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Nadine N
May
12
Project of Love
May 12, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
My youngest son is graduating from 8th grade this month. He is graduating from the school I worked at as a tech coordinator/computer teacher for 6 years. His class is full of really awesome young people that I enjoyed teaching and miss very much. I have the privilege of working with some of their moms on a special project these past few weeks. Every year, for as long as anyone can remember, the parents of the graduating class put together a slide show of pictures from 11 years of their lives, starting with pre-school. I can only imagine what the slide show must have been like back in the days of slide projectors and carousels.
My first experience with this project was several years ago, when my daughter, who is a sophomore in college, was in 8th grade. Another mom who was also an ambitious techy, and I were co-chairs for the slide show committee. Before her and I took on the task, computer created slide shows were left up to the professionals. She proposed we save some money and make the video ourselves. With a purchase of a G4 PowerMac and a day spent learning the “brand new” iMovie application, we were on our way. The process was grueling. We had to sift through over 1000 pictures, scan several hundred of them, pick themes, music, and then use this unfamiliar application to put it all together. The whole process was quite an adventure. The parent group was extremely engaged and willing to work tirelessly, but most of the editing was left up to me, since I had the most time and inclination to learn the program. I learned a lot during those few weeks, not only about iMovie, but about perseverance, problem solving, collaboration and creativity. I am certain that those sleepless nights hunched over the keyboard staring at the screen with a cranky computer made me a better technology teacher, practicing skills that I know are so important for my students.
Two years later, it was time to co-chair the slide show for my middle son. My family threatened to commit me to a rubber room - remembering the extraordinary time commitment. This time it went a little better. The committee was way sillier, making our time together a lot of fun - (working hard at the meeting, indeed). Some of the pictures were coming in on disc, so much less scanning was needed. iMovie had a few updates, so crashes happened less often. I still spent several hours bonding with iMovie and an eMac, but the results were beautiful and I felt like we really outdid ourselves.
Now, I’m working on my last 8th grade video. Technically, it has gotten much easier. Everyone has a digital camera, and iMovie and iDVD are “wicked fast”. My husband is teasing me that this the last time I’ll be on a committee that meets once a week to agonize over 600 pictures and song lyrics from every song produced since the ’70’s. He gets irritated when I’m hunched over my computer (MacBook this time) working on the slide show for hours at a time. Thankfully, the bulk of the editing is done by another mom who is just as obsessively techy. I tried to explain to him that it’s not about the debate over this picture or that, or using a certain song during a certain section. We are not spending hours trying to perfect a 30 minute video that the kids are probably only going to look at once for our own egos. This project means much more to us.
We spend hours in meetings pouring over pictures and listening to song lyrics, and more hours putting it all together because we care about the story. This video is the story of the kids that spent almost their entire lives together. We understand how much it means to the graduates and their parents to see the recap of important events like first days, first best friends, first communion, and first crushes. We try very hard to represent the children and the school in a way that reflects the love that surrounds them. We do crazy stuff like count every child so they are in the video in almost equal number - taking pictures at school at the last minute to make up for the under-represented. We watch sections several times to make sure the song enhances the images. We edit and re-edit the video to eliminate tiny glitches that only we will notice. We burn the DVDs and wrap them in fancy paper like it’s the most important gift we’ve ever given. It’s hard to explain how compelling it is to be involved in telling this story, until the night of the Graduation dinner, when the lights go down, the projector turns on and the 80 kids excitedly drag their chairs over in a huge clump in anticipation for an event that has become a tradition. It’s not about the technology, the meetings, or the hard work….it’s about the story.
Congratulations class of 2008!
Apr
23
It’s Hip to be Cool
April 23, 2008 | | 1 Comment
I’m breaking my own rule about writing anything specific about my job, but my experience with a particular set of parents is worth telling. Recently, my curriculum director thought it would be good to hold a set of classes that would offer an introduction to computer skills. Although my friends ask me to all the time, I’ve never taught computer skills to parents, only to teachers. It turns out that there was such an enthusiastic response from our parent community that we had a waiting list. Anyway…I’m working with around 15 parents for an hour each week for five weeks. Here’s my digital handout. They are a wonderful and enthusiastic bunch of learners! If their own children are as engaged in the learning process, I’m sure they are straight A students. Here’s what makes them so cool:
- They all want to know about blogging. At least a couple of the moms want to start a blog. (Along with showing them what the kids are into, let’s sign them up for a blogger account!)
- One parent to another. “Just go on YouTube…it’s the greatest thing. Look up what ever you want. I like the laughing babies!” (Little do they know how pervasive YouTube is. According to David Jakes, it’s the number one thing that people spend time on the internet looking at - videos. With 78 billion videos, there are a lot of laughing babies. Let’s show them other good quality content.)
- Opened gmail accounts. We had a long discussion about their children’s email accounts. How awesome for parents to sign their kids up for email accounts so they can communicate with family and friends. (I hope we have time to work on google docs - wouldn’t that be a good thing?)
- The are very collaborative. When I’m going to fast, they jump up and help their neighbor. They ask each other questions and get input about how technology is used in their home. (Perfect for a social network.)
- They see the value in the skills. What ever I show them something - they can think of scenarios of how they can use this or that piece of knowledge or information.
- They practice when they get home. They even bring questions back to class. So cool!
I wish this class lasted longer that 5 weeks. Maybe at the beginning of next school year, I’ll drag them all back for “Parent Computer Class Revisited”. Maybe I’ll invite them to the teachers’ technology professional development days. Their enthusiasm might be contagious.
Apr
9
Where to Begin
April 9, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
If I could collaborate with teachers on one new project involving web 2.0 technology, I would like to use VoiceThread. Although I’ve seen plenty of examples, I have not yet tried this tool to create a project. From the looks of it, VoiceThread is a very flexible tool that has a great deal of potential. As I look through the samples, here’s a few ideas I’m thinking about.
- Scan pictures that they have drawn and tell a story about the image
- Take pictures with a digital camera of their environment and identify geometric shapes, draw a circle around it and describe which math vocabulary word we see
- After doing research, use copyright free images and tell the story of a famous person
- Draw pictures in a sequence and use images to tell a story
- Use images created in Kidspiration or Inspiration about concept and describe
- Take pictures of the classroom and record reflections on the year
- Use an image of a grandparent and tell his or her story
- Use images from parent’s life and tell stories about experiences from their childhood
The appeal of VoiceThread is that a project would have to involve visual images as well as narration. The narration would require the writing of a script or reading a written report aloud. This would be a perfect cross-curricular project that demonstrate writing, visual literacy, and creativity.
Maybe I’ll get up the nerve to try a project myself!
Mar
28
Personal Learning Networks III
March 28, 2008 | | 1 Comment
Although it’s Spring break, I’ve been pretty busy this week. I’ve developed another strategy for keeping well-informed in the area of educational technology and finding and tagging along with people who have a similar passion. As promised in an earlier post, I’ve been actively utilizing twitter. Because of those people I follow, I’ve had a chance to listen in on workshops broadcasts on Ustream.tv, I’ve expanded my list of blogs that I read, and I’ve developed a use for a web2.0 tool called Diigo. It’s pretty amazing how busy these ed-tech people are. Every few seconds, someone posts a message about a new blog article, preparing for presentation to their staff, or sending out a notice about a live stream of their workshop. There are also recommendations for great sites (hence, the new use of Diigo) or requests for technical help.
There is a really cool phenomenon among those I follow in twitter. People I follow post information about themselves that goes beyond the professional stuff. There’s been news about lost jobs, the need for new jobs, sick children, and the lost of a parent. The twitter community is extremely supportive. The community is always willing to offer advice, job leads, and offers of prayers. It’s an awesome community.
This blog entry by vanishingpoint explains twitter as a PLN opportunity extremely well. He says, “Twitter has opened amazing learning opportunities for me occasionally the 100+ folks that I follow post so much information I need to archive it to get to later. But THAT IS A GOOD THING! It proves to me and frankly forces me to continuously be grazing information (a skill in itself) and learning continuously.” I couldn’t agree more.
On the other side of the coin, I find the process intimidating. After all, I am following some really smart people. I’m not yet comfortable twittering about my blog posts, and I don’t Ustream.tv any of my workshops. I’m pretty proficient, but I can’t offer much technical advice to this bunch of “geeks”. I’ve yet to find a voice in the world of edu-bloggers, so I can’t provide any words of wisdom. For now, I am happy just to follow all this wealth of knowledge, and maybe someday, I’ll make a really substantial contribution to the community.
Mar
16
What Students Want
March 16, 2008 | | 1 Comment
It was exciting to take advantage of an invitation on twitter from Ryan Bretag to look in on a discussion with a group of students on the impact of technology in education. It was a broadcast on Ustream TV. During the broadcast there many other educators in the chat room listening in and commenting on the conversation. As an educator who rarely gets the opportunity to have such rich conversations with students (other than my own three kids) I was really interested in what they had to say.
In the broadcast, Ryan introduced them to a few tools such as Twitter, social networking (specifically Ning), and google docs. I wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t heard of any of these tools. Although we give digital natives a lot of credit for knowing everything, in reality, they only know the tools they use in their personal or academic life. They don’t have any more time than us grownup to go out there and seek out what’s new and interesting. That’s our job as ed-techs. The thing that really impressed me, to the point of smiling from ear-to-ear, was the thoughtful questions and comments in terms of how the tools are valuable. Twitter, for example wasn’t met with much enthusiasm at first, as far as a tool that fits in to school. When examples such as being able to use twitter to communicate with others at different schools was offered, then the students were interested. The students really focused on the value for school. How would this be used in the context of the classroom? I was really impressed that the students focused on the value of the tools in their learning environment.
Ning made them nervous. Social networking is viewed as something they do in their free time. Networking with teachers? Not so much. When Ryan made it clear that Ning is a more professional tool, than the students could see the value in using it as a tool for communication and collaboration. They could wrap their heads around the value of the tool as they separated the concept from their own “facebooked world”.
Google Docs was really met with a lot of enthusiasm. Many students brought up specific examples of how they would use this tool as they worked in groups. The described scenarios where emailing documents back and forth to team mates really failed, or kept them up until all hours if the message didn’t arrive right away.
While I was listening in on this conversation, I was forming a plan to have a similar type round table discussion with the middle school students in my district. I run a risk because middle school students are not quite as focused and insightful as they will be in a few years. The I thought about having this kind of discussion with the teachers. With the teachers, I run the risk of getting a great deal of resistance. “Who has time?” is a question I get a lot. Also, unfamiliar tools tend to get a lot of resistance from non-digital native because we can always find fault with something that seems really new and different. In addition, in the case of elementary school, if only some teachers used the tools and most others didn’t, would all of the students get an equitable chance for exposure or utilization?
Ryan blogged about these discussions this weekend. He really hit the nail on the head here:
Bottom line: Despite growing up in a digital world, they aren’t as familiar with the tools or use the tools as much as we believe. However, the difference is that they are open-minded compared to some of an older generation.
A lot of time, we give these kids credit for knowing more than they really do, but we don’t give them credit enough for having the same kind of sense of urgency and same recognition of value of their own educational experiences.
Mar
13
Personal Learning Networks II
March 13, 2008 | | 1 Comment
In an earlier post, I indicated that one of my “big three” was to start using twitter. I’ve been using it regularly for a couple of weeks and through twitter I got a chance to see David Warlick speak at the North Carolina computing educators conference through ustream. Here is a link to his handouts. In the workshop he talked about using RSS to find tools and information that will help one as a professional. In describing how to use RSS to find images and other information that would help put together lessons and classroom activities, David said, “Train the information to find us.” I thought that was a cool quote and I understand exactly what he is saying. So much time is spent looking for information, “just in time”. If we prepare in advance by setting up feeds, wikis, and other web2.o tools to accept and organize the information, when we need it, it’s there for us.
Once again, the impact of blogs as a professional development tool was brought up with his group. David asked his group if they read blogs and then offered a list of bloggers that are widely read by other educators as a way to learn about what is going on in the field. (His blog should be on the top of the list.) As I mentioned before, reading blogs of other educators who are interested and knowledgeable about technology is the single most important professional development activity that I engaged in.
Twitter is coming a close second. Because of Twitter, I was able to attend David’s session today. Here’s my Big Three for David’s session:
1. Set up RSS feed pages on my pageflakes page for topics that I’m interested in including internet safety, blogging in the classrooms, PLN
2. Participate in twitter in a meaningful way, like posting links to good tools and interesting articles - not just posting goofy stuff
3. Participate in my ning networks because I know that the people in my ning group will be knowledgeable and supportive with the issues that I have in my job. I’ll learn alot from them.
Mar
7
Lighten Up Francis
March 7, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
The clip in his blog was fitting. He is really fired up! Ryan focused on his thought, “Learning spaces that live and die with the teacher aren’t Good Enough.” The message of his post described course management systems and how teachers utilize various features of the CMS to one degree or another. Since the use of the tools is not consistent, the students’ learning experience depend greatly on the teacher and how much effort they put into the course environment . (I hope I got it right.)
I’m going to focus on his other idea, the one he chose not to expand on. I found that it’s more what I can talk about, “Pockets of Greatness aren’t Good Enough”. Here’s my thoughts about this statement:
I agree with Ryan. It’s frustrating to see the educational experiences in some classrooms to be technology-rich and using transformative tools. Other classrooms could use their computers as boat anchors. “Pockets of greatness” can also characterize the educational experiences of students outside the use of technology. There are great teachers who demonstrate a real understanding of their students. Great teachers use best practices in differentiated instruction, focus on higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, and allow his or her students to connect the classroom to the real world. In that “pocket”, children experience the opportunity to think creatively and be self directed. Out of the “pocket”, students are disengaged and undervalued as learners. With or without technology, there is greatness and not-so-greatness. Within a child’s whole 8 years (I’m an elementary educator), he will not always be in the class of a great teacher. It’s unfortunate, but let’s face it…it’s true. What keeps me from “going Francis” is to focus on the big picture. The students will be fine. The students that came out of the school where I taught were very well prepared, and their technology-related experiences were much richer that that students from other other schools. Technology is so much a part of the lives of children outside of school, that they are competent and confident. It would be great if they utilized real world tools in all aspects of school. I really believe that and I do absolutely everything I can to promote the use of technology in meaningful ways. I’d like to expect that every teacher is on the same page. Realistically, it ‘aint gonna happen……yet. Reflecting on the analogy that Ian Jukes gives us, a passionate educator with vision keeps “swimming upstream” as a committed sardine. Eventually, the rest will follow.
Ryan’s blog post reflected passion and high standards. An influential teacher/leader needs that kind of vision. To keep one’s sanity however, sometimes it’s necessary to step back and look at the big picture.
Mar
5
Thinkature - a very cool tool
March 5, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
One of my favorite ways to surf the net is to start with the del.icio.us and click on popular. I come across some of the coolest tools that way. I almost always save at least a few of the popular sites on my own list. I have over 1200 links that interest me. Once in a while, I come across something that I feel like I must use immediately. Today it was Thinkature. Thinkature is a really cool collaboration tool where you can create mind maps and brainstorming visual organizers. The other mind map tools that I’ve found include WiseMapping, Mind42, and MindMeister. Naturally, my favorite will always be the offline version Inspiration. (I wonder if they are developing an online version with all the cool features?) Thinkature’s features are really powerful. They include chatting and the use of images, either from your hard drive or imported from the web. Wow! It’s so cool! Here are a few ideas on how to use this in the classroom or as a professional tool for teachers.
- With an interactive whiteboard
- Recap a field trip
- Create a timeline
- Connecting ideas as a study guide
- Prepare to write an essay or report
- Prepare a presentation
I started a workspace, just to get a little practice. Feel free to add to edit it.
Mar
4
Pageflakes - the way to keep track of Intentional R&D
March 4, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
Like Mr. Ferriter, the single most important form of professional development that I engage in on a daily basis is reading blogs. Creating a visual way to organize my favorites (who are also his) will make it easier to spend a few minutes here and there to read them and organize information that I get from them with flakes like notepad, and delicious.
I think when I show teachers how to read blogs, this form of feedreader will be easier to understand and perhaps I might be able to persuade more teachers to try this when I show them my pageflakes page.
Mar
2
Technology Driven Differentiated Instruction
March 2, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
I’ve been following Vicki Davis’s blog and projects for quite a while. It was really cool to have her present at the Illinois technology conference. The presentation that I attended was Technology Driven Differentiated Instruction. I’ve done a great deal of research about differentiated instruction. My master’s thesis was a study on effective professional development strategies in order to implement DI into teaching and learning. I’ve read research by Carol Ann Tomlinson, who is the foremost expert on the subject. This workshop presented the content with a new twist. DI is a very complex topic and generally pretty difficult to do well at first. Vicki’s presentation provides some very specific recommendations for the use of web2.0 tools in the classroom and how the process, the product, or the content can be differentiated based on the teaching and learning experience. I need to take a look at her slideshow a few more times to get my head around the information. Pairing the implementation of web2.0 tools with DI is so overwhelming. I think that first teachers have to be comfortable with one concept or the other first before the two are paired. Clearly, Vicki has well developed technology integrated classroom, globally connecting her students using blogs, wikis, podcasting, and other tools. None of the teachers I currently work with are using web2.0 tools.
Here’s the slide show, and my big three.
- Find a way to use ClassTools.net - I saw this site at Beth’s workshop too. It looks like a cool application for interactive white boards
- Blog regularly - even if I can’t implement any of these “big three” lists, continue to write about what I’ve learned
- Write a Big Three for the workshops from IL-TCE
- Organize Intentional R&D - Use this name for the list of stuff I want to look at, learn, implement, inspire other with. This seems like a way to make the time I spend with new ideas and articles much more productive.
