Reflections of a Techie

Roadblocks to upping comments

Wanting to get into better habits and to improve my particpation, I installed the Co-commenter IE extension.  Well....24 hours later I'm uninstalling it until I figure out what happened to my IE.  For some freaky reason, once I installed co-commenter on my IE it just mouseclicked away on it's own.

It practically shut me down.

So now I've un-installed it and my IE is back to normal.  Until I do more reading about it, I won't install it again.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop working on posting to new blogs. 

Wesley Freyer had some great things he's been thinking about.  (I have to admit that I was totally taken by his UStream video of Okie lightning.  I should have seen this before last night and I could have provided a KS sequel...the weather was exciting here last night.)  The best was his top 10 for a digitally enhanced summer...simple Web 2.0 thing a person could work on to up their technical ability before the start of the next school year. 

I know that one of his suggestions is Voicethread.  I've written about that before and I have found that teachers really take to this tool.  Do you think it's because it looks so much like PowerPoint?  Kids take to it even more quickly and THEY seem to incorporate the annotation tool without a thought.

I have incorporated wiki into my goals for the summer.  I've dabbled a bit with pbwiki but I think I need to really figure out how to make it cool.  Right now my efforts are pretty clumsy and don't look slick.  I need to do some reading about the options and then compare them...and then do some serious thinking about design issues.

I'm going to print out the PDF list that Wesley provides and stick it on my wall.  Then I'm going to try and send it to other teachers.  Who knows...maybe we'll form our own little group and learn together.  Thanks for all these great ideas.  I'm going to try and figure out my top 10...

Angles, Triangles, Flickr...More than you Never Wanted to Know

Since the SmartBoard is still relatively new in my classroom (just since October), I'm still creating all sorts of baseline content.  It's been a bit easier in science than in math so far...but I think geometry will change all that.

I was searching for a way to bring angles, triangles, area and perimeter to life.  Oh ok..you don't think that's possible.  Well, I think it is.  It's a matter of mixing interactivity, knowledge and practice.  I love listening to the podcasts over at PDtoGo and Joan did a great lesson on angles.  I've listened to it several times and then thought it was my chance to blast out on my own.

So I searched for triangle jokes as well as triangle photos.  Actually photos proved to be more challenging than I had experienced in the past.  Usually I can go right to Flickr and find a bunch of Creative Commons licensed photos to use in my classroom.  (I can't directly use Flickr because my district has it blocked)  This topic seems to be rather dry.  I did spot one cool thing, though.  There was one photo that I really wanted to use so I've written the photographer...still waiting to hear back from him and hope that he'll give permission.

The Triangles:  Who Am I group.  While it hasn't gotten off the ground, I think it would be great fun to have students find print ads or take their own digital photos of triangles.  Then collect all of them, in the spirit of the Flickr group, and try to identify what kind of triangle it is.

In the end, I found three photos that will be terrific.   Couple those real life photos with a dynamic Flash-based protractor (it not only measures but gives a copy of the angle/measure) and I think we'll have enough practice to ensure that everyone understands.  I'm excited.  I also found a bunch of hoakie but great triangle jokes.

Ready.

What did the hypothenuse say to the other sides?

Nice legs!!!!

Science class TV Show

My colleague, Sheryl Nuessbaum-Beach , has me psyched to try a streaming video TV broadcast of our science class.   She suggested that I use UStream TV .  So I've gone ahead and created a science class shell.  I wasn't sure how I felt about this until I learned that I can create a space that's dedicated to our class and is behind a password. 

Tomorrow I have to check the media releases for my students...making sure that it's OK to broadcast our classroom feed.  If I get all that cleared, then I'll try a simple broadcast the end of each science class tomorrow or the next day.

I think this might be a fantastic way for my students to share what we're doing in science class with their parents.  How cool would it be for their folks to log into our TV show and see what we are doing with our stream tables.  Using the chat window, they could type messages to us and I thought I might be able to display that chat window onto our SmartBoard.  Everyone could see the messages as they come through!!!!

I have no idea how well this will work.   I always feel like what we have to say isn't that insightful or deep.  I guess that's not the point, though.  It's building a way that our class can communicate what we're learning with others.

http://www.ustream.tv/

Google Maps--First Steps into Science Classroom

I've just finished my first big experiment with Google Maps.  My students, who were studying weathering and erosion, could pick the option to use Google Maps to present their research.  The research was to cover how erosion changes the surface of the earth.

Here is one of our first attempts.... Sarah's 8th Hour Map 

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View Larger Map

Yes there is much we still need to learn and master.  We'll get there.  (If the map is fussy with you, use the hand tool to move the map to one side and you'll be able to close the placemark annotation.)

They would have to identify 6 places on the earth where they could see evidence of one of the processes described in their written research.  They had to insert a pushpin into the map and then write a placemark annotation that explained what they had learned.

• I'd say 100% of the kids learned how to do GMs.
• I'd say 80% of those had the idea of integrating their science information into the map.
• I'd say about 50% of that 80% were a teacher's dream come true.

It wasn't perfection, but a real step for all of us towards integrating 21st Century Tools into the curriculum in such a way that it isn't an add-on...it's a real help.

During one of the presentations, the GM showed an alluival fan.  Now I don't know about you, but I'm not an expert on them.  Sure enough, though....as the student zoomed in closer and closer to the pushpin...you could see the shape of an alluvial fan appearing.  Right in the middle of Death Valley.  Not where I would have expected it...at all.

Using UTube videos when the site is blocked

Link: k12wiki » Effective Math Videos.

Oh No! These Sites are Blocked! Some teachers are lucky that they do not have to worry about Google Video and Youtube being blocked by filters. A possible way around this is to download the Google Video Player to the computer that you are using to project in the classroom. At home download the movies onto a memory stick. Most of these videos are quite small. Then at school use the memory stick and Google Video Player to show all the videos you need. I have not tried this on a filtered machine but in theory it should work. A History Teacher shares some cools tools for downloading video to show at school if these sites are blocked. He also includes detailed instructions for using these tools.

When is enough, enough?

Having gone to the NCTM conference a couple of weeks ago, I am full of ideas.  I had the chance to see the TI Navigator demonstrated in several sessions and can really see the opportunities for student growth using that kind of technology.  What I like is the way I can monitor and observe what students are doing as they work through problems.

My biggest hurdle, of course, is money.  The best technology pieces are individual and this system is expensive.  Not that I am saying it isn't worth it.  But I don't know where the average classroom teacher is suppose to come up with the thousands of dollars it will take to buy it and then more thousands of dollars to get a projector.  I wonder how much impact there actually will be on student learning.  Is it worth it?

At the same time, I've been using a Classroom Performance System for several months already.  The ability to get student feedback with it is amazing and my students have responded quite energetically.  We're sort of hobbled though...I can only project images through a mounted TV in my room.  Again a video projector will cost thousands of dollars to buy and more than a thousand to install.  While I don't doubt the positive impact on student learning with CPS and even my ability to figure out how to use it, where is a school or a district suppose to find all these dollars? 

Can you imagine how much it would cost to have both a CPS and a Navigator system in a room?  It begs the question...how much technology is enough and how much is too much.

Idler gears, robotics and 41 6th and 7th graders

The biggest question I was asked last week was..."What is an idler gear for?"...no...don't tell me.  I'll find out and get back to you".  I can tell you I was a little relieved because I wasn't exactly sure.  I had to go back and think about what it was and when I had used it.

I'm back at it...working with students and robotics.  I took a couple of weeks out of my science class to develop my student's understanding of how force and motion work in simple machines.  We're using the Lego robotics school kit and the Carneige Mellon Video Trainer CD.  Inside this unbelieveable CD are the greatest investigations.

Right now my 6th graders are enthralled with building their Tankbots and then testing out what effect change gears will have on speed.  The CD guides them along, includes the interactive worksheets, background materials, the math support (yep, the math support), and step-by-step directions.  That's really good because I have kids (mostly my girls) who have never touched a Lego in their entire lives.  I promised them that if they'd just hang in there for a week, it wouldn't matter if they didn't know an axle from a axe.  They were skeptical, but now they are getting on board.

The best part of all this is watching how engaged students are in the task.  They are progressing at their own pace...some are working on Investigation 3 while the rest are still struggling through Investigation 1.  But all are learning almost every minute they're in class.  I use a notecard system to grade them during robotics.  They place their names on a 3x5 index card and I rate their performance as a young engineer.  We talk about the characteristics that I would need to see...what an engineer would look and sound like...and then that is what I grade them on.  They aren't allowed to get their kits or fire up the computers until that card is in place.

at the beginning of each hour, they pour (and I mean pour) through the door looking for their card.  They are excited to get going.  There's no milling around chit-chatting.  Oh, for this excitement in math class.  During one of my hours, we are combined with a Tech Ed class of 7th graders.  There are over 40 kids in this one room and only a couple are ever offtask.  Who would believe it?

Thank you Lego for creating these kits.  And THANK YOU Carneige Mellon for investing in our future engineers.  What a blast to be the teacher for these kids.  Oh yeah, the idler gear.  Well, you know my favorite website, How Stuff Works, had a good explanation...it's a gear that you can use to make 2 others go in the same direction.  And my students were thrilled when the put in the idler gear and the robot took off in the other direction.  They knew and better than that...they could show me.

Using Elluminate to meet with Virtual Colleagues

It's going to be hard to sleep tonight.  That's actually a very good thing.  I haven't been this excited for quite a while and my mind is whirring around with all the possibilities.

Using Elluminate, a group of about 25 teacher-types gathered in the cybersphere to being collaborating. I've used Elluminate before whenever I'm in the Learning Times network projects.  This past summer someone's archived live chat taught me how to make audio recordings for podcasting.  I learned more in stumbling around their website than I had in the month before.  Thinking about the ideas that influence our world.  This was a wonderful experience on many levels

• the people I'm going to get to know and collaborate with are just topnotch...thinkers and just nice people
• the organizers have their acts together and this is what quality staff development should look like much more often
• the technology of Elluminate allows us flexiblity to pretty much do what we need...voice, video, PowerPoint, push websites and so on

Of all of it though, it's the possibility that I might be able to contribute something of real value to my profession.  That in and of itself is pretty cool.  But way more than that, if we are able to construct ideas that could then transform into public policy...well, it would be one of the first times I've heard of teachers actually having a voice in what policies are regulating their lives.  You'd think that would be automatic in the education world.  But it isn't.

Teachers so rarely get to influence any policy decisions.  Their voice is not heard.  It isn't solicited.  Maybe that's our own fault.  Maybe we've been too negative and stuck in the status quo.  But the group I'm with isn't negative and it definitely isn't stuck.  This seems to be a group that has little political agenda (which is such a breath of fresh air), although I'll bet there are very strong political views.  This group is centered much more on what's going to make public education stronger, student learning the focus and empowerment of teachers to become the strong professionals they've wanted to be.

I'm going to have to get going...really dig into my reading and background development.  It's wonderful.  Usually I am the one dragging other teachers around trying to get them up to speed.  What a delight to know I'll need to spend most of the upcoming long weekend using those online databases to research whatever I can find.  This is a great day.

My first audio file project of a teacher meeting--using Audacity and uploading audio to Typepad

Well, I've finished my first attempt at producing some kind of reflective audio file of teacher's deliberating about curriculum design.  I think I found myself too absorbed in the most interesting parts of the conversation and then worrying about how to operate my iPod.  But I did manage to gather a couple of audio voice notes into Audacity.

It wasn't as easy to edit the audio as I remember GarageBand being, though.  I couldn't figure out how to position the playheads at the just the right place.  So I'm not very happy with some of  it and I would have included more little bits and pieces of other people's voices had I known how to do this...

Download 08012005meeting.mp3

But it's a start and I felt like I needed to get going with my experiments.  People were very happy to accomodate my efforts for the most part.  I also think that some of what I recorded will be excellent to have when we must present this curriculum to the school board's review committees.  These are authentic teacher voices saying why their work is important, valid and useful.  Hopefully I will get better at editing and can provide a much better set of opinions.

Hopefully I will also gather steam for folks listening to this and leaving their ideas. The notion that these voices are here for people to react to and to stimulate thinking.  WOW.  If that would happen, I'd be thrilled.  We'll see.

Lastly I've never uploaded any content like this onto my blog.  So I'm wasn't sure how this would work...so far so good and it uploads like any other file.  That was probably the easiest part of this effort.

Emerging Tools for Teachers:Wiki, IM and online chat: Using it all at once. Would our kids ever believe us? Probably not.

A small group of teachers gathered together in TappedIn, a multi-user online virtual community, to talk about how to improve the wiki they are writing about Interactive Notebooks.  What was so amazing is that until about 2 months ago, none of these people (except me) had ever used a wiki or TI.  We gathered together in my virtual TI office to chat about how to improve the functionality of the wiki...how to make it better...editing it as we went along.  In the middle of our chat, one member couldn't find her way to TappedIn, so she used Instant Messenger to get ahold of us.  It was using IM that made it possible for her to join us.  We had just finished discussing how to use Trillian to keep track of everyone using IM.  It's one of the hardest things to do as a teacher...every student seems to use a different IM solution. Trillian lets you "listen" to MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger at the same time.  I haven't figured out how to incorporate AIM from AOL, but maybe it's possible.  Again the cool part here is that teachers were multi-processing with digital kids tools.  They were solving problems with the best technology tool available at the moment. 

We talked about how to use IAN in our classrooms.  We talked about how to improve our teaching practices so that we all become better teachers.  Mostly we felt excited about what we had accomplished in terms of learning and using new kinds of technology.  We made a pact to meet every Wednesday night for a while to continue this professional collaboration.  I know there aren't 4 teachers in my district who would want to chat about IAN and wikis once a week.  It's only through the conversation of the Internet can I find like-minded teachers who want to grow in the same way that I do.  That's slick.