Thinking About Learning

I regret that I was out of the blogging loop for the last couple of months.  Finishing up the school year, having a son graduating from high school,  and a daughter planning a wedding, I’ve just had a lot on my plate!  Now it’s nice to have some time to relax and reflect.

My first year as a technology integration specialist was wonderful!  I was a little apprehensive about starting in a new school after teaching in my previous school for 14 years, but I was very warmly received.  My teachers were very welcoming to me, and they were receptive to what I had to offer in the realm of technology.  I was impressed that they were so open to trying something new.  One of my greatest impacts this year was with blogging.  In December I started with a couple of fifth grade classes, and by February, over 220 of the students in my school had their own blogs.  Students loved it and would ask me in the halls in the morning, “Are we coming to blog today?”  Teachers loved it as a way for students to reflect on their learning.  It was definitely a win-win scenario!

My other area of positive impact this year was  project-based learning.   Podcasting,  Photo Story, and research using Open Mind were some of the most engaging learning activities.  The last month of school, I had a second grade students who each researched an animal and wrote digital stories about their animals based on the book, Diary of a Worm.  They navigated through our school’s social bookmarking site, Diigo,  to locate information to research, wrote and edited text, located copyright permissible images, created a PowerPoint, converted it to JPEGS, created a Photo Story with it, and narrated it.  These second graders learned and used technology skills that many teachers don’t possess.  I was very impressed with what they accomplished.  It was so much fun to work with them, because every new thing that I showed them received a “WOW” reaction.   They were so motivated and enthusiastic!  I don’t think Disney World would measure much higher on their “WOW” meters.  They were sponges soaking it all in and loving every minute of it.  I can’t wait to see what these kids will accomplish next year as third graders!

In thinking about next year, I want to continue with the blogging and projects.  Some other goals I have are to get my teachers more involved with using Diigo and to focus more on using Web 2.0 tools for assessment.  Another emphasis will be to raise awareness with my teachers about copyright issues related to the Internet, fair use, and Creative Commons.  I also want to be a catalyst for greater collaboration among teachers.

I had a fabulous year! This job change was the right thing at the right time in my life.  I have made new friends and learned so much.  I’m already excited about next year…the journey continues!

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.