I used SOM to set up an explanation for a project for my French II class incorporating the imparfait, passe compose, and present tenses. This SOM simply goes through the introduction of the project, its requirements, and touches briefly on the grading procedure. I'm currently in the process of making another one that shows an exemplar project and details the grading a bit more. Here's what I have so far, enjoy! In case you can't see the video I embedded, here's the link: http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/clhrVFEHV
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Tool #5
Screencast-o-matic (SOM) is AWESOME!! I had a great time playing around with this tool and am actually going to use it in class tomorrow. This would be so helpful for days a teacher is out of the classroom because with SOM the students can still get the exact lecture or lesson they need without the teacher being physically present. It could also be beneficial for students who are absent- they can just go to YouTube or click the link and get the information; what a time saver!
I used SOM to set up an explanation for a project for my French II class incorporating the imparfait, passe compose, and present tenses. This SOM simply goes through the introduction of the project, its requirements, and touches briefly on the grading procedure. I'm currently in the process of making another one that shows an exemplar project and details the grading a bit more. Here's what I have so far, enjoy! In case you can't see the video I embedded, here's the link: http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/clhrVFEHV
I used SOM to set up an explanation for a project for my French II class incorporating the imparfait, passe compose, and present tenses. This SOM simply goes through the introduction of the project, its requirements, and touches briefly on the grading procedure. I'm currently in the process of making another one that shows an exemplar project and details the grading a bit more. Here's what I have so far, enjoy! In case you can't see the video I embedded, here's the link: http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/clhrVFEHV
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tool #4
I'm signed up for my Diigo account and will hopefully start to play around with that through the remainder of this week. It looks like a cool tool to use and according the website, Diigo is, "a next generation social bookmarking and annotation service where you can highlight, tag, add sticky notes and comment on any webpages. With emphasis on collaboration and the power of the community, Diigo greatly improves how people discover, remember, collaborate, and share on the Internet."
Tool #3
So this a bit belated, but in response to tool #3 Google Forms, I can see how it would be useful in many ways. For coaching it's a nice, paerless way to organize times, voting, and get feedback on the season. In teaching, it's a great way to check in with students to get their feedback on what they know so far. The feedback from my 6th hour on what they knew by the end of tri 2 was very positive. They all expressed confidence in the fundamental grammatical concepts and varied degress of comfort with the more complex grammatical structures. This let me know that I"m doing my job right; that the basics are being mastered and the trickier things will get better as we go. When the chaos of coaching settles down, I am going to make a concerted effort to utilize more Google Forms in my daily teaching.
Monday, March 5, 2012
This is cool!
Synchronized Swimming as a Show
Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
Between the Wynn’s “Le Rêve,” above, and the Bellagio’s “O,” more than 30 elite synchronized swimmers perform increasingly acrobatic routines. More Photos »
By KIM PALCHIKOFF
Published: November 28, 2010
Multimedia
For an impressive, if oxygen-aided, three minutes, the audience mostly sees 28 dancing legs above the surface of the water, showing off a distinctively choreographed aquatic version of the tango. The swimmers’ arms, meanwhile, are furiously churning.
All together, more than 30 performers who have competed at the world-class level in synchronized swimming now appear in “Le Rêve” at the Wynn and in “O,” a Cirque du Soleil production at the Bellagio Resort and Casino. They are the most elaborate professional water shows in the United States, with a top ticket costing about $200.
The deepening marriage of athleticism and artistry is changing synchronized swimming, an obscure Olympic sport that was memorably satirized in a 1984 “Saturday Night Live” sketch. “Le Rêve” and USA Synchro, the sport’s national governing body, have a sponsorship agreement “to combine resources,” said Sandra Mahoney, the national team director. The show, which opened in 2005, will support USA Synchro financially, as well as assist with choreography and acrobatic training for the athletes.
“They, in turn, will be able to build our talent for the Olympics so that they have talent down the line,” Mahoney said.
Perrin-Stsepaniuk, 26, retired from competitive synchronized swimming for France six years ago to turn pro and join “Le Rêve,” which means “The Dream.” Her husband, Raman Stsepaniuk, 32, is a former member of Belorussia’s national acrobatic team and now is an aerialist in the same show. He performs at heights of more than 65 feet; she performs in a pool full of former Olympians and the 16 scuba divers who provide them with oxygen.
So many former elite athletes work in shows here that some jokingly refer to Las Vegas Boulevard as the Vegas Olympic Village. Many come to work for Cirque du Soleil, which produces seven shows on the Strip and employs 451 performers.
“Synchronized swimming doesn’t have a professional league,” Mahoney said.
“They found a really successful niche in Las Vegas; it’s a great thing,” she added, echoing other synchronized swimming coaches.
Making the transition to entertainment is not always easy for the athletes.
When “O” opened in 1998, said Pavel Brun, the show’s original artistic director, “it took a lot of time and effort for many of them to understand that they were no longer in sports; they were in the theater.”
“Sometimes it was very hard for former Olympians to ‘step down’ to showbiz,” he said by phone from Moscow. “The biggest challenge was for them to realize that it’s not a step down at all, but a step into a completely different reality, where their athletic skills aren’t everything.”
At the Bellagio, the job of transforming athletes is left to Maurizia Cecconi, a two-time Olympian for Italy and, until recently, a swimmer in “Le Rêve.”
“In competitive synchronized swimming, it’s about face and arms,” she said. “As a performer, it’s more about feet. We tell them to imagine that at the end of their feet sticking out of the water is a telescope, and then tell them to make their feet act like they are surprised to be there, little by little, and finally, happy to see each other. We ask them to express happiness and sadness with their feet.”
But the breathtaking display that may look easy to audiences is exhausting.
“In addition to onstage rehearsals, we have personal trainers for overall physical preparation,” said Dacha Nedorezova, a former European champion from Russia who choreographed the tango. “We also offer dance, acrobatic training, aerial and acting.”
Professional scouts searching for that rare combination of athletic skill and artistic aptitude handpick the performers.
When Perrin-Stsepaniuk tried out for “Le Rêve,” she went through intensive water and land-based exercises that included learning dance choreography and demonstrating acting ability and other creative elements. In addition to her two nightly performances, she trains about two hours a day, often between shows.
In the “O” show, traditional circus acts like trapeze, contortion, high bar and even high diving are combined with the synchronized swimmers, whose costumes include masks with three-foot-long hair.
“There is something very enticing, sensual, athletic and beautiful about movement in the water,” said Chris Carver, a four-time United States Olympic synchronized swimming coach whose coaching career began in 1960. A big fan of both shows, she said she traveled to Las Vegas to watch seven of her former competitive swimmers perform.
Many credit the Las Vegas shows for influencing the new direction of the sport to include more daring acrobatic moves. Using jumps, double back flips and handstands, choreographers are spicing up their swimmers’ routines with moves that have more than one coach worrying about injuries.
“Everyone wants to increase the difficulty of their routine and the ‘wow’ factor,” Mahoney said. “The more acrobatics you do, the more difficulty points you get. Now it’s not a question of how risky is the move, but how many people can you lift, or does it spin up or down?”
Competitors have welcomed the change, Carver said.
“Synchronized swimming was becoming too ‘drill team,’ ” she said. “Swimmers wanted something different.”
Carver cautioned that falling on water is like landing on concrete. “We need to regulate and ensure the safety of the athletes, a critical factor in our sport,” she said, “and we need to be free from the rise of concussions and impact-type injuries.”
When Tammy McGregor coached the 2008 Olympic synchronized swimming team, she took her athletes to the Circus Center San Francisco to learn to integrate more acrobatics into their routines.
Young girls, she said, “like the risk factor and basically want to do tricks in the water.” Unlike Mahoney, she said she thought these changes were less about the newer Vegas shows and more about an evolution of the sport.
“It’s been coming since before the shows,” McGregor said. “The Russians have been really advancing the role of acrobatics in synchro. They have a swimmer who can jump 15 feet in the air.”
“It’s a contact sport now,” she added. “So they can’t ridicule us anymore.”
All together, more than 30 performers who have competed at the world-class level in synchronized swimming now appear in “Le Rêve” at the Wynn and in “O,” a Cirque du Soleil production at the Bellagio Resort and Casino. They are the most elaborate professional water shows in the United States, with a top ticket costing about $200.
The deepening marriage of athleticism and artistry is changing synchronized swimming, an obscure Olympic sport that was memorably satirized in a 1984 “Saturday Night Live” sketch. “Le Rêve” and USA Synchro, the sport’s national governing body, have a sponsorship agreement “to combine resources,” said Sandra Mahoney, the national team director. The show, which opened in 2005, will support USA Synchro financially, as well as assist with choreography and acrobatic training for the athletes.
“They, in turn, will be able to build our talent for the Olympics so that they have talent down the line,” Mahoney said.
Perrin-Stsepaniuk, 26, retired from competitive synchronized swimming for France six years ago to turn pro and join “Le Rêve,” which means “The Dream.” Her husband, Raman Stsepaniuk, 32, is a former member of Belorussia’s national acrobatic team and now is an aerialist in the same show. He performs at heights of more than 65 feet; she performs in a pool full of former Olympians and the 16 scuba divers who provide them with oxygen.
So many former elite athletes work in shows here that some jokingly refer to Las Vegas Boulevard as the Vegas Olympic Village. Many come to work for Cirque du Soleil, which produces seven shows on the Strip and employs 451 performers.
“Synchronized swimming doesn’t have a professional league,” Mahoney said.
“They found a really successful niche in Las Vegas; it’s a great thing,” she added, echoing other synchronized swimming coaches.
Making the transition to entertainment is not always easy for the athletes.
When “O” opened in 1998, said Pavel Brun, the show’s original artistic director, “it took a lot of time and effort for many of them to understand that they were no longer in sports; they were in the theater.”
“Sometimes it was very hard for former Olympians to ‘step down’ to showbiz,” he said by phone from Moscow. “The biggest challenge was for them to realize that it’s not a step down at all, but a step into a completely different reality, where their athletic skills aren’t everything.”
At the Bellagio, the job of transforming athletes is left to Maurizia Cecconi, a two-time Olympian for Italy and, until recently, a swimmer in “Le Rêve.”
“In competitive synchronized swimming, it’s about face and arms,” she said. “As a performer, it’s more about feet. We tell them to imagine that at the end of their feet sticking out of the water is a telescope, and then tell them to make their feet act like they are surprised to be there, little by little, and finally, happy to see each other. We ask them to express happiness and sadness with their feet.”
But the breathtaking display that may look easy to audiences is exhausting.
“In addition to onstage rehearsals, we have personal trainers for overall physical preparation,” said Dacha Nedorezova, a former European champion from Russia who choreographed the tango. “We also offer dance, acrobatic training, aerial and acting.”
Professional scouts searching for that rare combination of athletic skill and artistic aptitude handpick the performers.
When Perrin-Stsepaniuk tried out for “Le Rêve,” she went through intensive water and land-based exercises that included learning dance choreography and demonstrating acting ability and other creative elements. In addition to her two nightly performances, she trains about two hours a day, often between shows.
In the “O” show, traditional circus acts like trapeze, contortion, high bar and even high diving are combined with the synchronized swimmers, whose costumes include masks with three-foot-long hair.
“There is something very enticing, sensual, athletic and beautiful about movement in the water,” said Chris Carver, a four-time United States Olympic synchronized swimming coach whose coaching career began in 1960. A big fan of both shows, she said she traveled to Las Vegas to watch seven of her former competitive swimmers perform.
Many credit the Las Vegas shows for influencing the new direction of the sport to include more daring acrobatic moves. Using jumps, double back flips and handstands, choreographers are spicing up their swimmers’ routines with moves that have more than one coach worrying about injuries.
“Everyone wants to increase the difficulty of their routine and the ‘wow’ factor,” Mahoney said. “The more acrobatics you do, the more difficulty points you get. Now it’s not a question of how risky is the move, but how many people can you lift, or does it spin up or down?”
Competitors have welcomed the change, Carver said.
“Synchronized swimming was becoming too ‘drill team,’ ” she said. “Swimmers wanted something different.”
Carver cautioned that falling on water is like landing on concrete. “We need to regulate and ensure the safety of the athletes, a critical factor in our sport,” she said, “and we need to be free from the rise of concussions and impact-type injuries.”
When Tammy McGregor coached the 2008 Olympic synchronized swimming team, she took her athletes to the Circus Center San Francisco to learn to integrate more acrobatics into their routines.
Young girls, she said, “like the risk factor and basically want to do tricks in the water.” Unlike Mahoney, she said she thought these changes were less about the newer Vegas shows and more about an evolution of the sport.
“It’s been coming since before the shows,” McGregor said. “The Russians have been really advancing the role of acrobatics in synchro. They have a swimmer who can jump 15 feet in the air.”
“It’s a contact sport now,” she added. “So they can’t ridicule us anymore.”
Synchro Facts
In honor of the first day of swim practice this season, here are some fun facts from Wikipedia about synchronized swimming.
History
At the turn of the 20th century, synchronized swimming was known as water ballet. The first recorded competition was in 1891 in Berlin, Germany. Many swim clubs were formed around that time, and the sport simultaneously developed within several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the USA. As well as existing as a sport, it often constituted a popular addition to Music Hall evenings, in the larger variety theatres of London or Glasgow which were equipped with huge on-stage water tanks for the purpose.
While exclusively a sport performed by men in its first days, it quickly became a women's sport because the nature of the physical movements are more suitable to the female physique (i.e. center of gravity). In 1907, Australian Annette Kellerman popularized the sport when she performed in a glass tank as an underwater ballerina in the New York Hippodrome. After experimenting with various diving actions and stunts in the water, Katherine Curtis started one of the first water ballet clubs at the University of Chicago, where the team began executing strokes, "tricks," and floating formations. On May 27, 1939, the first U.S. synchronized swimming competition took place at Wright Junior College between Wright and the Chicago Teachers' College.
In 1924, the first competition in North America was in Montreal, with Peg Seller as the first champion. Other important pioneers for the sport are Beulah Gundling, Käthe Jacobi, Marion Kane Elston, Dawn Bean, Billie MacKellar, Teresa Anderson and Gail Johnson. Many of the competitions in those days were still done in lakes and rivers.
But it was National AAU champion swimmer, Esther Williams, who popularized synchronized swimming through (often elaborately staged) scenes in Hollywood films such as Bathing Beauty (1944), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), and Jupiter's Darling (1955). In the 1970s and 80s, Ft. Lauderdale swimming champion Charkie Phillips revived water ballet on television with The Krofftettes in The Brady Bunch Hour (1976–77), NBC's The Big Show (1980), and then on screen with Miss Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper (1981).
History
At the turn of the 20th century, synchronized swimming was known as water ballet. The first recorded competition was in 1891 in Berlin, Germany. Many swim clubs were formed around that time, and the sport simultaneously developed within several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the USA. As well as existing as a sport, it often constituted a popular addition to Music Hall evenings, in the larger variety theatres of London or Glasgow which were equipped with huge on-stage water tanks for the purpose.
While exclusively a sport performed by men in its first days, it quickly became a women's sport because the nature of the physical movements are more suitable to the female physique (i.e. center of gravity). In 1907, Australian Annette Kellerman popularized the sport when she performed in a glass tank as an underwater ballerina in the New York Hippodrome. After experimenting with various diving actions and stunts in the water, Katherine Curtis started one of the first water ballet clubs at the University of Chicago, where the team began executing strokes, "tricks," and floating formations. On May 27, 1939, the first U.S. synchronized swimming competition took place at Wright Junior College between Wright and the Chicago Teachers' College.
In 1924, the first competition in North America was in Montreal, with Peg Seller as the first champion. Other important pioneers for the sport are Beulah Gundling, Käthe Jacobi, Marion Kane Elston, Dawn Bean, Billie MacKellar, Teresa Anderson and Gail Johnson. Many of the competitions in those days were still done in lakes and rivers.
Origins
In 1933–1934 Kathryn Curtis organized a show, "The Modern Mermaids," for the World Exhibition weird people in Chicago, which the announcer introduced as "Synchronized Swimming." This was the first mentioning of the term synchronized swimming, although Curtis still used the term rhythmic swimming in her book, Rhythmic Swimming: A Source Book of Synchronized Swimming and Water Pageantry (Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Co., 1936). See a photo of Motherwell's Rhythmic Swimming Display, 1946.But it was National AAU champion swimmer, Esther Williams, who popularized synchronized swimming through (often elaborately staged) scenes in Hollywood films such as Bathing Beauty (1944), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), and Jupiter's Darling (1955). In the 1970s and 80s, Ft. Lauderdale swimming champion Charkie Phillips revived water ballet on television with The Krofftettes in The Brady Bunch Hour (1976–77), NBC's The Big Show (1980), and then on screen with Miss Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper (1981).
Synchro as an Olympic sport
Although first demonstrated at the 1952 Olympic Games, synchronized swimming did not become an official Olympic sport until the 1984 Summer Olympic Games.[1] It was not until 1968 that synchronized swimming became officially recognized by FINA as the fourth water sport next to swimming, platform diving and water polo.
From 1984 through 1992, the Summer Olympic Games featured solo and duet competitions, but they both were dropped in 1996 in favor of team competition. At the 2000 Olympic Games, however, the duet competition was restored and is now featured alongside the team competition.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Happiness Makes Your Brain Work Better
A cool article from a friend:
Happiness Makes Your Brain Work Better
A Harvard psychology researcher explains that rather than thinking of success as the source of happiness, we should think of happiness as a source of success--and one that's more under out control than we imagine.
Entrepreneurs, in general, are strivers. We set targets, battle to meet them, and believe that getting to that point, whatever it is, will bring us increased satisfaction. But according to one positive psychology researcher out of Harvard, as commonsensical as this tendency to chase achievement in order to attain greater happiness may sound, it's actually got the equation reversed.
In a fascinating (and funny) TEDxBloomington talk, Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, argues that while we may think success will bring us happiness, the lab-validated truth is that happiness brings us more success. And understanding this is particularly valuable for entrepreneurs, Achor said in an interview. Business owners, he said, need to,Reverse the happiness and success formula. We think if we work harder and achieve some entrepreneurial goal, then we'll be happier. But the research is clear that every time you have a success, your brain changes what success means. So for you and for your team, if happiness is on the opposite side of success, you'll never get there. But if you increase your levels of happiness in the midst of a challenge—in the midst of searching for investment, in the midst of a down economy—what we find is that all of your success rates rise dramatically – every business outcomes improves.The brain, it turns out, works significantly better when you're feeling positive, so developing a sunny outlook allows you to be smarter and more creative. "We found that optimism is the greatest predictor of entrepreneurial success because it allows your brain to perceive more possibilities," said Achor. "Only 25 percent of job success is based upon IQ. Seventy-five percent is about how your brain believes your behavior matters, connects to other people, and manages stress."
If you're all set to argue that your level of optimism or ability to handle stress is out of your control and determined by either your genes or your childhood, requiring a Woody Allen-level commitment to psychiatric intervention to reverse, Achor would like to correct you. "It's a cultural myth that we cannot change our happiness," he said, explaining that:
Genes are really important to happiness, but that's based upon the cult of the average. What that means is that the average person doesn't fight their genes. So if you're born with genes for obesity or for pessimism, and you don't change your behavior than your genes win. Happiness comes easier to some people, but happiness is a possibility for all if we change our behavior or our mindset.And changing your mindset is probably less difficult than you imagine. "No one would think that something small could change patterns of pessimism from decades or from genes," conceded Achor, but he said research proves the doubters wrong. "What we found was something as simple as writing down three things you're grateful for every day for 21 days in a row significantly increases your level of optimism and it holds for the next six months. The research is amazing. It proves we actually can change."
So if you're looking for more ways to boost your personal happiness quotient, than check out Achor's TED talk below for some simple interventions that have been proven to help (they're towards the end). Or if you're more focused on helping your team perform better by being happier, check out Achor's recent Harvard Business Review Magazine cover story, explaining, as Achor put it, that "happiness leads to greater levels of profits. In the article I described some things you can do at a team organizational level" to promote it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang///id/1344
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Google Docs Rock!
I've chosen to use Google Docs to help make the end of the coaching season easier. This year, with 76 skiers on the team, I was sorting through a TON of paper, trying to tally up the votes for captain and the other awards on which the kids get to vote. Since the second tool is working in Google docs, and this mess was just BEGGING for organization, I convinced the head coach to give me the stack of papers and went wild :) I put this year's current votes into a spreadsheet, then made a document to record the various questions we chose to ask at the captain interview, and finally created a form so that next year all voting can be done on-line, and, we can save a couple trees. It was really easy to create all of the things I did and I hope to do a similar thing for synchro in the spring. I'm feeling much more comfortable in Google Docs now and am glad I had the opportunity to get so much practice.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
6 more weeks?
Well Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, but I'm doubtful we'll really get 6 more weeks of winter. In fact, since February is officially here, I'm as ready to change weather season as I am coaching seasons. Not gonna lie, it was nice standing out in the 40 degree F weather yesterday for the cross country ski conference meet, but at the same time depressing to look outside of the 2.5km loop of snow and see nothing but brown. I'm ready for springtime green!!!!
This month's challenge is to get more comfortable with Google Docs and wikis; to create something that can actually be used in the classroom. I've used Google Docs with moderate success previously, but would really like to be confident in my usage and be able to more effectively use it in my teaching. It'll take awhile to figure out what I want to do...time to start brainstorming. If you have any ideas, please share!
This month's challenge is to get more comfortable with Google Docs and wikis; to create something that can actually be used in the classroom. I've used Google Docs with moderate success previously, but would really like to be confident in my usage and be able to more effectively use it in my teaching. It'll take awhile to figure out what I want to do...time to start brainstorming. If you have any ideas, please share!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
So here's January 31
I don't know where the time went! This second trimester always just seems to fly by since it's the thick of ski season (yes, even despite the lack of snow!), parent/teacher conferences, registration conferences, general daily planning for school, and coaching/training meetings for synchronized swimming already and it isn't even February!!!!
Anyway, it's time I write about who I've been following and what tags I've been using in my posts, so here goes. Since this is an educational technology-based blog, the tags I've been using have been mostly "French" and "Technology," with an occasional "News" thrown in. That pretty much separates my posts into things relating to my language, this course, and things that I find interesting or fun that have been in the news.
It's been interesting to follow my coworkers and has given me insight into some of the things that interest them (professionally and personally), inspire them in teaching, and cause problems (standards based grading!!). I think that blogging like this will be helpful because it allows us to see that we're really all in the same boat, share problems, brainstorm solutions, and give support and encouragement to each other in our professional journies.
I promise I'll be a bit more consistent in posting things I find throughout the month of February :)
Anyway, it's time I write about who I've been following and what tags I've been using in my posts, so here goes. Since this is an educational technology-based blog, the tags I've been using have been mostly "French" and "Technology," with an occasional "News" thrown in. That pretty much separates my posts into things relating to my language, this course, and things that I find interesting or fun that have been in the news.
It's been interesting to follow my coworkers and has given me insight into some of the things that interest them (professionally and personally), inspire them in teaching, and cause problems (standards based grading!!). I think that blogging like this will be helpful because it allows us to see that we're really all in the same boat, share problems, brainstorm solutions, and give support and encouragement to each other in our professional journies.
I promise I'll be a bit more consistent in posting things I find throughout the month of February :)
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