McArthur Study

Will Richardson points to a new MacArthur Foundation whitepaper in his blog this week. Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project is an interesting look at the way students are interacting online with each other and the greater community. There's a substantial amount of information in the paper, but of particular interest are the findings around learning through what the paper calls "social and recreational new media."

My wife, Anne, and her colleagues are featured in an article in the Burlington Union about the British Literature textbook they self-published this past year:

Doing it their own way
By Jodi Blase
Burlington Union
Wed Jun 11, 2008

Integrating Google Maps into PowerSchool

I've been working this week customizing PowerSchool's default student "Addresses" page to calculate the driving distance for each student from their home to the school's front door, using the Google Maps API. In addition to calculating and displaying the distance, I wanted to provide a means of storing the distance in the PowerSchool DB, for later searching and reporting purposes.

I began by creating a new student field: Distance_To_School, and added an input box for this field to the Addresses page. I then added the following Javascript to the page:

// Imports the Google Maps Library
// key values are unique to each domain and can be
// obtained on the Google Maps API page
<script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key
=abcd" type="text/javascript"/>

<script type="text/javascript">

   var map; 

   // Creates a map object.
   function initialize() {
       map = new GMap2();
   } 

   // Gets the distance from start to end in miles, 
   // adding additional miles and displaying this 
   // distance as the value of the elemid input box
   function getDistance(start,end,additional,elemid) {

       // Get the directions
       var directions = new GDirections(map);
       directions.load(start+" to "+end);

       // Listen for the directions to load
       // This is necessary, or the function will try 
       // to get the distance before the directions 
       // have fully loaded
 GEvent.addListener(directions,"load",function()
    {
        // Calculate the distance
               drivingdistance =
Math.round((directions.getDistance().meters/1609.344+
parseFloat(additional))*10000)/10000;
               // Set value of elemid input box box to 
               // the calculated distance
               document.getElementById(elemid).value= 
drivingdistance;
    })
    }
</script>

I then have initialize() called on page load, and added a link to calculate the distance for each of our schools:

<a href="javascript:getDistance('1 Anywhere Lane, Ourtown
, MA','1 School Road, Ourtown, MA','.0500','distancebox')
">Calculate Distance to High School</a>

The additional distance paramter is provided to allow for the distance from the street to the school's drop-off area. This is important for us, as one our schools has a 1/4 mile driveway.

When I have more time, I'm going to modify the page so it automatically populates the distance using the student's currently enrolled school year, and possibly add an option to calculate using alternate mapping services.

Any other suggestions on how this approach could be improved?

Reaching Students

This isn't IT related at all, but I wanted to share a great article about my friend Steve Cassidy's work at Charlestown High School as a teacher and coach. Charlestown High is one of the premier basketball programs in Massachusetts, but Steve's focus is always on the kids:

From The Boston Globe:

"I'm a teacher first and a coach second," said Cassidy. "Coaching is another tool to reach the kids. There are different areas in which to do that, and sometimes you can't as well in the classroom as you can on the basketball court. . . . The more areas you can provide for the kids to excel, then you have a hook to convince them to want to excel in the classroom as well."

Steve is one of those people, like my wife (a brilliant English teacher), whose example inspires me to improve as an educator.

You can read the whole article at boston.com:

"Winning's good, it's just not everything." - The Boston Globe, February 24, 2008

Wiimote Whiteboard Project

I recently tackled Johnny Chung Lee's Wiimote Whiteboard project and I've documented the results on TeacherTube:



Getting Uwe Schmidt's Java port of the software to run on my Mac was very easy and I had no problems pairing the Wiimote with the laptop. I did have some trouble building the IR pointer, but that was mainly due to my general incompetence with a soldering iron.

The software isn't ready for the average classroom user yet, but at the very least it's a great proof-of-concept that an interactive whiteboard system can be built for a fraction of the cost of a SmartBoard.

DonorsChoose Helps Teachers Fund Projects

If you're struggling to find funding for a project in your classroom, you may want to consider DonorsChoose. DonorsChoose allows you to post a project for which you would like to receive financial support. Individuals can then read about your project and donate to you if they find it compelling.

DonorsChoose is to large foundation grants, as Virgin Money or other personal loan companies are to big bank loans. The scale is reduced, and the focus is on connecting individual donors with teachers, reducing bureaucracy, and creating opportunities for individuals to support education in an affordable fashion.

Many of the projects seeking donations on the site have a total cost of less than $500, so this is a great opportunity to fund those small projects that have been on your back burner... or that you've been paying for out of pocket!

Political Advertisements Online

One of my favorite online resources for use in social studies class is The Living Room Candidate. Created by the Museum of the Moving Image, this site collects television commercials from every Presidential election since 1952.

As we all become inundated with political ads during this election season, The Living Room Candidate can be a great resource to discuss how political ads are constructed to target specific voter groups, appeal to emotions, and even use subliminal imagery.