Kaulbach's Modern World

Incentives are the reason people learn because incentives drive choices. I could never admit this to my fair trade coffee drinkers, but I love Starbucks.  Every time I buy a coffee I receive a free app or song download.  My app allows me to earn stars that eventually gain me a free coffee.  And when I am lost driving x-country the map app points me in the direction of the nearest Starbucks and the nearest wifi.  But this is not a blog about Starbucks, it is a blog about incentives.  None of these incentives are really amazing.  I could find those same apps for free on line, the free coffee never applies until I spend + $15.00.  And I live in rural Vermont with the nearest Starbucks 50 miles away. Incentives are fun, I take advantage of them which makes me a bit happier to take time to spend money on a cup of jo.   Education works the same way.  Most of my students attend school because they have to not because they want to.  If we...

My Wall of Discussion at    Padlet Outline of Presentation Introduction- What is Haiku?   (Peter) management structure for 24 hour access engaged from anywhere in the world (teacher & student) Why we use discussion boards in a learning platform Problems of Democracy Haiku- add responses to discussion posts assignment list Assessment-  AP US History Assessment retakes Usage Statistics Data Wiki Projects Common Core  RH.11-12.4  Craft & Structure  WHST.11-12.6  Production & Distribution of writing. selecting a topic- collaborating and writing-  RH.11-12.7  Integration of Knowledge & Ideas Assessment Rubrics- Zombies & Asynchronous learning Video Discussion- NAFTA, Peer Editing (no picture!) student input- the Pen Pal Project -Possibilities video chats while gaming (Google Chats)  twitter publish   ie- theeducatorsroom.com Overview- I am a social constructivist. I beli...

Every Sunday my husband and I sit with our daughter after breakfast in front of our woodstove and read or listen to the NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz.  Most of the time we make fun of the program and award the person who yells out the most random and wrong answers to his questions.  But once in awhile, we get one right. Or we conquer the weekly puzzle and enter the drawing to be on the show. It is very exciting even though we have yet to win. I do worry about the influence this has had on our daughter since she now follows Rachel on Twitter and requested Will's puzzle books as Xmas gifts.  However, because of she obsession with radio voices and puzzles I have become enlightened once again in the field of education. I'm in love with anagrams. Scramble letters that turn into memorable phrases or names of countries or words with a "q" sound like cupid, or cubical have helped stimulate my brain during car rides, dinner dishes or right before bedti...

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...

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...