Kaulbach's Modern World

published links: E Literacy Changes Everything                   gaming                   gaming dialogue The majority of homework in elementary schools and high schools tends to be practice or preparation leaving less than 30% for integration, interpretation opportunities ( Brozo, 2010 ). The Common Core  is shifting assessment from a focus on skills and gains of knowledge to information analysis, critical evaluation, and expression of new understanding (CCSSI; www.corestandards.org). This means our standard practices in education are not necessarily preparing students for the Common Core.  Instead of causing great alarm this lead me to reexamine isolated practices in our literacy program that could be improved to promote information analysis and new understanding.   Review of our fall diagnostic testing allowed me to isolate inference questions as a common miscue.  5...

Screenleap        is a fantastic tool for distance learning. Flatdaddy needed to share  Haiku learning platform with me. Using Screenleap, he talked me through the tutorial as I watched him navigate his own screen from my laptop here in New Mexico.  This tech to tech connection gave me the impression that screenleap could be a useful conferencing tool to use with my own students absent from class. Students who attend ski academy, who move temporarily, who hunt for weeks at a time would not have to have the excuse of losing a classroom connection.  Does this excuse students from meeting daily in the classroom?  I think it makes a class of students reliant on each other if what they are missing is truly interactive. This is why I teach lessons that revolve around situation gaming both online and offline. Admittedly, I can improve how I actually blend the learning environments. image courtesy of Wikipedia.  Scribblenaut was introduced to m...

My colleague, Jim, is a guidance counselor at my school.  From him I learned a few simple lessons about education.  I came to him with concern for a student who was unable to come to class on time or finish classwork. This student was refusing to learn or to pass.  Jim came to the classroom door and asked the student for a hall meeting.  The three of us stood there, Jim led the short conversation with three question, "Are you coming in late? Can you pass if you do the minimum in class? Do you want to graduate?"   That student mumbled yes and yes and yes.  Jim said, Now repeat for Ms. Kaulbach what you will promise to do."   The student looked at me, and repeated that he would come on time, he could do the classwork and that he wanted to pass. Jim looked him in the eye and reminded him that he said this in his own words, the responsibility was his and he would let himself down if he didn't do these three things. The student did graduate, he was on t...

Check this out!   Global Meeting Room for teachers by Google.  I plan to use this tonight! (After my immediate research). Moving away from grading students on single opportunities for learning has been the best change for me.  I have, over the years developed practices for survival.  I sincerely try to help kids learn, praise improvements, document failures and refusals but always offer other school time to help kids learn.  Handing out quarterly report cards has always been a tense time. Now, with Powerschool grading we are learning how powerful adding and subtracting work to a grade. Kids are motivated or panicked when they view their grades going up and down.  I used to have students calculate grades on paper each Friday.  It took lots of time but it was the equivalent of balancing a checkbook, with a conversation around missing work, excitement about high scores. etc.   Numerical scores are powerful but often the power has negative r...

Who would've thought that a simple homemade toy, promoted through collaborative effort online, would lead to.... The Imagination Foundation?   Caine's Arcade.  Or that simple, impossible design could be immediately useful.  This following blog inspired me to have my own students create housing based on our world studies of architecture. Design Tavern Cardboard Housing         Why not? Cardboard is accessible and free, so why not let students' base knowledge combined with imagination produce something real? In this case, no costs, no repercussions with the possibility of it something being put to real use. This led me to think- with so many possibilities being shared on social networks, what are high school teachers preparing students for?   At the ISEA conference (International Science, Electronics &Art) 2012 Albuquerque,  the theme, Machine Wilderness provided a forum for global discourse on the blending of art, technol...

Distance learning. My husband is separated from me and my daughter by 2,000 miles during my sabbatical here in Santa Fe. We are determined to continue our traditional family time despite the distances.  How can we engage in meaningful dialogues that lead to less loneliness, greater happiness and motivation to appreciate all that we can from life in a new environment?  Our experiment with distance learning began with our Ipad.  Facetime  allowed us to bring " Flatdaddy " to the dinner table and eat as a family.  We could watch the sunset or the quail scurry in the backyard or just brush our teeth together.   Flatdaddy enabled us to continue the nightly storytime while I used a few moments for other chores.  Eventually, reading to a flat screen wore off.  Technology and the virtual world is no replacement for the real person.  Our daughter was quick to point out that hugging Flatdaddy was not the same.   Reading chapter books lost its a...

ISEA promotes international interdisciplinary discourse and discovery. (x)trees Agnes Chavez & Alessandro Saccoia ( Taos, New Mexico & Milan Italy ) Add caption Dual Visualization, video mapping & social interactive projections on a wall. Virtual trees created from thoughts and messages.  (x)trees is an algorithmic drawing of tree forms generated from tweets and SMS (text) messages.  We walk into this space and become surrounded by the everchanging trees.  With each text, branches and leaves develop as a result of the text appearing and disappearing. The immersion helps us acknowledge interconnectivity between nature and technology and public opinion concerning tree planting worldwide.  Because anyone can tweet, facts, quotes and myth are published onto the space. How does this work? The program scans Twitter for  key words that appear as seeds under each tree.  Then the message appears as a leaf at that moment in time. I was...