Thanks to Vicki Davis and David Warlick I tried TeacherTube by uploading our “Inclusion” video there. It was viewed 30 times in about 30 minutes. As so many Web 2.0 applications it is free, easy to sign-up for, easy to use … but … is it blocked by my school district? Since it’s Saturday I’ll find out tomorrow or Monday.
Update 3-25 – I’m at school right now … and the answer is … IT’S NOT BLOCKED!!!
“ … an overwhelming 97 percent of students, but just over half of teachers, say they think cell phones should be allowed in school for emergencies and for connecting with parents.â€
So says Eschool News in an article where they quote the 4th Annual “Speak Up†survey.
The survey, “ … released at a Congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., on March 21, collected ideas and views from more than 270,000 K-12 students and 21,000 teachers from all 50 states. For the first time, the survey also included parents, and some 15,000 parents took part. Participants were asked about their views on such topics as technology, math and science instruction, 21st century skills, global collaboration, communication and self-expression, and schools of the future.â€
Here’s a surprise:
“According to the survey, students cited communication as their No. 1 use of technology.â€
The article is chock full of interesting findings like:
“When asked how well they think their school is preparing students for working in the 21st century, 48 percent of parents and 47 percent of teachers said well. More than 50 percent of parents said not well.”
– I’m not going quote them all here – go see the article yourself or the Speak Up survey itself.
Lee Baber’s students from YouthBridges will be interviewing my students Thursday from J. Frank Hillyard Middle School in Virginia. We’ll be using Skype and may be joined by others from various locales. They’ll turn this into a podcast – I’ll let you know where as soon as I know where it will be available. Lee and I did a test run this morning and things seemed to work fine. The one unknown is whether or not Celest will be able to join us, she has been a bit under the weather of late, but she seems to think she’ll be ready for this.
My class spent time today thinking about possible answers to the questions we were sent. This is a great opportunity for my fourth graders to practice expressing themselves. Since most of my class are second language learners giving more than short answers is a weakness, so I really appreciate the opportunity this gives them – we can even listen to ourselves later and critique how we did.
More later.
3-15 Update – Scott Mcleod pointed to this piece – they really go together.
Found this article today at Eschool News:
Supes use blogs as outreach tool
District CEOs discuss the impact of blogs on stakeholder relations
By Corey Murray, Senior Editor, eSchool News
I wonder how many of the teachers and students do this:
In Pinellas, for example, Wilcox uses his blog to link to video feeds of meetings with building principals. He also reportedly uses Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a technology that automatically pings stakeholders when new features or content have been uploaded to the blog and links to the local television station, so readers can download relevant video footage about the school system. Stock says he’s currently exploring ways to integrate podcasts and other audio-based content that readers can stream or download and listen to at their leisure.
The article also touches on some issues you might recognize:
For one thing, they said, administrators need to decide if the blog is to be a natural extension of the school system, or the property of the superintendent. This distinction is important, because it affects how the blog will be used and what content and issues–political and otherwise–should be addressed, said Stock.
In his case, the district requested that he put a disclaimer on his blog stating that the opinions expressed were his own and that they did not necessarily reflect the beliefs or ideologies of the entire organization.
And:
As the superintendent of a large school district, Wilcox said, his goal was to give stakeholders a chance to voice their opinions about his decisions, “to give them that pressure relief valve.”
But there was problem: “People were just vicious,” he said. As the attacks got more heated and eventually started striking out against administrators and school district employees on a personal level, he said, the district had to shut down the blog temporarily to reconsider its policies.
“I think it’s just one of those things where, when you get out in cyberspace, you’ve got to be a little more careful what you ask for, because you just might get it,” he said.
Interesting article – check it out.
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.
Last week part of each my 3 presentations at The Nevada Education Technology Leadership Conference was about Skype audio and video-conferencing. So this week I got emails from a teacher in my district wondering how I bypassed school district filters to use it. To make a long story short what I eventually realized was that the Skype web site is blocked by the school district (it wasn’t as late as January the last time I downloaded Skype to a computer at school) but using Skype is not blocked. If you already have the software installed you can get out – no problem. So I just found the teacher an alternate site to download the software – but I haven’t heard back yet to see if she has been successful.
We tried to figure out why access to the Skype web site would be blocked. The only idea we had was that IT is afraid of the impact of having “too many” teachers Skypeing (whatever that threshold is).
Saturday I was scheduled to do a 1 hour presentation “Tales From A Model Technology Classroom†at the Nevada Technology Leadership Conference. That was great because Ian Jukes was doing several presentations after his keynote and I would have a chance to sit in on at least one and then spend the afternoon seeing several other sessions. When I arrived however, I was informed that I had one of the very few presentations on blogging and Web 2.0 apps and could I do that 2 hour presentation (scheduled for Sunday) this afternoon too. I was 90% ready to do that, but had no handout – the wiki I was making for it was not finished – because I was planning to finish that that night after I had a “feel†for the conference – but I relented and said I would do it.
Here’s the irony – the room I presented in had desktops for 35 and seating for probably 15 more people – but I only had seven participants. I had 10 minutes to set-up for the presentation, there was no way to attach my laptop to the projector or sound system – so I had to run the presentation (starting 10 minutes or so late) from the wiki links on the desktop in the room – which was not logged into the network because the last presenter in the room had shut it off (I figured that out – the log-in was posted on a poster on the back wall) – it went OK, but with such a small group in such a large room there wasn’t a lot of “chemistry†or feedback from the attendees. I did hear from one today though that they had already set up their own wiki and were amazed how easy it was.
Contrast that with today – I did the same (but tweaked) presentation with a finished wiki in a room with computers for 12 – I had people sitting on the floor – standing in the back and probably 10 or more people came late, saw the crowd and left – all my equipment hooked up just fine – the presentation went off without a hitch and was very well received by those in attendance.
Presenting is messy!
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 qualifiedâ€
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.
Even though she doesn’t want any of the credit Wendy Damonte co-anchor from KTVN Channel 2 who reports this story made the contact with Renown Health that got Celest an iMac computer. The Children in Transition Program of Washoe County, Nevada, used grant money to pay the monthly fee for the high speed internet connection at Celest’s house – and AT&T installed an extra phone line in her house and installed the DSL for free. Click the photo below to see the newscast streamed. Click here to see a higher quality download. With permission From KTVN Channel 2 Reno, Nevada.
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!
