CocoLoco por Leer | C/L to Read: 2010

Teacher Evaluations May Get a Video Assist - NYTimes.com

Teacher Evaluations May Get a Video Assist - NYTimes.com:

My usual antipathy to all thing Microhard, make my reactions to this suspect, however, this sentence to me describes one of the core problems with MS in general.

"Researchers and educators involved in the project described it as maddeningly complex in its effort to separate the attributes of good teaching from the idiosyncrasies of individual teachers.

This statement, if true, would seem in its essence to negate the beauty of creativity, inventiveness in "good" teaching. How does one "separate" the two. And...they do not mention kids' evaluations which would seem to be key. How does the "complexity" deal with the following. How would they adequately evaluate something my first grade teacher did...i.e., haul us up on her lap routinely to explain something. Would that be a negative or positive in this much more "modern" evaluated world?

Mr. Gates is tracking the research closely. The use of digital video in particular has caught his attention. In an interview, he cited its potential for evaluating teachers and for helping them learn from talented colleagues.

Video can be a great help, she/me says from her own singular experience. In the only "education" course I took of value, we were video-taped giving a short presentation of something akin to our majors. I chose music appreciation. I somewhat dreaded it, and certainly thought I had given a pretty dull performance, when to my utter surprise, I found myself quite animated and interesting! My fellow videotapees were positive in their comments. So the good for me was that my glum self-view of my personality got a boost into the happier positive realm.

Obviously that could go the other way, but at least one would have one's OWN idea of whether or not others' evaluation had merit or not re that particular "performance."

Yeah, yeah, time will tell. Here's hoping it really is helpful for producing more great teachers.

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Tightening up Time

The Keynotes and Concept papers for both Connections and its offspring CocoLoco to Learn are both finally done. Now the "selling" to a government or int'l ngo begins.

However. I'm all too aware that now is the time to really clamp down on time use. A Google search finally brought me to OfficeTime, which while not free like a few others available, certainly seems to live up to its $47 price from reviews and a run through of features. So full-scale accountability will be implemented tomorrow. Wish me perseverance!

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Finally! Presentation's done

Being persnickity certainly takes time when you're working through three programs just to put up a little ol' Keynote (ppt in Microsoft language) on a blog. Lessons for the learnin'. But both the English and Spanish versions for Cocoloco are done. NO MORE CHANGES, PLEASE!! Even if they're self-imposed, they're a pain.

It's the battle between brevity and understanding. But basically the Keynotes are to just get funders interested enough to look at the long form which then really does lay it all out in near splendid detail!

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A darling Sitepal "Elf" for CocoLoco

One of CocoLoco's tricks to make learning interesting and enticing is to use "Elves"... little characters to make instructions and dialogues more fun and enticing.

I just copied this little guy from Sitepal's website to show you how attractive they are. His Sitepal commercial name is Chester, not very Latino sounding, so I call him "Benito" instead.

Here's Benito! Benito, a sample darling Elf!

Y se puede ver Benito con introducción en español!

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Gotta Learn!

...what would it be like if all the people who were experts, very knowledgeable, or extremely experienced and who really liked to share this "wealth" could easily pass it on via online courses to those who have never and probably will never have a chance for structured learning.

Online learning is all the rage these days, no? But recent studies show more and more online learners are dropping out of courses along the way. Well, CocoLoco wants to help learners stay the course...so to speak...and for many with few resources of education or money, just give them a chance to take a little course in the first place.

Team up with me if you've got some concrete ideas on how to present courses to people with very little education! Just add your comments to the posts.

OK, What's gLearn?

Well, when you're in Peru...or maybe any under-developed country, the overwhelming lack of a decent education for the vast majority is wrenching to comprehend. So, I got to thinking. There ARE a lot of people around both in and out of Peru who have expertise that they would be glad to share with those who've been at the mercy of delapidated, or very poor educational institutions.
So why not give both sides an opportunity to share. The experts or very knowledge get the opportunity to give others the benefit of their knowledge...for the good of all.
Ok, so how do you do that, you ask. Your provide accessible, understandable software programs. One for the course Builders to use to create a course; the other, a program for the Learners to use to take the course. Then you create a way for real conversations to occur within the programs.
And what are those? Well, just right now, I'll remain mum on that until the approach gets fully developed, but I thought I'd do a bit of blogging on the way. Since the great majority of we software users really are totally ignorant of how the wonderful, at times challenging, absorbing, and really fascinating experiences we have on the web, I thought I'd just be obnoxious enough to try to relay just a bit of what I'm gleaning about that software development world as a total neophyte. So, bear with me, here we go...

CocoLoco por Leer | C/L to Read