We are getting close to end..... I need to have grades in by Thanksgiving.
So please post of what you have/are doing with links to your blogs and websites.
I would really appreciate some feedback on the content, course, teaching style or anything else you want to say.
I am going to send next years class to this blog so give them a heads up of what the course was to you so they will have a better understanding on if they should pick it or not.
I would love feedback on things you would do differently.
* I will be adding to my course I just recently purchased a 3d Wood Carver. That will be used next year to bring our virtual 3d world (Sketchup) to the real world.
* Please schedule the feed backs to post after end of this month. That way any new post will go to class we are doing now.
Lastly, I do need to hear from all of you... I want to hear about the issues as well. This is part of being transparent and flipping the script.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Change is Good
This year I changed schools. I am now a general elementary teacher and I teach a multi-age 5th and 6th grade. I live three minutes from school and have the teaching situation I have always wanted, a self-contained class. There has been some adjustment.
In August, Google was completely blocked. This school does not do robotics, Scratch and Starlogo fell into the forbidden "edu-tainment" category, and teacher email was monitored for personal use.
In the short term, my original plan, to have students blog about a collaborative problem-solving task involving robotics, was not going to work. Over the past few months, I have made a lot of progress. Many teachers already had Gmail accounts. Now we are able to use the accounts at school. I have a school blog and "transparent class room" blog, both linked to the school webpage. The teachers share information on a private blog, after school robotics will be funded this spring and in the meanwhile, my students are working on a technical project (but it involves hammers, nails and drills). Students are not blogging about what they have done; they are writing informational papers about how to use various types of equipment. The project is still not complete, but all-in-all, I am very pleased with our progress.
While I have been able to start the conversation around Google Apps, I have little hope of seeing movement anytime soon. Very recently I took a new tack. Since most of my students already had email accounts, I asked them to sign up for their own Google Apps accounts. I gained parental permission by announcing my intentions in two parent letters and when I got no negative response, actually I got no response what-so-ever, I proceeded. In the last two weeks, my students have begun to use Google Docs, Presentation and Forms for various collaborative learning activities.
My new project involves building. As the teacher in charge of the school greenhouse, I was able to get permission and funds to build some hoop houses and, later this winter, light frames for seedlings. My students have learned how to use the tools involved in this construction and they have written procedural papers for using different tools. The art teacher and I collaborated on a technical drawing activity, and during math class, I had students measure and mark the lumber.
I have been very successful in the transparent part of the classroom and modestly successful in the reverse teaching. My students are reluctant to stand before the class and demonstrate anything, but I am finding that they will share in smaller groups and impromptu settings. We have had demonstrations on everything from "how to group pictures and text" to "how to harvest potatoes". My winter project will be to complete a student-authored book titled "Green House Care Through The Seasons". Definitely reverse-teaching.
The most important aspect of this class, however is my new knowledge. I am fluent with blogs. If you look at my Coast to Canyon blog, you can see that I have learned how to edit html and use widgets. I have also learned to use Picasa, and in tandem with a Eye-Fi connected camera I am able to update my bogs instantly and effortlessly. Setting the card up as its own network got me around our school filter. My laptop automatically finds the school network once the upload is complete. The most important thing I have learned is how to influence change without scaring or alienating people. Everyone in our school ultimately wants what is best for students, but getting them to make changes involves gentle arm twisting, creating visions and, in my case, lots of patience.
This is my classroom letter blog. http://besjohns.blogspot.com/
This is my transparent classroom blog. http://besjohnspeek.blogspot.com
In August, Google was completely blocked. This school does not do robotics, Scratch and Starlogo fell into the forbidden "edu-tainment" category, and teacher email was monitored for personal use.
In the short term, my original plan, to have students blog about a collaborative problem-solving task involving robotics, was not going to work. Over the past few months, I have made a lot of progress. Many teachers already had Gmail accounts. Now we are able to use the accounts at school. I have a school blog and "transparent class room" blog, both linked to the school webpage. The teachers share information on a private blog, after school robotics will be funded this spring and in the meanwhile, my students are working on a technical project (but it involves hammers, nails and drills). Students are not blogging about what they have done; they are writing informational papers about how to use various types of equipment. The project is still not complete, but all-in-all, I am very pleased with our progress.
While I have been able to start the conversation around Google Apps, I have little hope of seeing movement anytime soon. Very recently I took a new tack. Since most of my students already had email accounts, I asked them to sign up for their own Google Apps accounts. I gained parental permission by announcing my intentions in two parent letters and when I got no negative response, actually I got no response what-so-ever, I proceeded. In the last two weeks, my students have begun to use Google Docs, Presentation and Forms for various collaborative learning activities.
My new project involves building. As the teacher in charge of the school greenhouse, I was able to get permission and funds to build some hoop houses and, later this winter, light frames for seedlings. My students have learned how to use the tools involved in this construction and they have written procedural papers for using different tools. The art teacher and I collaborated on a technical drawing activity, and during math class, I had students measure and mark the lumber.
I have been very successful in the transparent part of the classroom and modestly successful in the reverse teaching. My students are reluctant to stand before the class and demonstrate anything, but I am finding that they will share in smaller groups and impromptu settings. We have had demonstrations on everything from "how to group pictures and text" to "how to harvest potatoes". My winter project will be to complete a student-authored book titled "Green House Care Through The Seasons". Definitely reverse-teaching.
The most important aspect of this class, however is my new knowledge. I am fluent with blogs. If you look at my Coast to Canyon blog, you can see that I have learned how to edit html and use widgets. I have also learned to use Picasa, and in tandem with a Eye-Fi connected camera I am able to update my bogs instantly and effortlessly. Setting the card up as its own network got me around our school filter. My laptop automatically finds the school network once the upload is complete. The most important thing I have learned is how to influence change without scaring or alienating people. Everyone in our school ultimately wants what is best for students, but getting them to make changes involves gentle arm twisting, creating visions and, in my case, lots of patience.
This is my classroom letter blog. http://besjohns.blogspot.com/
This is my transparent classroom blog. http://besjohnspeek.blogspot.com
Monday, October 31, 2011
Implementation
I've been very successful with the Reverse Teaching part of my project, but not so much with the transparency part. Despite the fact that I teach high school, my students' parents are not thrilled with the idea of their children's pictures being posted online in any way, shape, or form. I tried at parent teacher conferences to remind them that this is why they all sign a media release form at the beginning of the school year, but to no avail. I've got very, VERY few photos of my kids working that are usable, because of lack of parent buy-in. They seem to have decided together that this is the issue over which they are going to dig in their heels and flat-out refuse to compromise.
That being said, the websites that I had my kids create are varying and incredibly cool. Because they use Google Docs in their computer classes already, I didn't have to worry too much about teaching them the format of the website. I did show them some tips and tricks, and we discussed how not to blind your teacher with yellow words on a lime green background, but other than that, I left it to them to figure out the different possibilities the site presented.
That being said, the websites that I had my kids create are varying and incredibly cool. Because they use Google Docs in their computer classes already, I didn't have to worry too much about teaching them the format of the website. I did show them some tips and tricks, and we discussed how not to blind your teacher with yellow words on a lime green background, but other than that, I left it to them to figure out the different possibilities the site presented.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Not So Much...
Well, I have been REALLY successful with the transparency part of my project, but not with the reverse part. I have offered several challenges for the students, but none of them have taken the opportunity to do them. They are all overwhelmed, because this is apparently the first year they've ever been asked to do homework and they don't have a study hall so it's basically been like panic overload as they try to keep up with their day-to-day work. I have been seriously successful with my website though AND I am happy to report that our school sent our entire middle school team (8 teachers 6-8, tech, and Sped) to the MAMLE conference and I led the charge for EVERYONE to get a website up and start being more transparent. At the start of the conference, I was the only middle school teacher with a website. Now, three other teachers have theirs either finished, or almost ready and two more are feeling the pressure to get in the game! We've also got Google calendars attached so parents can see what the homework is. So, even though it wasn't what I planned on, I'm still considering it a success! Plus, I'm not going to stop until all of the middle school is on-line!
Here's the link to my site.
Here's the link to my site.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Where is that 8-ball
None of my plans have worked out so far. We have a new technology integrator...great guy, but is new to the Google Apps world. Students have just gotten lap tops and the On-line Almanac that I was hoping to create is still a pipe dream. We had chosen to use Weebly as a platform, but not sure that will work. Students are having difficulty just doing assignments to get to the point of posting. I'm well behind the 8 ball.
Jesse
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Project Updates
Hi everyone, hope your school year is off to a great start. I have had an incredibly busy semester so far. Just to remind everyone, my final project is revolving around a new assessment system just implemented at UMaine's COEHD, called Tk20. Since I am working for the COEHD as a grad assistant assigned to Tk20, I thought revolving my final project around Tk20 would be a great way for me to really familiarize myself with the system. So for my project, I volunteered to develop a lot of the training materials and to create and maintain the help site. To give you a better idea about Tk20, it is essentially just a massive database being used to collect, store, analyze data, and generate comprehensive reports. The COEHD is going to use Tk20 for on-going program evaluation and to assist with the NCATE re-accredition process. For the first stage of the implementation process, every student in a NCATE program is going to be uploading key assessments into Tk20, where it will then be evaluated by faculty to demonstrate that the students are meeting NCATE standards. We have already undertaken a massive training effort and have provided training to over 70 classes. For the first part of my project, I developed the training guides for the students. Now all my time is being put into developing how-to guides and developing the help site. The training materials and how-to guides mostly consists of step-by-step trouble shooting tutorials in the form video screencasts and PDFs. The Tk20 help site is going to be the main source of information for both faculty and students. It is still in development, but here is the link so you can see where it is at: http://umaine.edu/edhd/tk20-information/. There is also a FAQ subpage with additional resources.
Progress?
Our students finally got their laptops on Thursday and I managed to get them all connected to their email and their grades. Progress reports went home Friday as I began giving my first test of the year. It has been a crazy one so far! I did have a students laptop plugged in to the short throw projector that I am learning to use. It does have a laser pointer that I haven't figured out yet! I have all my students connected to the successnet site that comes with our new text and I think that will be helpful with reverse teaching. There are tutorials, games and all the instruction in one place that students can access from home.
Now that they finally have their machines, I can begin to have them set up portfolios. I have such a sort time to teach that I may try having some create the portfolio in study hall and hope to have it spread like a virus. I should probably check with our administration to make sure that's OK but I do intend to have them set the privacy so it is only shared with certain addresses like mine and their parents. First I will have to get through the effects if the progress reports on the parents who think their child is doing better than they are. I do really like having an "open" grade book as I find it has a very beneficial effect on my missing assignment list!
Now that they finally have their machines, I can begin to have them set up portfolios. I have such a sort time to teach that I may try having some create the portfolio in study hall and hope to have it spread like a virus. I should probably check with our administration to make sure that's OK but I do intend to have them set the privacy so it is only shared with certain addresses like mine and their parents. First I will have to get through the effects if the progress reports on the parents who think their child is doing better than they are. I do really like having an "open" grade book as I find it has a very beneficial effect on my missing assignment list!
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