Category Archives: 1:1

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My Classroom Blog Is Open For Commenting

My fourth graders’ foray into the blogging world is now open. We are still discussing a name, so its current name is… “Name Goes Here” … which we laugh about, but we are trying (probably too hard) to come up with the perfect name. So anyone out there that would like to (please!) feel free to read some posts and comment. We are trying to blog a lot this week … we brainstormed some topics they want to blog about – some had a list of over 20 possibilities. You will note that most of my students are Second Language Learners (mostly Spanish, but also Vietnamese, Filipino and Portuguese). We will be trying to add posts all week.

Blogging can be messy!

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One : One Laptop Ramblings

Miguel started this conversation – Tom and Doug have jumped in … here are my ramblings:

How important or “worth it” are laptops, or any other technology? How valuable they are as learning tools should be the decider of how much we are willing to invest. Not that I think we shouldn’t expect that $200 dollar laptop, but it will be important what those $200 laptops can do – we have had PC4’s that could do word processing and some other applications for less than $200 but that hasn’t been enough – they were hardly used … what is enough?

Internet based software like wikis, blogs, and various web based, math, language arts, science and social studies pieces make operating system issues closer to moot all the time. To use them effectively with my students I’ve found I have to teach them to think differently. I can’t claim that it has been transformational or even “better” than what we were doing before … yet – but my students spend more time on task, and when I explain that we are going to use our laptops to do whatever, they are excited every time – even on activities we’ve done multiple times. We write more than ever – and I’m a writing project consultant and I already had my students writing a lot.

Our laptops are 7 years old – dropping and breaking has not been an issue, we spend some time talking about care – but the fact that this year the students have some sense of ownership helps – I’m sure breakage will happen sometime – is that a deal breaker? Tom mentions a 3 year shelf life – well we are searching the net, blogging, wiki-ing, word processing, using digital video, digital photography and more with 7 year old laptops – will we get less longevity later? Are we the exception?

Don’t do a 1:1 laptop program (Or any tech program) if you don’t already have,  “age-appropriate, curriculum-relevant things to do with them.” That’s been done many times and it doesn’t work any better than spending money on textbooks or any other educational tool you aren’t sure what to do with – and it makes us all look like fools. Technology won’t make a hoot of difference if we don’t do things differently and work and learn in ways that are more engaging and meaningful. And if we can’t do that, or that doesn’t work – then we don’t need to buy them or use them at all.

I’m not saying this alone really makes 1:1 worth it – but just the experience my students have had in the last month while we have been reading stories about animals they know little about (whales, rhinos, leopards, camels, kangaroos, elephants, armadillos, and more) – having them use our “Just So Stories” wiki to gather facts, but also to see photos and video of them – how excited they get and how as a teacher I find that many really knew nothing about kangaroos or most of the rest of the animals (assessment on the run) – how they moan when we run out of time. Just being able to build their schema easily and quickly in such an engaging way almost makes the cost worth it just for that.

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A Bit Of A Breakthrough

I know this may not seem like that big a deal to many, but for me this was a bit of a breakthrough. Last Monday morning I took my wife to the doctor for a check-up on her broken knee, so naturally I had a substitute teacher. The breakthrough was that almost the entire morning was done on their laptops with a substitute that knew nothing about using them. My plans involved them using our class wiki to access online math activities and later to do schema building pre-reading activities and writing activities and the students were able to handle that on their own.

When I came at lunchtime the sub was just awestruck that the students got so much done and were so on task (with a few minor issues from some usual suspects). “It was easy,” she said. The students noticed too. They thought it was great that even with a sub I could let them use their laptops because they have some basic skill now in using them and our wiki and more. Now understand we still have a ways to go – but they are really on their way to just using their laptops like any other learning tool.

We are pretty sure now that I will be able to roll this class to fifth grade next year and I look forward to seeing where we can go with these powerful learning tools.

Learning Is Messy!

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Nevada Education Technology Leadership Conference

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Update 2-28 / 10:30pm
Link to my conference Wiki.

This weekend is our state technology conference. Ian Jukes is the keynote speaker Saturday. From the conference website:

The theme of this year’s conference, Technology: The Great Connector , suggests the wide range of influence technology has on learning. Sessions and workshops will reflect this. Topics will include –
Connecting to Curriculum: student use of technology in design: robotics, art, buildings; integration of technology resources into classroom activity
Connecting to Leadership: preventing student plagiarism (defining it and preventing it through use of online websites such as turnitin.com), implementation of technology plans; becoming “highly qualified”
Connecting to Creativity: student productions (yearbook, newspaper, etc), innovative uses of PowerPoint, ActivBoards, and other tools.
Connecting to Each Other: blogging, using online resources such as think.com

I’m doing 2 presentations – a 60 minute presentation Saturday called “Tales From A Model Technology Classroom” (the classroom is a model – we might get there later). And Sunday I’m doing 2 hours on “Blogging and Other Web 2.0 Goodies.” I’m hoping to have a wiki for both presentations done in the next few days.

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Student Blogging Limbo

I’m not sure I would say we are going about this the wrong way, but we are trying to do many new things this school year. I have used technology with students since the early 80’s – but usually that has been limited – one or two classroom computers. I have had access to 30 wireless laptops for 7 years, but I was sharing them with the entire staff. Now this year comes along and I’m swimming in technology. Those 30 laptops, though old, live in my classroom, I have access to 3 digital video cameras, multiple digital cameras, scanners, and also a new Promethean Activboard. More importantly I have “PERMISSION” to use them with my students.

We are doing many tech/web 2.0 goodies, but we are introducing many of them at once. Again I’m not sure that is “wrong” – just that we are in early adoption mode in many things instead of learning things one at a time – becoming somewhat proficient and then moving on to the next.

Because of that approach we are aware of many things but still require lots of teacher support in almost everything we do.

Blogging is one of those areas. We have done some (along with, a 1:1 laptop pilot, digital video, word processing, internet research and applications (Wiki, Flickr, Skype, downloading video and images) but if you visit our blog you will note that 1) the posts we have done are not polished, we haven’t even agreed on a name (so Name To Be Decided graces it now) and therefore we have zero comments outside of our own to each other.

On the other hand as we learn we are seeing how these different pieces integrate – and as we do things and see the importance of analyzing what and why we are doing that work, we have come back to earlier work and come to terms with the shortcomings. Also contributing to that is how fourth graders mature – some students “grow-up” from one week to the next. An “its good enough” attitude one week becomes an “I didn’t see those mistakes? – I’d better fix that,” attitude the next.

So earlier work will become fodder for future learning and that can’t be bad. Look for us to come out of our “Blogging Limbo” in the next few weeks.

Also we have been working very hard on long pieces of writing that may become future blog pieces – although many of these stories are 2 to 6 typed pages … is that too long for a blog post for a 4th grader? These are pieces we started before we had laptops. They are stories about “Being Your Shoes” for a day and tell about a day in your life from the perspective of your shoes (this lesson is my best contribution on the Nevada Writing Project’s fantastic “Writing Fix” web site – Corbett Harrison has designed maybe the best web site to support writing instruction out there – with a little help from his friends).

It will continue to be an adventure to see how we progress – especially since I still hope to roll this class to fifth grade to continue our pilot and build on this year’s learning.

Learning is messy!

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So Our Goal Was To Make A Difference With Web 2.0 – Will We Succeed?

As someone who embraced technology as a learning tool early on (my first classroom computer was a 64K Apple ll – not even a lle) I’m right there with many in the edblogosphere that have come to the conclusion that the snails pace of adoption by many in education would be enhanced if we had many examples of it truly making a difference in schools. My class has now successfully included a student that cannot attend school because of her leukemia twice using FREE video Skype software (see here and here). Our plan is to do it as many days as she feels up to it. And beyond the obvious implications of that, what needs to be pointed out is that it was EASY. Beyond getting her a DSL line and computer, which took the better part of 2 months, setting up the Skype connection literally took less than half an hour at her house and our classroom combined. My fourth graders that came into this year having close to zero experience with technology beyond video games and phones, hook up the laptop and web cam we use easily after we did it ONE TIME (we’ve done it twice more since).

Will this make a difference in Celest’s life? The rest of my students’ lives? Others’ lives? Does this project have implications for web 2.0 beyond what we are trying to accomplish here (including someone)? Besides using Skype my students have already used Flickr, blogged, used email, word processed, used digital still and video cameras and planned a video about this experience – and we have only been doing it for 3 days. The exciting thing is we will experience the answers to these questions. More as it unfolds.

Learning is messy!

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Skyping Celest – Day One – The Whole Story

Wednesday

We couldn’t begin first thing in the morning because we had the NAEP test to do – one last obstacle to get over before we could try our grand experiment. The plan was to wait until after lunch and then connect-up (Skype-up?) for the first time. Fortunately, I had Celest ring us up as soon as the class went to lunch – this turned out to be one smart move because when we clicked on our video buttons our image came up right away but the image from her end was black. I tried the few things I could think of, all the time repeating to myself, – but it worked flawlessly twice last night!!!?

I had 25 minutes before eager students would return from lunch, so after checking out with administration I zipped over to her house. The problem? There were at least ten applications open. Windows – their only experience was with Windows – and I hadn’t had a chance to brief them about everything the night before. They closed applications by clicking the windows closed not realizing that that did not close the application on a Mac. I restarted the computer and made the return trip.

At 12:30 video cameras were revved up to catch the event from 2 angles. Students tried hard to settle, but most were on their knees in their chairs hardly able to contain themselves. To begin I projected the image onto our Whiteboard. A ring sounded, I clicked the green phone icon and then the video button and in a matter of seconds Celest, who had shown up on my daily attendance since October, entered our classroom for the first time.

Hellos and waves were exchanged all around – I pivoted the web cam around to each table in the room so all could be introduced. Faces beamed. Now what?

I disconnected the laptop from the Activboard and moved it and the web cam I had taped to the top of a tripod to the front table – the students there gladly made room for their new classmate. I pointed the web cam at the board and had paper distributed all around (including Celest) – Yes I know – why are we using paper when we have laptops and Celest obviously has a computer to work on? Composing on a computer takes some getting used to, we will get there, but we’re not there yet.

I connected my Mac to the ActivBoard and started a pre-write brainstorm about our experience. I adjusted the camera angle once so Celest could see clearly and she followed along with the session easily. After the brainstorm we all wrote a rough draft and then word processed them on our computers. At one point Celest got my attention and wondered if it was OK if she went to the bathroom – how cool is that, she felt like she was at school! I reluctantly allowed her to go (couldn’t she have done that during lunch? : ) Our school counselor, Ann Marlow, who made most of the calls that made this happen – including making the connection that got us the new iMac, walked through and said her hellos and noted the writing everyone was doing – she was both relieved and thrilled this was finally happening.

1st-day

When Celest let me know she was done typing I talked her through spell checking and some other editing pieces, and then led her through emailing her file to me at school. This became her first post on our blog.

About then it was time for us to go to the library, so we said goodbye to Celest since library would take us to the end of the day. And, after many goodbyes of course, our first Video Skype experience was over.

Thursday, Celest attended for a bit more than an hour – she practiced her multiplication facts online with the rest of us and did some reading before she went off for chemo. She paid us a quick visit on her way home just before dismissal – mask on, no wig – she couldn’t make it today – we understand why. Monday will be a fresh day – except that we have ITBS testing all morning – all week, so it will be afternoons only.

We storyboarded our video about our experience today using the Flipchart software in ActivStudio, we will try to finish shooting it and editing it next week with Celest’s help – if so I will post the video for all to see. The students came up with some great ideas.

Learning is messy!

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Paper, Pencils and Books May Not Boost Student Achievement – Reprised

Ron Canuel has a post in “The Pulse” today where he questions the research on using pencils and pens in school. It reminded me of one of my own from April 14th, 2006, so I am reprinting it here:

 

Paper, pencils and books have been used in schools in America for more than a hundred years, probably for more than 200 years, lets just say for a long time. This concerns me because It appears to me that they may not boost student achievement. Sure, some students seem to do well using them, but our testing continues to show that many students continue to struggle and more schools are added to the list of those not meeting adequate yearly progress every year. Some of these schools use paper, pencils and books to the exclusion of almost any other teaching and learning tool.

I’ve been doing some of my own research in my own classroom and my findings seem to bear this out. This year I was determined to use paper, pencils and books as much as possible hoping that they would make a greater impact on my students’ learning. I have them use paper and pencils to copy things from the internet, I integrate books into PE by using them as bases during kickball, I’ve even integrated them into lunch by using them as trays in the cafeteria. We use paper and pencils to word process, participate in our drawing program and sometimes we trace pictures from books.

I use the “extra” problems in the back of the math book for lots and lots of math drill and practice, and starting in our primary grades we use books to teach reading and math and some of our students still aren’t performing well, in fact the longer students use paper, pencils and books the lower some score on standardized tests. I have a file cabinet full of reading worksheets that stress comprehension and vocabulary so this year I’ve used those with my students a lot. They seem to help a few kids, and they were excited about them at first but now some of them groan when I pass them out. I just don’t get why the kids aren’t doing better. I’m using paper and pencils and books constantly. I’ve even started having kids write over and over, “I will write and spell better,” but that hasn’t seemed to help either.

My school district spent literally millions of dollars on a new reading series this year and on math a few years ago. Frankly it seems like money down a rat hole to continue to invest precious tax dollars into tools that have hundreds of years of trial and seem to not boost student achievement.

Is anyone doing research on the use of these tools to see if they should continue to be used?

What? Maybe I haven’t been using paper, pencils and books correctly to support student learning? Maybe I’m using them to meet the needs of the industrial age when we aren’t in the industrial age any more? Maybe I need training in their effective use and my learning curve might take more than 2 or 3 years? Isn’t that kind of like the study that just came out about computers may not boost student achievement?

Oh! never mind.

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Digital Video Class Just Adds To My Recent Optimism

30 minutes after Elizabeth’s presentation ended at 3:30 I was co-hosting a 4 hour class on digital video that will meet a total of 4 times. One area my school district has consistently tried to put tech into teachers’ and students’ hands has been digital video and photography. 7 years ago I took a digital video class that included a camera for everyone attending, and I have been hooked ever since. It is really what drove my principal to originally help write the grant that got us 30 firewire iBooks when they first hit the market. They are the ones that my fourth graders are using right now in our 1:1 laptop program.

On a side note, I felt my students were comfortable enough with basic use of their laptops that I have them using them with a substitute teacher in the room for 3 days – I know yesterday went well because I was actually onsite during our training so I touched base with both teacher and students and things went smoothly :  ).

I’ve taught this digital video class 4 times before, and one of my misgivings has always been that after the class ends, how much have the teachers used the camera in their classroom with their students?  Unfortunately, I’m afraid, not much. Only a very few teachers that I know that have gotten cameras that I have spoken to afterwards has ever told me about something they have done with students. But again, this group seems different. My cohort picked up on this too. This group was excited, asking questions, commenting on example videos we showed, and when we did a simple activity that involved them using their cameras for the first time they couldn’t get enough. They left class jazzed about showing up next week with some video shot that we can teach them how to edit. Several stayed behind to shake our hands and repeat how thrilled they are that they were given this opportunity!

Pinch me!

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Top 5 of the Year

The top 5 most read posts in my first 10 months blogging at Learning Is Messy: . . .

1) Paper, Pencils and Books May Not Boost Student Achievement 

2) Too Much Time For Change To Happen? 

3) Hoping To Make a “Web 2.0” Difference In A Child’s Life – Part 2 

4) Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models 

5) Society May Be Willing To Invest In Children If They Are Seen As An Immediate Value To Society 

Learing Is Messy