Ok. So I’m trying to blog live instead of taking notes that will never get transcribed. So right now we are all taking out our phones and waving them at him. We list the devices that we are holding in our hands:
Telephone
Clock
text messenger
still camera
video camera
video player
GPS device
Podcast (Gcast)
Music Player
These are tools that all of our kids have all the time in their pocket at school. It’s a powerful device and the kids bring them to school VOLUNTARILY!! We will not debate whether or not cell phones should be in school. Even those in this audience will admit to taking them away. We need to teach kids appropriate uses. We don’t want to fight this - we will lose this debate. We ought to just make this work. Parents are not going to give up a device that allows them to track and monitor their kids.
There are twice as many texters as there are emailers. 16% of homes in US are exclusively wireless - they have no land line phones. 30 countries exceed 100% penetration in cellphones…US is behind because we had land lines before others did. Lots of third world countires allow cell phones, businesses allow cell phones, but they are banned - by your local high schools.
Location based technologies can become location based teachable moments: Write a review after you watch the movie, take a picture of rectangles on the bus. If our non-working hours have been ruined by cell phones, why can’t our students??
Uses for cell phone technology:
Live feeds from cell phones www.qik.com - use IP cameras for school security (Cisco gets it)
Pre/post lesson videos uploaded to a secure site for parents to watch (like youtube, but secure)
Teacher’s video lesson plans or other instructions for the sub
Report on the outcome of a meeting
Create a video challenge for your students
Video message sent to parents (like phonevite, but in video)
Use the phone to video student presentation and then send it to the kids parents
www.Jott.com - turns voice into text (Hall records to twitter from Jott) You can use the same technology to post to Google Clendar -Administrator could use JOTT to document intervention- Jott will transfer voice to email, blogs, twitter etc.
GCAST for podacasting - Student can use it to interview subjects for a report - using their own cellphones - Have students call in to answer challenge questions, answer a prompt, students can recite times tables, or play the piece they were supposed to practice.
Langugae arts: Text a story in six words
Polleverywhere: Free app use cell phone to text and answer a poll
Text message 34381 and they’ll give the food chain and menu item, they will send you the nutrition breakdown.
Go to discoverymobile.com you can get the quizbuilder via cell phones.
I started a class on Web 2.0 about three weeks ago. Sometimes the VDOE offers classes for TRTs. I guess they think that they should help us decide the direction that we ought to be going. I try to take as many as I can because I want to make sure that I am at least keeping pace with what the VDOE has suggested. The classes have been interesting, but in general they seem to be things I have a pretty good handle on already. I think the classes are great for learning about what is going on in other school divisions and for networking. So I will continue to take them as I have the opportunity.
We are supposed to post to our blogs weekly about the course content, and of course since it’s on my blog, this assignment has fallen to the way side. So here’s the post that I was supposed to do last week. Required reading for this week is some older posts from Richardson and Dembo, both of whom I read (when I am reading). The posts introduce the idea of conjugating the word blog. Blog (noun), blogging (verb), and what the concepts we are talking about really mean.
Just to summarize, a blog is the site where you read what has been written and perhaps comment on it. Blogging on the other hand is the act of reading, reflecting, and writing about what you read. Which then might be read by someone else who reflects and then writes about what you have written. The continuing circle becomes what we know as the blogosphere. Dembo then asks a question: When we take this practice into the classroom, are we rehashing the same old skills are we teaching something new? Is the skill set required by students who blog different from what students are required to do in a regular classroom.
I am pretty sure that this is a new skill set. Especially if we allow students to choose whose reflections they will read. I could be said that they might have the same outcomes reading and reflecting on The Diary of Anne Frank, but I beg to differ. Blogging becomes alive in a very different way then the reading, reflecting, and discussing that goes on in a regular classroom. Blogging allows the student to choose what direction the discussion will go in. It requires them to thoroughly think through their thoughts and opinions as they have to be expressed in writing. Too a student in a class will add to the discussion a partial thought and be unable to fully express it. Another student adds to their thought in an attempt to assist and then the conversation has may be seeded with thoughts that the student was in no way thinking. If one of the participants hooks on to that idea there is a fundamental shift in the conversation that may never come back to the partially expressed thought of the first student. A student’s blog is her own. The conversation never gets away from her and she is able to bring it back to her point and clarify to her audience.
In the three years that I have had this position, I have been trying to get a tested grade to really co-teach a lesson with me. They have wanted a demonstration, have used me a s a glorified babysitter, even planned to use me as a sub plan…but that has changed. This year I have co-taught in sixh grade (science isn’t tested, but I’ll take what I can get) with Mrs. Trumbauer. Now I have co-taught with Mrs. Matthews. While Mrs. Matthews has expressed the desire to wok with technology, we haven’t really shared the responsibiliy for a lesson before. Getting ready to review for the SOL, we came up with this:
Doesn’t everybody? Well here’s a sure fire way to get it: Go to Mrs. Taxson’s class and threaten to take the activotes away. That’s the offer you’ll get as those little six year olds block your way to the box and then refuse to let you out of the classroom…”We need our egg-votes!” “How do you expect us to learn?” “I’ll give you a million bucks…” ”Please…” They were serious too - and oh so cute. So I pretended that they convinced me and that I didn’t really need them that badly and left the votes in the class. It’s a good thing Starbase has votes that I can use for the Promethean training.
These little tykes are really special and they just love technology. I hear they went to the sports hall of fame the other day. The education consultant usually has to teach the students how to use the ActivBoard and activotes. Mrs. Taxson’s class assured her that they didn’t need any help - this technology was old hat to them…
So second grade went to the farm. I’m not quite sure which SOL they were focused on as I found a couple that they covered. The great thing about it is that Ms. Kurrus planned ahead and reserved my Hamilton cameras to take with them. We met the day before the trip to square away some details about the project. I decided to use the three step integration process that I showed the teachers in January. I took some time to teach the class about the cameras and was pleasantly surprised that most of their questions served to clarify their responsibilities. The students took the cameras to the farm and took some really good pictures. Not only did they document their activites while at the farm, they took great pictures of their process. Don’t take my word for it take a look:
I couldn’t have done a better job of documenting their trip myself…those cameras are pretty amazing too…
Last week it seemed like everyone was working on plants. One of my first grade teachers, Ms. Marks, asked me to add some plant interactives to the Victory Portaportal. The second grade went to the farm and looked at plants and the fourth grade was charting the growth of some seds they planted a few weeks ago. I thought Mrs. Petry’s use of the Promethean board for student graphing was cool and I wanted to share her kids’ work with you.
It’s my newest toy! Actually it’s my boss’s newest toy, but I snatched it. Ok. She let me borrow it, but saying I snatched it sounds a whole lot better. It fits in my pocket, on my tripod and in the phone holder on my knapsack… Anyway, it’s really cool and easy to use. It makes the whole video in the classroom thing very accessible.So how do you use the flip camera? The first thing you need to know is that it’s easy, you really just point and shoot for the most part. I did that point and shoot thing around my boss’s office for a while. People got mad…so I had to find a different way to use my new toy.
I decided to use the camera to try to send an email out to my teachers. I had seen a workshop where a TRT used video and other techniques to try to get folks to focus on using technology. So I set my FlipVideo camera on the tripod and videotaped myself. After the tenth try I got something that might be usable. I’ve sent a couple of emails out this week so I guess one more won’t hurt. I’ll set it up so that it goes out tomorrow since I’ve already sent one out today. The video’s not great, but I guess I’ll have to keep trying to improve my technique. OH!! I think that’s why my boss gave me a DVD on making videos…she’s so smart. She must have known that my video skills are non-existant…here are my first videos…
I’ve spent the last two days in professional development. On one hand, I feel like a limp dishrag. On the other, I can’t wait to try some of these things out. Karen Streeter, my supervisor, arranged for Tammy Worcester to do professional development for the TRTs for two days. It was just us, the Portsmouth folks and it was great. Tammy is a nationally known Instructional Technology Specialist from Kansas. She’s been in the field for a very long time. Lots of the things she showed us were applications that we should have been able to figure out on our own. However when you are working at 100mph every day, you just don’t have time to think about some of these things or play with applications the way you’d like.
As I see it, Karen was doing herself a great favor by arranging this for us. In my mind it was at least the equivalent of going to the VSTE ITRT mini-conference. We spent a day learning how to support academics and another day learning about using web applications. We would have probably had the same kind of learning experiences at the mini-conference, but logistically our whole team would not have been able to go. First of all the ITRT conference is in the summer and most of our folks don’t work in the summer. Secondly I think the cost (travel, meals, lodging) would have been more, and this way we got two days of professional development instead of one.
So at the end of day two I am wiped. But since we had arranged to be in the ODU tri-cities center, we needed to make especially sure that we returned the teaching lab back to the way we found it…(my mom taught me manners). So, the question is how do you clean up after a group of TRTs? The answer - with dread…I know this because I end up cleaning up after these folks most Fridays.
The first thing we had to do was to empty the recycle bin (a large blue container with the recycle symbol on it above which is a sign clearly stating that it is for copy paper only). It was filled to the brim with garbage from everyone’s lunch from the two days we were there. Of course if they had followed the lab rules about not eating in the lab in the first place we wouldn’t have had to clean up their garbage. Then of course we wanted to make sure the computers were all back in working condition. Here again, my experience told me there would be an issue. Most of the computers were fine; however one had been totally upended and left that way. So the computer needed to be put back the way it was found.
Other than that, the two days were great. I look forward to finding language arts applications for the information we got.
Today we had our first round of presentations on the VSTE conference. I’m always a little apprehensive when the TRTs are supposed to give presentations. I never know if my “stuff” will actually make a meaningful contribution for these folks. For example, my first ever blog in-service was for the TRTs. I was new at blogging myself, but I wanted to do the best that I could. I spent hours getting ready; had folders with handouts but judging from the results about half of the TRTs didn’t find the information valuable. In fact, some of those in my audience left the handouts behind. The TRTs are one of the hardest audiences…So today, I was glad that I wasn’t first. I am having a little difficulty with my presentation, but I’ll get it all worked out before the 25th.
We are supposed to share what we learned at the conference. One of the presentations was rather short. It may be that with our push to present at the conference (I think our team did 7 presentations) we may not have been able to see a whole lot of what other divisions brought to the table. We might keep that in mind when we receive the request for proposals for the 2009 conference. We had a delightful presentation today by Al in which he showed us stop animation and the K-12 Voicethread site. It was his first presentation to the group and he really did well.
Kudos to Al who is doing a great job in his first year as a TRT!!
It’s the school motto at Brighton, but I’ve been on the periphery most of the year. Today I was able to make a significant contribution. Our third grade special education teacher has been looking for some activities for her grade level assesment students to complete as evidence that they have mastered specific SOL. I got wind of the request yesterday and was able to leave some activities in her folder for the students to complete. Of course I did not realize at the time that I had used a program that she was not familiar with, so I spent some time in the lab today with her and her students leading them through the activities…it feels great to be a part of the team.
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