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In the last year or two many districts have been opening a web portal for parents and students to access information about what is going on in school (grades, etc.). For this month’s flashback, I wrote back in September 2004 about how our internal website, WITS (Williamsville Information Tracking System) was being opened for student and parent access (see the post, WITS for Kids).
Its hard to believe we have had such access for five years now, and in that time, WITS has become increasingly integral to the daily routine of teaching and learning. The developers who write the program behind WITS, Chris and Dan, are incredible in how they meet the needs of a diverse community of users, be it teachers, staff, students or parents. Looking forward, many of the new tools available on the web may influence how our school community interacts with WITS.
Happy 5th birthday, WITS for Kids!
Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom
Using a worksheet to research information on the Internet and fill in the blanks is a popular activity. In its most  fundamental state, this is a form of the strategy cues, questions, and advance organizers. Students use questions on the worksheet to (hopefully) guide them through a website and acquire the necessary information.
When a worksheet is fill-in-the-blank, it tends to be a regurgitation of information found on the web. How might the strategy be more beneficial to the students in order for them to be not only exposed to the information, but begin to acquire, integrate and personalize the knowledge?
A word processing document set up as a KWL chart is one option. Since the students will be using the Internet for the research, using the computer to create the document is easy. Begin with a brief warm-up where students type what they know about the topic. After some sharing, move on to having them type what they want to know. Through the use of questioning, direct students to note any other information they should want to know if they did not come up with the questions on their own. During the investigation process, students look for the information based on their own inquiry, making the process more meaningful. At the end of the lesson, students indicate on the word processing document what they have learned. The entire document can be submitted or posted electronically with ease.
Worksheets structured to use the technology available can help to increase the acquisition of knowledge in many ways. Other thoughts/ideas most welcome!
Image courtesy of christopherl on Flickr
In this month’s flashback, one of the posts I wrote in August 2004 is What Matters? The two questions I posed regarding if using technology in a lesson are appropriate were:
- Does the technology allow for new and unique learning experiences that are not possible without it?
- Does the technology allow for increased, more efficient learning that is not be possible without it?
Those questions are still applicable, but as I think about how technology fits into the learning process, I believe the better questions are:
- What is the learning goal?
- How will you know when students achieve the goal?
- How will you foster progress toward the goal?
- How will you help students practice, review and apply the learning?
These questions look amazingly similar to the planning questions for instruction (courtesy of Robert Marzano), because that is where they come from. What is most important about these questions? The word technology is not used at all. From these goals, specific strategies for instruction are formulated, and from those strategies, technology tools can be selected to match the strategy (or not selected if appropriate). If a technology supports the strategy, then it is an appropriate use. Technology use because it is slick, new, or a substitute for real learning is not appropriate.
What Matters? Learning. Technology does not (a hard thing for a technology integrator to say…).
 Image by Spitzgogo on Flickr
A little music to accompany this post…
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Music: Clear Waters by Kevin MacLeod
We just returned from a family vacation in Lake George. I purposely did not bring the laptop, iPod touch, or any other gadget. I considered not bringing the cellphone, but it does prove helpful on occasion. A week without email, Google Reader, or any other always-connected medium. It was AWESOME. I’ll be the first to admit I have some of the affliction I call connection-addiction. This means I regularly have to check my aggregator to see what has happened recently, or keep up with who is saying what. And I don’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account. My daily routine ends up being checking/reading/responding/writing in a constant stream, sometimes to a fault.
So, without the connections, what did I do? With my family, I…
- Read books (the old-school hardcover kind)
- Swam in the pool
- Swam in the lake
- Made fires in the firepit
- Went to an amusement park
- Rode a steamboat
- Went for a hike
- Went for a drive
- Slept in
I thought I might have withdrawl symptoms from being disconnected, but you know what? None. Zippo. Nein. It was relaxing and fun to stop the daily madness and unwind. When we returned, I took a little time to look through all the emails, etc. 95% could be deleted, ignored, or marked as read. Granted, it’s still summer break, so it’s easier to ignore things.
It’s amazing what being disconnected feels like. I think I might make it a more frequent habit to maintain some balance. This might be more fuel to my personal decision to not Facebook or Twitter…
Point A to Point B is celebrating what I think is a reasonable milestone – the five year mark. I began this blog immediately after attending the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in 2004 in New Orleans. The sessions that stand out in my mind from then are Bernie Dodge’s spotlight session on wikis (at that point, more did not know what one was than did) and David Thornburg’s spolight session on the direction of media and learning for students. It was at Thornburg’s session that I decided to just jump in and start writing. Teacherhosting.com was a major sponsor that year, so I got on board with their hosting plan, and off I went.
It’s been a fun 5 years. This blog has been an outlet for me to teach, think, and reflect. To that end, I’m going to begin a once-monthly-ish entry titled “Flashback Friday” to look back at a post or posts from 5 years ago to see if anything has changed.
For this inaugural flashback, the best candidate for review is one of my first posts, “Goals for this Blog:”
“There are so many cool things happening in computer technology. Every day I hear of something great that would be super to try in school. It can be hard for everyone to learn about and keep up with what is going on, so this Blog will serve as a diary of what we are doing, or are planning to do.”
I think this goal is a realistic one, and one I’ve held to throughout. As a technology integrator in a school building, my target audience is the people in my building and my district. I sometime write for the bigger global audience, and also for targeted audiences, like the Video in the Classroom page for workshops I do. Primarily, though, I try to sift and sort through what’s going on and provide some clarity and direction. Sometimes I just blather on about what’s on my mind. Still, I think the goal for this blog remains valid to this day, and is worth continuing.
One way I want to improve the focus is by including more items targeted towards students and/or parents. I’ve got a good handle on how to write for teachers and staff, but I’d like to get better at sharing with other groups in the school community.
If you’ve gotten this far and are a glutton for punishment, you can click on the archives link on the left to see what else was on my mind in July of 2004…
 "Goal Post," by KTDEE on Flickr
Not too long ago, I was with my son in the local toy store helping him pick something he could spend some gift money on. Rather quickly he decided on a Rubik’s Cube. The flashbacks started rolling in…
The first time Rubik’s Cube was all the craze (circa 1980), I had one like everyone did. I was good at solving one side and maybe a second side, but that was about it. I could not get my head around the sequences (which I now understand are algorithms) to successful completion. I became quite proficient at one of the alternate solutions, namely popping out the pieces and assembling the cube solved. This worked for me and I was quite happy about it, too.
Fast forward to 2009 – Rubik’s Cube now comes with a little “cheat sheet” with directions on how to solve the cube. This little pamphlet is deceiving – small does not equal simple. To solve the cube, you have to understand the sequence of steps, carefully execute the algorithms (which vary depending on the current state of the cube), and trust yourself to move forward despite the disarray the cube may appear to be in. Over the course of a few days, numerous hours, and much chanting aloud of sequences such as “right inverse, down inverse, right, down,” I did it! It was one of those personal victories that you want to shout about from the rooftop, but no one really cares all that much about. I reveled in my personal milestone, and carefully (and still very slowly) repeated the victory a few times.
So what is the moral of this story? We are all in various stages of learning throughout our lives. We are all good at some things, and not so good at some things. We all need various levels of support in our quest for learning. However, there is NOTHING impossible given the right environment with regards to learning. I do not think I have inherent ability with regards to the Rubik’s algorithms, but now that I understand what they are, I can (with much practice) reproduce them and use them as a foundation for other experiences. Could I have done the cube without specific, clear directions and answers? Most likely not; Have I learned more than I ever would have otherwise? Absolutely! The students that sit in our classes every day have some predisposition to either “get it” or “not get it,” regardless of the particular content area. How we choose to support them is central to their success.
All students have to get from point a to point b in their learnng…some need a detailed map, and some just need us to stay out of the way. For me, it only took 30 years and a clear set of directions to understand Rubik’s algorithms. There are some who inherently understand them within a few minutes. I’m jealous of them, but I don’t care, because I can do it myself now. 
Maybe I’ll try one of the 4X4 Rubik’s Cubes next…
Epilogue for the 21st Century: I was delighted that the cube had that cute little pamphlet with instructions. I painstakingly worked through it, re-reading many steps for clarity. I shared my experiences with others: their response to my endeavor? They looked up the solution on YouTube. I guess I still have a glaring ability to be a dinosaur…
Photo courtesy of Caramdir on Flickr.
Thanks to the staff who responded to the brief survey I sent out (it was easy & slick to do using a Google form ). While response wasn’t huge (25%), it is the end of the year and there are a million things to get done. I think the sample is big enough to get a good sense of how to progress. So what are people interested in focusing on? Check it out…
 I selected the topics for the survey based on things I’ve been working with and ideas “out there” in the world of educational technology. No scientific formula – lots of gut instinct and intuition, spiced with as much input as possible.
Based on the feedback, here is the prioritized focus of how I’ll frame conversations with the technology committee and team meetings for 2009-2010:
- Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works – I think people enjoyed the book study here this past year on Point A to Point B because the focus is on improved learning with technology, not just about the technology. I’m looking forward to some fun and challenging conversations on implementing ideas from the book.
- Google Tools in the Classroom – Google continues to produce a wealth of resources for learning. While a little voice in my head continues to worry about Google controlling too much (see my kind-of-paranoid post from 2007), you can’t argue that there are some amazing resources (see my posts after attending a BOCES workshop here, here and here).
- Google Earth – Speaking of amazing resources, Google Earth is going to be where I spend most of my personal learning time. Every time I open up GE, some new layer, model, or other content blows me away. The experience we had in Mrs. Calandra’s ELA class with the Google Lit Trip is just one example of the power of Google Earth. I’m in the early stages of developing some sort of GE daily tidbit for the classroom – stay tuned on this one. On a personal soapbox note, as I delve into GE more and more, a thought keeps coming to me (and I am by no means the first to say this): Given the resources available in Google Earth, there is no acceptable reason for students to be deficient in geography (provided students and teachers have quality access to Google Earth). OK, that’s the end of my soapbox – let’s dig in with Google Earth!
- Wikis – While the response to wikis was not great, I believe part of that is due to the fact that many still need to understand what a wiki is and how it can be implemented in the classroom (though we’ve all used Wikipedia…) . The district has moved us forward in this realm as we have just purchased a wiki site through Wikispaces.
That is certainly enough to keep us busy, but at the same time, one person brought up an excellent point. It’s not always about what’s new and what’s hot – it’s about getting better – here is the comment:
“I know we have training in many areas, however, I feel like I need more to get all the use out of a particular tool. Something like getting more training after a year of having a Smart Board to go to the next level. That may even carry on for a couple of years. Just a thought (and not only Smart Board use other things as well).”
That was well put, and will be part of the mix of what we do in the upcoming year. Once again, thanks to everyone who responded, and have an enjoyable summer!
We had a great year with video announcements. Many of the crew are 8th graders, and have been involved for 3 or 4 years. It’s always exciting for our graduates to move on to high school, but its also sad b/c they’ll be gone. Here is a little tribute to Aaron, Brianna, Caroline, Chris, David, Erin, Haley, Jake, and Jenni. We’ll miss you at Heim Middle!
Creative Commons images courtesy of the following users on Flickr: Joriel “Joz” Jiminez, Ken@Okinawa, fd, Jess J, Gam Hoyo, Xiol, chalkdog, s.o.f.t., verymissberry
And the music? Well that would be by one of my favorites:
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Tuesday’s Technology Tip
Little ‘bytes’ of information to hopefully make your computing life easier.
When you open a Word document, it opens at the beginning of the document. If you want to get back to the spot in the document where you last edited:
- Press Shift + F5 to return to the last editing point
This is the last TTT for this year – look for a new round of tips this fall!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
This tip is taken from Nancy Wilhelm’s great Tips & Tricks newsletter. A new issue appears monthly, and can be found on the homepage of WITS. Look in Public Documents | Common for Entire District | Tips & Tricks | Newsletter.
Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom
A few weeks back in Content Tech we looked at Google Lit Trips as unique way to study literature through geography. In Mrs. Calandra’s English 9R class, we used the Lit Trip as part of their study of The Odyssey by Homer. Reading this book can be a daunting task, and the Lit Trip was a great tool to help students’ understanding. The project went very well, and here is what Mrs. Calandra has to say about it…
“The Google Earth Lit Trip was really awesome! Not only was it cool and interesting for the students, it also genuinely increased their comprehension of the text, as evidenced by the very high final test scores. The Odyssey is a challenging piece of literature, both in terms of its language and its content; using the Lit Trip enabled students to understand Odysseus’s journey much better. Overall, benefits of the project included learning to use the technology effectively, better comprehension of the story, and increased understanding of the time period, culture, and geography of that area. I wouldn’t want to teach The Odyssey again without using the Google Earth Lit Trip!”
Each student was assigned a book (in The Odyssey, each chapter is called a book) and the product each created was a placemark in Google Earth which included:
- A synopsis of the book
- Responses to higher-level questions regarding the book
- A picture selected by the student to represent the book (selected from Creative Commons Flickr images through FlicrStorm)
Specific directions for how students accomplished the above are in a wiki page (a link to that page is later in this post). The best way to see the student work is by downloading the .kmz file which contains all of the placemarks they created. You’ll need Google Earth installed on your computer to view this file. Click on the file below, choose to open it with Google Earth, and enjoy their work.
9r-odyssey (click to download file)
Additionally, this was my first time ever reading The Odyssey. I was enjoying the work the students did so much that I took some time to create a movie interpreting their work. The words and pictures in the video are from the students and the audio and sequencing was selected by me. Check it out…
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
So how did we manage the project? Students read 1-2 books per day in class and for homework. I created a wiki page with directions (click here to see that wiki page) and then worked with the first 4 students on creating a placemark. Those students then showed the next group how to do the placemark, and so on. So over the course of 2-3 weeks, the group helped each other create their own version of The Odyssey Lit Trip. Mrs. Calandra began each class with a review of the Lit Trip in Google Earth, and then a presentation of placemarks by students. The final product is a very rich experience that really helped the students understand The Odyssey at a whole new level.
I’m looking forward to embarking on more Lit Trips in the future!
A big hat tip to David Jakes for his workshops that helped push me to bring this project together.
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