KS Educational Technology Conference

This year’s Ed Tech Conference theme was Hana Pono “to work with purpose/passion.” The passion was definitely evident in some sessions I attended. These presenters remind us that we need to choose what we are passionate about and to take action on it. We all too often get inspired then return to our normal life as we let our inspirations fade away. Our passions don’t need to change the world they just need to change ourselves. Here are a couple presenters whose passions have brought positive change to themselves and others.

The Green Bronx Machine
The opening keynote speaker this year was Stephen Ritz a South Bronx teacher/administrator who gave a motivating, high energy and inspirational talk on the Green Bronx Machine. The Green Bronx Machine is an organization founded by Stephen and his students who focus on healthy eating, growing their own vegetables to reach academic success. The Green Bronx Machine is an inspirational story that started out as an after school program and now has evolved into an award winning K-12+ model that is fully integrated into core curriculum. In addition to academic success their students and the Bronx community also benefit through job creation, community beautification, increased health and fresh vegetables.

Save the Honu
Katelyn Hirata is a six year old Kindergarten student whose was inspired to save the Honu “Turtles” from reading a National Geographic article. Her presentation reflected the depth of her passions through her project-based experiences, presentations, fund raising efforts and visiting real turtles. I think the Ed Tech Conference should have more child presenters like Katelyn that demonstrate not only technology integration, but their passions as well.

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Scratch - OWAU discussion 10/28

Aloha kākou, I while back, I learned about this product from a presentation at the eSchool conference. The speaker was so excited about Scratch and was having so much fun demonstrating it that my mind began racing immediately. "I could use it in `Ike Hawai`i courses and I bet I could use it to develop tons of activities for the A`o Makua `ōlelo Hawai`i courses". Then, reality set in as I returned to work intending to try it out after I finished my "next" task. Well, you know how that goes. 7 months later, I finally took a stab at it out of necessity of course. I really wanted some type of activity to teach my students about different Kapu in old Hawai`i without having them just read a list of them. So, what it Sratch? Simply put, it's a developer's tool (a very inexpereinced developer like myself). It allows you to create activities and games using "coding" that is in a drag and drop format. The codes are pre-written & range from phrases like ...

Geotagging

A "wouldn't it be nice" idea that's been around a while is the ability to tag a map with images that are linked to more information about the site. Kelly C suggested it as a way for students to share knowledge about a cultural/historic site or the geographic area they live in with classmates. (right, no addresses!) There are now cameras and even storage media that embed latitude and longitude into images as they are shot. But you don't need fancy new toys to do this. I tried Flickr's geotagging map and it's fun and supereasy. Want to try it? Log in to Flickr http://www.flickr.com Sign in as " techedine " password " wist101 " yea, corny. Click the " You " tab then the " Your Photostream > Map " or Organize > Your Map links. Click the Satellite link in the upper right. Cool view! (you may need Google Satellite downloaded). Images along the bottom of the screen with colored dots have already been droppe...

Papa Kuʻi ʻai a me Pohaku

As part of our huakaʻi last month to Papahana Kuaola and the opportunity to work in the loʻi, I wanted to continue that thought by sharing my experience of making a papa kuʻi 'ai (poi-pounding board). In 2008 with the encouragement from me and my co-worker, Pili Wong, Earl Kawaʻa offered to teach a papa kuʻi ʻai papa to those of us that were interested in learning what our kūpuna did as a daily way of life. For our kūpuna they had loʻi in their yards and grew their own kalo, the major source of starch in their diet. They steamed it and pounded poi or kept it whole and sliced it and ate it like bread with butter or condensed milk. Kawaʻa was very specific on our kuleana and the commitment he required of us. Our first task was to find an au koʻi (handle) for our koʻi (adze tool). I found myself suddenly looking up at every tree I saw looking for the right branch for my koʻi. My husband found mine at a jobsite from a Haole Koa tree otherwise known as ...

Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning (KSDL) Owau

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