Name: Mike
Web Site: http://www.techtalktoe.com/
Bio: Mike Romard is the PK3 to Grade 5 Technology Integrationalist for the Pudong campus of the Shanghai American School. He blogs at www.techtalktoe.com/ and has a great interest in sharing essential web sites and web tools. After spending twelve years in the core classroom, Mike is happy to return to the tech side of education. He used to run a BBS (pre-Internet days) when a 2400 baud Sportster was one slick machine!
Posts by mromard:
- I went to http://dossy.org/twitter/karma
- When I saw that I had to provide my Twitter ID and password, I re-opened my Twitter window and changed my password to something obscure for this exercise.
- After entering my twitter username and password, I waited a minute and saw something similar to this on the right —>
- I sorted by ‘following’ so I would only see the twitters who follow me and I do not follow their tweets.
- It’s sorted by last tweet, so I clicked on their avatars and determined if the person was worth following. I searched to see how informative their tweets were – did it mention lessons or current events I found interesting, did they have links to possible useful sites, did they have some useful things in their favorites section, did they avoid posting frivolous stuff (ie I’m off to buy a chocolate bar)
- If I was impressed, I clicked ‘follow’ and I proceeded to write them a message (remember they are already following me, so this is possible) stating I found them with Twitter Kharma and what I liked about their twitter presence. I’ve found writing simple messages great for developing a positive learning network.
- It took about an hour. After the process, I closed the window and changed my password back to its original one.
Park some Themes at Google
July 23rd, 2009Google Documents just got more teeth — the introduction of themes makes creating a document online even easier.
I’m a big fan of Google Documents, maybe too big a fan as I have several older documents that I need to purge. But, there have been times I wish I had a template – in particular when I’m without laptop and staying with someone who has an outdated computer system. Such was the case this summer when my wife asked me to make a ‘nice’ gift certificate for my brother-in-law while we were visiting my parents; I inwardly groaned. But, Google Doc Themes to the rescue. I did a search for templates and was pointed towards the themes. I quickly found several certificates that could work as a starting ground. Similar to most Google Documents, it was easy to change the words, font, colors, positioning of everything. I quickly snagged the last magazine cover image and voila — several minutes work and I looked like a genius. And for those of you who don’t know the MoneySense magazine — well worth investing in, if you are Canadian.
For you savvy folks who can’t find your template or theme, make it – and share it with millions. Next time you enter your Google Documents section, you’ll see this option -> 
Personally, I think I need to add some behavioural modification checklists for my two active children.
Dazzles with WolframAlpha
May 20th, 2009
WolframAlpha is not just another search engine. In fact, although the founder refers to it as a “computational knowledge engine” I would refer to it as a ‘vanilla geeky sidekick’. Simple. Quick. A bit too much information sometimes and tanks out on easy and romantic stuff. But I like that. It fills a niche and I think it’ll be around for long timea.
A great video comparing Google and Wolfram Alpha (shortened to W|A) repeatedly emphasized it will not replace Google. Wolfram Alpha offers quick vital answers if people know how to use the right search terms. Once again – digital literacy is a critical skill to be properly instructed in schools.
So — how do I see Wolfram Alpha used well? Here are some ways I have already enjoyed it:
(1) My wife always wanted to go to Russia, so I used W|A to check the weather. I typed: “weather Moscow July” and W|A assumed rightly that I want the Moscow in Russia, but I could select others. Also it assumes the year 2008 but you could use other years.
First, I prefer graphs to charts. I’m a visual person as most folks seem to be. I like how it doesn’t just show the high and low temperatures, but shows the spread. I can see there were some hot days in the middle of the month. The lows aren’t that bad to require a sweater (for me) so that will help when I start packing.
On the same page, an even more interesting graph appeared. Over the month of July last year, there were almost four days (13% of the time) of thunderstorms and right after that hot period. Plus, I didn’t know it was so foggy in Russia – I’ll have to remember that for when I plan pictures.
This beautiful graph from the same page showed how Russia was overcast a quarter of the time and not clear too often. So between the fog and low clear skies, whenever we have them – I need to move fast and take some photos. Finally, friends are telling me, I’m very likely to get mugged in Russia, but all the searches with crime, mugging didn’t come up with W|A. So, I’ll have to visit Google to read some mugging experiences on some blogs.
(2) For exercise, I put “running 30min, 6min/mi, 40yo male, 5′10″, 180lb” and found out how far I ran, total calories burned, fat burned, my maximum heart rate, my speed and even race conditions of how well I’d do in a marathon or sprint. So then, I put “heart rate 40yo male” and found out my target heart rate range for exercise is 138 to 162 bpm with a maximum of 185 bpm. Well, 185 bpm was my run rate on the first search – so this may explain how I’m ready to die at the end of a run. I also liked the graph of my zones to help shape my exercise.
(3) W|A is great for stock picking too (and personally, although I’m no stock advisor, I think the next few months will prove to be a great time to have done the research and bought some) – I put “SQM, TNH, POT” to compare three fertilizer producers. You can find the revenue per worker, P/E, market cap, share price, employees, dividend yield, daily and annual volatility and look at some nifty graphs like the two below.
This graph shows that TNH and SQM have not fallen as hard as the S&P 500 index but that all of these fertlizer producers are volatile investments. The next graph offers suggested expectations of how the companies will fare. No surprise on the volatility, but TNH was clearly a favorite for returns.
With this data, I began looking more deeply into TNH and discovered why it is well positioned to turn around faster than POT and possibly post some better returns (ie. small cap, more speciliazed product, cheap labor, proximity to emerging markets)
Now.. if anyone figures out how to help me at my poker game (I tried poker, texas hold’em, probability) I would be most appreciative. Happy compu-knowledge assessing.Technorati Tags: WolframAlpha, search engine, digital literacy, google, research
Get Shorty
December 17th, 2008
Your votes are needed. The US election is done, so is Dancing with the Stars and American Idol is weeks away. So why not spend some time supporting your favorite Twitter friends by nominating them for a Shorty Award. You can nominate as many people as you like in any number of categories (humor, education, business, sports, politics…)
Currently there is a two way (12 nomination) tie residing between @coolcatteacher (Vicki Davis) and @rubylearning (Satish Talim) in the #education category. This is a great way to find some great educators to follow (both in the nominations and the nominators.
I’m just left wondering if the acceptance speech has to be contained to 140 characters?!
Holiday Cheer
December 12th, 2008
Forget the spice in your cider, use some of the outstanding Holiday clipart images from www.apte.com to spice up your blog entries this month. And fitting for the season, they are free! The clarity and vividness of the colors will make them favorites for any newsletter, year end note to family or cute stamp for your students. A simple submission of your email address is required, but the quality and quantity of clipart they have makes it worthwhile. Merry Christmas!
Expanding my PLN with Twitter Kharma
October 28th, 2008Twitter, a microblogging tool, is perhaps my best tool for connecting to other educators around the world. I find several useful links daily with it. Plus, I’ve received help to questions I’ve posted (ie within five minutes someone I never interacted with, sent me a link to download blank geopolitical maps so I could help a grade 5 teacher). But, I didn’t always think highly of Twitter. Initially, I zeroed in on the fluff messages about ‘pouring some coffee’ and ‘I’m baking some cookies’. Plus, the actual name didn’t jive with me. But, with the help of Simon May, I could see some uses for developing my personal learning network (PLN).
I heard about Twitter Kharma at the Learning 2.008 conference. But, I was on information overload, so it took until now for me to try it out when I saw another twitterer tweeted about it. Here’s how I used it.
Here are four gems I found this way – thanks to them for finding me first: mrsc2902, justinreeve, akipta, jerrycobbs
Twitter Kharma – worth the time in expanding your Twitter experience.
Technorati Tags: TwitterKharma, Twitter, PersonalLearningNetwork, PLN, Learn2cn
Learning to Change, Changing to Learn
May 13th, 2008Another gem 21st Century Literacy video which I found through a Twitter buddy – Rich White – from his website. Great dig Rich!
The title of this video struck a deep cord hold on me. I found myself asking – what can I do to help change? What got me started in this path was I’ve been asked to change the way technology is taught at our international school. Currently, students are dropped off for their weekly forty-minute computer class. Yes, it’s old school, but our school has a great plan which will commence next year. I do integrate because I ask classroom teachers about their curriculum, read their newsletters and talk to teachers at lunch; but true collaboration and deeper integration requires everyone moving forward in using technology. It’s not enough to do old things in new ways, but we need to open the path to do new things in new ways. Education will be no longer be restricted to the classroom, but the entire global community. Our task as educators is to create global and independent learners. Fortunately for me, my administrators are on board. They are mandating yet warmly supporting a more full and interactive technology model next year on this campus.
Education ranked #55 – the lowest in IT intensiveness of all industries examined in the United States.
excerpt from Keith Krueger
The coin of the realm is not memorizing the facts that you need to know for rest of our lives. The coin of the realm is do you know how to find information, do you know how to validate it, do you know how to synthesize it, do you know how to leverage it, do you know how to communicate it, do you know how to collaborate with it, do you know how to problem solve with it. That’s the new 21st century set of literacies.
excerpt from Ken Kay
I always enjoy finding a great new video or blog. If you send one my way to view [mike (dot) romard (at) saschina (dot) org] – I’ll give you full credit in my review. Cheers!
Technorati Tags: literacy, change, learning, richwhite, 21st century literacy
