Some troubles, but all's well

ran a powerpoint today. of course there were some problems with the cables, but everything worked out alright.

The Order of Adjectives

I've been looking around for this...

Category	Category	Category	Category	Category	Nouns
Quality	Color	Origin	Material	Purpose
lovely	blue	Japanese			vase
		family		photograph	album
big			leather	riding	boots

TGIF

I dunno how many times I've said that working here at KTC, probably around 95 times - the number of Friday's I've worked here in Kanazawa. I never used this phrase in the States. I wonder if it's a regional thing.

Anyhow, I'm done with grades and all of the other work-related things on my to-do list for today. I nearly started to work on a survey for the other teachers about their interest in tech workshops I'd run next semester. Then I stopped and thought... this sounds like one of those "good ideas" I get that entails a lot of work for me in the end. I think I'm just going to focus on what I need to do and move on. I've go enough on my place for goodness sakes.

Next week: office days! Which means half-days and time to relax.

Test Week!

That's right kiddies... that means classes are finally over!

I've finished my fifth year grades entirely as they were due on Monday. I've entered in all of the first year grades and they are now subject to examination before finalization. I only have a "few" projects to grade for my fourth year classes and I'm finished entering grades in.

Then I'm on to my "office days" work... preparing for next year. I'm psyched for the last semester. Whew.

Using Firefox from KTC117

I just figured out how to use other browsers from room 117 in KTC. These wireless laptops are configured to use IE over a proxy.

The network uses an automatic configuration script for internet access via our proxy.

To configure Firefox...

Tools > Options... > Advanced > Network > (Connection) Settings... > select "Automatic proxy configuration URL" and paste this link in the field:
http://www.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/proxy-cf.pac

After that, you shouldn't have any problems using other browsers here in this lab!

Other browsers are necessary for Blogger Beta, rich-text edits on moodle, and perhaps even use of certain plug-ins and updating what's available as add-ons.

Gee, thanks (you little b@st@rds!)

So, this is how my students (C1) see me.

EVO Checklist

syllabus 3-5
split tutorial
redo banner

Teaching Color theory with PowerPoint

I'm going to have to look up some resources for presenting color theory and design basics when creating PowerPoint documents.

What makes a good design layout?
Contrast and complement.
Negative and Positive space.
Movement and focus.
Planned vs. thrown together.

How do each of these elements fit together and affect one another.

Radio commercials

Well, I've just had the last class of the semester with my C4 class.

I still feel like the class is a bit unwieldly topping out at 19 mixed-ability language learners. I do feel like the rapport has improved and I'm not as intimidated by them as I felt last semester.

I think I'll start off the next semester with a survey and will try to change the nature of the class based on some of their feelings.

So, we just finished a "short" unit on audio commercials.

Next time:
It would be great if everyone had headphones and a primer on how to use Audacity to record.

It would also be a good idea to organized the order of the recordings if a "single" recording studio is used. The students should know that some of them would have to record out of class time if necessary.

This unit should have stretched about four classes looking at improving speaking skills like intonation and pronunciation.

We had a good time with tongue twisters and expressive practice, but the Ss we still a little apprehensive to "act" in front of their peers. I on the other hand am quite comfortable with goofing off with them.

PPT in the Classroom

What kind of course will this be?

• project oriented? the participants learn skills in the context of how to put them together to create a final peice
  
• skills? kinda like a cook book or how-to-improve-your...(golf swing)
  

What exact skills will folks be learning? Perhaps we could design a chart of sorts that would more clearly describe exactly which skills we're going to cover.

EVO 2007 Moderators Week 1

Well, I finished all the tasks up to this week.

• Pre-Training
  
• read the "How EVO Differs" article
• filled out the Needs Assessment Survey
• joined the EVO Moderators YG site
• read the Netiquitte article
• took the Netiquitte online quiz
• Week 1
• already had a YahooID
• introduced myself to the group
• uploaded a picture of myself
• set my membership options
• crap... I just realized that I need to post my comments on the "How EVO Differs" article... guess I'm not done yet

Other things

• Check out the Advanced PPT module and reply to Sandy
  

Internet Banner Project

Useful how-to's:

• change stage size
• make a motion tween
• add/manage layers

1. structured
1. banner project skills
1. delete backgrounds
2. find graphics
3. make documents
2. semi-structured
1. re-create a banner
3. free
1. make your own banner

Even though the class might have been biting at the bit to get into a project, it's essential to follow these types of steps.

This is supposed to be a project-oriented class. Present skills as a means to an end. Never throw skills at them "out-of-context".

I jumped right into things and it was a lot for them. Think of warming up with more activities.

• What is a banner?
• Choose some favorite banners? (difficult printing or saving those examples)
  

Flash 8 reference material

For next year, who ever is teaching this class might do better with a textbook that can serve as a reference for students while they are working on their projects. Currently, I'm creating all of my class materials and though it offers me flexibility with the content and design, it's difficult to develop something that will cover all my bases this first time around.

EV Online 2007

I was recently honored with an invitation to join the Electronic Village Online six week session on using PowerPoint in the Classroom.

At this point there are a few things I need to do to prepare for the October 8th Moderators' Training Session.

1. read through a heap of emails to catch up on the chatter
2. post a bio on the wiki
3. join the YahooGroup for moderators
   

and there was more... but I can't remember unfortunately. I tried to save the YM conversation I had with Christine a little while ago, but they don't have that feature!

The EVO Training Wiki

だめ！ Don't do it!

I found myself in a little bit of an ethical quagmire the other day with a student in one of my computer classes.

I was going through the students' "home folders" on the network to retrieve assignments from the previous week and found some dangerously offensive material stored there. I don't use those adjectives lightly.

I didn't know exactly what to do because I'm not officially authorized to directly access the students' home folders... however any teacher on the network has open access to them as well as materials stored by other teachers. The access is a little convoluted, but nothing is secured. It's truely an open network.

I have no idea what the decency laws are in Japan or at this school for that matter. He might have been disciplined, suspended, expelled, or even arrested. I have no idea.

After consulting another teacher confidentially about the matter, I decided that it would be best that I delete the materials and speak to the student without reporting the incident to the administration. (I'm mostly using "I" in the sense that I'm taking full responsibility for what might happen).

When I approached the student he didn't know what I was talking about at first. He only gave a slight indication of knowing at the end of the conversation. I addressed him as the adult he is, but let him know sternly that it cannot happen again.

He came up to me later and let me know that he did know what I was talking about, language barrier and all, and that it had happened a long time ago and was a joke. Mostly that he felt ashamed. And I'm going to take him on his word.

Students need to be educated about the perilous nature of freedom. I love America for the freedoms we have: speech, religion, even firearms.

I don't think the Japanese fully understand the concept of those freedoms at times. I don't think that I or some of my fellow Americans understand that fact either at times.

We have to pay a price for freedom. Is that price ever too high? Ask those grieving Amish folks, or others who've suffered from recent acts of violence in America. I would like to say "no", but I know that that feeling is probably circumstantial.

So, back to my student. I think this reinforces my role as an educator deeply committed to technology in the class room is to address media literacy in my classes. About how to do that... well that's another post.

Pinhole camera

Can we do it?
110 Cameras
110 Pinhole Camera Blueprints

Tatsuya's project

Tatsuya is a 5th year student working on his graduation project. He is going to use Flash to create an interactive presentation about New Zealand with a focus on exploring English. He's asked me to help and I was glad to offer my help, but I don't know if I can be of much use to him. He wants to do a lot of action script writing, but he's frankly way ahead of me.

I guess I'd better start studying action script quickly.

Audio project wrap-up

I gave the kids the first period (45 minutes) to finish their musical compositions. I doubt any of them finished their work, but that's alright. I didn't have a very clear idea of how I was going to assess their remixing skills and now I'm left with a problem. The kids spent 135 min on their projects and I can't easily grade them. How would you (quantitatively) grade a project like this?

I had then planned on letting them answer three questions based on the project and had them answer by posting responses on their class website. Unfortunately, a lot of them lost their questions and had problems with posting their responses. The problem could have stemmed from their servers, our internet connections, or the laptops. Next time, have the Ss open WordPad or someother text editor and copy and paste their responses when they were finished. That way if they weren't able to finish, they could just save the file in the (Y:/) drive.

I showed them a "real-world" example of remixing, ala DJ Q-bert. Unfortuately I didn't have the time to run through the listening exercise. I guess I can save that for next week, when I start the next unit of their semester: photographing? Where am I taking this class?

Flash Applications

Looking at the tutorial files for creating a Flash application, I had the idea of making one to provide grading based on a curve. Currently I'm using a Texas Instruments 82, or something like that, to do my grading stats. It would be wicked cool if I could make an application to handle those stats instead.

Flash resource extractor

I'm looking to find software that will allow me to extract vector art, images, sounds, etc. so that I can use them in my classes. It would make my job a hell of a lot easier, allowing me to "borrow" professional level stuff for my lessons. I think this would help intrinsically motivate the Ss by offering them interesting components to use in their projects.

Here are some possibilities:

• Flash Toolset
• Flash Utility
• FlashDigger Plus
• ActionScript Viewer
• WinSWF Extractor
• Gordon for MacOSX