Few products recieve this rating and barely any are notebooks.

The MacBook Pro is also ENERGY STAR certified. The hard drive on the Pro spins down automatically when inactive and also decides whih processor, either CPU or GPU, to use that will work the best for a task which reduces energy. Other systems that reduce energy is the LCD screen, which dims when you enter a drakened room, a processor that throttles down between keystrokes, and it uses about one-third the power of a single lightbulb.

Needless to say the MacBook Pro is green to the extreme. Its so green even its packaging is enviormentally friendly. The boxes are made smaller. This may seem like a little detail but because the box is smaller it means that more can be put on a single shipping pallet which lets more pallets fit on a plane or boat which means less planes and boats have to go out resulting in less C02 emissions which makes the Earth just that much greener.

If your an enviornmentalist, a "green freak", or just want to make a difference then you should definatley check out Apple's MacBook Pro, the greenest notebook on the market.

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New tablet pc/netbook with a detachable screen

The company Always Innovating has just released a new netbook that has a fully detachable screen that transforms the netbook into a stand-alone tablet.

The Touch Book truly looks amazing and innovative. It will come preloaded with a linux OS, and it will be the first netbook based on an ARM CPU, have an average battery life of 10-15 hours and $299 without keyboard, $399 with.

The NetBook/TouchBook or what ever else you want to call it will also feature a magnetic back so that you can mount it on a fridge. It also feautures a hinge that not only allows you to detach the screen, but also to swivel I completely around so that you can mount it up when you are for say on a plain and you can also swivel the keyboard all the way around so that it is hidden behind the screen.



Also make sure to watch the video to hear more about Always Innovating’s latest Touch Book, also there is a wonderful accent that is o so enjoyable to listen too!

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Dual Feedback Cycle 3 Round 3

Our last session of cycle three looking at comparing feedback on revisions of papers occurred on February 18. (I know this blog is way behind, but I thought I already completed it until I realized—oops, nope!). Randon and I meet to go over intr0-3rd body paragraphs and our feedback we had given with 8 papers.

This is the third time we have completed this and it is really interesting to see what are the presences, our growth from each other’s feedback and reflection, and what absences we see from one another. We reviewed the papers and looking overall, we noticed that we are pretty similar in catching punctuation and mechanical errors although it seemed that Randon would do really well on the first page or so of the paper, and would fall off after that point. When asked about this, he wasn’t sure why that was happening and also commented that he didn’t see why he needed to keep marking the same mistakes. I talked to him about our job being to help kids edit the papers and show the mistakes so that they can see what mistakes they are making. If we don’t mark it, the kids don’t recognize that it is a mistake they are making.

A few things that we still need to work on in terms of giving feedback. One, we need to give feedback throughout the paper. Even if students are making the same mistakes, it is important to give thorough feedback since we are doing limited in class peer to peer feedback. With the peer to peer work, we need to do a better job training our students on how to give feedback. This could be an extension of this work into next year and their next writing assignment since they have seen Randon and I model feedback and they have reflected on the kinds of feedback they have received from us. Two, we need to work on using the same language as presented to the students. I used language that I used when I taught the kids first semester and Randon used language in his feedback when he taught the class. I think this might have lead to some confusion because I overheard students debriefing with Randon at their final writing conference that they were confused as to some of the terminology (explanation of quote, relate quote to point of paragraph, relate quote to thesis- Anne’s terminology v. Randon’s –quote says, point to the paragraph, make the point). Keeping our language similar would assist the students in their feedback and understanding. Three, we need to work on making sure we are bringing all their points back to the overall point of the essay. I think this was a struggle for Randon having never taught writing before. This is one are consistently where he would focus on details rather than the students making the big argument. Are they actually relating everything back to the thesis?

Randon does a really nice job of leaving a paragraph at the end of their writing discussing things he thinks they need to work on. I have not adapted to his style of feedback because I like giving point by point feedback within the paragraph. I can see both methods combined working well where the student has the point by point corrections within the paragraph and an overall paragraph at the end with further extensions. I can see Randon shifting to this method more of not just a paragraph at the end, but notes within the paragraph as well. Also, he started shifting to asking more questions of his writer and not just pointing out elements that were missing. One thing I learned from Randon is to make sure I am giving positive feedback as well as constructive criticism. Sometimes I get so focused on helping them improve, that I do not always compliment the things they have done consistently well, nice phrasing of sentences, or trying new styles with their writing.

Randon also commented on the process of dual feedback that this really helped to clarify grading and feedback. It helped to see why I give feedback the way I do. Modeling feedback and teaching someone how to give feedback and justification for grades is a lot more difficult than I thought. So many of my grading and feedback strategies have just been developed over time and to think about why I give feedback, how I give feedback and give grades has been a nice reflection. I needed to think while giving feedback and not just give feedback.

Moving forward, I can see one final reflection from the students on this whole process. They are each meeting with Randon to review their final papers and grade. I think when they are done, I want them to reflect on the feedback they have received in that final conference, how well did the feedback throughout the writing process prepare them for their final paper (this would include the 1-1 feedback, Randon circulating the room, dual feedback on their papers, and final conference with Randon). I also want Randon to reflect on the entire process. He has reflected after the first time we compared feedback (intro paragraphs) and after the last time we did this (intro -3rd), but I am anxious and interested to hear about changes he has noticed in himself, in the students about feedback and growing as a learner.

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ED 665: Week 9

From your experience in OMET thus far, what design practice has resonated with you the most? Why?

I am not sure what would classify under design practice, but I think what has resonated so far with me has been the work with learning circles in all classes. We began our work with learning circles in Virt Camp, and this quickly transferred into our fall LCs and now we have our LC work in the spring. What has amazed me the most about our work with LCs has been how meaningful it has been. From LCs in our action research project to our LC’s that develop out of group work in our other classes, all have been useful. I was disappointed at first to have a change in our LC from fall because I received so much valuable feedback from my first LC group. They were such a tremendous influence on my AR work and thinking, it was always sad to think about leaving them. But now I can see the transferability of what I learned from them into my new LC group.
Thinking about the design of the classes with using LC’s I can really see the value of the choice. Not only are we all becoming experts, and we all have something to offer to one another, especially when everyone participates, but we are all growing and learning from the experience. Each of us brings a variety of experience and information/ learning to our discussions and assignments. When we open up ourselves to listen to those around us, we all grow and learn from the experience sometimes leaving with affirmations of your understandings, sometimes questioning your understanding, and sometimes leaving with more questions, or new realizations.
I think in this kind of online Masters’ program as well as any learning environment, so much can be gleaned from those around you. The learning becomes infectious, the questioning becomes standard, and we all flourish as a result.

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