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 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!

We are almost done with the first four weeks of school. Summer vacation seems so far in the past now. We’re past the excitement of the start of school and the “I don’t want to get up the morning” blues have hit. It’s amazing how many times I hit the snooze now – sometimes without even realizing it! Today is a day off for the Jewish holiday and it’s a welcome day of rest. I’m actually feeling refreshed today. I fear that tomorrow will be tough – coming back to school for one day at the end of the week! Ick!

I sent home grade sheets with the kids last week. Overall, grades are good, but that’s typical for the beginning of the year. Also, there were only about 5 grades listed, and not in every category. There were 3 WarmUp grades (10%) and one each of Classwork and Tests (30% each). Other categories that I have are Homework (20%) and Projects(10%). Projects are usually only one per quarter – sometimes I’ll break it up into more than one grade, but at 10% it’s not a grade buster if they don’t do well. When reading a novel, homework is mostly reading for the next day. Can’t really grade that. Sure, I could give them a few questions to answer at the start of class, but I have my warmups all set and that really IMO just takes away from teaching time. I have what I call an Active Reading Chart (ARC), which is an organizer for the kids to jot down important details while reading since they can’t write in the novels. I do an ARC check for a homework grade every now and then. I did one this week – they KNEW I was going to do it – and I still had some that were not done. That one zero killed a lot of grades – but that’s because that was the only homework grade. Interims are next week and I’ll have at least 2 more homework grades by then.

I had one student who scored a 59 (F) on the one test that we’ve had so far. Her overall grade was a 69 (D). She had one assignment that was listed as missing, but not a 0. Turns out I had that assignment, but the student did not put her name on it. We determined that it was hers and I said I’d grade it and add it to the gradebook. I proceeded to teach the class for that day. At the end of class the student asked if I had added that grade – did she not see me teaching? LOL Obviously, I told her not yet and she proceeded to complain that it was affecting her grade (she also had to take the grade sheet home to get signed!). I told her not to blame ME for her low grade and I pointed to the test grade and said this is why you have a D! This is a student who thinks she is ‘all that and more’. She is one of the few who I mentioned previously about not understanding that it’s rude to talk while I’m teaching. She’s also one of those who need to comment on everything I say – usually to try to butter me up, but in reality it pisses me off LOL She is also, however, a very intelligent student. I just wish she’d use her intelligence more positively! While I do try my best to encourage her and give her credit for good answers, she always will be one of those kids that I just never warm up to.

To end on a more positive note, I have a bunch of students who were pains last year who are so much better this year! Maybe it’s just the change in maturity between 6th and 7th graders, maybe it’s difference between having them in a computer class (6th grade) compared to Reading (7th grade), but these kids who names I cringed at when I first saw them on my class lists, are proving to be different kids this year – yay!

Still thinking about my last post…..I still really like Zoho, but I’m beginning to think that the learning curve for the kids may be too great, at least for the reading kids, since I have so much content that I need to cover. I still want the kids to do collaborative notes, but I think I will use a wiki for that – wikispaces or pbwiki. I have used both and I like both.

Google would be another good alternative – Google Docs and Spreadsheets are great, and they can be shared and collaboratively edited. After reading Clarence Fisher’s post today, I started thinking about teaching RSS to the 8th graders next year. Since I use Google Reader, it would be easy for me to teach the kids how to use it. Keeping everything in Google makes sense.

For the past two years I’ve used blogs with the kids as a means for them to respond to writing prompts. I want more of a true blog next year, with student reflections. I’m thinking about having the kids write something reflective twice a week. Their reflections could be about anything school related; a book they are reading, how hard the science test was, how much they hate math , etc. Just to get the kids writing. I will grade it only on completion, I will not judge their writing or their spelling or their grammar. I will comment when I can and I will encourage them to read their classmate’s blog and make appropriate comments. I think this will help their writing overall. For blogs I use wordpress.

I’ve also been thinking about the email accounts that I mentioned in my previous post. The kids need email accounts to register for all the wonderful online stuff. Pros: I have control of each and every email account, I have the passwords if someone should forget theirs (I don’t let the kids change their password from the default one) Cons: It takes a long time to set up each account, I will have to monitor all the mail when they start sharing documents Alternatives: Have each student set up their own gmail account. They would have to give me their password so that I can monitor them (but in reality, I probably wouldn’t log onto what could be 100 accounts to monitor them). Am I being too over protective? – these are for 7th and 8th graders. I would love to hear thoughts on this – help me decide how to handle the email issue.