Reflections of a Techie

Frustrated but not quitting--I'll get it to work eventually

Another frustrating day in the computer lab.  I've tried and tried to get the Diigo toolbars to work in my classroom.  Nothing will work.  We finally started using the Add Bookmark window to get the resources saved into the Climate Change folder.  When we use this window, I can find the groups so I think this is a workaround.

But students are not able to use the diigo toolbar...nothing saves.

We are also confounded on how to save the highlights.  This feature doesn't seem to work no matter what we try...there is no right click menu to save the highlghts.

What is most frustrating is that when I use Diigo at home...working everything up to take back to school...it works just fine.  It even works on my teacher computer at school.  But when I get into the computer lab with the kids, nothing works. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

My 7th hour class was completely in disarray.  They don't get when you start something, it may not work smoothly.  So for 8th hour, I told students that we were problem solving....if you couldn't take that, then just go ahead and take notes the old fashion way.  The kids that hate having it not work just didn't help me find work arounds...so that was a good solution.  Most of them were champs...they didn't want to give and even a couple asked me if they could take my directions home and try it there.

Mini movies with SmartBoard recorder

I've been experimenting this week with using the SmartBoard recorder.  I watched the Alan November ISTE address about Students as Contributors.  He spoke passionately about how students can prepare explanations to other students using screencasting software.  I tried to get Jing to work and it just wouldn't go.  So I tried the SmartBoard recorder.

It was a great experience.  My students thought it would be a piece of cake because I didn't ask them to do complicated processes.  But once they started recording and watching their products, they realized they needed to do a better job of planning out who would be the scribe and who would be the color commentator.  Their screencasts got better and better.

The unexpected byproduct that I witnessed was how much they improved their process proficiency.  They figured out more about what they were doing and why they were doing it.  It sort of cracks me up because I used the questions from my math series...the Connected Math Programs.  The questions the kids hate to answer but LOVE to screencast.  Ironic isn't it?  I can't shut them up on the screencast providing example after example...but I'd have to threaten and bribe them to even one example if they were writing.  Love that technology motivation.

Bloated

Well Bill you've done it again.  The slide you offered on your blog brings up a pet peeve of mine....bloated curriculum.  It isn't a new problem...something we've had in all the 15+ years that I've been teaching.  I guess we used to just ignore the stuff we, as teachers, didn't think was important and so it wasn't such a big deal.

The rise of PLCs, common assessment and curriculum mapping has made this a more obvious problem now.  Now we know we aren't teaching everything and it is documented.  I guess it's sort of like uncovering the pink elephant.

here's the thing..in order to survive this new spotlight I think you have to be smarter.  In my science curriculum, for example, there's no way to cover everything with any kind of integrity.  I thought and thought about my curriculum until it finally dawned on me that there were overarching themes and concepts that tie it all together.  Mega skills and mega themes that I could frame all the tedious factoids that I'm required to teach.  For me this was realizing that density and convection currents are the big ideas of my curriculum. 

It's how I fight back.  I run my room based on inquiry principles and pound away at density and convections currents.  It helps me to make this huge body of knowledge accessible to my 6th graders...pretty quickly they learn that it must have something to do with one of those concepts and they use that to reason it out. 

I'm still driven crazy by trying to cover it all.  It makes me lie away at night.  Daily I have to tell myself that I am doing what's best for my kids by framing this way.  It's sad isn't it?

Microloans can make a difference

Kiva is now 4 years old and it is one of the greatest things in my life.  What is Kiva?  It's a microloan website that allows me to make small loans to people in other countries.

What is the best is that a loan is probably made from at least a dozen people...maybe more if the loan amount is larger.  All these random people who don't know each other, read the loan need, decide to fund part of it, are combined with other people who felt the same way, and the loan is made.

I took a screenshot of a loan I made to a women in Peru who needed money to help her farm the land her folks had left to her.  Bacilla needed money for fertilizer and seeds..promising to repay the loan within 8 months.  True to her word, the entire loan amount was repaid within 7 months.  I can't tell you how it makes me feel to help someone who has very little...hopefully making a difference.

Look at where the microloaners came from.

They came from all parts of the world.  If I look at the Google Maps of my other loans it's the exact same story again and again.  People like me who have only $20 or $30 to offer periodically can make a difference in the world.

I started adding to my Kiva accounts when I was frustrated that the world was in the dumper and I could do nothing.  I'm not famous.  I'm not rich.  I'm incapable of going anywhere and doing anything.  I don't trust large organizations to do what they say they will do.  And then I found Kiva...they ask for donations whenever you make a loan to help pay their overhead expenses and the rest of the money you send goes directly to the person.

So far I have made 13 loans.  I try to add $30 to my account as often as possible...once the loan is repaid I have that money to relend.  My goal is to leave my children and future grandchildren as big of an account as I can so they will carry on my dream of helping others from around the world.

OK 13 loans isn't that many.  But it is 13 more people than I had helped when I started 2 1/2 years ago.  And that is what counts...I'm not powerless.  I can make a difference and I am doing it.

How about you?

Building number sense interactively

Building an internal sense of where numbers are on the number line is such a huge skill.  When students finally acquire that sense of numbers, they have a decided advantage over students that don't.  I've been working with my students on learning fractions and now I've found something that will be invaluable in helping me develop that sense with decimals.   Free Mathsframe Interactive Whiteboard Teacher Resources. is such a site.

It offers free resources that I can project onto my SmartBoard and we can watch and learn where the decimals should go.  I love the fact that the scale on the number line keeps shifting...that way students have to learn to pay attention to the hash marks.