Technology Reflections

The school year isn’t even over yet and I’ve already been planning for next year. I do this every year; I try out new stuff at the end of the year that I want to implement fully the next year. The IT department has been after me for a couple of years to do away with the Mavis Beacon typing program that I use and to find one that is web-based. I have half-heartedly looked, but this year I found one that I hope will fill my needs – Custom Typing.  The 30 day – trial allows for 30 students so I set it up for my 8th grade computer class only. They liked the change from Mavis Beacon, and I think it has enough flexibility to meet the diverse needs of 6th, 7th and 8th graders.

For the past few years, I have drifted away from teaching my students the fine details of using Word and Excel to doing more projects that integrate those programs and doing more ‘fun’ stuff, like digital stories with PhotoStory and Movie Maker. I don’t want to abandon the ‘fun’ stuff, but as I was working with my Reading kids on typing and printing a book report, I realized that they do not know the basics of setting up a document. I told them what margins and line spacing they needed to have and most of them had no idea how to change those settings. I think that next year I’m going to have to go back to teaching the basics and maybe even testing those skills. I do only see about half of the 6th and 7th graders each year (one class of 20 – 25 students in each grade four times a year – and probably 50% – 75% of the 7th graders had my class in 6th grade) and then I only have one class each year of 8th graders (about 25 kids). It is entirely possible that I could have kids in my reading class that have never had one of my computer classes. But it still made me think about what I was teaching in my computer classes. I have to admit, too, that I have become lazy in those classes; pretty much everyone gets an A. But that makes me think that I’m not challenging the kids enough. I AM exposing them to new technologies, which I intend to keep doing, but somehow I need to work the basics back in. In a 9-week class thats tough, though. I added an Online Safety component a few years ago too and that takes a couple of weeks. I usually end that unit with a digital story of some sort. After we’ve done all that ‘fun’ stuff, the kids don’t want to sit still for boring Microsoft Word parts of the screen and how to set margins and line spacing. If anyone has any ‘fun’ ways to teach that, I’d love to hear ideas!

I am still a teacher, even though my recent posts have been sports related (GO RED SOX!),  I have a request for you all (all 5 of you who read my blog LOL)

I would like to teach my students how to use Diigo (I need to see if it’s blocked or not, but the IT guys know that I will make sure that it is used properly and they will usually unblock things for me). I think that Diigo will be a great tool for my kids to do some group research on our next unit (The History of Computers). I’m thinking about splitting up the class into generations of computer development and having them do a presentation. I’m even considering Voice Thread for the presentation – again I have to see if I can access it at school.

What I need are tips/tricks to teach my students how to use Diigo. I understand how it works and I can use it, but these are 8th graders and I need to present it well for them. Since I have just started using Diigo today, I was hoping some more seasoned people would reply with their experiences about using the tool.

Thanks!

I have been teaching the novel Tangerine for four or 5 years now. I’ve lost track – I could figure it out if I really wanted to, but that’s not important right now. What is important is that each year that I teach it I learn more about the story. I analyze it further and I pass that analysis onto the kids. I think last year was the first year that I really felt that my teaching of the novel was really good – that I imparted real analysis to the kids. This year I felt rushed in the middle of the book and was actually getting bored with it. Until today.

Some background: I teach reading. Reading and Language Arts take turns reading a novel so that the kids are not swamped with reading too many novels at once. This year Reading gets the first half of each quarter, while LA gets the second half. I hate having the first half because in the first quarter there are so many things we need to accomplish in the first week or so of school, that I don’t get to start the novel right away. That makes me feel rushed to finish the novel by midterm. I never actually do and I’m very lucky that my LA partner teacher and I work very well together and coordinate our book reading well.

So back to today. I actually skipped the whole second part of the book – well not skipped, but we didn’t discuss it deeply and we didn’t test on it. I did have the kids do a Who, What, Where, When, Why summary worksheet in groups and then I took those sheets and summarized Part 2 for them. It actually worked quite well. I was determined to finish the book this week (2 weeks after midterm). Originally I scheduled a test for Friday, then some school wide testing was thrown in for Thursday. So I changed it to a Final Project. The students have to complete a Story Plot Diagram, a Problem/Solution Graphic Organizer and a worksheet that I made where they have to analyze setting, symbols and quotes from the book. I spent yesterday and today reviewing and discussing Part 3. And wow! The kids blew me away – they were making connections from things that happened at the beginning of the book to the end of the book. I had to guide them somewhat, but after I showed one connection, they made more. They saw the pieces of the puzzle fit together. They got why the author showed us some things. At least the kids who actually finished the book did, but it was some of the most unlikely kids who were contributing some of the best ideas!

The project is due on Friday – I hope I have as much pleasure reading their work as I did discussing the book with them today!

I’ve hit the two week mark for time left in summer vacation. I am in full school thinking mode now. I’m constantly thinking about what I can do to start planning and organizing to make the transition less chaotic (yeah right!) Here’s what I’ve done so far:

1. I went into school on Thursday to check my schedule (seems like it will be exactly the same as last year – YAY!) and my room (furniture was moved around for me in order to accommodate a cupboard that had to be moved in from the hall due to some construction) and all was exactly like I wanted – YAY!
2. The Grammar Books that I talked about in this post arrived and they look great – YAY!
3. I revamped the Newsletter Information sheet that I send out on the first day of school for each of my classes (Reading and Computers)
4. I revamped the wiki that I use for writing lesson plans. Computer Wheel classes will have plans written by week of the quarter since I do the same thing (pretty much) each quarter. That will cut down on lesson writing for those 2 classes (6th and 7th grade). 8th grade computers is now organized by what topics I will cover each quarter. I tweaked the topics a bit too and I am pleased with how it looks. I moved all of last years plans to new pages. The Reading page is ready and waiting – this is the only subject that I write traditional daily/weekly plans for.
5. I added Standards and Skills to my Gradebook program. I’m going to try to link standards to my assignments in the gradebook. There is a feature that will allow me to track mastery of standards and skills through grades.
6. I have started creating new magnet titles for my whiteboard. Since I teach 4 different subjects (Reading and 6th, 7th and 8th Grade Computers) I use the sides of my whiteboard to organize lesson info, homework, etc for each class. The left side is for Reading and the right side for Computers. Additionally, I need to separate the different grades for computers. I do this by creating titles using WordArt for everything that I need and printing them on magnet sheets. The Magnet sheets stick to the whiteboard and I don’t have to write them over every time one gets erased.

There’s still plenty more to do – some can’t be done until I’m actually in my classroom (August 10th), but I’m sure I’ll find ways to keep myself busy.

Oh – and while doing all that I still managed to read the new Harry Potter Book in two days