Silo: Oink, Mooo, Cluck

The other day I walked into the computer lab and saw a group of students using Google Docs to work on cool Supreme Court case assignments. I chatted with the teacher and saw a cool extension of the assignment that I never though of (more on that in a future post). In the distance I heard a cow moooo, a chicken cluck and a pig go oink. I am living in a silo. I am one of the Tech Integration people at my building and I have no idea people are using the same tools that I have been trying to hype.

Teachers (at least I do) live in silos. We are in our rooms, doing our thing and occasionally we get out to see that is happening around the barnyard (I have failed in my goal to each lunch in the lounge). The busier I get, and the more things I have on my plate the higher and more constricted my silo gets. The tools, like Google Presentations, are intuitive and do not require a lengthy sit-down. I'm not frustrated that people are not getting me involved and asking for help, because they are plenty capable. I am frustrated because I would like to collaborate and have discussions about new ways of doing things and making the classrooms more relevant.

I know there is a discussion happening about silos of information in education. I know that we shouldn't be in them.

Don't you wish you had more time to collaborate with those around you?

I do.



photo: onlinewoman

Chatting in Google Presentations!

Yesterday, our school had a 2-hour late start devoted to technology integration. The first hour was a large group session where we overviewed Web 1.0 vs. 2.0 and introduced Google Docs and ways it could be used in the classroom. The second hour was breakout time related to a specific topics (Activboards, Moodle and Google Docs).

During the large group session, the staff was invited to join the presentation online and follow along. What is nice about the Google Presentation tool is that it has a chat column that the audience can use for questions or comments. During the presentation I made the comment that students want to create and be active participants with technology and not just click links and watch. The comment/chat column in the Google Presentation is really great because it allows the audience to do more than watch and listen. There was a running commentary/dialogue that was approximately following the presentation and adding insights along the way. I thought everyone was very well behaved...was it because they were actively participating? Hmmmm.

There were a dozen or so staff members that jumped in and I decided to post some of the comments and chat topics during the presentation.

• Congress has it's own youtube channel now.

• There is some research out there that argues wikipedia is more accurate than an encyclopedia...I read a study where a person made over 30 deliberate mistakes, and theywere all corrected within an hour

• I've been using Google docs to get my ski team to sign in for races. It's pretty cool

• For our ALC team meeting notes, I type them in Google docs, and then we all have accessto them at all times - and can make additions, as necessary.

• the cool thing is that I can actually edit the document or make notes right on theirs as they type they like that immediate response

• google docs has a tool call revision history, too. So that if there was an innapropriateaddition to a document you can actually fetch back to the time before they added thatcontent and delete it.

• Sean and I used Google docs to write behavior contracts - we were both editing at the sametime. Worked perfectly.

learning.21st: the class

This quarter I am teaching a new course to 9th graders. It is a first run (with 18 students) and so far it has been very successful. Over the next few blog posts, I want to highlight a few activities from the class and post some of the student blog posts related to the course content.

Here is the official first draft overview...

The course, learning.21st, is a nine week elective designed to directly address the use of technology in the classroom and help the students become proficient with a suite of web-based applications and model skills that will help them become better 21st century students.

Students are largely on their own when applying online skills and resources to school because they are not covered in the traditional classroom or are addressed at drastically different levels. Students may be well versed in the standard suite of education applications, like Microsoft Office, but technology is quickly moving away from such programs to a more user driven, free, and non-licensed platform. Although the computer has been a mainstay in the schools since the early eighties, the web and user defined content is pushing technology from something done in the computer lab to a integral part of the classroom. This course would deliberately teach 21st century learning skills to a population that is increasingly living online but never had a forum to apply knowledge to the academic setting.

It's a good thing Pluto was demoted!

WARNING: Grumpy Blogger Alert!

I'll tell you what, it was a good thing Pluto was demoted as one of the nine planets because I won't have time to teach about it because of the mandated MCA tests (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment). The Science MCA is a computer-based test and is spread out over two class periods. While I am being dramatic, the amount of time spent gearing up the MCA tests results in less time for just about everything else. I lost seven 88 minute classes this year because of the MCA. I thought I would just bullet a few of the frustrations.

• Ummmm.... I lost seven 88 minute classes this year because of the MCA.
• The tests need to be cached. This means that before the test is given it is grabbed from the testing site and put onto the district server. This can take over an hour. While you can plan ahead the success of the testing should not fall on an overworked tech support person to show up on Monday at 5 am.
  
• The technology support people have the worst computer to tech support ratio in the business. These poor people have to maintain computers for users that by their nature want to pluck out keys and wallpaper the desktops. I heard someone say that this should have been done on Sunday. I disagree.
  
• Our school gave students water and mints for the Reading and Math MCA. I think this is a good idea other than the huge volume of plastic bottles in the garbage. For the computer-based MCA the students didn't get the same treatment because water and computers don't mix.
  
• I was told that Monday was a bad day for testing because so many schools are doing the test on Monday. Well, Friday was a field trip and there is something else on Tuesday and Thursday is a bad day too. There are no good days for these things but the point is that if you are going to do it then it has to work. If you can blame it on a Monday, you should question whether you should be giving it at all.
  
• Our school has done a great job of preparing kids to write constructed responses. Not that it is always done well, but there has been a school-wide effort to focus on writing skills. There have been a number of students over the course of the MCA who have not been able to type a full answer for a constructed response because there is a limit on characters. I feel like they should let you know there is a limit like on those online customer comment forms. I also feel like the students should be able to write at least two sentence before being limited. Who knows, maybe it is a computer issue....
• Luckily we have decent computers. Can you imagine the chaos of a school where there are 36 in class with 27 working computers.
  
• Insert your frustration here!

Does what happened today in Lab 611 determines whether my kids learned this year? I sure hope my kids got all those fossil questions right because I cut that unit as a result of losing so many classes to the MCA's (this is just an example...I did sign the non-disclosure form).

Desktop Post-it Note:

This computer sucks!!!!! The internet dosn't work and like a bazillion things pop up. so find a diffrent computer!!!!! somebody thought they were super funny and made it so everything popped up 5 times each!!!! NOT funny!

(this post-it was on a desktop in a student computer lab because someone changed the settings to open every application at startup.)

Poll:

Should schools lock computers down so that kids can't mess with the settings, change desktop images and install Pac-Man Widgets? (This allows students to be less distracted and keeps the over-worked tech support people happier)

Should schools leave computers "open" so that students can use them them way they were intended and deliberately teach students how to maintain and use computers? (This eats into class time, but will always insure that a student can access the built-in camera and change various settings depending on the project.)

I think schools wrestle with this on a day-to-day basis and just wanted to see that people think. Please vote on the poll to the right.

Oregon Trail

At a staff development a few months back a very good point was made about the stigma of math in schools (life). Something along the lines of "grumble, grumble....but that is math....and I am not a "math" person...grumble, grumble" As someone who has struggled with math, checkbooks, budgets, gas mileage and measuring I was surprised to find myself entrenched behind the front lines and going to bat for them. How can kids like math if they are constantly hearing the grumbles about the woes of math and how everyone is so bad at it. I have to admit I have changed my tone. I don't have a lot of opportunities in my class, but I now approach density calculations with the same vigor as someone standing on a bridge with big banners supporting their candidate before an election.

What does this have to do with technology? Well, when I read this blog post (Edublog post of the year for 2007) it was clear there was a connection.

The Fischbowl: Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? via kwout

If I could celebrate the genius of mathematics in my classroom there should be some other human out there that can turn on a LCD projector and begin throwing some wiz-bang at the kids. Seriously, that is where we need to start. Wikis, blogs, Moodle, Voicethread, iMovie, Garageband, Twitter, Ning and all that other stuff can come in due time but we ought to begin moving forward without grumbling. When I was roaming the halls of my elementary school we got to go to the "technology room" to play Oregon Trail to learn about MATH...sorta. That was 1985ish. Computers are not going away and we ought to saddle up and begin lumbering along. If we run into an obstacle, we'll caulk the wagons and float it.