Longer Time Lapse

784 pictures is where it stopped today.  Buffer error something something couldn't write to file... oh well.  I filled up the SD card and need to learn to redirect my outputs to the USB drive ... more Python to read about.
8 second delays on pictures
1 minute at each degree.
784*8 = 6272 seconds running
6272/60 = 104.5 minutes running and degrees turned.

Here is our yard this morning.

(done on Aug 4.  Remembered to hit publish in late Sept.)

Wagah

Season 3 Ep 1 of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown... if you haven't seen it, you are missing some of the best TV.  I'm a huge fan of Bourdain, and also awesome video editors who can mold together conversation, sounds and street noise into music.  Truly some of the best produced TV I've seen.


The reason I bring this up is
1. Watch more TV.
2. Bourdain and his Indian friend/guide stood across the boarder, about 7 km away from where I am now, pointed out the issues of the people who farm in the no-mans-land and have to cross the boarder every day. Then they joke that people want to come from Pakistan into India, but "no one is foolish enough to go the other way."




They are theoretically in the background of this photo (~minus the time differential)

That is Janet with our lovely elementary principal Sue Boyer, standing in front of the fence... I'd imagine that if we had been there a few months prior, we could have spotted Tony in the background pointing in our direction saying "Yes, no one goes that way."

There were a few tourists there.

It was hot and a Friday and not very busy on our side, there were plenty of tourists on the Indian side.  We sat down in the VIP area.  There are bleachers that you can see in the video, divided up into men's and women's areas.

It is a Cricket match, Disney, and the DMZ all in one.  Ripqa, one of our teachers who is Pakistani sweet talked her way into us getting back where we did to take pictures of all the Indian's leaving and of the border area - the 0 line as it is called.  All in all, very fun.  Also unsettling when you notice the four guys, two Pakistani, two Indian, staring each other in the face right across the line while the whole ceremony is going on.  It reminds you that it isn't the mostly friendly relationship.  After a few of these ceremonies, you'd think that they would become friends, it is all choreographed very well between the two.  Happens every night and worth the trip if you are passing through Lahore, which happens sometimes.

Coetail post 3

Bedtime and GAFE

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Jeffrey Wrensen

Here in Pakistan dinner starts around 9 or 10 and if you are lucky or rich enough to set your own work schedule, you roll in around noon.  I know I’m generalizing, but this is all information I’ve been told by my Pakistani colleagues and friends.  Some of the local teachers are a bit ostracized from their community because they go to bed at a reasonable(for a teacher) hour, and are up at 5 am.  My students are from the wealthiest Pakistani families and tend to follow their parent’s schedule.

We all know that our kids need around 10 hours as they are growing, but when you tuck in at 12 and are up at 6:30, you won’t be getting the most out of school.

Google Docs’ favorite tool of mine might be the revision history (ctrl+alt+shift+g) or File –> revision history.  It logs the time that kids are doing their work.  At first I viewed it as a great way to see who was contributing to group projects.  Then I started paying more attention to when.

As teachers we become pseudo-parents as well.  We talk about bullying, eating right, recycling and can monitor all of this on campus.  Once the bell rings, the kids are off to their own lives where it seems to be a land of little supervision and lots of time spent with the nanny.  Again, I’m generalizing, but it seems like a fair generalization to make in my current and past schools.

I have been starting most of my ESL classes by pulling up the revision history and reviewing the importance of sleep.  I’m glad that the kids are working at home and on their own, but not when it is at 11:45 pm.  I encourage them to do their work earlier (I assign almost no ESL homework – we are usually previewing their other class work as a group), and if they have to, log onto their document, type that it is late and they had other homework to do and GO TO BED!  I’m lucky enough to have a small ESL group where they aren’t using this to get out of work.  However, they aren’t going to bed.

I’m fighting a losing battle though.  Their parent’s push for them to work hard and study late beats my argument for sleep and brain development everytime.

I also have enjoyed reviewing the full revision history to talk about group-work balance and I have the facts(history) to back up the students stories of who flaked out on the group or who was up till 1 A.M. typing away.

Coetail post 2

First Math Video

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Jeffrey Wrensen

Last week the first video for HS geometry went better than I expected.  I’m quite happy that the student who was sent to do the video was more adept at using the iPad than I was and had great ideas which I will be stealing for next week.  Their math teacher’s aim is to have about three videos done per week, one for each of the different levels of math she teaches.

First off, here is a bit of what I did for my fifth grader’s last year:

It was helpful for students who transitioned from the Vietnamese side of our school into my ‘international’ class.  The biggest change was that I wanted and insisted that they show their work and put down every bit of thinking on paper.  Long Division was one of their hurdles since the ‘Vietnamese’ way that they were taught, and had used up through fourth grade involved doing as much mental math as possible and writing down work on paper was a sign of weakness.  The other was just for homework help, mostly as a way to teach parents to solve problems the way we were doing them in class and not using algebra to help their kids.

My videos were a one way push of information, helpful, but just another re-hashing of what I taught in class.  Not a bad thing, but they didn’t add much to the learning process.

Here is what was produced last week:

We started off with blurry pictures of the book and the student had the idea of writing out the problem on the whiteboard tables that I’m lucky enough to have.  Most  of the process was introduced and perfected by the student, I became simply a system of moral support.  What she added to the Apps initial appeal as a record able whiteboard were:

– Photos

– Import photos from camera roll

– Screenshots

– Use the screenshot to move onto the next step/slide.

The gap between HS math teacher and a former 5th grader teacher(me) was that I thought it was important to review the algebra part, apparently it wasn’t.  I still disagree, but us teachers need to get together and focus on where her students need the review, both the student-teachers and students who need the videos as review.

ShowMe has a pause option, but not a rewind/re-do one.  One of the perks was being able to share the video file url without involving youtube (blocked in Pakistan) or Vimeo (limited space per week until  I upgrade to a pay account).  We lost that perk as we left the video recording as we discussed how to do the next slide and worked out a few algebra problems before hand so that it would make for a smooth video.  ShowMe let me download the video, edit it in kdenlive and then host it on Vimeo.

The student had gone through the problem in class and had presented it to her class and again to her math teacher.  After she produced the video she ran back to math class and said “now that I’ve really taught it, I think i actually understand the problem and understand why we are learning this.”

My role was the ESL/ICT teacher with the iPad, and now I’ve got a high school crowd of kids who can’t wait to master their work and make their own videos.  Of course enthusiasm for the newness is part of it, and that may wane.  Time for everyone is limited so we are doing going for three a week, but this will be a nice year long experiment to see how it helps in HS math classes.

We all know that teaching is a great way to cement learning, flipped class rooms are interesting, i haven’t tried it enough to write about it, but this falls somewhere between.

This is a good COETAIL blog, check out the sub-section Learning in the Modern Classroom.  Am I just doing something flashy and fun, or am I actually enhancing student learning.  I can call on my one anecdotal piece of evidence that the student felt she had gained a better understanding of the subject.  I have a lot more work to do to see the positive effects, or to just have fun making videos.  How do we assess this?  I’m not their math teacher so I don’t get to see them in class every other day, and tests still rule the roost, so I’ll just keep stacking up the anecdotes and student comments as new ones work with me each week.

I was also reading this blog – “Lesson #1 – Plagiarism” I took out the idea of identifying what plagiarism is and thought about replacing the teacher with one of the students.  Can we plagiarize (borrow) their understanding of a topic and let them teach it.  It takes away the task of introducing material at a students level, trying to remember what it was like when something was new and trying to meet them where they are.  Can we just ‘plagiarize’ them into being the teachers?  The cited source – the student has full credit on their classes moodle and if they have signed the photo release, we will be adding a quick intro to the video with their picture and in-video credit.

I love when students take over the teaching, usually as review, but I  want to do moreLearning through Teaching.

How must of our teaching load can we pass off to our students and how much will that help them learn?  I think that is part of the reason I’m here in COETAIL.

Coetail post 1

I've finally joined a COETAIL cohort.  I'm teaching ICT and doing a bit of tech integration at school.  Right time, right place, but two blogs.  Since everything I spew out is damn near pure gold, I've decided to repost all non-assignment posts here to our own lil Wrensen blog.

Hello world!

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Jeffrey Wrensen

It recommends editing/deleting the first blog and starting anew, but for a tech group, I don’t think that there is anything more appropriate than “Hello World”.  I’ve got a personal blog as well that mixes teaching, tech and traveling.  Not pushing it for any reason other than the posts on my experiences with the Raspberry Pi that may be interesting to this group.  If your interested it is at: wrensended.blogspot.com.

I’ve taught Scratch as an after-school activity for the past two years in Hanoi and just introduced it to my 4th and 5th graders here in Lahore today.

I’m also beginning to work with HS math students who will be doing short review/re-teaching videos for their classmates.  Hopefully it will be a version of the flipped classroom and a chance for those students who struggle in class to review material.  Most importantly, I’m looking forward to the students being the teachers, reaching full understanding through explaining their work.

What I considered before student produced videos:

• Easy to record (I used to do them myself with a document camera and a piece of paper)
• iPad exploration for myself – I was given one at school (I’m prone to Android and Linux)
• A way of exporting/sharing the videos that doesn’t involve the viewer downloading an app or registering for anything.
• I’m stuck at links but would like them to be embedded in a Google Site
• Free apps

Apps that I’ve tested and liked so far: Showme and Educreations.

We start creating math-help videos tomorrow with the high-schoolers and start recording video of elementary kids goals and hopes for the year (I’m the video coach/facilitator and editor).

I think I’ll have plenty to reflect on by the end of the week.