UUSD Technology Showcase Keynote from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.
I gave a keynote last week in the district where I grew up, to teachers who taught me when I was fourteen, which was all kinds of nervewracking. The coordinators asked me to speak on technology, which isn’t my usual speaking assignment, and I was grateful for the opportunity to arrange my thoughts.
The talk is thirty minutes and includes:
- the two best lessons I learned from the two best math teachers I had in high school.
- my best guess at the value added by a math teacher to this post-Khan Academy world of ours.
- the three criteria I use to decide whether or not to invest time or money in a given tool.
- a fairly comprehensive list of all the tools I use in my curriculum development.
I also gave a workshop targeting math specifically. You can find the sessions page for both here: http://ukiah10.mrmeyer.com/
17 Comments
hillby
August 10, 2010 - 10:29 am -Thanks for putting this up. Seeing you get the WCYDWT lesson started helps me better understand the master plan.
I like how your language is evolving, from “create crisis” and “be less helpful” to “perplex them” and “be perplexed”.
Matt P
August 10, 2010 - 4:11 pm -Heading into my first year, I’m hoping to be more perplexing and less confusing, but I am anticipating some confusion.
Can you put up a link to the Olympic hockey graph that you used during the talk? Thanks.
Nathan
August 10, 2010 - 11:44 pm -I’m curious if you know if either of the teachers you mentioned are still teaching…
Mark
August 11, 2010 - 8:23 am -Thanks for posting. Knowledgeable, useful talk. Keep up the AWESOME work.
sam b
August 11, 2010 - 8:33 am -that olympic hockey graph is COOL. what blog spewed that out?
Dan Meyer
August 11, 2010 - 11:30 am -Hillby, I hadn’t noticed the same thread but I appreciate you pointing it out. I’ll have to think on where, if anywhere, this is going next.
Matt P, Sam B, got that link right here.
Nathan, both teachers are still working in the district, though, happily, neither one attended the keynote.
Mike B
August 11, 2010 - 12:58 pm -I am new to the blog and just watched your presentation. I got really excited about showing movie clips to my students to increase interest in the lesson by using Handbrake. I downloaded it, have been messing with for a few hours with no luck. After searching on how to troubleshoot my problems, I found this:
“First things first. Handbrake on the Windows Platform does NOT decrypt Commercial DVDs. Let me repeat this. It does NOT decrypt commercial DVDs.
Third-party software is required for this part of the process. (e.g. AnyDVD, DVD43 or DVD Decryptor)
(Note: Please note that these applications are not legal in many countries. You should consult the law in your own country before using these applications. We do not provide support for 3rd party applications!)”
How are you using Handbrake to show movie clips from encrypted commercial DVD’s? Are you using a 3rd party software?
David L
August 12, 2010 - 2:36 pm -I’m asking a similar question to Mike B – I’ve got a rock climbing video of guys free soloing over the ocean and taking some monster falls into the water. I see that video with a timer like the elevator video counting seconds to the decimal point to determine the length of the fall…I used Handbrake to rip the ‘chapter’ that I need, but instead of only the 45 seconds that I need, Handbrake appears to make me rip the whole segment.
So, how can I get only a little of a video instead of a whole segment? Thanks.
b chase
August 12, 2010 - 2:52 pm -Thanks for your excellent and humorous talk. As a third year teacher, coming from other industries and recently assigned from bio to integrated physics and chemistry (math is not so much my greatest subject and these are both math based topics) I find your presentations to be really helpful.
I don’t know how I am going to work it all in, but I do know that if I figure it out, I will have a much more peaceful year.
I LOVE “keep them perplexed”. Now all I have to do is figure out how!.
Monty
August 13, 2010 - 8:17 am -Regarding Jott, Google Voice is a free alternative (you need to have an active cell phone and Google account to sign up), just call yourself and leave a voicemail, it will be transcribed and can be forwarded to your email as well.
Michelle
August 13, 2010 - 11:19 am -Thanks so much for all of the tech info. I didn’t know about Handbrake and the rest.
Dan Meyer
August 13, 2010 - 4:04 pm -Nope. Just my Mac. That’s strange that Windows throws static at you. If I were in your shoes, I might to turn to this kind of Google search.
I crop the clip using QuickTime’s trim tool, which is as simple as it sounds. I’m not sure if I had to pay for the pro version, though.
Jackie Ballarini
August 15, 2010 - 8:49 am -The first thing that struck me was the fact that you were home-schooled for 8 years. I don’t think I knew this. How do you think this impacted the way you approach teaching and learning?
Secondly, I love the “respect the learner” line. I hope to enter the classroom with this powerful mindset each day.
Lastly, I appreciate the way you introduced each tool. You didn’t simply show them the technology you use, you instead showed the need met by each piece of technology.
Dan Meyer
August 15, 2010 - 4:30 pm -Not sure about that. Among a lot of good and bad outcomes, homeschooling made an independent worker out of me. When I got to high school, the pace hit a crawl and I freaked. I did a month of Algebra II homework in a night. I created a study guide for the open note freshman English final and sold it at $5 a pop. I taught myself the second semester of trig and the first semester of calculus over winter break and skipped a year.
I suppose that to whatever extent I value constructivism, it comes from my time homeschooling. Maybe that’s the biggest thing.