Got a sub? No problem! Hold class online!

I recently posted an article here on my teacher blog in which I reflect on the unique ability of teachers in the 21st century to continue to hold class, even when they are out, whether at a conference, sick, or taking care of other business. Today was the second time I was able to take advantage of the technology, and I think it flowed better this time than last.

Being able to post videos and links to other sites really helped with class discussion, and it definitely not only helped with plans for the sub (which basically said "have the students log into Edmodo and get the link for the live blog, then have them log onto the blog), it also helped to ensure a continuity of instruction.

As I wrote this, I was also watching/listening to a debate on leadership as seen in William Golding's Lord of the Flies via UStream, which of course only further demonstrates my point. This particular teacher and class had people from Denver (me), Atlanta, Germany, and Brazil all watching and listening to the class, and the students did an outstanding job.

In spite of the current political climate, and the feeling (nationally) that teachers are under attack and being asked to do more with fewer resources, I still feel this is an exciting time to be in education.

Classroom 2.0 Live Webinars

I'd like to point out some really cool webinars that I sometimes attend over at Classroom 2.0. It's very educational but it is also a lot of fun and a good way to get to know other educators around the globe. They have a show just about every Saturday (not sure about this next week because of the EduCon).
What's more, they archive all their webinars. There are some great courses in the Beginner Series such as "Connecting via Blogging", "RSS tagging, and feedreaders", and "Go Wild with Wikis". I encourage grisled veterans and newbies alike to check it out.

1st Semester Global Learner Recap.

Well, the first semester of 2009-2010 is drawing to a close. This was my first semester as a Global Learner, and also my first semester with the district's new, more rigorous pacing, T4S, etc.

I think so far everything is going well. I am finding it difficult to keep up with some of the Global Learner things and also stay on pace with what the district feels I should be doing. I think both expectations were reasonable though, so I'm making due.

Recently, my students collaborated with other science students from the high school and middle school on the ibtoktidbits.blogspot.com blog. My students integrated blog-reponses into a lesson where they used laptops and the internet to research and create electronic products to show what they learned. The blog gave students a chance to share their own opinions and read what their peers said as well.

A few observations - one, it was difficult to get the students to truly collaborate with the other students, very few of my students actually responded to or engaged the students who had already commented. I think a CoverItLive session might be better in the future for this kind of thing (and based on my own experience contributing to Mayville's CiL sessions).

Also, while the amount of incidences were lower than I expected - I've learned that being able to moderate comments is key. A couple of my students decided they were going to post under names like "Mike Rotch", and others that were even less appropriate - making comments that were obscene. Luckily it was only 2-3 kids out of 145 - so not bad, I was also able to figure out who did it an deal with them - but I could see it getting much worse depending on the group of students. You can read all of the appropriate (and hopefully none that are not appropriate) comments at http://ibtoktidbits.blogspot.com.

Overall, I do think that the semester has gone well for me as a Global Learner using technology in my classroom. For sure I've done 10x more with technology this year than last year. My highlight would still be using "clickers" - something I do almost every day now as a warm-up or in-class response tool. (Read my original post abotu clickers here: http://principianteglobal.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-time-using-clickers-as-teacher.html)

Next semester, my goal is to streamline my grading and classroom procedures a bit better - hopefully through more use of technology! Follow all of my reflections at http://www.howatscience.net

Purdue University in the Hotseat

I recently came across this article about social networking, specifically Twitter, at Purdue University. (This one, too.) Seems that their IT people have developed their own social networking program called "Hotseat." The students in the classes are able to send out questions, comments, and so forth via this program, and from what I can tell, it also posts to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

This has some very interesting possibilities within the classroom. I would likely use Edmodo for my classes since it is more secure and controlled, and it would take a good bit of training and reinforcement, but I can see where this might work. As I am delivering the lesson, students could post their comments and questions on the Edmodo account, which would be displayed on a separate screen. The students could then answer each other's questions, posting links and whatnot related to the class discussion.

Of course, this would take some training and practice, particularly with my younger students since the temptation for "What up?" and other non-related and therefore inappropriate messages might be too great. Perhaps if/when I roll this out, I would start with my TOK class, then moving down to the sophomores, either not using it with the freshmen or waiting until perhaps fourth quarter to introduced them to it.

Which brings me to my struggle this year. With the new district policy around pacing, I am supposed to be pretty much doing the same thing as the other classes in the building (aside from TOK, which is unique to IB). At least at first glance, this precludes the use of blogs and other technology in the classroom which is a huge disservice to my students. As Will Richardson has observed, those who aren't publishing (online) aren't a part of the conversation. We saw the use and power of technology in the last federal election cycle and in the protests over the election in Iran; if our students do not know how to utilize those and other 21st century tools, they will not be able to be active citizens in their own democracy. While this may sound like hyperbole, it isn't. It's simple fact. I'm seriously worried.

The live blogging continues!

We had another live blogging session in my epistemology class today. The kids have really gotten into it; it's definitely become a part of the classroom culture. Actually, yesterday we had a brief moment of panic when I said we were going to discuss the blog topic but not have an online conversation. The kids misunderstood and thought that I was saying that we weren't going to use coveritlive anymore, and I almost had a mutiny on my hands. Today's conversation was "What is the goal of science?" Before we started the conversation, I asked the students to take out their phones and turn them on. There were a few sheepish looks from the students who already had them on, and general confusion all around. One student looked at me, laughed, and said, "You know they're waiting for the snatch and grab, don't you?" Once the phones were on, I had them send text messages to as many people as they wanted to (preferably not other students), asking those people what they thought the goal of science was. It was pretty amazing... I think many of the students were a bit surprised to be using their cell phones and sending text messages as part of class work, but they certainly weren't complaining. As messages came in, we added them to our class discussion on coveritlive, where John Albright and someone named Angel had joined us.

I love the fact that the students have taken to this so readily and have really become much more active participants in class discussions; it's even bringing out the "wall flowers," especially when they could incorporate text messaging. My only wish now is to get more people participating in the live blog that are not only outside of the building, but outside of the district (and not just through text messaging); I've begun posting the links and notifications on Twitter, Facebook, The Global Education Collaborative, and even MySpace, but we haven't quite gotten the response I've been hoping for, at least not yet. Then again, it's new, so I'm not really discouraged, either... I figure once I make this a more regular thing, I'll get more outside participation. (Cross-posted to my teacher blog.)

What's next?

Today's class discussion went really well. Not only did I have two other teachers in the room, but one teacher logged onto the live blogging from her room, and one student that was absent logged in from home and participated in the discussion online (which led to an interesting question and brief discussion about class participation). My next step is to really push to take this global, so I plan on giving more of a heads up to people, including those on Facebook, Twitter, etc. so that they can maybe better plan for the discussions. I would love to see not only educators and students involved, but anyone anywhere that might have something to say about the conversation. In the meantime, I'm really going to use their cell phones to my advantage: at the start of our next discussion, I'm going to have them take out their phones and text the question to at least one person that is not in the building then post the responses onto the live blog as a part of the discussion. I think that should be a lot of fun, and I'd bet I will get a really high level of participation with that! ;)

I was also pleased with how quickly the students adapted to having the live blog in the classroom, reading it and commenting on it, and even stopping the conversation when they wanted to address a point that had been made on the screen. They adapted really well and have made it a part of the classroom culture already, so I definitely think it's here to stay, at least for this class. I've also begun thinking of ways to collaborate within the building on this... live blogging represents some real possibility for cross-classroom and even cross-curricular conversations. A real plus is that it's really amazingly easy to use, and it doesn't require anything beyond a laptop and projector, so incorporating non-Global Learners will be a really easy thing to do. Let the walls continue to melt away! :)

Epistemology blog

So I've decided to make the big leap and I've created a separate blog for the epistemology class. My plan is to use coveritlive.com (almost) every day, thus enabling others to join us when they can and want to. I'll likely pick different students, or get volunteers to do the typing throughout the discussion so I don't burn out any one particular student. If you're interested, here's the link to it... come and join us sometime. The discussions start at about 8:45 and run until 9:19 or so, and there will be a screen posted any time there will be a discussion.

Live blogging reminder

Just thought I'd remind people about our live blogging conversation that starts at 8:45. If you can, join us on my blog.

One of the coolest days EVER

Today in my 2nd block class we discussed the goal of education. My 2nd block is an epistemology class of juniors and seniors, and we always have some pretty amazing conversations, but for this one, I wanted more people involved, especially some of my colleagues, so I sent out an invitation to the staff inviting anyone that had that period off to come in and join us; then Tonia gave me the fantastic idea of using Coveritlive.com as part of the class for those who couldn't be there... it was GREAT! I had a student doing the blogging as we talked, and I recorded the conversation for podcasting later as well (yeah, I was totally and completely geeking out). The only downside was that Blogger didn't post up the whole conversation, so the comments of those who participated didn't show up- they were on a sidebar that got cut off. Another very strange thing is that when you look at the page itself, the blog appears to be in Latin; now I'm working with some of the best and brightest in the school, for sure, but we're not exactly fluent in Latin... I'm not that good! Fortunately, once you click on it, it goes to English, so it's really not a problem... it's just odd.

At any rate, there is a transcript of the class discussion and a podcast (Dec. 17), so anyone can listen in that wants to. I'm actually thinking of making that a regular part of the class now. It was a way cool way to dissolve the classroom walls, and I want to do it again. Dave is going to let me use a projector tomorrow as well, so that way the students can not only see the question posted, but they will also be able to follow along with the live blogging discussion.

Actually, since we didn't get to finish our conversation, we plan to continue it tomorrow. I will happily post up the link to it here and anyone who wants to join us on Coveritlive is welcome to do so. The class conversation will run from 8:45 until 9:15 or so. Come join us!

New favorite question

My new favorite question that I get asked on a regular basis: "Mr., can I blog today?" I hear it much more frequently than might be expected, and the students who ask are actually blogging, rather than surfing or trying to get on MySpace, etc. This is definitely something I wish I had started a while back. I'm absolutely thrilled that my students want to write on such a regular basis!

For now, the blogs have been pretty basic and have been limited to simply answering a question of the week. As the year progresses, I will be adding expectations to the blogs and get closer to the ideas presented in the Richardson book. We're off to a great start, though!

Reflections on a week of technolgy

(Cross posted on my teacher blog.)

Happy International Day of Peace, everyone! I read an article in the paper reporting on how various factions that have been involved in armed conflict have agreed to not fight at all out of respect for the day, which begs the question, if they can do it for one day, why can't they do it permanently?? *sigh*

We had the laptops in my classroom for the entire week, which should have been great, right? Yeah, well.... *ahem*.

The biggest frustration was students who couldn't remember their passwords for their blogs and/or their school email accounts (even more so the ones who'd forgotten them from the day before). I expected that the first day would be refreshing memories, but we ended up losing two days to that, and even more for some students. Add to that the various technical difficulties, including Google not publishing posts on blogs even though I watched the student write the blog and click "publish now," and it made for a very interesting adventure, to be sure. There were times when I felt like just saying "forget it, let's just use paper and pen or pencil," but then I remembered that for some students, this technology is completely new to them, and as such, require a certain amount of patience from me. Just because this generation has been called "digital natives" doesn't mean all of them were born in the same technological land (figuratively speaking). The digital divide was very prevalent in the room, and I almost blinked and didn't see it.

I think that by and large, the week was a success. Yes, there were some students who in spite of my watching over them and giving and paying as much attention as I could still managed to slip through the cracks, but most of the students took advantage of the opportunity, so I'm pleased.

This week we go back to the "regular" world of not having instant access to all of the technology we need. I have six desktops in my room now so up to six students can blog or work on their essays at a time, though, so I expect we'll still get a lot done; maybe even more since I only need to watch six instead of twenty-six or so.

I've started reading over some of the personal narratives, and there are some really amazing pieces of writing there. There are some structural issues and the like, but last week was about getting the words down; this week is about making them better. I'm looking forward to the finished product, and I am thinking of asking some students about posting their work to the web, and since Google docs has that as an option, it will be really easy to do, and I can put the link on the class webpage... yet another way to make the writing more "real world."

Parent/teacher conferences

Last night's Back to School night/parent-teacher conferences went particularly well. I made it a point to show the parents the class webpage and talked about the paperless policy of my classroom, blogs, Google Docs, and the idea that I'm using the technology to get the students ready for both higher education and the job world. I also invited them to listen to any of the podcasts or read the notes for themselves if they wanted to. More than one parent made a comment along the lines of "Oh, I like that!" and one parent that I had previously emailed to invite to last night's conference said "Oh, I've already been there, and I read [my daughter's] blog." The student's eyes got big, and she said, "You did??!" :-)

I even used the downtime to help the rest of my team create class webpages on Google Sites, and I even got the math teacher to (finally) set up his blog and link to it on his class webpage.

A great night from a Global Learner point of view. :-D

CLAS this spring

I've been invited to be a presenter at the CLAS Regional Spring Conference this March. Subject: the digital classroom in the 21st century. I'm psyched but nervous at the same time. I mean, it's obviously something I'm super enthusiastic about: I'm going to talk about Google Docs, blogging, podcasting, and so forth, but still... it's in front of GROWN UPS, not teenagers! EEEEEKK! (ha ha!)

I'm also looking into the possibility of getting up to that other high school I'd mentioned in an earlier post to train their teachers on digital classrooms. I mentioned the whole thing to Stevi Quate (you know her if you've been involved in the UCD teacher candidate program), who, as it turns out, is familiar with that school and their staff; she "knows people" there, and so is going to look into getting them up to speed as well... stay tuned on that one.

What have I gotten myself into?? ;-)

On a side note, I've recently written an article for an online magazine, Elephant Journal, about digital classrooms. It's the first of a series on education that I've been asked to collaborate on with them. If you're interested, you can check it out here, but you'll likely have to do it at home... last I knew, the SmartFilter blocked it at work. And check out the shirt in my pics. ;-)

Woohoo! Got another one to blog :-)

So I'm pretty proud of myself. The one teacher that said she would never use blogs in her classroom has started blogging with and for her students. :-) I sat down with her after school one day and worked her through the process. Her next step is setting up a class webpage, which she says she is open to doing also. Yay!

On the other hand, my son's best friend attends Horizon High School and wants to start getting his teachers involved in technology. He asked his history teacher for their email address so he could email assignments to them, and was rebuffed with a rather unclear explanation: "something about the school email addresses not being able to do it for some reason." That may be true, but at the same time I wonder if it again is simply fear and unwillingness to use new technology. I'm tempted to see if I could do a presentation to the district 12 teachers on green classrooms. Perhaps I could get Blake (my son's friend) to see if his teachers would be interested in a training along those lines. After talking with Zach about CSU going green and his instructors use of technology, the idea that teachers aren't using technology when they can is rather disappointing. I've been invited to be a presenter at the CLAS conference this spring around the use of blogs, Google docs, etc., but I would like to get the ball rolling on this sooner... besides, if I can get in to do a training at district 12, then I can get practice before I do it this spring. :-)

Lesson learned

So today I learned that if you want to podcast, it's important to make sure that the battery in the receiver is actually charged. I accidentally left it on all weekend and totally killed the battery. Woops. To paraphrase the Seinfeld Soup Nazi, "No podcast for you!" :)

On a side note, here is the link to my class webpage. It's a pretty basic site, at least for now, but it has links to the subpages I set up for each individual class (including links to the podcasts) as well as links to my teacher blog, my students' blogs, the climbing team website, and even the climbing team blog. Feel free to peruse and comment. The students' blogs still need a good bit of work... I haven't yet had the chance to work with them around various concepts, including what is and isn't school appropriate- I am seeing a good number of "wat's up, yo" entries, but with time, I think they will get it, particularly once I have some exemplars to show them (aside from mine, which I think they don't think "counts" since I'm a teacher and all...). For now, I'm just pleased that they actually want to do it... it was much less of a fight to get them to write than I thought it would be (as I've mentioned before).

Goals met (at least partially) and Smart Board Reflections

(Cross posted from my teacher blog.)

Got up early this morning and really wanted to go on a bike ride, so I pumped up the Cannondale, got in the saddle and off I went. It was an absolutely perfect morning for a bike ride. I headed north and found myself on highway 7 before long, then I headed west. Next thing I knew, I saw a sign that said "Lafayette 6; Boulder 17." I smiled and decided to make the trip to Lafayette. It didn't take me anywhere near as long as I thought it might; an hour or so after I left my house, and I was in Old Town Lafayette. I hung out for a while, then made the trip back for a total of 28 miles in roughly two hours. I was pretty psyched, and it's most of the way towards my goal of riding my bike to Boulder. Since I was roughly 10 miles from Boulder, I definitely know that it's within my reach to finish it out to Boulder. I have to admit that I was glad I turned myself around, even though I was tempted to finish it out to Boulder. I like to finish out the last half-mile or so to my house on a dead sprint, but that just wasn't going to happen today. About five seconds into the sprint, my legs gave me a very firm "Nope, not gonna happen, buddy" response, and I decided instead to do a nice, easy warm down ride instead. Heh.

I've been using the Smart Board quite a lot now, and it's been working out fantastically. We were working on the 11-sentence paragraph in class last week, and what could have been dry and boring ended up being a lot of fun. We spent some time filling out the graphic organizer together on the Smart Board, and I had 100% engagement for 100% of the time in all of my classes; not bad for a Friday afternoon before a long weekend.

I think I've actually perfected the podcasting, too. I recorded each of my classes on Friday, and I'll be uploading and linking them on my class website later on today. (I also plan to upload and link the Power Point presentations I used, though I will likely upload them as .pdf files since not everyone may have Power Point or even Microsoft Word, but Adobe Acrobat Reader is free.) Initially I was going to do all sorts of editing of the podcasts and only upload the "best," but the principal encouraged me to just upload them as they are and let the students fast forward through them as they need to.

Of course, there are some definite implications around doing that, not the least of which is that my classroom walls are definitely going to disappear and there will be full transparency, particularly since not only my students can listen to the podcasts, but their parents can as well. I told my students not to worry... I know how brilliant they are, and now their parents can hear it as well. :-) I do plan on emailing the link to as many parents as I have email addresses for, and while it seems a little scary to open myself up like this, I don't see it as a bad thing at all. I'm really excited about it.

I've gotten most of the students logged on and blogging already, and that has been a fantastic experience so far. The students have the option of blogging or reading during independent reading time, and it's not unusual to have a line of students four to six deep waiting to blog. So far I only have two desktops in my room, though I'm trying to get more put in. If you go to the class website, I've linked to the students' blogs there, so anyone interested can read and comment on their blogs. There is still some tweaking to do around the blogs, but they've gotten started, so the biggest part is done. I'm planning on working with my reluctant colleague after professional development this week and want to have her up and blogging as well.

I hit upon a bit of a flash as well around sub plans. What I hope to do on days when I know I'm going to be out is to upload my lessons as Power Points and record what I want to say in advance, along with a notesheet for my students to fill out and email back to me, then email links to the Power Point and podcast to my students, along with the notesheet to fill out. Then, on the day(s) when I know I'm going to be out, I simply reserve the computer lab for my students, the sub takes them down there, where they then log in, and can watch the presentation, listen to the podcast, and do the work there. Chances are I'll let them work collaboratively, but certainly any student that wants to work alone could... I guess it will depend on the nature of the assignment. I can even check in on them while I'm wherever I am and address issues/questions as needed. They really CAN have class 24/7! Of course, making sure I have access will be an issue, but I think it's one I can resolve (I hope).

The implications for all of this on my teaching is mind boggling. How on earth did I get anything done in the classroom before?? ;-)

My blog addy

I don't know if I posted it before or not, but if I haven't, I do have a professional blog that I started at the end of this past school year. The link to it is right here. Feel free to leave comments, questions, etc. :-)

Book Groups Blog

~cross-posted at: http://mstaylorsthirdgradeclass.blogspot.com/~

My reading group created book reviews after reading a chapter book with a book group. The goal of the assignment was for them to enjoy reading fiction, discuss the book with others, and create a book review after reading so they could synthesize the experience and bring closure to the 10-week long project. In order to make it more meaningful and exciting, they published their book reviews online on a book group blog, and some also created podcasts which I posted on my classroom website. The students loved it! They put a lot of time and effort into their book reviews and enjoyed putting them online. They also enjoyed leaving comments for other students in the class on the blog. Please visit our book groups blog and read some book reviews. There is also a quiz to take. Also you can listen to some podcasts on my classroom website. We'd love for other students to leave us comments on the blog and take the poll also! Have you done anything like this with your students? Any suggestions for improvement? Thanks!

Edublog Awards 2007 Finalists Announced!

Lots of Blogs and Wikis from around the world have been nominated in several categories. It is interesting to see the work of teachers as they embrace the collaborative aspects of Web 2.0. Check them out and cast a vote for your favorites. Will the Global Learners group have any nominees in 2008?

Blogging Improves Writing...

Here is a link to an article I received through my classblogmeister group. I found it very fitting after my first trial with first graders and the laptops. Their behavior was wonderful in preparation for writing their first blog article. Once they turned the laptop on and I got them started, they were able to navigate quite well. Once I showed them one thing, they taught the other students who were a couple of steps behind.

They copied their writing into their blog after writing a draft on paper. Wow, they got right to work on their article knowing anyone might look at it. The only instruction I gave them for their article was that they had to choose a topic they wanted to share with the world. Now, if only we could work on using the space bar...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0910/p09s03-coop.htm

Our class blog
- check out their articles, they did a great job!