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.

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. ;-)

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?? ;-)

Global Learner Training and Other Thoughts

I absolutely agree with the other global learners who posted that this was an excellent training. I feel like I have had my eyes open to many things. For example, I had heard the term "skype" before but now I hear it everywhere and actually know what it means. Oprah used skype today to talk to a doctor on her show.

Here is a link to my wiki with notes from the training. http://christinelmac.wikispaces.com/ Dorothy Lo also took some excellent notes, which she posted on the adams14schools google docs.

What continues to blow my mind is the idea that students now in the digital age can do a multitude of things at the same time and also process them all. I am a one track kind of person, I can have many projects going at once but I can only really give my attention to one thing at a time. This revelation that students can divide their attention better than me is making me rethink how I know if a student is engaged.

On this same tangent, I remember a story from npr where a professor banned the use of laptops in his classroom http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040601544.html
I remember when I first heard this I thought, "I can see where this guy is coming from," and now that I have this insight about today's students I feel sorry for him. He could have harnessed this power for good instead of just having them close their computers.