What project based learning isn't

I love this image and quote from Darren Kuropatwa over at the Great Quotes about Learning and Change Flickr Photo pool.

It sums up many of the challenges I've grappled with when designing learning experiences with teachers through the years.

I'm a firm believer that knowledge is the direct consequence of our experiences-it's essentially how we learn everything...until we go to school that is.

365/60 FOSS Disc

365/60 FOSS Disc
Originally uploaded by mjmonty

This was my 365 photo of the day from yesterday and I decided to re-blog it over here...

FOSS CD (actually it is a DVD)-FOSS is an acronym for "Free and Open Source Software." I created this disc to have something to give out to community members when they stop by the office asking about what software they should buy for their computers. Often times I find that they aren't opposed to the notion of open source, but instead they just aren't even aware that it exists. More on the FOSS disc over at: castillejatech.wikispaces.com/Casti+FOSS+Disc

Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas for titles on this disc in the form of comments on my blog post about this idea from early January: middleschoolblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/free-and-open-sourc...

365 Photo Challenge Check-in

I'm enjoying this project thus far. While I've taken a few duds like this one and this one, I'm pretty happy overall with the way things are going. This photo of the sea lions in Santa Cruz, California might be my favorite photo thus far...as the project moves forward, I hope to get a bit more involved in the 365 community so I can gain some tips and idea for future photos. Consider taking the 365 photo challenge even if you've missed the first 11 days of the year...you can just go an extra 11 into 2010 (weird to say "2010").

365 Photo Challenge...I'm in!

I've decided to give this project a shot for 2009. I'm going to try my best to take a photo each day of the year and post it over at flickr with the tag 365photos. I posted photos from each of the first three days of 2009 and a bonus photo of my wife at Point Reyes National Seashore on New Year's Eve (click the link or see the embedded slide show below).

Here is what I hope to gain from participating in this project:

1. Many of the folks who did this last year mentioned that by taking a photo every day they improved their photography skills. I hope the same happens in my case!

2. I hope that I improve in my ability to notice some of the little things that I often overlook each day.

3. Participating in this project should help me make a case with my wife that I need a new camera! I'm guessing most of my photos will be taken with my iPhone and I'm not all to impressed with the colors and detail on my first few pictures. This very well may be the most challenging goal of them all!

4. Many other folks from around the globe are participating in this challenge as well and I'm looking forward to checking out their work and getting ideas for potential photos of my own.

Good luck to everyone who is participating in the 2009 365 Photos project!

Embedding Flickr Photos with Notes

My Twitter buddy Derrall Garrison showed me how to add a flickr photo with hover over notes directly into a blog or wiki using a javascript code from Yuan. Go ahead and hover over the photo of my commuter bike below and you'll see the notes. If you'd like to try this, click the link here for the needed script to make the magic happen. You can even add a little toolbar to your browser to make this process super easy.

Thanks to derrallg for showing this to me!

Blogs, Wikis and Discussion Forums

Below you'll find a link to a picture of a Venn diagram that shows the similarities and differences between blogs, wikis and discussion boards. I thought this was a nice visual explanation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fncll/1829938057/sizes/o/

My Top 5 Photos

On the heels of my recent blog post on my "Top 5 Education Related" videos for 2007 and after reading Ewan McIntosh's post today on his "Top 5 Photos" of 2007, I figured I'd create a top 5 photo post of my own. Below you'll find my favorite photos taken in 2007 and posted to my flickr account. My photos on flickr certainly don't have a great following and definitely won't be winning any awards, but reflecting on my favorite photos from 2007 definitely highlights some of the important events in both my professional and personal lives.

Here we go (drum roll please!!!):

Zebra Zap Electric Car-I snapped this photo while I was on a tour of larger scale solar photo-voltaic installations in southern California this past September. With 20 views, this happens to be one of my most popular flickr photos (pretty pathetic, I know!!!) I was actually out at the National Solar Power 2007 Conference in Long Beach, CA on a teacher scholarship from our local energy utility to learn more about the solar power industry. More on the conference at a separate blog I created while I was out there - Solar Power 2007-WE Energies Grant Program.













Devil's Island Sea Cave Column and Arch-My wife and I have kayaked the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior on three different occasions. We are pretty much beginner-intermediate paddlers and we tend to be pretty cautious in our trip itinerary. As a result, we've never been able to get out to the northern most island, Devil's Island. Devil's Island is known to have some of the most spectacular sea cave formations in the Apostles and arguably in the world. So when my wife and I caught the perfect wind on the third day of our trip this past summer and paddled out to Devil's Island from York Island, we were extremely excited. We snapped several photos of the beautiful arches, columns and caves as we circled the northern end of the island. Below is one of my favorites:













NCSS 2007 with Social Studies Department Teachers, Brian Markwald, Chuck Taft, and Will Piper-This was my second year in a row visiting the National Social Studies Teacher Convention. This year it took place in the beautiful city of San Diego, California in late November/early December. The conference itself was loaded with sessions dealing with web2.0 technologies, but what I enjoyed most were the many informal professional and personal conversations we had throughout the weekend. One of the main reasons why I love my work so much is that I'm surrounded with fun, creative and energetic personalities like Will, Chuck and Brian. Pictures from the conference may be surfed at my flickr account and I wrote a more complete summary of the conference in a blog post from a few weeks ago. My favorite picture from our conference is included below:















Michigan High School State Hockey Championship - In March of 2007 I had the good fortune of making it back to the Detroit area to see my nephew, Tim Shield, participate in the championship game of the state hockey tournament. Not only did Tim's team win the game, but Tim scored the game winning goal in overtime to help his high school team, Grosse Pointe South, capture their first ever State Championship title in boys ice hockey. What a great thrill this was! Below you'll see me pictured with Tim who is holding the state title trophy.














I said I would feature my top 5 photos from the year, but I'm going to leave it at four photos. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!!

A whole new way to go to a conference...

My experience at this year's NCSS conference in San Diego, California was markedly different than any other learning experience I've ever had. This is primarily due to the connectivity that the complimentary WiFi coverage permitted. Armed with a laptop, a cheap digital camera, and a few cheap web based tools like this blog, I've managed to not only process and reflect upon my experience on the fly, but to also report it out to people that aren't even here!

The experience has been amazing! I feel like a learner, field reporter, scribe, teacher, history buff, and a colleague all wrapped up in one. In a matter of 24 hours, I've broadcast two presentations that were each 60 minutes in length. The presentations were broadcast back to the school I teach at and to a few peers in my professional learning network. Both presentations are archived on my blog. While the presentations were in progress, I dialogued with my peers and colleagues via skype and the chat feature in ustream. Over the course of the day I've managed to take many pictures and post them online at my flickr account. I've saved a dozen or so web links to my delicious account.

Some folks might question the manner in which I participated in this experience as being overly connected. In addition to all of the online activity mentioned above, I've also conversed and exchanged ideas for several hours with my colleagues, Will Piper, Brian Markwald, and Chuck Taft. We've discussed conference highs/lows, individual sessions, ideas for projects at USM and we even talked about ideas for having one of us do another presentation in the future at NCSS. Perhaps the highlight was attending the NBC function on Friday night where they debuted the release of their archival media footage through HotChalk. I've also managed to meet and talk to a few teachers and students from other parts of the country-forming at least one take-away connection a pre-conference goals. I met a neat guy this morning who is a teacher at a private school in Hawaii (trying to arrange a school visit for us of course!)

This was an incredibly unique experience for me this year...I'm already looking forward to NCSS 2008 in Houston!!