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!

Yikes! I just looked at the school calendar and realized that Interims for 2nd quarter go home a week from tomorrow. That means that I will have to have the grades entered into the computer program by Thursday afternoon. I am so far behind on grading (my biggest weakness as a teacher). I have brought a bag of work home each weekend for at least the last three weekends and not touched it! I do get some grading done at school; sometimes during class while the kids are working independently (computer classes mostly) and I will stay after school to get stuff done. I do tend to work better under pressure, so this week will be a pressure-filled rush to get everything graded

Yup – I got an ipod Touch today! it’s soooo freakin cool! I still have my video ipod and I’m going to keep that for a while since it’s 30GB and the touch is only 16. I have a ton of audiobooks, so I kept those in the video ipod (along with everything else) and put music and videos on the touch. The coolest thing about the touch is the wi-fi access! I have a wireless network in my house, so I’ve been playing with that. It’s going to be really cool to not have to pull out the laptop, or lug it around in places with free wi-fi. I’m especially looking forward to using it at FETC in January. Maybe I’ll even do some live blogging. The keyboard is a bit sensitive, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

To keep this post somewhat education oriented, I’ll talk about another new toy I’ve been using – Classblogmeister . It’s a great tool to keep kids safe online while allowing them to blog. I used Learnerblogs for the past few years, but all of a sudden last year I couldn’t access them at school. They weren’t being blocked, but the IT guys could not figure out why the pages wouldn’t load. Learnerblogs was cool because of all the different templates, but in order to have security for the kids I had to set up individual accounts for each student using the gmail+name system. That was time consuming. With Classblogmeister I copy and pasted names from my class roster into their system and had classes set up quickly. Classblogmiester doesn’t have many templates to choose from, but my students will live I have been having some issues with Classblogmeister, but I’m forging ahead with it and I’m going to introduce it to my students tomorrow. I just hope that I can actually access it at school……..

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!

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 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!

In Reading class we are reading Tangerine by Edward Bloor. This is probably the 4th year that I’ve taught this book and every year I learn more about it and like it even more! It’s always a slow start, but we’re getting through it. I’m supposed to do a book in about 4 weeks and then the LA teachers do a book in their class for the second half of the quarter. Luckily I only have one LA teacher to coordinate with and we are really flexible with each other. Also, she tends to read the book more in class and I tend to have the kids read more at home so that we can discuss in class. The idea is to not have the kids have to read too many books for homework. In addition to the books we read in class, they all have to be reading an independent book for our Reading Counts program.

The computer classes are going well. We’ve finished the Online Safety unit in all computer classes. 6th graders are making Wanted Posters for the WizzyWigs, characters from the Netsmartz curriculum that I use. I’ve moved onto teaching the 7th graders how to use Word more effectively and 8th graders are about to begin a Unit on Digital Photography.

I have decided NOT to use blogs in my classes this year. One overriding reason is the time and effort it takes me to set up all the accounts. In order to ensure safety, I created gmail emails for each of my students in 8th grade computers and reading classes – thats about 100 kids. Then I had to go create each of the blog accounts for them, because I had to keep the gmail email passwords private (I did the gmail+name trick so that all passwords and emails came to one gmail account that I had control over). This week I found a new tool that I am going to use – www.myhaikuclass.com While it does not have blog features, it does have a discussion area where the kids and I can have message board type discussions. It also allows students to upload assignments to me, which I think is cool! There is an email feature, but the teacher has to ENABLE the feature for students to email each other – I won’t be doing that for liability reasons, but I will be able to email the kids and they can respond to me. One other great feature is that the kids do not need to have an email address to sign up and I can have each kid sign up on their own through a special link. That will save me hours of time. I plan to use this program with 8th Grade Computers and Reading classes.

Last week teachers were officially back to set up rooms and have meetings. Actually, our first required day back was Friday, August 10th. I started going in on Wednesday the 8th. I was in for 3 hours on Wednesday and 7 hours on Thursday, but it was worth it. On Wednesday I got the “OMG there’s so much to do I don’t know what to do first so I’ll do nothing” out of the way On Thursday I pretty much got my whole room set up, so on Friday when everyone was back, I didn’t feel guilty taking time to talk to everyone!

There was a whole schedule re-do since my last post, but the good news is that my schedule didn’t change (YAY!). My classes look good – one class has a higher incidence of yahoos, but the rest look pretty good.

I’m really having positive thoughts about this year, but there are two teachers who are really negative. One I can deal with, but the other one is really annoying. I’m just going to try to avoid her as much as I can.

Here are some pictures of my classroom. The pictures are basically a tour around my room starting from walking in the door and turning around to the left. The big purple board will be filled with paper “bricks” that my students will put up when they finish reading a book and pass the Reading Counts test. The brick has a spot to write the book title, the student name and they will get to put sticky stars on it to rate the book. I expect to fill that board up each quarter! (I left the purple paper up over the summer – I hate changing bulletin board paper. It doesn’t really go with the red bricks and the yellow caution tape, but too bad )

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

One thing that Reading teachers have been asked to do this year is to cover a bit more grammar, freeing the Language Arts teachers to concentrate on more of the stuff they need to cover. I have found a resource that looks like it will be a great thing – easy to implement, doesn’t take a lot of time and looks to be fun for the kids. The books are Caught’Ya !: Grammar With a Giggle. I plan to get the two books. There is a third book as well, but I will wait to see how these books work out before I get that one. I plan to do these as a warm up 2 – 3 times a week. I have other things that we need to do as warmups, as well; silent reading and a computer fluency program.

I’m also thinking about my Bulletin Boards. I have four in my room. One I make as an information board. It has a large printout of the Bell Schedule, a school calendar and a some other things. Two others will each be a generic Computer and Reading board (the two subjects that I teach). The last one changes from year to year. This year it will track the books that my reading kids read and the points they earn using the Reading Counts Program.

OK – that’s enough for now – I am still on vacation…..time to hit the beach…….