Point A to Point B

Month: September 2007

  • Harsh – But Gets the Ball Rolling…

    In David Warlick’s book Raw Materials for the Mind (4th ed.), he has the following quote in the introduction:

    “IT Departments do not work for the technology. They work for the teachers, to make sure that teachers can use the technology to produce the learning experiences that they know need to happen in their classrooms. ”

    I feel this statement is misdirected, but starts the correct conversation. We all struggle with networks that are tied down, filtered, and otherwise “safe.” The flip-side is an open, non-obstructed system, which is just not feasible. The Internet is a great, awesome, unbelievable source of networking and information. It is also a place of danger, mis-information, and viruses. We would do a disservice to our school community to not try to protect ourselves.

    I would suggest the correct statement reads as follows:

    (IT Departments) or (Educational Technologists) or (Administrators) or (insert whatever group here) do not work for the technology. They work for the learners, to make sure that learners can use the technology to produce the learning experiences that they know need to happen in the classroom.

    Note that I purposely did not make a distinction between teacher and student when referring to learner.

  • The Second Full Week – Just as Full

    So here it is a week since the last post, and the second full week is done. Were we ever on summer break? I can’t remember it at all now…

    Open house was Wednesday night, and I’m very pleased with how our feature video went. We have changed the format of open house a little to where we have a “spotlight” section of about 20 minutes in the middle of the night to feature something about the school. Last year we focused on our Internet Safety efforts with Netsmartz (from the National Center for Missing and Exploted Children), and our in-house website, WITS. This year we used the theme Healty Bodies = Healthy Minds to produce a video about the many ways we promote health and wellness in our building. The shooting and editing of the video was quite hectic due to the deadline, but the results were worth it.

    The second activity that started up this week is our 5th graders registering for EM Games. These online math games are part of the Everyday Math program in 5th grade. They are good reinforcement and practice for the skills they need in math. With just a few minutes of login instruction, you quickly hear students gleefully trying to win Factor Captor, Baseball Multiplication and more.

    Next week brings the start of 2 digital storytelling projects – one new one and one started last year. The following week I’m doing an inservice on digital storytelling which I think is going to spawn many more projects. Should be quite fun.

    Note – this is my first post using ScribeFire, and it appears to work great – thanks to Chris at On the Trails for the idea!

    Powered by ScribeFire.

  • The First Full Week – A Full Week!

    The first full week of classes included a very full week of activity in the lab. The district has initiated a keyboarding program in 5th grade. In addition to the many startup activities (classes registering for electronic textbooks, WITS orientations, etc.) all the 5th graders have begun their keyboarding classes. One of the nice side-benefits of this is that all our 5th grade students are oriented to the network and basic operations already.

    Our new keyboarding teacher, Mrs. Meyer, brings a wealth of experience to the program. I’m excited for how these skills willredkeyboard help our students now and in the their future. Mrs. Meyer will be with us for the first half of the year, and then goes to Transit for the second semester to teach keyboarding to their 5th graders.

    Image citation:
    “Red Lit Computer Keyboard.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 15 September 2007. <http://www.powermediaplus.com>

  • The Beginning

    My summer reading list did not get too long, but the books I read were awesome! See the recently read list in the sidebar at right for my book list. Interestingly, two of the books, totally different in nature, ended the same way. Each had as the closing, “The Beginning,” instead of, “The End.”

    Peter Reynolds “The North Star” is a simple, inspirational book about following your heart to where and what you should do in life. T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King” is a classic fantasy of the story of King Arthur. The reasons each of these made it on my reading are similar – they both invoke and reinforce a lifelong desire and committment to learning.

    Both books leave the reader with the sense of desire for more – the beginning of a journey. Both were great as a kick off to the new year. Having just finished the first day of the 07-08 school year, it really the beginning of an awesome new adventure – and only we can make it end up as we wish!