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!

On Wednesday, I’m heading to FETC. I have been to FETC 4 of 5 times in the past 7 or 8 years. I love this conference; every year I find something new to use in my classroom. Sometimes it’s just a great idea and sometimes it’s something that costs money. I’m lucky that I have an administration who believes in technology and usually these things I find are purchased for me. In the past few years I have received a Mimio for my whiteboard and software to monitor all the computers in my classroom.

For the past few years I have toyed with the idea of being a presenter at FETC, but I never know what to present. It seems that the things that I know how to do are ‘old news’ by the next year. However, looking at this year’s offerings, maybe not. They may be old news to me, but there are so many teachers out there who are just learning about some of things that I have been doing in my classroom for years. One of the things that I like best about FETC is hearing how other teachers use technology, and one of the things that I like about teaching is hearing how other teachers teach the same skills and concepts that I teach. Hearing a new perspective is refreshing and makes my job more interesting.

While in the shower (don’t all great ideas come to us in the shower? ) I thought of a way to combine both of those collaborative ideas. At my school we have bi-weekly in house training sessions with the curriculum specialist. We have tried to make these trainings into a best practices sharing activity, with the principal’s blessing, but they are still more teaching than sharing. What I would like to do is to set up a wiki or blog page for teachers to share best practices and possibly infuse some training into the process.

If it was a blog, teachers could post what they did, or are planning to do, in their classroom, and other teachers could post comments on ways they have done that same thing, or give advice on how to improve on the lesson. If someone did a lesson that went really well, they could post that so that other teachers could try it too. I’d also love to see teachers giving advice on how to adapt lessons for other subject areas. Just this weekend I was talking to a math teacher who was saying that the short, full staff training we had last week that used a reading passage wasn’t helpful to her. I pointed out that the training wasn’t about the reading passage, but about the process and then proceeded to tell her that it was a process she used when teaching math (Modeled instruction, guided instruction and independent practice). She totally did not see that until I pointed it out!

If it was a wiki, then teachers could add to the posted lessons, but I’m almost afraid they would change someone’s lesson too much, and we’d lose the process of helping someone, or sharing best practices. If one person liked the original lesson, but then someone else changed it, the original lesson would not be there any more.

I would then like to present the process and outcomes at FETC 2009. I would get teacher responses to the process, either on video, in the form of quotes or even as a panel to present with me.

This is obviously in the very early stages of planning and I have a lot of thinking to do, but I’m kind of excited about it already. I need to think it out more (though posting here helps me do that – and already has [blog vs. wiki]) and present it to my principal. I could pilot it at the end of this year (after state testing) and then continue it at the beginning of next year. Piloting it this year would let me know if it would work and give me data and samples for the FETC proposal which is usually due sometime in July.

If there is anyone out there still reading this blog, I would LOVE to hear ideas and input.

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!

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.

Today, however, I feel that technology is speeding past me. The computers in my lab are getting old. I’ve lost track of how old they are (I think 4 years) , but in the 8 years the school has been around, I’ve only had one update of new computers. (Well, really my 2 teacher computers are one year younger than the student computers). I wrote yesterday about wanting to use Google Earth and today the IT guys explained to me why it can’t happen; bandwidth, servers and video cards being the most prominent.

My school is actually getting some new computers this year – I think we skipped a year or two of updates in what was supposed to be a rolling update so that each classroom got new computers every 4 years (I think) and I really shouldn’t complain about my 4 year old computers. The computers that are being replaced are original to the school – 8 years! It can take 10 – 15 minutes for people to log onto those computers sometimes. Those original computers aren’t only in some classrooms, but they are in ALL teacher planning rooms. Rumor has it that the brand new computers are going into classrooms and the planning rooms will be getting 4 year old computers from the elementary school (which also got new computers for their classrooms).

OK, back to the point of this post. While my school has more technology than a lot of other schools, we’re not keeping up with the technology. Not that we don’t want to. The biggest obstacle is money.

We sometimes have enough trouble getting teachers to use technology in the classroom. Some are scared of it, some just don’t know how to use it well enough, some are constrained by the need to make sure our students do well on state tests and some just don’t want to be bothered to find new ways to teach, but there are those who would use it if they had equipment capable of handling the newest technology.

sigh…………….

I’ve sent info about Moodle to my IT director to see if that is something we could host, but I’m looking for other ideas. My requirements are (in order of importance):

• Free
• I’d love something just online that doesn’t need to be hosted (in case I hear back from Mr. IT Guy that we can’t host anything)
• Something that would allow lessons to be posted with links to all sorts of things – webpages, documents, even document downloads
• Online quiz capability
• chat room – it would be cool to have a quiet day where the kids would have to contribute to a discussion by typing only
• monitored message board (this might not be a good idea – middle school kids think message boards are for writing silly things )

OK – thats all I can think of right now…feel free to add to your thoughts on what else I should have as well as any suggestions for how to accomplish this without creating my own web pages : )

I have wanted a Mimio Interactive Whiteboard for years – the price is right and my Media Specialist, who was with me this year, has agreed to purchase one for me I showed it to the math teacher who was with us and he wants one too – I’ll share mine with him for the rest of this year and we’ll try to get him one next year.

I also got some good info on making Digital Stories better. Just some small tips to take them up a level. I did some workshops on podcasting, which is something that I want to do, but haven’t felt that I have enough knowledge to do. Too bad we don’t have Macs because Garageband is the coolest thing! I will do podcasts with audacity and other tools.

Did you know that headphones use the same technology as microphones? If you plug headphones into the microphone jack you can use them as a microphone! My students are doing that to narrate their digital stories. The quality is not as good as if you used a microphone, but until I figure out how often I’ll podcast, I’m starting out with headphones (Note: I didn’t learn this at FETC – I learned it from my friend’s 14 year old son)

I didn’t win an ipod as a matter of fact I didn’t win anything. But I have decided that I NEED a video ipod, so I’ll be buying one next weekend

I have a ton of stuff to go through and new websites to visit – I’ll post any other good stuff as I find it.

I love this conference! Every year I get some great ideas to use in my classroom – software and best practices. One year I won a copy of Office 2003 and last year I won a copy of OneNote. This year I really want to win a new ipod

There are two software programs that I found last year that I still use in my classroom, and will continue to use. EdClass is a program with lessons that integrate core curriculum with Office products. It is only for Windows (maybe they have a Mac version that I am not aware of) and offers options for Win98, 2000 and XP. You can also choose your Office version from 2000, XP or 2003. I bought this for use as my computer curriculum, but my media specialist thought it would be great for everyone. There are plenty of activities to go around. I did a (poorly attended) training and then no one ever used the program.

The other program that I found last year is my favorite! NetSupportSchool is a program that allows me to monitor the computers in my classroom. It not only lets me *spy* on the students’ computers, but it also lets me take control of their computers in order to help. It also lets me broadcast lessons and videos from my computer to all of theirs. I can even log on, log off, shutdown and reboot the computers from my workstation. There is so much that this program does and I haven’t even learned it all. We bought this program for my computer lab, and two other rooms. The research teacher has a mini-lab of 13 computers and the media center has a full lab of 25 computers. For some reason we never installed the program in those rooms. That reminds me to check on that next week. We should do it in the media center at least. We didn’t have a permanent research teacher at the beginning of the year, and then when we did hire one, I didn’t want to overwhelm her with added technology.

I am looking forward to finding new ideas at this year’s FETC. Is anyone else out there who reads my blog going?