Learning in the Lou

We traveled all the way up to Clayton to take Aidan to an audition and I knew the traffic coming home would be an issue. I know the route I would normally take but I decided to trust Google Maps to route us home. It was pretty epic. All I did was pull up the maps, clicked home and the robots did the rest. This got me thinking, what might be some other ways I can start trusting tech to assist me?

I'm kinda obsessed with all types of domains. Not a year goes by without buying a few. When I saw what Google is doing now, it kinda blew my mind. I had no idea domains could do this. Open a new tab and just type doc.new or sheets.new (This works as long as you are logged into your Google account.) A new doc instantly opens! This works for docs, sheets, forms and slides.

Short intro video of what Mystery Skype could be like. What is Mystery Skype?      I like to think of it as a modern version of twenty questions. One group of people ask another yes or no questions in an attempt to guess some unknown answer. The twist Mystery Skype takes is the two groups are geographically located in different places and each is trying to guess the other's location.      One more layer to add is a little share time at the end of the game. Each group generally takes time to share a few facts and answer questions about their location and school. First Steps      Create a Skype account.      It is critical that you make at least one test call to someone else to check your microphone and speakers. This might be the most important step of all, nothing is worst than making a call and no one can hear you on the other end.      Either join the Skype community or Twitter . I feel that Twitter is the easiest place to find and connect with other classes using t

Check this out! I was doing a search for cups to ounces and the formula appeared in the Google search. I'm sure I learned how to convert it but I can't recall.  It also works for that odd metric system. 

This post was created to help teach podcasting to a few classes. What is a podcast? A podcast is an on-demand video or audio clip that is usually published sequentially. A listener/watcher can download or have the media automatically pushed to their device. The key to a great podcast is creating a show about something you are super passionate about but not necessarily an expert in. What does it sound like? It is sometimes hard to define something that really should be experienced.  Task Listen to a tenish minute portion of one of the podcasts listed below. Some of the links require you to log into Google Play Music on the web. If you are signed into your school Gmail account it should just pop open. Make sure you scroll to the proper episode. Use the Listening Guide to help you focus on specific elements of the podcast. Sample of the sheet we used to guide their thinking. Dream Big Podcast - Episode DB 104: The Secret Is To ....SHOW UP! But Why:

This post was created to support the LHS English PBL classes.  Feel free to print this guide to help the students think and plan their shoot. 1. What do you watch now? This question helped frame our thinking around the videos we watch and why we watch them. What videos do you watch now? Why do you keep coming back? 2. Balloon - shot on an iPhone 6. We watched this video without any context the first time. For the second viewing, we split the class into six small groups. We then rewatched the video while the teams looked for one of the specific topics below. The big idea was to see how these video elements added to the overall story. angles the video was shot in movement of the camera sound/audio lighting cuts in the video who was the intended audience 3. T.H.I.N.K. This acronym was designed to help when shooting on a mobile device. shoo T with this storyboard or that storyboard H old that camera steady I nteresting surroundings N ot too soft, not to

This post was created to help support an upcoming lesson for an English 3 class. This is blog 2 of 3 in this series. Sometimes just listening to people talk about ideas is awesome and sometimes it can be rather boring. What if there was a way for a speaker to gather insights from those in the audience, do you think this might make a difference? One fun way might be to use a web app called Slido. The biggest suggestions we can give to the English 3 students is to make sure the questions and polls you use during your presentation are meaningful and add to the conversation. Getting Started Visit Sli.do and sign up by clicking the button in the upper right side. Next Steps 1. Create event . 2. Name the event. 3. Create . You are then presented with either crowdsourcing questions or running a live poll. Not sure what either of these mean? Just watch the tutorial video listened in each section. I chose the live poll for this post. Running a live po

Many of us have team pages both on Facebook and Schoolwires. Did you know it is wicked easy to just embed your Facebook feed directly on your Schoolwires page? Follow these quick steps to merge these two. Start by visiting the Facebook Page Plugin site. 1. Cut and paste your page's exact address. 2. I recommend deselecting the friend's faces option. 3. You should see this appear. 4. Click Get Code . Click IFrame at the top of the popup window. Copy the code that appears. Log into your Schoolwires page. Click the name of the page you want to add your Facebook feed to. Click the gray box. 1. Scroll to where you want the feed to show up and click. 2. Click the little < > button. Paste the code and click OK . Click Save .