Posted on

Skypeing, Learning, Blogging, Iceland


Students take notes on their laptops as Alan Levine
explains his experiences in Iceland.

We have been studying the environment, climate, climate change, energy and more in science getting ready for a new project we will be taking on soon. We got an unexpected boost when Alan Levine (AKA Cogdog) offered to Skype into our classroom from his temporary  digs in Iceland.

Alan and I met in China this past September, and by chance he will be visiting the Reno area in a few weeks to talk with educators. He made arrangements to visit our classroom during his trip here so this way the students will get to see him both places. We talked about Iceland in general, and Alan shared why he was there (house sitting for friends for a month) and some of the sights he has seen. He explained some about geothermal energy, which supplies 90% of energy in Iceland (the other 10% is hydroelectric btw), and told of visiting volcanoes and geysers.

My class has had experiences with Skype now for 3 years. Early experiences were quiet … well except for me blabbing to fill in the void. My students are almost all second language learners and they shy away from speaking period, so imagine them speaking publicly! We have done many lessons on speaking and putting yourself out there and learning/practicing English by getting your feet wet in a real situation. We never force anyone to talk, but we encourage and have students practice what they might say. Some have spoken up, but generally we’ve been pretty quiet. In the last 6 months (I have had this class since 4th grade – now 6th graders) we have really improved in oral language and that came shining through today.

I have to give Alan some of the credit, he was very easy to talk to, and at ease speaking with them … even when they asked him questions like, ” Do they have Sponge Bob on TV in Iceland?” The more questions that were asked, the more at ease they were. I thought we would run out of things to talk about in 15 minutes, but the questions and comments flew for 20 minutes more. When we started to get a bit off track in our questioning we ended the conference and got to writing about the experience. We started making a word list of vocabulary that came up as students needed them … we worked together looking up spellings and locations. I had used Google Earth to travel from our schoolhttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3004/3059747474_fd839fa3d9.jpg?v=1227645695 to Iceland before we met up with Alan, and we re-visited Google Earth to make sure we had a good understanding of where this really was (especially when one student wrote how Iceland isn’t far from the equator) … so as usual just-in-time learning was prevalent. This is also a great way to note misconceptions and deal with them before they get set.

We hope to finish our posts tomorrow and might even post them to our blog before we break for Thanksgiving. We spent a total of 40 minutes of class time to travel to Iceland and learn about a place most had never heard of for free, built schema, learned more about connecting and networking, and now we can research more, write, discuss, … good messy learning!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , ,

Posted on

A Year Ago … A Messy Thanksgiving

This was such a great experience last year! My students were talking about it yesterday and today. So I re-post here today as a celebration of our experience, AND of Thanksgiving itself:

Originally posted November 2007

5th grade is the “American History” grade in my school district (and probably most US school districts). As part of our study of the colonies we spent time delving into the first Thanksgiving. For the last week we focused on using multiple sources in research, so we used books, documentary video, and the internet to find out what they REALLY ate at the first Thanksgiving. Based on our research we put on as authentic a Thanksgiving/Harvest Festival as we could. I brought in a barbecue and cooked an 18 pound turkey, and the students were tasked with bringing in the rest. My student from Viet Nam brought in duck, others brought cod, corn, green beans, pumpkin (in the form of pie which the Pilgrims didn’t make – no sugar), bread, cranberries, wild berries, ginger ale (a stand-in for beer) our ESL teacher brought salmon and our school secretary donated venison.
dsc01157.JPG
The students wrote about their Thanksgiving experiences and then about what they were looking forward to eating today – and then after our feast about what they had eaten. We noted colors, textures and smells. We took photos and watched video reenactments of the 1st Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we will work on blog posts … not sure how many will get posted, but our writing has been improving … so we’ll see.
dsc01164.JPG
The experience was incredible. Most had never had REAL turkey before (processed or “rolled” turkey) or most of the other meats – and my students were totally intrigued by the whole thing. Green beans were new to many, and half had never had pumpkin pie before. 6 have never celebrated Thanksgiving (come from counrties that don’t celebrate as a national holiday). Students from other classes and grades saw our 18 pound turkey cooking and thought it was a chicken … when we explained it was a turkey they got perplexed looks on their faces … like why would you be cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving? We have chicken or tamales or…? Had to explain the whole cooking concept and serving concept … solid messy learning.

dsc01165.JPG

dsc01166.JPG

When lunch was served … buffet style … students were tentative, but took some of everything. After everyone had been through the line I announced that there was plenty … don’t be shy … come back and have what you want without wasting food. Students came back and back and the food was eaten. The talk was all about how great it all was … never eaten food prepared like this was a common comment. We put the pumpkin pie on hold until late in the day. They loved it. Great conversations … and smiles … and good manners … students displayed joy.
dsc01168.JPG

It was a lot of work … but when you do this kind of thing with your students … you usually catch yourself saying, “I should do this kind of lesson more often.”

Learning is messy!

Blogged with Flock

Posted on

Finally, A Better Connection!

Our IT department … well Dan, who is our IT person came in today and installed 2 new Cisco wireless routers that my students’ laptops can access. After lunch we took about 2 minutes to log on and took the new wireless out for a spin.

You may recall we have been relying on an 8 year old Apple Airport hub (an original … even had a place to plug in a modem) up until now. I had my students go straight to Free Rice because we knew that after 7 to 10 of us were on before the connection degraded to slower than an old phone line connection. Students would actually wait 2 minutes for Free Rice to navigate from one page to the next.

Well, the connection rocked! Pages loaded right now, even on the 8 year old Key Lime Green iBooks with 25 laptops accessing the network at once. After about 7-8 minutes of our “test run” though I started to hear complaints of it slowing to a crawl again. It picked back up again after a minute or 2, but then got somewhat spotty. Overall though a huge improvement over what we had!

We had “computer class” the last half hour of the day in the lab (1-2 year old HP desktops) and in talking to the aide she says the same thing happens to her daily. They’ll sail along and then for a period of time sloooowwww dooowwwnnn, and then pick back up again 2 to 10 minutes later.

I’m really hoping this bodes well for some projects coming up where I plan on having students doing web searches. We usually don’t have everyone searching at once (but that would be nice from time to time) so that should help. When I think how successful we have been blogging, designing wiki pages, Skyping, and all with a really poor connection, I’m looking forward to taking my students to the “next level”, whatever that may be exactly! : )

Learning is messy!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags:

Posted on

The Safety Of Programs

Cross-Posted from In Practice.

My school is very at risk and therefore is always on the edge of making adequate yearly progress per NCLB. When this all started, about 10 years ago, that meant big programs were mandated in language arts. There were various issues … there was no time left for science, social studies, art, PE,… for example, but the last year or so the pressure to adhere as strictly to the program and scheduling had improved (at least at my school, I know others where it is even worse than before). We’ve enjoyed a bit more flexibility and less scrutiny of every little thing we do, and science and art were beginning to show up here and there.

But something else has been happening that “snuck” up on us and has now become the same kind of issue. Instead of having a big overarching program that drives our day, we have slowly over the years been picking up little ones. Accelerated Math, Read 180, Soar to Success … programs that don’t take much time, that you can sort of fold into the little corners of your daily schedule … the 20 minutes after music right before lunch, as a beginning of the day activity as attendance and lunch counts and announcements are made … and they are more of an annoyance than a major obstacle … until this year.

Now we have RTI – Response To Intervention – and along with some of our other little programs and other issues, we are right back to a programmed school day. There are little evaluations that need to be taken often on some students, data to turn into various people for their reports and more. But maybe the worst part is what has happened to the non-teaching part of the day.

All these programs, and especially RTI, are driven by data. Now gathering data to drive your instruction is a good thing. So good a thing in fact that each of our little programs generates its own set of data and we get to compile and organize it all – whether it is important data as far as informing our teaching or not. And some even have a place you go on the net and get your data, or input your data to get your data back in various forms AIMSweb or Edusoft for example. Now much of this is being done on computers, so therefore its been decided that it takes little time … its easy to input and output the data … and here’s a chart to write all the data down in columns so we have all the data in one place. So much so that it is taking a lot of what we used to use as planning time to do all this bookkeeping of data.

Teachers are therefore cutting back on other aspects of their jobs that require time. Like planning. Hmmm, I have less time to plan and I’m feeling very stressed. So to cut down on stress I’ll use a program that tells me what to do … does most of the planning for me. Many of our old big programs have little optional programs or pieces that go with them that we already have. So guess what is happening?

We are running back to the safety of programs. If I do the program there is less planning and the materials are easier to prep because you don’t develop them yourself … just run them off or put up the ready made chart. AND the program is sacrosanct. The program is supposed to be good … proven to be effective by research … “research based” … so if I am doing the program I can’t be questioned about my instruction or my choices of materials or pacing … because hey, I’m following this approved program.

Programs have become a place of refuge. So guess what isn’t happening much … again?

 

Learning is messy!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags:

Posted on

OK, We Have Change! Now Don’t Mess Up!!!

I’m writing this at 8:00pm Pacific Time election night and Obama has just been elected the 44th President of the United States, and the Democrats are picking up Senate and House seats. How many seat we won’t know for hours or so. Recent political history has shown the Democrats wasting their advantage when they had it the last time, and the Republicans totally blew away having the presidency and majorities in the House and Senate for much of this decade.

So now that we have made a big change in personnel that run this country, let’s hope that this change isn’t squandered. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been what has happened historically. What can each of us do to help it happen this time?

Change is messy!!!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags:

Posted on

So You’re A Teacher And You’ve Been On The Web More Than Usual Because Of The Election? Stay Tuned And Read Some Blogs By And For Teachers!

I’ve been hearing news stories here and there about people in general, but also teachers commenting that they have been obsessed with the web the last weeks and months following the election. Does that describe you? Great! So now that the election is winding down keep that new habit going. Instead of finding out what is going on with the election find and read blogs by teachers, students and administrators discussing every topic and issue you are dealing with in your classroom, community and school. Find out what others are doing with this technology stuff that has them and their students so excited and engaged, and maybe jump in a bit yourself … there are lots of people here to support you.

So how do you get started? Well you made it here somehow. Look over on the right side of this page you’re reading right now and you will see a column labeled “Blogroll.” (NOTE: if you don’t see the blogroll on the right CLICK HERE) The titles under that “Blogroll” heading are links to other blogs. Click on some and read and try others (ONLY OF COURSE AFTER SPENDING TIME HERE FIRST : ) )

What you will find is that most of those blogs also have blogrolls of their favorite blogs (they’re not necessarily ALL about education by the way) that you can peruse too. It’s kind of like searching for books you like in the library … you open the book, check out the dust jacket, then decide whether it seems like something you’d like to read more of. The great thing about blogs that is different about your experience with books though, is that whenever you have the courage to do so (and its really not  as scary as it MIGHT seem) you can leave the author a comment right on their writing … you can just tell them it was great … or you can completely disagree (and of course detail why, bloggers love that) and maybe even get a conversation going.

Next read some blogs done by students … yep that’s right, many teachers have their students writing through blogs. Students as young as kindergarten and all the way through college level and beyond. Instead of telling you why here I’ll let you find out for yourself. Then, when you decide to have your students enter the 21st century you can start your own blog (it’s free!!!) and after you have some experience blogging yourself you can start a blog for your students.

All this based on the habits you’ve begun to nurture during the election process … see, something good can come from this election!!!

If you need any more encouragement just leave me a comment here and tell me what kind of support you need to get you started. Really!

Learning is messy!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags:

Posted on

Evaluation Hell, Part 2

Beginning tomorrow we will do 6 or so evaluations in 3 weeks. We start with what my school district calls the math benchmark test. The next day is the reading quarterly assessment known as the 4Sight test. Then the quantitative spelling inventory which we used to call the “bed, ship, bump”. We will take another SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory), and then it will be time to take the reading benchmark test. The real fun is between the 2nd and third quarters when we do all of these AND the Reading, Math and Science CRT’s (we’re lucky because fourth grade does all that AND the Terra Nova (2 reading tests, 2 math, spelling, language, and more). Remember this is besides any quizzing, testing or evaluative pieces the teacher does. Nevada just cut schools 14% and is about to ask for more. But none of this expensive in money and time testing gets cut.

BTW, a few of us listed what we think is the total number of evaluations that are mandated. We counted 27 per year (but add the Terra Nova testing that takes 5 days to that for the fourth grade total). And who knows, we might get picked to take the NAEP test again too!

Learning is a mess?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags:

Posted on

Video-Conferencing Presentation On K12 Online 2008


I meant to post about this at the beginning of the conference, but I guess right in the middle is good too. The K12 Online Conference 2008 is ongoing, and as usual the keynotes and presentations are well worth your time to “attend,” … and better, they are free! You can even get credit.

Last year I was one of the conference keynote presenters, and this year I was honored to have my presentation on video-conferencing accepted. Check out the scheduling page to see what is being offered, about half the conference has already gone live and this week more presentations will come online each day.

Learning is messy!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags:

Posted on

Skypeing For Online Safety

A funny thing happened over the summer. My students became sixth graders! (and that can’t be good!) ; ) As we began the year and broke out the laptops I saw things happening that I didn’t like. Nothing horrendous mind you, but students checking their blogs before going straight to whatever they were really supposed to be doing. Or the student I “caught” on Club Penguin as I wandered the room. The student doesn’t even have a Club Penguin account, was just checking it out. So not exactly dangerous stuff, but the fact that they were wandering and off task hit my teacher radar … what else might be happening I’m not aware of? Especially at home or friends’ houses where many parents work odd hours and aren’t necessarily aware of safety issues on the net.

But what really grabbed my attention as we began an online safety program called  “7 Random Facts“, which is powerful in its simplicity. I’m not sure how each teacher involved prepared their students, but we talked about not disclosing information about yourself through your blog, even in little snippets that alone are not dangerous, but if someone “mined” your blog they might put a lot of nuggets together and find more than you realize. My students have had a great time deciding what 7 facts they would reveal about themselves and then searching the blogs of other participants to find out who might have similar interests and leave comments for them.

One day during a discussion about online safety – Myspace, Bebo and Facebook came up. It came out how many of my students have those kinds of pages (they are 11 and 12 years old) a bit over half my students have pages that they are too young to have according to the sites own rules. This revelation caused me to expand our online safety unit. In my research on the topic I used Twitter to ask the “Ed Tech Network” for resources. Through that act I made connections with several other teachers having similar issues with their students.

About a year ago we were involved in a Skype video-conference with George Mayo’s class, and he contacted me about having our students write more about online safety and continue the conversation through their blogs. I jumped at the chance and the next thing we knew we had set up a video-conference to share what we were learning. George imbed a YouTube video on online safety on his student blog. Both classes watched it and wrote about their reactions to it. 

George and I then had a Skype planning session and we designed a project on Google Docs where each group of students in our classes wrote vignettes describing someone being unsafe on the internet. Then they stated the rule that should have been followed. I had my students  figure out how to take a photo that illustrated their rule which we put on on Flickr account and then pulled into the Google Docs. 

During the video-conference our students took turns sharing their vignettes and George’s students asked my students questions about our climate, favorite teams, and other topics. The video-conference was great when it was working, but because of a major network issue my school district was experiencing (which I only found out about afterwards) we were on and off a lot. I’ve done probably 100 video-conferences in my classroom and have only had similar issues a few times.

The upshot is that I had a conference with a student and parent the next day and the student mentioned that since our safety unit she had purged her Myspace page of several pieces of info that could lead to her. By-the-way her mother knows all about her page, she monitors it and uses it herself to talk to relatives in Guatemala and elsewhere. I realize that although that is great news, we will need to continue this conversation all year.

One consideration … half of my class has been blogging, making wikis, video-conferencing and more for 3 years now. Next year in middle school they will have only scattered access to technology and probably little to no teaching about being safe online. Of course why worry about students that will begin their teenage years. By that age they know how to take care of themselves. 

Learning is messy!