Technology Reflections

OK, I knew last year’s 8th grade Computer class was special. They were, without a doubt, my best class ever! It made last year probably my best teaching year ever. I even still have kids from last year come to volunteer after school, or just to talk. I really miss those kids…..
But there’s a downside to having a great class ……. the next year! You never know what you’re going to get. This year’s 8th grade class is not last year’s class. I keep telling myself that, and I keep reminding myself that I can’t expect every class to live up to my memories of last year’s class. But even worse than that, this year’s class is reminding me of some of my worst classes. I have a few – it’s always just a few – who ruin it for the rest of the class.

The 8th grade computer class is usually the favorite of all my classes to teach, so I get really cranky when the kids ruin MY fun

I wrote last week about how I canceled podcasting. Today, I threatened them with textbooks and no computers – I CAN teach this computer class without ever turning on a computer. I had to do it for a while a few years ago with a class that just wouldn’t follow directions, no matter what I tried. Today we were doing an HTML lesson and a few kids just decided that it was their own social hour. A few others decided they didn’t need to raise their hands and just started shouting out answers. finally, after the umpteenth time of asking the kids to stop talking, I lost it. Using my favorite piece of software, I blanked all their screens and gave the the lecture of the year. I pointed out the textbooks that I have piled in the back of the room and how I can teach this class without computers and that I have done it before! The kids do know that I mean what I say and that I follow through on threats like that, so when I went back to teaching you could have heard a pin drop

At the end of class I reiterated that they need to listen and follow directions while I teach and they will have plenty of opportunities to have fun with the HTML after they have learned what I have to teach, but they won’t get to the fun part if they don’t get through the lessons. What they don’t know yet is that I’ll be springing some pop quizzes on them – to make sure that they DO pay attention. I’m also making some seat changes. And tomorrow is a new day…..
Thank Goodness my other classes are going well this year……

Last week the 8th graders finished their Photoshop Project. The kids took all their creations and put them into a Windows Movie Maker movie. They were great!

This week I decided to start a podcasting project. I’m a total newbie with podcasts but I decided to give it a shot anyway. I decided to use gcast and have the kids record their podcasts by phone. We listened to some other Middle School podcasts – good ones and not so good ones. I wanted the kids to hear the difference and want to make theirs a good one. My plan was to have the kids get into groups of their choosing and then record their podcasts at home.

The problems started from the very beginning. During the Photoshop unit they had been given a lot of freedom to walk around and talk. Now that we were starting a new unit, I needed to teach and they needed to listen. They seem to have forgotten how to do that. On Monday I threatened that if they couldn’t behave and listen then I wasn’t even going to do the podcasting. On Tuesday and Wednesday they were better. They even got into groups and started planning their podcasts. Today I wanted to show them talkr and how you can turn blog posts into podcasts automatically. I had some issues with the technology (I was blocked from hearing the podcast on one computer, but could access it on another and had to move the speakers over) I repeatedly reminded the kids to stop talking, even after I finally got the podcast to work and I was moving onto another topic. I reached my frustration level and said they weren’t working on podcasts today. Trying to think fast, I came up with nothing for them to do except to read. When I announced that, they all cheered! As a reading teacher I loved that, but I was looking for punishment So I changed my mind had them all write my standby essay about why it’s important to follow directions and respect your teachers. That way the kids who were being quiet write about something they already know about (My old essay was to write about what you did wrong, but not everyone did something wrong) [note: I'm writing this in class and I just had to stop and talk to some girl who were 'communicating' to each other] They need to take their essays home and have their parents sign it and bring it back to me tomorrow. I don’t usually do this, but if they don’t bring it back I just might assign detentions.

I think I will follow through on my threat to not do podcasts. I will assume part of the responsibility and that is that I need to learn more about podcasts and podcasting, but I also need to follow through on my threats.

I’m also feeling a bit nostalgic. Last year’s computer class would have LOVED this project. I was spoiled last year with the best computer class ever since working at this school. This year’s class is not last years, and I have to adjust my projects, and my attitude, accordingly.

When blogging with students, my #1 priority is keeping them safe from outside influences. Recently on my edu and learnerblog sites there has been a rash of vulgar, inappropriate comments left on both my and my students blogs.

One way that I attempt to keep my students safe is that I used my email address when creating blogs for each of my students. During some recent updates over at edu/learnerblogs, that is no longer possible. That, along with the increase in spam, caused me to move my blogs here to Wordpress.com.

I looked at a variety of other blogs, but decided on wordpress.com because learnerblogs uses wordpress for their blogs and everything would be similar. Unfortunately, wordpress also limits your email address to one use. You can add blogs to your email address, but then all those blogs have access to all the other other blogs linked to that email. That doesn’t work for me – I can’t have students with access to MY blogs nor the other students’ blogs. What I have decided to do is to keep the student blogs at learnerblogs for now. I will have each student add me to their blog as an Editor. That will allow me to log onto their blogs with my username and password. Also, those blogs are still linked to my email so I will be notified of all comments posted.

Next year when I need to create new blogs for my new students I will have to send a letter home asking parents to create an email for their children to use solely as their blog email. It would be great to have all the emails at yahoo or gmail, too. I will get the passwords to each email so that I can monitor the comments that way. I will have each student add me to their blog as an Editor and I think I can also subscribe to the comments to keep tabs on them that way. I will test this procedure with some dummy accounts first.

I hate change…..but if I have to make changes I’m going to make sure that I have it all planned out before I start

As of today, October 22, 2006, this blog has moved to a new location – http://technologyreflections.wordpress.com/ (12/10 Update: I am now back on edublogs since all of the issues have been resolved)

The recent increase in spam and the loss of creating multiple blogs under one email address in learnerblogs has prompted my move.

In the coming days I will be moving the rest of my edu/learnerblogs to wordpress.