Academic Aesthetic 173: Midyear Review

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In this 'cast I discuss my reaction to our midyear evaluations (I lost sight of what I was trying to do - it happens).

Academic Aesthetic 172: Minecraft Lesson Video

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This is  a brief overview of Minecraft Classic (minecraft.net), how I related it to my curriculum, and some student examples.

Apologies for the size of the download (Nearly 50 MB, ouch!), but I unfortunately couldn't make it smaller without losing a lot of the quality.  Video is like that.

Academic Aesthetic 171: STEP Team Groupcast with Mr. Feagans

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Before our break officially started Mr. Feagans and I got together to talk about what we've been doing with podcasting this year and what we intend to do with it after Winter Break.

Academic Aesthetic 170: Minecraft

• Episode this time is 8.5 MB.  I had to use an FTP client to upload the thing.  That's how much I care.


• Powering Up With Technology conference was awesome.


• Minecraft shows potential as a tool for student learning in the classroom.  We'll see.

Academic Aesthetic 169

Moving right along.  In today's 'cast, I ramble on about:

• My county's Sharing Technology with Educators Program, or S.T.E.P.


• My new favorite Android App (still), AndRecorder, which I keep calling "AndRecord" because long names are abbreviated below my little phone icons.


• Gimp.org, because it's free and awesome.


• SumoPaint.com, because it as well is free and awesome.


• Frames, because while it is not free, it is still awesome.


• A rant against looking for things because they "work in the classroom."  That's great if we're preparing our students for spending the rest of their lives in our classrooms, but there's that "real world" thing going on outside.  Getting something to work in the classroom is good and necessary, but we should be finding and using things that will work outside of our classrooms as well as in them.

Academic Aesthetic 168: Quarter End Reflections

Today I teach my last classes of the Quarter, so as I reflect on the first 9 weeks I've asked my students to do the same.

Next quarter will be different.  Why? Because it has to be.

Oh, and the programming language I couldn't remember? Scratch.

Academic Aesthetic 167: It's ALIIIVE!

It's about time I started publishing these again.

Show Notes:

• Today is Day 3 with no intranet in my computer lab.  More like this and I'll start showing withdrawal symptoms.


• Replacement Technology = switching pencils for pens, but having students write the same things.


• Disruptive Technology = throwing out the pencils and pens to do something that pencils & pens would not help with at all.


• Even with only replacement technology in your lessons, you can be very dependent on technology.


• Always have a Plan B.