Back to School

 

For today I have some Back 2 School tips.  First and foremost my thoughts behind today's post was to organize some websites from Pintrest.  Love Pintrest--one, it's a great time waster when you don't feel like doing the things you should be doing.  Two, there are some fabulous ideas for lots of walks of life on there--including classroom ideas!  But...there's only one small problem--my county blocks just about all social networking sites.  So all those great ideas that I pinned at home...I can't access while at school.  So, I created a sqworl bookmark category for my favorite Pintrest topics.  Being an ITRT (Instructional Technology Resource Teacher)  my Sqworl folder is all related to techy items for the classroom, but you could easily create one for any subject you teach.  That way you can more easily access the sites from school if your county blocks Pintrest, as mine does.  Now not everything I pinned is on here, because as mentioned social networking is largely blocked, therefore pretty much any website with the word "blog" in it won't get through our filters (Thankfully kidblog does though--which is a great blog site to use with classroom students).  So, here's the Sqworl link for my Techy Pintrest items.



Going through mu pinned items, there were a couple of  I wanted to share for back to school:

REMIND101

Remind101 is a great way to stay in contact with parents.  I heard a presenter talking about it at the Arlington Technology Symposium this summer, and also had it pinned from Pintrest.  It's a free computer website that allows you to text parents to their phones in a way that keeps your phone number private.  It's super easy to sign up for an account, and even includes printable tutorials to give to the parents to sign up for your notifications (also super easy for them to sign up).  It really is just a notification system though, so parents will not be able to text back or ask questions--that will need to be done through other means.  It is a great tool to remind about paperwork that needs to come back, picture day, field trips, wearing sneakers for gym etc.

QR CODES FOR TEACHER INFO

This next idea came from a pinned item from Pencils and Paper Blogspot.  On open house or back to school night create a QR code of all your information such as your name, e-mail address, school phone number, and address.  You could even include items such as your schedule.  Just post it on your door.  Any parent with a Smart phone can scan it, and that way they have all pertinent information handy.  You can create a QR code using a site such as QRStuff.


TUBECHOP

Sometimes you find a great You tube video  (Yea!! a site that was unblocked by my county last year!) that you want to show to your class or use for a presentation.  The Shift Happens video (there are multiple different variations) is one I like to use at the beginning of the year.  If you decided to watch the whole video above you may have noticed it is eight minutes long.  Some people may pay attention through the whole video, but chances are you will lose many.  If you use  tubechop, you can cut just the most important part of the video, which will shorten the play time.  This can also be very useful in the classroom.  I remember there was a video on pronouns I wanted to use with a fourth grade class last year.  The video was created by preteens and something the students certainly could have related to but...some of the language they used in parts of the video wasn't exactly school appropriate.  With tubechop you could select parts of the video and leave the questionable parts out.  Here is a selection from the above video using tubechop. So instead of an eight minute video, I have 52 seconds of what I deemed most important.

Getting your Internet files organized...

First things first, find a tool that works for you to organize your Internet favorites/bookmarks.  I highly recommend using a cloud bookmarking site such as Delicious or Diigo, as then you can access your bookmarks from anywhere.  I was pretty good with my Diigo account when I set it up last summer, but ran into some connectivity issues at school, and got lazy about updating Diigo when I got home.  I regret that now as my work computer is sick and I can not access my bookmarks.  However, I did export a saved list of my bookmarks about once a month, so all is not lost.    It's quite simple to do, and here is a step-by-step guide for exporting favorites from Internet Explorer (not my favorite browser, but the one that works best at work).  Here's the step-by-step guide for exporting bookmarks from Firefox.  When backing up your computer, always remember to back-up four bookmarks too!  Here is an article on some other suggestions for backing up your information on the cloud.  I hadn't heard of skloog  before, but it reminds me of a site I use with students, so I may try skloog for sharing sites with teachers and parents this year.

Ok, so now that you are set with a method of saving items pertinent to you, what are some tools that are good for sharing items with students?

 

My favorite site was introduced to me at a conference last summer Sqworl.  The reason why I find this so helpful is because it also attaches a thumbnail view of the page and a short description of the site.  Sometimes I use the description area simply to tell a little about the site, other times I use it to give the students directions before using the site.  You can create folders of related bookmarks that can be edited at any time.  They will give you a URL that you can then share out to any interested parties.  This could be a great way to post a link of related websites for your units of focus on your classroom homepage or in a newsletter to parents.  Rather than typing in all of the URLs you found useful, you just need to include one.

Another two sites I find particularly helpful are tinyurl  and fur.ly.  I know there are similar sites to these out there, but these are the first to which I was introduced.  Tinyurl is an excellent tool for shortening long URLs.  For example, I read an article this morning on using Twitter that I would like to share with my staff.  Rather than giving them this site http://adaptivelearnin.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/1-year-later-why-teachers-should-join-twitter-what-i-have-learned-as-a-twitter-newbie/, I can instead just give them http://tinyurl.com/9vmv7kh  or I could re-name the site to something that let's them know where they are going, such as http://tinyurl.com/y-use-twitter.  All three will bring you to the same spot, but require less typing.  This is especially helpful when you are trying to set-up 20-30 laptops.  If you have younger students and you have to type the address, you can make it something short and sweet that you will easily remember and not have to reference for each computer.  If it is something the students are typing, make it short and easy to spell so they are less likely to have a tracking error.  If there is a site you want to name, but all options for giving the url a specific short name have been previously used on tinyurl, here is a list of similar websites that shorten URLs.

 

Fur.ly I found especially helpful when doing research projects.  This website allows you to access many URLs simultaneously.  So rather than telling students go here, then type in this address, then type in this third address, you can give them all three addresses at once.  Fur.ly will open a new tool bar at the top of their screen to navigate back and forth through the pages as needed.  I also found this site extremely helpful with my kindergarten classes.  It allowed us to do many small lessons without a lot of down time where they needed to wait for the new URL to be entered into their computer (or entered into the teachers computer and be sent using a program such as Net Op).  Just as a note of warning, sometimes highly interactive websites caused the fur.ly toolbar to disappear, which means you just need to type the address in (which on most school computers automatically gets saved in recent searches).


I would recommend teaching your students how to save and access items in favorites/bookmarks when you send them a new site (be it on its own or a grouped site), that way they can access it later.  You can also save frequently accessed sites right on the desktop (helpful for the beginning of the year with the youngest computer users).  Do this by simply dragging the icon from the address bar onto your desktop.

It's Almost That Time Again...

So, August has rolled around...not really sure where July went, but it sure flew by awfully fast.  I took a hiatus from the blog-o-sphere after graduation and for the summer to cool my heels a bit...but figured it was time to start up again.  I will start with some back-to-school ideas for technology integration the first week of school.

 Picture from www.edudemic.com

• Have the students create a digital story of something they did over summer vacation.  This can be done in numerous different ways using many different types of software.  I personally prefer Pixie from Tech  4 Learning.  However, here is a list of different software for digital storytelling. 

•  Use a video camera to have students do a brief interview stating their goals for the year.  Refer students back to their videos at the start of second semester, and then again at the end of the year.

• Set up a blog for discussions students can have throughout the year.  Begin the first discussion thread as a get-to-know you activity.

• Have students create an avatar in Voki.  Have them say three to five facts about themselves and have the other students try to guess who it is. 

• Have students create their own name tags using Word or a graphics program, print them out, laminate them, and then stick them on the student's desks.

• Use Kidspiration or Inspiration fro students to brainstorm ideas for classroom rules.  You could then compile student responses into a Wordle so they can see the most common rules thought up.

• When creating a class contract, create it on an interactive board (Promethean, Smart) rather than on chart paper.  Have students sign on the board and then you can print out a copy to send home with each child.

• As students tour the school to get familiar with new places and faces have them take pictures of who and what they see along the way.  Then create a classroom book about important places and people in the school. 

• As a get to know you activity, have students use the Smart Response system (Activotes for promethean).  Set up a quiz ahead of time on favorites (favorite color, favorite food, favorite sport etc...)  Have the students vote and view the graphs of things they have in common.

If you decide to use any of these ideas let me know how they worked out, or feel free to share some other ideas you may have!  Stay tuned for some helpful technology teacher tools for throughout the year...

Math Mania

I am serving on a math teacher's focus group for my county with the idea of helping to incorporate technology into the lessons.  My hope is that Smart and Promethean files will be created and disbursed to teachers for use, but I would also like to generate a list of helpful free websites that teachers can you for demonstration purposes as well as for student individual practices.  I will include some I have used in the past.  Please add sites you have found successful with your students or children!

• Create a Graph--I found this site very useful in data units with students.  Students could even create a survey using Survey monkey and then use this website to create graphs of the data they collect!
• Harvey's Homepage--I have had the pleasure of seeing Harvey at two different conferences.  His Smart resources are amazing and really engage students!
• BBC BiteSize--I LOVE  BBC's resources they have a site for younger students and for older students.  Check out their activities for other content area also.
• Arcademics--I got introduced to this site at ISTE this past summer, and have used it throughout the year.  The games really engage the students in their math facts.
• WolframAlpha--this search engine helps you solve math problems and gives you explanations as to how and why the answer is correct.  This could be an excellent tool for older students. 

And at this point i realize I have been neglecting my Diigo account, as I know I have oodles other sites bookmarked on my work computer.  What are some of your favorite (and free) math sites to help students review or reinforce new skills?

Educational Reform for the Digital Era

     Through a friend of a friend I learned about a group of educators in DC that strive towards making positive improvements in education and educational policy.  Through that group I heard about a discussion being held at the Fordam Institute, "Educational Reform for the Digital Era".  I will share some of the big take-aways I got from the discussion.
     John Chubb stated that "Technology can motivate and engage in ways that classroom instruction can not."  I completely agree with this statement.  Following the believes of Tapscott, in Grown Up Digital, students today are wired very differently that students in the past.  As educators, if we want to effectively reach our students we need to tune in to what they are interested in and what motivates them if we are to reach them.  Chubb continued to to support this explaining a center model where students meet small group with a teacher, perform on-line tasks, and do independent work.  I have used this model in the past very effectively.  Though as a word of caution, computer time needs to be properly prepared and designed.  Computers are not baby sitters, and can be very powerful learning tools if used appropriately.  Chubb supported this by reiterating that ALL learning must be scaffolded, be it on-line or in person.
     Mark Baurlein argued that digital technology will not aid student engagement as students will be using the same tools as they use in a social setting.  I disagree with this statement.  With the new digital tools and social learning, there needs to come new curriculum and rules of engagement.  Students need to be taught the appropriate use of the tools within an intellectual setting versus in a social setting.  For example, this panel used Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for presentation and background discussion.  These tools are very much labeled as social tools, but can be very informative when used correctly in the intellectual setting.  Students just need to be taught rules of engagement.  One of the other panelists (I forget if it was John Chubb or Bryan Hassel) agreed with this, stating that these tools need to be a part of serious life as well as social life, and it is "a challenge for educators to figure out how to make technology work for schools or school will become irreleveant to students."  That is a very powerful statement, and I would say very true.  If we don't adapt our teaching practices and educational strategies to fit the needs of today's learner we will see a lot less student engagement and a lot more students checking out.
     The discussion continued into thoughts about how teachers can be used more effectively while promoting an opportunity culture within education, increasing technology use, and decreasing work force to balance budgets.  I am not going to comment too much on this prior to doing more background research.  Though I will say that MAJOR changes would need to take place within education and teacher work loads for this to happen. 
    Overall I felt the discussion was spot on regarding current issues and changes that need to be implemented.  However, I believe the road will be long and challenging to implement those changes.  And I would hope that those making the decisions would consult those in the trenches to gain and understanding of what impact and repercussions  their decisions may have on those the decisions effect most.

Ever Considered Flipping?

I was first introduced to the idea of a flipped classroom at the ISTE conference in Philadelphia this past summer.  An article I received from Edutopia this past week is one of the many sources I have seen about flipped classrooms recently.  Basically what a flipped classroom does is reverse responsibility.  Students are responsible for material out of school so that in school they can apply what they have learned through authentic, project based learning.  This could be done through any combination of reading, visuals, or videos sent by the teacher.    It promotes the teacher being a guide on the side rather then the sage on the stage.  Here is an example of how this works in a chemistry classroom.

If I were to go back into the regular education classroom I would very much consider flipping my classroom (considering of course the access to computers students would have at home).  I think this model of learning is much more beneficial to the world of today.  Have you flipped?  Would you flip?

Technology for the 21st Century Learner: Class Dojo

Checked out this site, Class Dojo,  and it is really neat, so am re-posting it.  Use this to quickly and easily keep track of student behaviors in real time, both positive and negative.  It can also be used to keep track of IBPYP learner profiles or any other items, as you add your own categories.  

Technology for the 21st Century Learner: Class Dojo: I was recently introduced to Class Dojo and am excited to start using it in my classroom, especially at this time of the year.  Has anyone e...

Computers on a Cart, Minus the Computers...

I must admit the last few weeks of work have been a little frustrating.  The older grades have been doing a lot of testing, and I mean a LOT of testing (way too much if you ask me).  As a result, my room is used for testing, as are all the laptop carts, which means I have had to get a little creative in teaching computer lab sans computers.   I will share some of my go to sites today.

  To start, I figured Spring is a good time to review some of our Internet Safety rules.  NetSmartz.org is an excellent resource for this.  They will send free  training materials, and the presentations are quite engaging.  The young kids are a BIG fan of Clicky and his friends.  I also like to Faux Pas the Techo Cat to switch things up a little bit.

For the older kids I like to use Professor Garfield.  By fourth and fifth grade they have seen the Netsmartz presentations multiple times, and professor Garfield addresses some older kid issues that Netsmartz doesn't delve into as much.  

Once Internet safety has been reviewed I find some of the learning labs on Discovery Education Science very interesting.  These have built in authentic problems and the students find them interesting.  Although better in partners or small groups, they are do-able whole class.  If your school has a license to Discovery Education, I highly suggest the add on package of Discovery Science.  Not only are their videos great, but the labs and explorations are designed very well also.

Brainpop and Brainpopjr are also excellent tools and allow for great discussions.  DON'T just play the videos through.  Stop and discuss the vocabulary and concepts being introduced.  One five minute clip can easily turn into a twenty minute lesson when you incorporate think-pair-share and class discussions.  The quizzes at the end are a great way to assess student learning, and for when students do have individual computer access there are some worth while learning activities that go with each clip.

My new favorite website to use, especially for the last five to ten minutes if a lesson didn't go quite as long as I thought, is Interactive Sites for Education.  Again this can be used on individual computers or whole class.  The activities are numerous, engaging, and appropriate for a variety of grade levels.

And of course, there are the numerous game templates available on the Interactive Whiteboard sites (Promethean Planet or Smart Exchange for example) that can be customized to fit any unit the students are learning.  I will be using Midwest Region Jeopardy with my fifth grade class tomorrow.

Vocabulary Is the Key to Understanding

     

     In a previous post I briefly mentioned Voki as a great tool to use with students to help them develop fluency when reading.  Voki can also be a great tool for vocabulary development.  Rather than having students write out definitions in a notebook, even an interactive notebook, have them create a digital avatar that will give the definition of the word.  As the teacher,  you can then group and organize individual student vokis so the class has access to them all.  They can be linked in a project or uploaded on a webpage.  I purchased Voki classroom for my fourth grade students and they have used it to define reading comprehension terms amoung other things.  They are engaged, and it gives a quick spot check as to who thoroughly understands the terminology, versus who only has a surface understanding.

     Spellingcity.com is a website that you can create customizable lists of students spelling words or vocabulary words.  Students can then play matching and mulpile choice review games to go over the vocabulary.  Part of the site is subscription, but a good portion of the site is free.

     However, one of my favorite ways for vocabulary and concept development is to have students create word clouds.  There are three applications I have used for word clouds in the past.  The first is located in the letters section of grades 2-5 at www.abcya.com, and is simply entitled word clouds.  The second Wordle, is very similar.  However, I have occasionally had difficulties with Wordle not printing for students.  The third, and my favorite is Tagxedo.  This one will have the words take the form of a silhouette.  You can use the examples they have, or do an image search for a silhouette of your choosing.    I used Tagxedo for the graphic at the top of this post.  The words I used most often show up in the image, the larger the word, the more it was used.  I simply pasted the text of thus blog into the silhouette; a key because vocabulary holds the key to understanding.  You can type directly into a word cloud, or paste a document as I did.  Words that are used more frequently will appear larger.  You can then customize the colors and layout.

Tech 4 Learning

                                                                                                     (Tech 4 Learning Logo)

 

Does your school or county currently own the Tech 4 Learning software?  If not I highly recommend it.  Although I have not used Image Blender much, I have dappled with Frames, and use Pixie extensively.  In Frames I had students create book reviews of picture books to encourage younger students to read.  Pixie has been used for a variety of purposes including: oral and written digital story telling, math flash cards, internet safety posters, diversity quilts, mini content specific books, and vocabulary flash cards to name a few.  It is also very helpful when creating a word wall for the students as their image library is quite extensive.  Pics 4 learning, a free image search by Tech 4 Learning, has been helpful when teaching students about the importance of using royalty free images for their projects.  There is definitely no "is it worth it?" question when it comes to this software.  They have lesson ideas and tips on Recipes 4 Learning.  My school does not have a subscription to this.  Have you used this site?  Would you recommend looking into a subscription?

Digital Video

This week our focus was on Digital Video.  To practice the skills of digital video my group did a Jeopardy take.  We came up with a treatment that laid out our purpose, audience, time length for the video, and the style (game show, public service announcement, etc).  It also includes a detailed paragraph that includes an overview of the video.
Once the treatment was finished we laid out step by step how we would shoot the video using a storyboard.  This included the shots that would be taken, what would be said, and what effects would be added (paning, zooming, music, sound effects).
After all shots had been taken and sound clips had been laid out we used Windows movie maker to edit the videos.  This included cropping and splicing scences, adding pictures, adding effects, and adding all auditory such as music and sound.  Unfortunately we forgot a crucial step, finalizing the video to put it in a playable format.

As far as use in the classroom I am asking myself the Is it Worth it Factor?  I can see digital video editing being very useful in a high school marketing class, but am unsure about using it with elementary school students.  Going through the treatment, storyboard, videoing, and editing process certainly teaches sequence, promotes writing skills, and results in students having to carefully plan and design.  I could see it being used for how-to videos, storytelling, famous people interviews, ancient civilizations, or regions. However this also will be very time consuming.  Then again the emotional connection students would have from researching and designing such a project would certainly make it memorable.  So memorable, but time consuming.  So, is it worth it?

You Tube

So this post is more of a questioning post than an informative one.  My county has just recently unblocked www.youtube.com for teachers to use in their lessons and students to use for research and projects.  Although we have filters set by our county, I have noticed that viewing the full video is still VERY important.  A week ago I was trying to find some material for teaching children double negatives  (there isn't much out there).  I found this great skit acted out by a few pre-teens...until about three and a half minutes into it.  Nothing awful, but name calling that I'd rather not expose fourth graders to. 

I haven't setup a YouTube channel yet, but found this tutorial helpful for when I do get around to it.

Have you used YouTube in your classroom?  How do you find it helpful?

Three Handy Tools

I was introduced to these sites at ISTE this past summer and they have been very helpful on more than one occasion for management and time saving purposes.

The first is fur.ly.  This site allows you to link multiple pages to one page.  So if your students are doing a research project and there are five different sites that you are allowing them to gather information from, this allows you to give them one web address for them to type in rather than five.  It can also be useful during center time.  I used it at the beginning of the year in the computer lab to set up websites for all six grade levels at once, rather than having to reset all the computers in the very limited time I had between classes.

The second site is tinyurl.com.  This is unbelievably useful!  When giving students a website, rather than having them copy addresses that are many many characters long, often with weird symbols that makes it easy for them to mistype, tinyurl will shorten the website address to tinyurl.com/#### (they usually give four to five characters in their randomly assigned web addresses).  You can also customize the name if you would like.  For example, rather than typing in http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/html/fiction/fairytale2/goldilocks/goldicontents/goldicontentspage.htm to thirty computers for one of my classes I made a shortcut address: tinyurl.com/gl3bear.  Not only did this save a LOT of time, but the address was easy for me to remember as I went from one computer to the next.

The third site is www.sqworl.com.  This site is a bookmarking tool that portrays an image of the bookmarked sites.  I find it useful when allowing students choice for an activity or when sharing resources with the teachers I work with.  Here are some sqworl categories I have set up:

•      Reading and Language Arts    http://sqworl.com/3lhpuo
•      Read Aloud Stories                http://sqworl.com/eb3xbk
•      Math Activities                       http://sqworl.com/o4xsas
•      3rd Grade SOL review          http://sqworl.com/xgl0d6

Each bookmark portrays a thumbnail view of the site.  You can go back to edit your list at any time.  DO you have any other management or time saving sites that you like to use often?

From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

So...this week's focus is on changing a lesson that was originally made using Web 1.0 , or internet activity based on hyperlinks to using Web 2.0, focusing on collaboration and information sharing.

The point of the lesson is to get students more involved and excited about reading.  The original lesson was as follows:

Project Title: Read Me, I'll Read to You!
Category and type: Interpersonal Exchange--Question and Answer Activity
Appropriate Grade Levels: K-5
Brief Description:
At the beginning of March (Read Across America Month) each grade level will choose one children's author to focus on during the month from a set list of authors (This is important as prior approval/permission will be needed).  Throughout the month they will read and discuss a variety of books by that author in read-alouds, small group instruction, and independent reading times. They will also study the author himself (herself).  They will keep track of the books they have read and what they liked/disliked about each one.  At the end of the month the students in each grade level will vote on their favorite book and describe why it was their favorite.  As a culminating activity the author chosen  by each grade level will Skype in to an assembly with all the students in that grade.  He (she) will read an exerpt from the childrens' favorite book and tell them about life as an author.  He (she) will then answer questions children had about the book and about the person.  The students will then write a biography on that author, which will be e-mailed to the author.


To make it more of a web 2.0 project, the school would create a wiki of favorite authors.  Each class would choose a favorite author and do an author study on that person throughout the month of March.  In their wiki students could include biographical information about the author, summaries of the books read, small video clips advertising the books to others (using software such as Frames), character posters (using software such as Pixie), and reading excerpts by creating podcasts of their favorite sections of the books.   Such a project would be an invaluable resource to the school.  It would also really engage students and draw them into the world of reading. 

Podcast?

Have you ever done a podcast before?  I had heard the term and knew some of my family members have listened to international news via podcasts, but had never really explored the tool myself.  Basically a podcast is just a digital recording that is accessed on-line.  They are done in episodes about any number of topics and usually have a musical intro and outro.  They can take the form of an interview, a narrative, a radio show, jokes...the opportunities are endless.  Two freqently used venues to create podcast include Garage Band and Audacity.  Garage Band is for apple products (you can buy the app for $4.99) and Audacity is free open source software that can be downloaded on a pc.  Once you have the software all you need is a microphone for recording, you save the file as an mp3 (you will need to download a file converter), and then you are ready to upload your podcast to a website or blogsite. (archive.org)

So how is a podcast relevant to education?  Well before thinking up an assignment for using podcasts I would suggest getting familiar with the tool yourself.  Subscribe to some teacher podcasts (Check some out at the 10 best podcasts for teachers ) , listen to some student podcast(Do a Google search for a subject area you may be interested in)s, and try doing a few podcasts of your own (just for fun, you don't have to publish them). 

Students could do social studies reenactments via a podcast, story telling, interviews with famous people (past or present), interviews via Skype, travel stories for georgraphy, record lessons for absent students, music teachers can record recitals, narrate directions to students for projects or labs, have students practice foreign languages...

Have you ever listened to a podcast?  Done a podcast with students?

Want to wiki?

So what is a wiki?  A wiki is similar to a blog, though it is collaborative.  Ever used Google docs to share the responsibility of writing a paper (I am a big fan of this, rather than e-mailing bits and pieces back and forth)?  Well a wiki works similarly, but you can have multiple pages, and you can see who wrote what, and when.  Then, if need be you can revert back to an older copy of the wiki if you don't like the changes that were made.  A wiki can be marked public or private.  It can be an invaluable resource of knowledge.  Have you ever used Wikipedia?  It's only the world's largest encyclopedia, and comes up as the first choice on many search results.  Wikipedia's goal is to be the sum of all human knowledge.  So far I think they are doing a pretty great job.  You can even add to it too, but beware.  They are very timely at spotting and erasing content that is false.  I am currently working on a wiki with some of my classmates.  It's an advocacy group for using technology effectively in classrooms.  I'll share more on that once we have more contained within it.  What I will say is that it's great that we can work on it simultaneously whether in the same room or forty miles apart.

I'll soon be developing a lesson for using a wiki in the classroom.  Why use one with students?  Well other than being collaborative, its a great way to teach them about open-source software and public domain.  And as mentioned previously its a great tool for just-in-time learning.  Students can log in to add their thoughts and information anytime, anywhere.   Have you ever used a wiki with students be it creating one for them to use or having them create their own?    

Fluency in older readers

In the past few weeks I have been working closely with some fourth grade students that are struggling readers.  They have made some growth this year, but not near enough growth to bridge the gap.  They can't really comprehend what they are reading as they are still having difficulties decoding, therefore are having fluency difficulties.  Last year when some of my second grade students were having fluency difficulties I decided to break out the microphones.  I had them record some of their reading and then we would play back their passage, discussing what they felt they did well as a reader, and what they would like to work on.  This really seemed to help my younger readers and they began focusing more on their areas of difficulty.  I began to see some nice growth.  The fourth graders weren't as keen to read into a microphone and listen to their own reading.  I have used voki, as a method to engage them a little more.  I have used audacity for them to see the visual for when their voice breaks in the recording, and compare the length of first readings and second readings.  Any one have any other suggestions?

More about blogs

So on the last post I mentioned a few blogs that I visit, as well as one you can use with your students kidblog.org.  Of course there is also Google's www.blogger.com, but unfortunately blogger is blocked by my county. It would be a great one for others out there though.  It is easy to use and a little more customizable than kidblog.  But what exactly is a blog?  Boiled down, basically its a personal publishing media on the web that allows for the publication of text, images, and video that also has teh capacity of hyperlinks. 
I originally started a blog after the ISTE conference to get down my ideas and thoughts about the many wonderful experiences I shared in Philadelphia.  It helped me reflect upon my time so that I could synthesize and summarize what I learned.  Blogging can be a great way to actively engage students in a  reflective, synthesizing process.  Take this blog for example, some posts truly are personal and self-oriented based on my own views, ideas, and thoughts of exploration.  Others, such as this particular post, are an assignment specifically structured so our professor can see how we are internalizing what we are learning...is this, you guessed it, blogs.
Blogs can create a very meaningful learning experience for students, because they make their learning their own.  They are constructing their own meaning and elaborating on it.  It can be a collaborative endeavor as blogs are open to comments.  Will Richardson wrote a book about Web 2.0 tools, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. The book is a very easy read.  He breaks things down simply, so if you are interested in knowing more, definitely check it out.  I have only had time to quickly scan his blog, but that certainly warrants a quick check too...not necessarily for blogging info, but for info on education in general. 
This article, Teaching Today gives some tips about how blogs can be beneficial in the classroom as well as some management tips and risks to consider.  Or listen to the students and hear why they like using blogs.

First Baby Step...

If you are taking the time to read my blog, you have already taken the first baby step towards changing educational practices, and that is to become more informed.  Some times you just don't have the energy to read an entire book, and a journal article may be just a little too in depth at the end of a long day, but start following some blogs.  I get many great ideas from the many, many blogs out there.  You don't have to read every blog you follow or even sign in every day.  Choose a few and sign in when you have a little spare time (yes I can imagine the raised eyebrow look) or are looking for a new idea.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• The Education Technology Blog:  I  started following this blog via facebook and I sign in when I see something interesting coming through the threads.
• Kathy Schrock:  I went to a presentation by Kathy at the ISTE conference in Philadelphia where she shared a ton of great websites.  She links to other great blogs, so check out.
• Dr Z:  Dr. Z is another person I saw present at ISTE.  His blog is very reflective about different tools he has tried and how they have worked.
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog:  Yet another ISTE presentation (can you tell I liked that conference?).  She actually skyped in to the session that was all about Diigo.  So, if you haven't started saving any of your bookmarks to the cloud you may want to check Diigo out also.
• iLearnTechnology:  Can't remember where I came across this blog, but it has some great ideas for integrating technology from the simple to the complex.
• Kid Blog:  This isn't one I go to for ideas, but one I have set for a few of the classes at my school.  Right now the student are going to use their blogs for book talks.  But once started a students blog could have endless possibilities for reflection and connections in and outside the classroom.

     There are tons of blogs out there all about education.  Some more general others more specific to grade level or subject area.  What's your favorite blog to visit?

And so it begins...again...

     Funny we should be required to do a blog for my Master's program.  I was just thinking about a week ago  that I had been pretty good about posting to my technology blog over the summer after my ISTE conference; when ideas were fresh and new in my head, and well, when I had the  time to blog.   However, since about the third week of September I haven't posted anything...I wonder why that is???  So rather than pick up after a four to five month hiatus I decided I'd start all over.  And since I need to blog for my Master's class which will go almost to the end of the school year, hopefully I'll be able to keep things going full steam this time around...

     So, a little about me, my job, and what this blog is all about.  I am in my seventh year teaching and am an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher.  Which means, per my job description, it is my job to help teachers integrate more technology into their classrooms and lessons.  Prior to beginning the ITs program at George Mason University I was disheartened by education and where it has been going.  And I would love to say as a result of the program I am no longer disheartened...though if anything I am even more disheartened than I was before.  Partly because of what i see going on in the classrooms, partly because of this big vendetta the public seems to have against teachers the past few years (though that's another story).  At least now I know the reasons why and what I can start doing to help bring about a change.  

     This year I transferred out of the classroom to take that first step towards change.  My job as an ITRT is to train teachers on new technologies that will enhance their lessons and help them integrate those technologies into their classroom.  Currently I get to do some of that, but not as much as I was led to believe, but I'm hoping that too will change.  For more on the roles of an ITRT, this document by the VDOE describes the position in more depth, though I find page 11 the best summary.

So basically my job, together with my vision, is to help transform this:

  

Into something a little more like this:

     Now, I know that a one-to-one classroom where every student has access to a device on a daily basis is a dream for many school districts at the moment.  Though some have achieved this dream, so I am not about to give up on it.  Yes, it is frustrating when your school does not have the resources, and perhaps does not have the will, to move beyond the industrialized schooling system of the 1960s into a more appropriate learning environment for twenty-first century learners.  But like Bill Murray in the movie What About Bob, take baby steps. Throughout this blog I will be discussing some of those baby steps educators can start taking to transform their teaching practice into one more appropriate for today's learners.  As stated by Toffler in Revolutionary Wealth, we have moved beyond the Industrial Revolution and are in the Knowledge Revolution.  Our schooling system needs to transform in order to catch up with our exponentially changing society. 

Rows of students staring at a chalkboard during whole group and working on worksheets during independent time is just not appropriate for today's world.  Students today need a more constructivist classroom where they are collaborating, connecting,  globally aware, solving authentic problems...The list goes on.  The Flat Classroom Project (which I learned about at VSTE) has the right idea.  

What is your vision of a Twenty-First Century Classroom?