Multimedia Books using the CAST Book Builder

One of my favorite sessions at NECC today was "CAST Book Builder: If You Build It, They Will Read," which featured a cool, free web 2.0 book authoring tool. You can find the website at http://bookbuilder.cast.org/

Once you get a free account you can start combining text, audio, images, etc. to easily create online books. You can also use three different animated characters that you can "program" to provide guidance or feedback to your students. The characters could also be used as narrators of sorts. The site is definitely geared toward elementary school, and is easy enough for young students to use as well.

The CAST Book Builder follows the Universal Design for Learning educational framework, which encourages multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement.

NECC Day 2 For Me

Day 2 at NECC was all about the Science! I spent the morning in the poster sessions and then traveled (or is that travailed) through the vendor's area to get my Flash Drive.

The poster Sessions had some unique presentations and there were several specific projects which I link to at the bottom of this post but the overall impression I got with the science was that using technology to enhance science is about finding ways to do authentic science in your local area. Several projects had students identifying and then learning teaching about critters in the neighborhood.

After lunch I got into some BYOL sessions. Both were hosted by the producers of the shows from WGBH in Boston. I definitely like what they are up to. They have matched problem solving and engineering lessons with the PBS programs Fetch! and Design Squad. They emphasized the fact that they did all they could to make sure that the activities were low to no cost. As a former Science teacher who was always on a shoe string (as long as they were donated) budget I loved that feature about the activities. I also loved the dry humor of Dave Peth as he asked us to take our hands of our keyboards and actually do an activity. Doing activities in the session as another big plus. The Science and CTE teacher in me thrived on it. One of the activities was actually a simple version of an activity I have done in classes with students, just differently executed. Building Roller Coasters. WGBH's take on it was to use insulation, tape and a marble which was simpler than my vinyl tubing and BB's. But either way I got to use DUCT tape !!! (Yes it's duct tape unless you're talking about Duck Tape)What a great way to spend a couple of sessions!

NECC 09 Day 2

So far I've seen some really interesting sites and heard about some pretty cool gadgets. I don't know how this worked out, but I've stayed in the big ballrooms for most of the day. So, I've shared the love with about 200-300 of my best friends for every session I've been to today.

One of my favorite new websites was fur.ly. This one is a variation of tinyurl. Rather than letting you shrink a single url, this one lets you add several url's to a single address. You click on the one link and it immediately opens up tabbed browsing between to multiple url's you included. How cool is that?

I attended a cell phone presentation hoping to get some new ideas and I did. Geografitti.com was a big hit. Since I'm interested in both cell phones and gps/mapping this site is a marriage of the two tools. I can record my audio and upload it to grafitti and the site will mark my audio to a map. Another great site was textmemos.com. Here I can schedule a text message for a future time. What a great reminder to pick up the milk!

I know that I sometimes get drawn into the same old presentations, but I'm really glad I decided to check out Leslie Fisher's new gadget session. She shared a few old favorites, but mostly, new stuff. I think that tripit.com will certainly come into play next time I head out of town.

Hall Davidson is another favorite presenter at NECC. His presentation: 8 Things You Didn't Know About Video and 2 Things You Did (what a great title!) ended my day at the conference. While there were 4 things I already knew about video, there were a few things I learned. The best tool I saw that I haven't used is Quick Time Pro. For $30 this is a great editing tool. Glad I learned more about video for the classroom.

Well, my day at the conference is just about done. Let's see what we can do around the D.C. area tonight.

Malcolm Gladwell vs My Mom vs. Me

Ok, someone will undoubtedly do a brilliant analysis of what Malcolm Gladwell said last night. And they will be right, but in keeping my mookd I want to provide some counterpoint.

Malcolm Gladwell spoke last night about two different learning strategies.
1st Capitalization
2nd Compensation

Now without any clarification I think most of us could figure what each of them are. So I will give you only a small clarification from my perspective.

Capitalization is playing to your strength's! Isn't this what everybody's Mom told them. My mom sure did. She told me to figure out what you are good at and then do that. Thus.. I got a Biology degree after working on the farm with cows, horses, dogs, cats and all kinds of plants. Made sense when Mom said it made sense when Gladwell said it. These are the folk who keep working at something until they get really good at it.

Compensation is what happens when an individual doesn't have certain skills or abilities naturally, but compensates by learning other skills that enable him to achieve despite deficiencies. Gladwell spoke about the fact that many leaders are Dyslexic and it is the fact that they had to compensate for this deficiency in traditional school by learning to lead, delegate, and obtain content in other ways. Again, Mom told me when I was growing up that if I wasn't good at something I needed to work hard or figure out ways to do it anyway. I don't know if I am juxtaposing this correctly but Gladwell also pointed out that on average it takes 10,000 hours to master any cognitively challenging task. So....if I really want to compensate for my deficiencies it is going to take me on average 10,000 hours to learn that skill.

Now, me

I used to have students do a simple brain dominance test in my class. I would point out that with the information about what type of learning they were dominant in they could do one of two things.
Focus on their strengths Build up areas they weren't strong inSound familiar. It sure did to me when Malcolm Gladwell said it last night. It was good when Gladwell said it and it was good when I was saying it all those years to my students. This is an example of what is referred to as resonance or echo chamber effect. When I heard Gladwell I agreed with him and loved what he said because he became the expert confirming what I already knew to be true. (There's stuff there for a whole other post)

NECC 09 Keynote: Malcolm Gladwell

One of my favorite parts of the NECC experience is the outstanding lineup of keynote speakers they have each year. Five years ago I was introduced to Malcolm Gladwell at the NECC in New Orleans and to my delight he was our speaker again last night.

Gladwell has a unique gift of weaving together data from various case studies and sharing it to people in a down to earth and fun way. Last night he discussed the idea of learning theory in relation to the band Fleetwood Mac. What?! I know it seems like kind of a weird stretch, but the main idea of his message was that genius doesn't happen overnight. Even though Fleetwood Mac may have seemed like an instant success, they actually toiled in anonymity for years before they came out with the album Rumors.


So, how does this relate to teaching and students? Too often we think that something has got to work the first time we try it. In reality experts hone their craft over a long period of trial and error. The average expert in any field has generally invested over 10,000 hours or approximately 10 years of time to get to that level. Mozart started composing at age 9, but his first noted symphony didn’t happen until he was 23. Mark Twain took 9 years to finish the novel Huck Finn.

An interesting part of his message was the difference between Compensation and Capitalization learning theory and how it relates to our students. Too often we look at students and try to help them focus on their strengths when it comes to learning. The problem is we generally learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. Perhaps we should help our students recognize their weaknesses and provide them with opportunities to compensate for those areas by learning how to overcome their challenges.

It was a great keynote and a fun evening. After the keynote we went out to dinner and tried to get Ross to eat some Chinese food from Chinatown and well, he did eat some white rice. Still, it was neat to walk (and walk and walk) around town to see some of the interesting sites. Even if we didn’t actually get to the parts of the National Mall we wanted to see, we were able to work off our dinner.

Next Stop D.C.

Our bags are packed, and we're ready to go. When preparing for a cross country flight the only real question is:




or








Even technology can't change the age old question of good vs. evil.....

What am I expecting

This will be my first year at NECC. I am approaching it with mixed emotions. I am excited and thrilled because it looks to be a great few days. I am also more than a little overwhelmed. I followed Jared's lead and planned out my days with the NECC Conference Planner, but when I finally looked at it it was so packed with conflicts I don't know what I will actually make it too.

I am looking forward to the whole conference though and a chance to meet up with some of the folks I only know from the webosphere. I added my session plans into our uen@necc