Blogging, Writing, Literacy

It is no surprise one of the goals of our district is literacy. We are encouraged to improve upon writing in each of our classes regardless of the content. I try to encourage writing in my technology classroom with the use of journals and forums(blog type exercises). There are a few rules I try to encourage in their writing. They must capitalize the first letter of every sentence, capitalize their I's and write in complete sentences. It is still difficult for the student's to adhere to the few rules I have laid out. All too often, even with all of the verbal warnings, I see shorthand writing, abbreviations as well as lower case i's throughout their writing. With the moodle program we use, they have a whole WYSIWYG full of emoticons, which I say are fine to use, if they could just complete the sentences!

According to the CNN article BTW, teen writing may cause teachers to :( "It's nothing to LOL about: Despite the best efforts to keep school writing assignments formal, two-thirds of teens admit in a survey that emoticons and other informal styles have crept in." :) The article then goes on to say,"The Pew Internet and American Life Project, in a study released Thursday, also found that teens who keep blogs or use social-networking sites such as Facebook or News Corp.'s MySpace have a greater tendency to slip nonstandard elements into assignments."

I agree with the article that it is a "teachable" moment for the students and I also make sure to let them know with the grade they receive as well as my immediate feedback that the grammar they chose to use in their journals is not one: proper and two: they did not follow directions. I am not sure if they care or not, but I am trying to keep the English Language alive. It says further in the article that the language is always changing, and possibly the shorthand IM language may begin to creep in as part of the formal style. Although students use blogging and wiki's at home, they are still resorting to conventional hand writing for most of the school writing they do. Not all classrooms or homes have computers and I am sure teachers do not require typed work.

In conclusion, the article states: "Teens who keep blogs are more likely to engage in personal writing. They also tend to believe that writing will prove crucial to their eventual success in life."

I hope we can encourage our youth to want to write and we value blogging as a viable literacy tool in our schools. Take a look at this blog which discusses student writing success. People are talking!

Look at JOTT, and how you can use a simple cellphone as a recorder and then you can print out into text... Very cool! :) There are endless possibilities for ALL learners here.

Listen to NPR and Text-Messaging Shorthand Invades Schools

It's Not always about fun and games! Or is it?

What has happened to our kids? What is going on in the United States? Does this happen outside of the US? It doesn't seem so, according to the information we see on Did You Know 2.0. It is not all about fun and games. School is not a circus where the kids are waiting for the pink elephant and the clowns to come out into the center of the ring. Why is it so difficult to instruct our youth? What is it that makes going to school so miserable? It is not all fun and GAMES!

Yes, learning must be engaging, but there has to be a time where instruction is instruction. Well, I am sure you are wondering why the strong feelings? Today for example, I need to teach the students spreadsheets. There are certain things the kids need to know about spreadsheets that are part of the curriculum, that must be taught. I worked on the lesson for a good couple of hours, found a pretty cool site that explained the spreadsheet terminology better than I think I could.. so I think! And I made an online sheet for them to answer some questions and give definitions. They are using their prior word processing skills along with online tools to figure out what the spreadsheet thing is all about. In the past, I have given them each a screen shot of the spreadsheet screen and had them take notes, while I talked in front of the LCD projector. BORING BORING BORING.. So, thinking of the kids, and thinking how they like to use the computer, I created some online learning.

You would think it would be a little more engaging, but NO. It was BORING... so I heard. I don't get it.. How do I answer this question.. I don't understand all of this.. and so on and so on and so on... Some didn't bother to even do it. They decided to just sit there and talk to one another. So, when I noticed their apathy, I gave them a deadline to print out what ever they completed prior to them leaving class for the day. Ahhhh accountability. Boy, did some of them get to work.. others still didn't care. How can they not care? This is technology! This is their future, isn't it?

So, where have I gone wrong. On some days, learning can not be put into an online game. It can not be repackaged into some crazy lesson. Sometimes, you have to sit down, be quiet, listen to the teacher, and just do it. Boy do I sound like a Nike commercial! Just do it...!!

When they get to college (hopefully they do), the teachers are not going to care or even tell them to take notes, show up to class, study for the tests, or even to pay attention. (I know because I used to sit in the halls of UNH and goof off all during my Physics class.. The teacher didn't even know I existed! There were 300 of us! By the By.. not such a good grade in that class!) Talk about accountability.

What are we teaching our kids today? They need to learn that learning is not always a video game, it is not an instant gratification process and yes, sorry, it is sometimes boring. They have to just learn things because they may need to know them for the future. I don't know how to explain to the kids that all that I learned in high school and even college really has nothing to do with anything I do now. It was just a bunch of preparation on how to learn... how to think! Yes, just think! But, that is difficult for our kids for some reason, and I really can't figure out why? Why is it hard for the kids to think on their own, have a voice and an opinion? Figure something out and for goodness sakes.. read the directions? Is that too much to ask .. please read the directions! That is rule number one in my class. Should it have to be written out and posted?

I think I am so upset because I know I have a lot to offer and some days, all that I have and all that I do, is wasted upon them. They don't even realize it, and I know this is the steep slope we all travel, especially at the middle school level.

I always listen to our principal tell us if we can just reach one, we have done our job. Why can't I reach all 300 of them that I teach in a year? Some do not want to listen and some I can not make a break through with. I know I can't save them all or reach them all, but that is my challenge. I am not giving up. I will be back at it again with a refresher and yes, maybe a game to reinforce what the kids learned today. If anything? We will see!

Phew.. I feel better! Anyone have any help for a crazy teacher? :)

Cyberbullying - Neat Site

Stories of Us is a website with information related to cyberbullying in schools. It has two excellent videos that show students in many differently bullying situations. This is a great starter video to begin the talks with your students about how there are many, many, many different situations where students are bullied. The kids might not even see some of these situations as bullying. There are also a few clips using technology to hurt other kids. One takes a picture and then posts it on her social networking page. Another student puts her cell phone on speaker and lets other girls listen in on the conversation. What a great way to discuss bullying and the effects it has on the person being bullied. It is a great way to begin the cyberbullying and digital citizenship conversation with your kids. It is one of the most important conversations you can have with your students. The more they hear it, hopefully the more responsible they become. They must understand that the information they put out on the internet is a "digital footprint" of themselves, and may never go away. It is our responsibility to educate them and their parents on how to make good, smart choices when dealing with the technology they all seem to have available to them.

Step by Step - Can I build a web 2.0 classroom?

Step by Step - Building a Web 2.0 Classroom - Drew Murphy

A must watch! This video podcast is wonderful and really goes to show teachers that it is fun to use technology in the classroom... and the kids love it. If you can do 10 things that are outlined in the video, you will be well on your way to creating a web 2.0 class.

There are some simple things that I would have never thought of! The skills are simple and should be taught to the students first in order for them to begin their Web 2.0 journey.

In order to create a simple online research project, there are a few Web 2.0 skills the students must be taught and learn:

- Apply, Explore and Participate
(Web 2.0 tools to know - tab, bookmark, sign up - for youtube, other sharing sites)
- Apply, Deconstruct and Reconstruct
(Web 2.0 tools to know - cut and paste, emphasize text/align, images)
- Apply, Create and Connect
(Web 2.o tools to know - link, slideshow, embed)

Drew uses characters in his day to day online web based classroom. He makes learning fun and unexpected. The kids are collaborating and working together to share their knowledge and opinions on the other students work.

He compares making paper projects in the classroom and displaying them on the walls of the classroom. The students can walk up to them, make some comments out loud to each other and then the comments are lost forever.

If the same project is created and captured in an online environment, the collaboration and commenting can be captured online. In a community online project, the project is on display, it is ready for peer commenting, ready for elaboration and ready for collaboration. What I found most interesting about the online learning project, was the project could always be changed and made better. The creator could take comments from their peers and make changes to fix or improve their work.

Although the format was a little quirky, I really enjoyed this web blog. I think it is an excellent base to begin students with. I would incorporate online responsibility along with the basic skills outlined.

Kids teaching the teachers???

Watch podcast by clicking here.. You can choose iTunes to watch and listen to podcast. This is a podcast from the K12 online Conference from 2007. This conference was totally held online and you can attend from the comfort of your own home! No planes, trains or automobiles required, just an internet connection, and some good speakers! :)

A must see for all teachers who complain that they are not getting enough technology professional development. This is a wonderful podcast explaining that teachers who were surveyed, did receive enough training, but were very uncomfortable to bring it back into the classroom and experiment with what they had learned.

I would love to show part of this video to my the teachers at my school. I think if they were using their students more, they would feel more comfortable when teaching with the technology in the classroom. The video showed the students consulting with teachers and explaining what technology options they knew about and how they could use them within the class during lessons.

The teachers in the video were open to having the students teach them the technology. They were thrilled to listen to the children and were more happy with the kids teaching them collaboratively rather than the adult technology trainers they had previously worked with in professional development lessons.

I know I hear a lot of the time that technology is not a priority right now with teachers because they are trying to save their jobs and help the students pass the "TEST". If they are working in a school in need of improvement, how can technology help to bring up the test scores?? If the teachers had heard of the constructivism theory of working together, giving the students more choice and working in groups to construct an outcome, they might consider changing their minds when it comes to technology and improving test scores.

(11:55 on podcast)
The Attributes of a Constructivist classroom mentioned in the podcast are as follows:
Collaborative, Actively Student Centered, Choice, Democratic, Reflective and Risk Taking.

(14:05 professional development paradigm shift)
From secret to open, from shame to celebrate mistakes, from individual to collaborative, etc..

(15:32 GenYES video)
This is the video that I would like to share with my staff. It shows how students are working with teachers in over 40 states throughout the country.

If we (teachers) can embrace technology in the classroom and then feel comfortable enough to admit we do not know everything, we can begin to learn with the kids. They can start teaching us and the other kids in our classes. This would really shift the power and hopefully give the kids the feeling they can do anything they set their minds to... even pass the TEST!

wiki explaining podcast
Creator of podcast - Sylvia Martinez

Best Teaching Practices - Are there any?

I came upon this blog about Best Teaching practices. by James Sigler who I already follow on Twitter. This started me thinking about my teaching practices and how I am a constant "self doubter" when it comes to classroom management. It is noted in some of my observations and I am a constant critic of myself when it comes to the class management piece of my job. No one ever tells you what it is going to be like. There is no training that can really prepare you for the classroom from you know where! It is that miserable combination of students who feed off of each other, who yell across the room, who get out of their chair without asking, who shout out when they should be quiet, you know the ones right?? Well, I am taking my lack of classroom management and going to a training Tuesday on how to deal with difficult students and their behavior. Secretly, I am hoping it helps me with my own children who are 16, 13 and 11! Two for the price of one.

So, when I read the above blog post, I think I do a lot of the tasks mentioned, but I try to be a little laid back in the classroom style that I run. I think that computers should be fun, hands on, interactive, and cooperative. It should be a place where you are not just figuring out how to change margins on a word processing document, but why you might want to change the margins so you can conserve paper and print on one page. I want the kids to figure it out or ask each other for help.

I think I am pretty good at coming up with the projects, which I think are what the kids would like, but I am not so sure they all are of the "higher" order thinking that is mentioned in the new Blooms Taxonomy. I aspire to work towards making all of my lessons based upon Understanding by Design principles, which all touch upon a part of Blooms, but I just have never had the time to convert them all over to that high quality! Plus link them all to the standards for ICT as well as any GLE standards for the school goals.

I am hard on myself, I know that. I think being a computer teacher (or part of the Unified Arts department) is another issue in itself. Sometimes the kids and possibly, I am not pointing any fingers, but the core teachers even look at us as less. We are the right brain teachers who are trying to help our students be creative, think outside of the box. I am reading Daniel Pink- A Whole New Mind right now. Hopefully this will shed some light on the creativity reasoning.

I think I like teaching students. I am pretty sure I enjoy middle schoolers. I like them, I know that, because I keep going back. The discipline is difficult though, and I know I am not a follow througher.. if that is such a phrase! I will keep you posted after my seminar to see if I can find some help. I would hate to have to change jobs again in my life, since I am almost 40 now! :) I wish I knew exactly what I want to be when I grow up.

Podcasting

Note to self and anyone else who may be reading this, about podcasting.... Check your equipment before you start whatever it is you are doing. Why you ask? No, I am not trying to stream from China! Just a simple video. I am the master of video. This week, I presented a really super (Well I think so, because I made it! :) ) slide show about Moodle and how it can be used in the 1 computer class as well as for many other reasons... for our Tech Week Fair. I decided, hey.. wouldn't this be a wonderful opportunity to create my very first podcast (video podcast none the less!) for this class. So, I took one of our video cameras, the tripod, the plugs..etc. and schlepped them up the stairs to the computer lab I was presenting in. I had the video camera all set up perfectly, just on me and the screen. Well, on goes the video camera.. yeah! I am excited to share this video with you.. well boo hoo.. The video contained 4- 1 inch lines all across the screen and the voice would not come through to the iMovie program when I tried to download it. Arrggggg... who knew the video camera is broken.. this must have been from last year.. I can't even get the sound to come through so I could save it that way...

So lesson learned.. Always check your equipment first.

Any how, I am excited to use my 8th grade class as the test group for the pod casting I am going to start working on. Each student is required to write a reflection for their web pages that they create. If they are working on their math web page, the reflection would be about when the student was in elementary school, think back to a teacher or a favorite project you had in math. What was special about it? Why do they remember this project. Then they do the same reflection for the middle school years. Also, the students have a final overall reflection page to their website. This reflection is to make the students think about their overall education so far in their lives, as well as the person they have become. Where do they see themselves at Pinkerton and beyond? What is important to them educationally and personally. Then they write this. So far, I have been having them create a PDF version and then linking it in to their HTML hand coded web page. So, now, I want them to record it as a pod cast and we are going to embed them into their page. HOW EXCITING! :) I think so anyway. Let's see the kids reactions and then I will confirm for you !

So, a few open questions:
1) How do you eliminate background noise when recording?
2) When you say a microphone panel, is this something where all microphones are connected together to record at the same time?
3) How much space does a podcast really consume on a server for example? Just the small size of the shrunken MP3 file once it is exported out of garage band into iTunes right?? Small? Of course video would be bigger, but if you saved as quicktime and webstreaming size, it is pretty tiny..

Again, people are in the "old fashioned" mind set with personal beliefs running things.. so I am going to go with the advice and go for it,.. ask for forgiveness later! Wish me luck! :)

Some podcasting sites I thought would be helpful:
Podcasting 101
Video Podcasting - CNET
iTunes Podcast Site


Oh, by the way, I love iTunes podcasts, you can find awesome yoga and meditations there to put on your iPod to listen to..Don't drive and listen though! They don't mix! :)

Also, there is everything you can think of under the iTunes podcasting sections.. The education site is wonderful on iTunes..podcasting. Now, my next thing is to look at audacity even though I have garageband.. I wonder if audacity is easier to use?

Reflection

A reflection... (may be a little bit all over the place!)

I am in awe of these technology educators that I have come across on twitter and in my web 2.0 journey. Where do they find the time? I have been reading all about the Personal Learning Network and Jeff Utecht's blog was great! I still wonder, where do these educator's get the time to update their wiki's, twitter with each other, blog, attend conference's, globally connect, and still engage their students using technology. Where do they find the time with all of the other pressing issues in Education today that we are faced with?

In the new NEA magazine that came in the mail today, I was reading a really interesting article about why teachers are leaving the profession. Why teachers leave? Why are they leaving you ask? Well, let's see?? They do not have support, they are not valued by administration, they feel pressure to do well and help the kids pass the "test", they do not make enough money to pay their rent, educators should be seen and not heard (why not work together?), and my biggest issue, this is your classroom, you deal with the kids and discipline. Not to say my administration does not deal with discipline, that is not the case, but it is a silent, unwritten rule, that you would look weak if you were always sending students to the office.

I am disappointed to have lost one colleague last year and now another this year to the above issues. I am sticking it out to see if things will change and education will get better. I have a family to feed and can't or don't want to go back to the private sector. I know that I can make a difference even if it is within my 4 classroom walls, so I will continue to work in my new web 2.0 tools as much as I can. I will hope for change and still work with my peers to develop it.

I will begin by showing this video at our May staff meeting and explain to the staff how I first saw the video on teachertube, then I was poking around twitter and came upon the creator's blog, and from there I figured out that it was he (Darren Draper) who created this amazingly neat video that I wanted to share with my entire staff! Here is the website that I also will share with staff from the school that he teaches at.

I have to admit, I haven't even touched my RSS feeds, I check my emails now and again, bombard my two other computer teachers with links to great websites and ideas, and sit with twitter on so I do not miss any good links to things, so I guess I am finding some time, but at the expense of what? I have to find that balance or this will consume me! I have to finish my capstone project, but all of this web 2.0 stuff is swirling around, and how will I put together something cohesive to show my school district that using web 2.0 tools in my classroom will somehow be beneficial to our students??

I am sure I will manage. I always seem to. I now have a nice network to help me achieve this goal, and I am so happy to have taken this course. How fitting it is my last one before I graduate! :) Me with a Master's degree. Who would have thought!

Wiki's In Education

I have been looking at all different types of Web 2.0 tools in the past few weeks. I think the idea of using wiki's in education can be a great tool, although, I worry about abuse by students. (Erasing work, changing answers and pages, etc...) I know I am sounding a little paranoid, but I know my kids..in my classes.. and I wonder if they can be responsible. (I know it comes with good teaching and preteaching the proper etiquette) I only have 12 weeks with them, and once they finally get the jist of what I am trying to accomplish in the classroom, it is time for them to move out.

I did sit in on a wonderful webinar on edtechtalk two weeks ago that was about students from the horizon2008 project. This horizon2008 project is set up on a wiki. It was wonderful to talk to the students on the chat feature as well as to listen to them through iTunes and the live channel to hear the talk. The webinar was wonderful and gave me some more reason to try a wiki in my classroom. The students were from the Baccalaureate School for Global Education (BSGE), New York City, and Madeline Brownstone is their teacher. She is working with another co-teacher to work on this project with her students. The students are excited about collaborating on this project with students from all over the country, as you can see on the website. The students were so well versed and looking forward to working with the other students as well. They will be using ning, a social networking system to connect with the other students involved in the project. They first use ning to just get to know each other and then comes the collaborating!

I would like to use one of the wiki's that are password protected like our wetpaint and I also logged onto the free wiki Jeff gave us. I am concerned a little bit about using the wiki with my students because I am not sure how the district would feel about it. I think if we keep the kids names out of it and no pictures, it should be fine.

While learning about wiki's and preparing for my final capstone project at Plymouth for my MEd., I have gathered up a bunch of articles and blogs to try to support the theory that using a wiki in the classroom would promote literacy and further develop my technology curriculum.

Here are a few I found so far to help with my cause:
Research proving Wiki's are more efficient than email: http://tinyurl.com/4d8jxk
Wiki Collaboration leads to happiness: http://tinyurl.com/3dzn24
Eduwikis: http://eduwikius.wikispaces.com/
Wiki Educator: http://www.wikieducator.org/Main_Page

Wiki's seem to be a great way to create a beautiful web page, that can be used to collaborate with others. All of the people I find on Twitter seem to house their web blogs or websites on a wiki. I will give it a go, and update this page to let you know how it goes. Right now we use Moodle in the classroom, but it is not "open" to the world. It is contained. My dream is to collaborate with others from all over the world with a wiki and my students! Let's see if dreams come true.