Thinking About Learning

It’s pretty amazing to think of all the changes that have taken place in the past 5 years in my district.  Five years ago at this time, I was working with my TIS to plan a pilot 5^th grade class that would have a laptop for each student along with all the other basic equipment necessary to implement a technology-infused learning environment.  Our “21^st Century Classroom” was the first of its kind in our district.  I taught in that class for 4 years and loved every minute of it!  It invigorated my teaching life and provided some incredible opportunities for both professional and personal growth.  Now I am a TIS myself and working in a different school.  My district is within a year of completing a  five year technology equipment roll-out plan that will put a laptop, projector, and SMART Board or Airliner in every classroom.  District personnel are now contemplating a new five year technology plan.  Some of the things I hope will be included are multi-layer filtering for Internet access so teachers can have greater access than students, a specific technology staff development plan for teachers, and a greater emphasis on the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.

As I think about my own school, I see a great need for the development of a school-wide shared vision regarding the integration of technology as a seamless embedded component of  instruction.  Are there any tools or websites out there that provide a guide to facilitate this sort of visioning process?  Some of the questions that need to be answered are:

• What are our broader school goals?
• How can the use of technology help us accomplish these goals?
• What strategies will we use?
• What tools do we need?
• What training do we need?
• How will we  monitor/evaluate our progress?

I need to find some resources to help with this visioning process and identify a small core of teachers who will be willing to assist with the process.  It will be a huge undertaking in a setting where teachers feel so overwhelmed already with more responsibilities than is humanly possible to manage.  I’m always hesitant to add “one more thing” to anyone’s plate, but I think we are at a critical juncture.  Real progress requires a plan, because “without a vision, the people perish!”

I am fortunate to work in a district that embraces technology. Several years ago we passed an additional penny sales tax to fund a laptop, projector, and SMART Board for every classroom. My school is at the end of the roll-out plan, but it’s finally our turn. My teachers now have their laptops and projectors. Their SMART Boards arrived before Christmas, but they’re still in boxes locked in a storage room. I CAN’T STAND THIS! The company doing the mounting of projectors is way behind schedule, but those boards need to be in classrooms where teachers can use them now.
It’s time to get creative, so I’m borrowing SMART Board stands from a TIS friend at another school who already got his boards mounted. I got 4 set up on Wednesday, and those teachers acted like I had just given them a million dollars! I plan to get 5 more set up on Monday. My teachers are hungry to use their technology tools!

I posted a 2 minute video on TeacherTube to give students some reminders about taking care of the SMART boards in their classrooms.

Download Video: Posted by ffoxworth at TeacherTube.com.

In support of my efforts to promote blogging at my school, I have produced a couple of very simple videos about blogging.  One is for teachers (embedded in an earlier post) and one is for students, introducing the concepts of blogging.  Originally I produced the videos in PhotoStory.  When I uploaded them to TeacherTube and played them, they kept hanging up with buffering.  Needless to say, this was not satisfactory to me.  Who wants to watch a video that keeps stalling?  I have spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to redo them in a format that would play smoothly.  Ultimately I used Movie Maker to upload the images, an iPod to record the narrations, and then imported those audio files into Movie Maker.  This version of the video plays just fine in TeacherTube, but the transitions are not as interesting as with PhotoStory.  Click here for Blogging for Beginners.  Anyone have any tips for using PhotoStory videos with TeacherTube?

On a personal note, my nephew, Joshua, won his school spelling bee today for the 2nd year in a row.  You rock, Joshua!!!

Last week I held a training session for my teachers that I called SMART Board 101. I was very impressed that 14 teachers came voluntarily to the session at 8:00 am on a work day. They have so much to do and so little time to get their work done! I was honored that they would give up an hour of their precious time to come for training. My faculty is a very committed group of educators, and they are excited about getting their SMART Boards. I hope that will happen soon!
For the session I used a presentation that was originally created by Marcia Jeans of Witchita Public Schools. Her district has an amazing resource site for SMART Board tutorials and lessons. Another great resource is Jim Hollis’s blog, Teachers Love SMART Boards. He daily posts useful ideas and links for teachers…awesome stuff!

I needed a little dose of nature this weekend, so I went hiking and visited some waterfalls. As I walked back to my car after observing the grandeur of Isaqueena Falls, I noticed the small, quiet stream that fed the great cascades below. That image was very encouraging to me as it reminded me of my work. Hopefully my simple, steady efforts as a TIS will eventually produce a powerful flow of technology integration!

My fifth graders are really getting into blogging.  At this point, they’re still writing about topics assigned by teachers, but they love doing it.  As of this week, all 6 fifth grade classes at my school have individual student blogs.  This has been one of my goals, and the teachers and students are loving it! 

Earlier this week we had Math/Science night, and parents came with their students to various classrooms to participate in fun, educational activities.   I was hosting some interactive computer math games in my room.  One of the dads who came in was asking me about teaching the fifth graders to blog, and he told me that this is what he does in his work.  He works for a large company and travels around the country presenting seminars teaching businesses how to use blogs, emails, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter to improve marketing.   His blog, http://www.emailyogi.com/, shares some great tips for using Web2.0 tools in the business world. 

After talking with him, I became more convinced than ever of the need to teach our students how to responsibly use these tools in ways that will encourage them to be lifelong learners.  As I have been a little immersed in blogging in the past few weeks, I decided to put together a little video about what I consider the most important reasons to blog with students.  I uploaded it to TeacherTube, but it keeps slowing down for buffering.  Then I tried Google Video.  It plays smoothly, but video quality is fuzzy.  Here’s the Google version:

Over the weekend I went to see the movie Bucket List. No deep thinking was required; it was just a “feel good, appreciate life” kind of movie. The premise of the movie is that 2 old guys find out they have less than a year to live, so they make a list of all the things they want to do before they “kick the bucket.”

This was not a new concept for me. About a year ago, I read Kris Radish’s book, Sunday List of Dreams. This book has a similar premise, but the main character is a middle-aged woman looking to live a meaningful life after years of fear and disappointment. After finishing the book, I composed my own list of dreams and came up with a top five list. Since that time, I’ve actually fulfilled two of them and have added a couple more.

After watching the movie this weekend, I started thinking about my work. My first year as a TIS is half over. What dreams do I have for the remainder of the first year? Here’s my list of dreams or my “bucket list” for the rest of this school year (not in any particular order):

1. To have several teachers from each grade level regularly contributing to our school’s Diigo social bookmarking site as a tool for collaboration.
2. To get all 5th grade students regularly blogging.
3. To see all our Smartboards hung and teachers using them daily.
4. To engage more teachers and students in podcasting.
5. To continue monitoring the needs of my teachers and provide whatever support is needed to enhance and improve instruction.

It’s easy to lose focus when entrenched in the pressing needs of each day, but I heard in church yesterday that in order to live fulfilled lives, we must organize our lives around the most important things. I’m going to try to focus on my list of dreams.

Curriculum Connection:

Literacy/Science: Research volcanoes (Diigo volcano bookmarks). Use Open Mind 2 to collect and organize data such as location, size, history, and volcanic activity. Export to HTML to create web pages for sharing. In my opinion, Open Mind 2 is one of the best graphic organizer tools available.

I finished analyzing the results of the technology survey that I posted for my teachers with Survey Monkey. Following the example of a TIS friend, I posted the survey results on a web page so I could easily share them with my staff. I was pleased that 48 people took the time to respond. It was a short survey with only 8 questions, but it gave me a barometer reading on the local attitudes toward technology. Honestly, there weren’t any surprises. Most teachers reported that the level of technology integration in their classrooms is not very high, but they have a very strong interest in learning more about how to use a SMARTboard. As part of our district’s technology roll-out plan, every teacher in our school received a laptop and projector last semester. Our SMARTboards have also arrived, but they are still sitting in boxes in a storage room. It may be months before the contracted company gets around to mounting them. (That is a huge frustration and another story.) My teachers are eager to get their boards and want to be prepared to use them. This eagerness is an open doorway for me, and I hope to use this momentum to help my teachers see that using technology is not just “one more thing to do.” Instead, it’s a way to teach students in ways that engage and motivate them. It will also make their jobs more fun, and it will prepare students to be successful in the world in which they live. The survey results encouraged me as a new TIS. My faculty has demonstrated good receptivity to me and my ideas. I’m excited about my work, and I look forward to good things happening in my school this semester!

Curriculum Connections:

Third Grade Social Studies: Research key battles of the Revolutionary War that were fought in South Carolina. Use Google Earth to plot the locations of the battles. Use Excel to create a graph of the casualty numbers for each battle. Write a “from the scene” news report of each battle and record them for podcasts. Resource: Diigo bookmarks of battle websites.

Literacy: Post Children’s Book Award nominee books on Shelfari to encourage students to read those books and post comments. It’s an online book discussion! Check out our bookshelf. We’re just getting started with this in our media center.