Blue Whale Challenge

Don't download the Blue Whale App or visit accompanying web sites. Don't be a Blue Whale Victim. Don't let your friends mess with the Blue Whale Challenge. Stay away from the Blue Whale Challenge.

View the insidious details at http://www.computerworld.com/article/3195834/security/schools-in-alabama-warn-parents-about-blue-whale-suicide-game-app.html

Peer Feedback

Often, the rubrics I return to students as part of a project evaluation end up in a digital dust bin, or, they may never even be viewed by the students. There are likely lots of causes for the supposed disinterest in evaluations, but I imagine the arcane nature of rubrics and the well aged evaluator both detract from their appeal. Evidence supports the notion that peer review can be valuable for the reviewer and those reviewed, and I suspect that kids are innately more interested in what their peers think, than in what their middle old aged teacher has to offer.

I wondered how an evaluation process might be simplified for use by peers while evaluating student work in a video production class. Early efforts resulted in a simple form which collected ratings on four three areas; videography, audio quality, and overall video effectiveness. Technically, the process worked. It resulted in a neat table being shared with each students.

Whose video did you just watch?	All shots were well composed. (4 is highest)	The audio was good. (4 is highest)	The video worked. (4 is highest)	Constructive feedback
Adam	4	4	4
Adam	3	4	4
Adam	4	4	4	Good job
Adam	4	4	3	Thought the teacher concept was a little off.
adam	4	4	4	Music fit very well
Adam	4	4	4
Adam	4	4	4	love this so much
Adam	3	4	4	when the teacher throws phone lighting is too dark
Adam	4	4	4	I liked the title and how Nick was dramatic when the teacher took his phone away. The background music was really appropriate and fit well.

Sample peer review

The above review is a small sample. When 20-30 students responded, the results were a bit overwhelming. Only a real math nerd would be able to make sense of the raw statistics, and that meant only a few students might ever get to the point of synthesizing the information and acting on it. I really wanted students to wonder, "How would I improve the deficit my friends identified?" I witnessed students glancing quickly at the mass of text, and moving on. That's not what I was hoping for. I was really dissatisfied and wanted to find a solid way to graphically represent the cumulative results in a way that would help students visualize the feedback.

Happily, I was able add a few functions to the form's spreadsheet to make it easy to help students visualize what their peers were seeing, hearing, and thinking. By taking the same results and filtering based on student names, GSheets was able to make a table containing individual's evaluations. From there, charts helping visualize the data were just a click away. Sharing a PDF of the resultant visualization and written feedback with each student was quick and painless. I am looking forward to seeing how students interpret the information and if this graphical format generates greater interest. Stay tuned...

If you would like to use a similar system with your students, you are encouraged to copy this spreadsheet and make it your own and customize it. If you would like help with it let me know.

Reading Street and Printing, Part Two

Nearly a year ago, I wrote about how to toggle your MacBook's Chrome browser between displaying and printing PDF files and playing the media embedded in Reading Street's PDF files. The ability to toggle is still there, but newer versions of Chrome have changed the location of the setting to be adjusted. The good news is you can still have both Reading Street and Printing. The presentation and video below show how:

Social Engineering Bytes

Green is for go! Green is good, right? Not always. Big green download buttons are making their presence felt in EWG, manifesting as browser hijacks, home page redirects, and probably other, more insidious malware.

Beware big, green
download buttons!

A lot of the services and tools we use as educators are of the free variety. And the majority are excellent and respectful of privacy - yours and your students. But not all. Remember, free does not mean without cost. People and companies don't build web sites and services just to dispense excess altruism. The profit motive is always near the surface.

Advertising makes up a sizable portion of income for providers of 'free' services. Getting a click through (getting someone to click on something) on an advertisement adds even greater value to the advertiser and the owners of the service on which the advertisement is displayed. That is one reason why social engineers work so diligently - and craftily - to get you to click on something.

Here's the kicker. Not all advertisements are from companies that offer a service in which you might be interested. Some simply want to mine you for personal information because your information is worth money. So look carefully at what you are about to click. Be skeptical. Question everything, and watch out for big green download buttons.

The video below shows two examples of the big green download button.

I know what I'm going to do when I get home...

Sue Millar starting investigating Skype in the Classroom last fall. Skype in the Classroom contains a pile of resources to bring experts into your classroom, take students on virtual field trips, and engage kids in geography rich Mystery

Video conference with Margo Sorenson and
Mrs. Millar's students

Skypes, among other activities through which a classroom might be reinvented.

Getting started can tax one's courage reserves. As Sue pointed out, "I scheduled a number of Mystery Skypes which, for one reason or another, never materialized."  "I got stood up a few times." she added. It is probable that teachers got busy, fire drills happened, or assessments won out. I thought she had given up, and was surprised to hear that she connected to a second grade classroom from Michigan for a Mystery Skype, a park ranger from Yellowstone who spoke in front of Old Faithful as it geysered, and author Anika Denise.

Learning that Sue and her students had just read Ambrose and the Cathedral Dream by Margo Sorenson, I invited myself to observe the upcoming conversation with author Sorenson. Here are some takeaways.

• The tech worked well. Really. Everything just worked - without a nerd's intervention.
• Our district's bandwidth rocks. While it was snowing outside Wawaloam, author Sorenson conferenced with us from sunny California. Her voice and video feed were of high quality and without buffering issues. She may as well have been seated at the front of the classroom.
• Practice made perfect as evidenced by Sue's comfort with and mastery of the tech used for the video conference. 
• The format was excellent. Author Sorenson gave a brief overview, showed students the original manuscript (including scribbled notes), and opened the floor for about 20 minutes of Q&A. Students asked all sorts of questions about her books, writing habits, favorite stories, and much more.
• Writing was the core theme. Students had to write their questions prior to the video conference, and also had to write about what they learned as a result of the conference.
• Her students are in to writing in a big way. After an earlier author conference, Sue remarked that, "My kids want to write all the time now." I mused, "That luster will fade." but learned that weeks after the first author conference, her students want to keep writing.
• The early morning PD, learning Skype, figuring out a new tech and developing new classroom activities did not happen with finger snapping expediency. Students' enthusiasm for writing has proven the effort worthwhile, though.
• The fire to write has staying power. After author Sorenson's Skype session, one student exclaimed, "I know what I'm going to do when I get home." "Write a book!"

If you would like help connecting through Skype in the Classroom or something like Connected Classrooms on G+, or can imagine reinventing your classroom with tech in way that goes beyond what you could normally expect to do with your students, let me know. I would be happy to help.

WeVideo Projects And Usage Stats

Students from many disciplines are exercising their digital storytelling voices through Wevideo. Recently, Mrs. Wilmot's AP US History students' created documentaries as part of a major course assessment. A few are included below.



If you would like help creating similar projects with your students, let me know. I would be happy to facilitate a project.

Several times over the last year, I was asked how the district uses Wevideo. From a tech standpoint, the included image shows usage statistics for the month of January, 2017.

Wevideo usage stats for January 2017

Aspen Course Recommendation Columns

Senior high teachers are enduring a bug in Aspen's latest version that causes the course recommendation columns to increase in width each time a grade is entered. After entering just a few grades, the course recommendation columns become so wide, the gradebook is unusable. The folks at Aspen are, reportedly, working on the issue. In the meantime, you can disable the display of course recommendation columns to prevent the columns from clobbering your gradebook. The included video illustrates the process.