Category Archives: Student Access

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Applications On The Fly!

David Warlick, Chris Lehmann and others have posted about teaching computer applications. I’m not sure if I’ve been “doing it right,” but for years I’ve taught computer applications sparingly. If I had just started out using tech with students I’d probably claim it was because with all the testing and all that entails I don’t have time to teach applications. But years ago when I wasn’t so encumbered I didn’t spend much time on applications either – or maybe I should say I spent only as much time on it as it required so that students could do the work and meet the requirements of the project or assignment we were working on. Much of it was “on the fly.” A student or their group would want to know how to do something and I would show them on the spot (or a bit later depending on time). Inevitably someone else would need to know and either I would show them, or the expert from the first group would show them. Of course very often I would note that soon they were doing things that not only had I not shown them how to do, but didn’t even know you could do – so sometimes rolls reversed and they were showing me something.

Years ago when iMovie first came out we did a project where every group in my sixth grade had to produce a video about a geology topic (What is a rock? What is igneous rock?..) After we had been working for weeks most groups had finished all their shots and were ready to edit. However, 2 groups were still finishing up so I quickly ran around and downloaded each group’s video onto a laptop and showed them how if they clicked on a clip and pressed play you could watch that clip. I didn’t have time to show them more. I went back to work helping the 2 unfinished groups get their final shots set up and of course it took much longer than planned (it was very “messy”) I soon realized that the finished groups could have watched all their clips 5 times over – and yet a class that was prone to being noisy and off track if they didn’t have very specific things to do – was literally “humming” – just low talk and deep concentration on the laptop in their group.

I kept wondering exactly what they were up to. I would ask and glance at their goings on and they were still viewing clips, but it wasn’t until later that I had time to visit each group to see what they were doing. I was amazed! Each of the 5 groups that were done had figured out how to pull their clips down to the edit strip and put them in order. “How did you even know to do that?” I asked them. Shrugged shoulders and “I don’t know, we just did,” was always the answer. Their only frustration was that they thought the videos would be dumb because the beginning and end of each clip had stuff that needed to be cut out and they didn’t know you could do that. When I showed them that … the real excitement started.

The same is happening right now with my fourth graders. We spent some time this week cut and pasting URLs from web pages about animals into an Appleworks document because I plan for us to make numerous wiki pages and that is one skill they will need to have. I also showed them the shortcuts for copy and paste (command “C” and command “V”) and they wondered why I hadn’t taught them that before. My answer? “You didn’t need to know that before, and we didn’t have time.”

Learning is messy!

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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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Youthbridges Audio Skype Interview Experience Podcast

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Ten days ago we had the opportunity to link up for an interview with the 8th grade students in Lee Baber’s class at YouthBridges in Virginia. The participants included Lee’s class, my class in Sparks, Nevada – Elderbob Brannan in Texas, and Celest (a student in my class that has leukemia and attends class via video Skype) from her house. We were scheduled to begin at 9:30am Pacific time, but everytime we all got on … the Skype call dropped. Lee finally figured out that it happened every time Celest Skyped in – so she just Skype called her – I got her Celest’s phone number and Lee called it using Skype – problem solved. This was not terribly interesting for my students – but was a great lesson for them how things don’t work and you problem solve (or at least try) and just maybe you get things to work. Elderbob has posted the interview as a podcast if you’d like to hear it.

Update: Lee Baber has posted the podcast at YouthBridges too.
Lee’s students had written questions and sent them to us days before the interview so that my students could consider answers beforehand. This should have worked well, and it did, just not in the way I expected. Most of my students are second language learners and one of the things we have REALLY been working on is understanding a question before you try to answer it – ask about what you don’t understand. My students did not do a good job of this and they realized this after the interview when we de-briefed about it. They felt the questions were hard to understand – and I asked them why they didn’t notice that beforehand … they finally realized it was because they didn’t think about the questions deeply enough when we went over them in class and it wasn’t obvious to them until afterwards when they knew they had had difficulties answering them.

This is true “Messy” learning. Now I can remind them and “beat them over the head” with what happened and they will have the schema to know what I am referring to and hopefully become better thinkers – and this is just about as important a skill as I can think of – being aware of what I know and don’t know which is such a common issue with elementary students and even more so with kids of poverty and second language learners like my students. They will also be able to notice themselves that they have improved and that awareness is key. Lee and I have already talked about another possible Skype discussion and I hope we really mange to follow through so my students (and hers) can use what they learned from this experience.

Elderbob’s audio recording will be something we can go back to as a benchmark – what was good and what wasn’t. We already have reaped the benefits of this experience. We have been working for quite awhile on stories about being our shoes for an entire day. This week we read them aloud to the class and we reminded ourselves about how much easier it is to listen and enjoy an oral presentation when it is read with feeling. They did a great job.

We’d like to thank Lee and her students at Hillyard Middle School and Elederbob Brannan for getting us together.

I am posting below the debrief notes my class recorded immediately after the interview:

What was hard?

Set-up took a long time – tech issues. Made it boring at first.

Hard to hear.

We were just sitting and listening.

Not that many questions and the questions were hard to understand.

Too long between questions – dead air

What went well?

The Youthbridges students got it to work!Lots of students got to say something.

New way to use Skype – more than one person.

Got to talk about something good we have done.

We got to learn about other people in other states.

The experience of getting to talk to people we don’t know.

Felt like people were interested in something we had to say.

What could we do to improve the experience?

Work on giving more detailed answers, more articulate – explain more. People will find that more interesting to listen to.

Be more willing to answer – just try.

Speak-up – talk louder.

Think more about the questions and ask about what we don’t understand – ask for clarification. Give more thoughtful answers. This would make it less boring – be active thinkers/learners.

Have a better way to get students to the microphone more quickly.

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From The Mouths of Babes – Our Contribution To Stop Cyberbullying Day

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Click photo to see video “Don’t Laugh At Me”

Four years ago my class of fourth graders was struggling. After almost every recess there was anger and tears about teasing and exclusion from games. We spent too much time in class dealing with these issues (at least too much time during that early era of test prep fever). We had been using the curriculum we had downloaded from Peter Yarrow’s – Don’t Laugh At Me web site, so they had seen the video that came with that. They felt they could do a better job and work on getting along with each other at the same time … so we did. We read Crow Boy and The Brand New Kid and others. We wrote every line from the song on separate pieces of chart paper and taped them up around the room. We discussed what each line and word meant, and brainstormed in small groups and then whole class how to act out each line.

Next, each group was randomly assigned a line to act out. They had to decide who in their group would act out each part, decide on props and location and repeatedly act it out for the rest of the class to be critiqued. We learned the song, because we were going to record ourselves singing it – but the students did not like how it was going. Someone suggested we just use the recording of Peter Yarrow singing it – that led to a discussion of copyright law (since they wanted it posted on the internet) and how artists don’t own the rights to their own music. They asked me what it would hurt to ask … so I emailed Peter’s representative … and to make a long story short the next day we heard back that we had permission if Peter could see it first.

We shot the video – while still doing other activities to work out our “issues” – and sent a VHS copy to New York. Several weeks later we heard back that Peter had shown it at a conference in Atlanta and it had brought him to tears (he later recounted that story with the class over a conference call). When Apple Computer wanted to use it we had to get permission from the song writers – Steve Seskin and Sony Records signed off as did Allen Shamblin and his record company (later that spring Steve Seskin visited our school and sang to the school and came to my classroom for a short discussion with my class).

I have no idea how many times our video has been viewed, but over the years I have sent copies to schools and libraries in 20 states, Korea the Phillipines and The Discovery Channel.

So did our bullying problems disappear as a result? Yes … er no … well both. They got tremendously better and when we had a bad spate of attitude, even when they were in my sixth grade class … the video would always come up and we would end up talking about why we made it and much more often than not the air would be cleared and we would have at least a a day or so of attitude adjustment.

I see some of these students from time to time (they are now eighth graders) and they always ask if the video is still online or tell me about seeing it recently.

One of my best memories however was that any time we would show the video in class … even when they were big, hormone-ized, attitudinal sixth graders – about 2 bars into the song – it would start out low and then build to a sing-a-long – the class would sing and when the video faded out it would be quiet and faint smiles to grins would illuminate most faces in the room.

When this class was in fifth grade (I rolled with them to fifth and then sixth) our local PBS station asked us to make a 60 second public service announcement about racial diversity – here is a link to “Being Different Is A Solution, Not A Problem.”

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What Will Happen When They Find Out Kids Might Already Have Unblocked Wireless Access At School?

Thursday I sat in an ActivBoard Cadre meeting at another local school in Reno – a school surrounded by homes and apartments – and when I opened my laptop I noted that I had 15 wireless connections available – 3 that were not password protected. So I made use of one while I was in the meeting and was able to access and share things I couldn’t have without the connection. I didn’t get a chance to ask the teacher whose classroom I was in if she had noticed the available connections. I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of this, but I wonder how many schools are located in neighborhoods where numerous wireless connections are available?

I doubt many students routinely bring their own wireless laptops to school – but what kinds of issues would arise if students started utilizing these free resources? What if teachers started to use them? Should they? There are no blocked sites, no IT interference … um … free … what are the implications?

Will wireless routers within a certain distance from schools be required to password protect them? Who is liable if a student accesses MySpace or porn or other school district banned site while at school by accessing a private person’s open connection?

I’m just asking. Lots to consider.

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“Speak Up” Survey Speaks Volumes

“ … 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.”

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.”

Here’s a surprise:

“According to the survey, students cited communication as their No. 1 use of technology.”

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.

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Posts Worth Noting

Doug Noon has 2 great posts – “Scientifically Based Reading Research Wars” and “The Might-Work Clearinghouse” that are way worth the time. Doug has done his research and does a great job of laying out the issues and the research behind the battle over reading instruction.

This has so much to do with education in general because language arts literacy and math literacy are the driving forces behind almost everything that happens in elementary schools. Obviously, reading/language arts and math should be the cornerstones of elementary education – however, many of the programs being promoted have the major downside of making little to no room for schema building and gateway subjects like science, social studies, art, music and PE. Likewise some of these programs effectively restrict or block any innovation or integration of other methods into the school day because they take up all the time.

Doug cites the newest research, so if you haven’t kept up on it (like me) he has done the leg work for you. Thanks Doug.

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My First Blog Post

Well I missed my blogs birthday a few weeks ago – So belated Happy Birthday blog! Here is my first post:

Why Field Trips, Technology and Project Based Learning?
Sunday, March 5th, 2006

Why Field Trips and technology and project based learning? They build schema and experience many of our students don’t have.

School mission statements have revolved around developing students that know how to learn or teach themselves for many years.

“Students will develop the skills required to become lifelong learners,” has become almost a mantra in education. Then we go about this by doing what we have been doing forever – just more focused, organized and, “research based.” NCLB added “the stick” because obviously what was missing was strict accountability.

Language and math “literacy” have become the focus because the thinking is that underachieving students will never make it without the “3R’s.” OK, fair enough – and some of those programs have made a difference – especially in primary grade reading and math test scores. However, as soon as students get to 3rd or 4th grade those scores drop and continue to drop more each grade level thereafter.

Why? Partly because the programs being mandated are so time consuming that there is no time for anything else (field trips, real science, real social studies, art, technology, PE, etc.) where students might experience at least some of the vocabulary and background knowledge required to make sense of what they read – and make it interesting. When students hit upper elementary, reading and math questions stress more and more analytical skills and vocabulary and students often just don’t have the schema in those areas to be successful. Reading then is too often meaningless and boring.
Technology has become a new tool of literacy – like it or not. Just like long ago:

At a teacher’s conference in 1703, it was reported that
students could no longer prepare bark to calculate problems. They depended instead on expensive slates. What would students do when the slate was dropped and broken?

According to the Rural American Teacher in 1928,
students depended too much on store bought ink. They did not
know how to make their own. What would happen when they
ran out? They wouldn’t be able to write until their next trip to
the settlement.

We are not doing our students justice by not giving them experience with the new tools of literacy because we don’t feel they know the old ones well enough. Technology is a gateway to learning that without the knowledge of its use students will be at a disadvantage compared to those that do.
Don’t believe that yet? We will continue to convince you.

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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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Any Input?

Will Richardson is asking for input on what to share with US Senators when he conference calls with them about the America COMPETES Act. Read about it over at his blog. Here was my response:

Ask how we are going to compete in a global 21st century economy if ALL our kids and teachers don’t have access to and knowledge of global 21st century tools – NOW. Mention that they should be worried about what happens when China loosens up on access for their citizens and they learn to speak English. Therefore we should take advantage of our freedoms, since China can’t, and use this time to teach our students and citizenry how to use these 21st century tools of learning and doing while we can (I seem to remember about them having more GT students than we have students). We should invest in our future because China, India, et al – are investing in theirs.

(you might mention to Senator Stevens that the internet isn’t a series of tubes – he’ll appreciate it later – nah, never mind that part).