- TRANSFERRING VIDEO FROM PHONE TO COMPUTER Your phone can make a great video camera, but moving that video to your computer can be tricky sometimes. If you have already synced your phone with your computer, moving ...
Posted Feb 11, 2014, 6:24 AM by Patrick Donovan - MOVENOTE: WEB BASED VIDEO CREATOR INTEGRATED WITH GOOGLE APPS Movenote is a nice, web-based video creator app that allows you to easily add video of you speaking along with an image or document. You can easily share out ...
Posted Feb 7, 2014, 11:42 AM by Patrick Donovan - MAKING A SINGLE IPAD (TEACHER IPAD) EFFECTIVE FOR THE CLASS At AHS we have a few teachers who were issued iPads to go along with some other tools in the classroom and many are still trying to find ways to ...
Posted 40 minutes ago by Patrick Donovan - IPAD AS A PORTABLE WHITEBOARD A point that I have tried to make before is going to be made again, we have to look at ways of using technology beyond the basics. There are ways ...
Posted Feb 7, 2014, 6:09 AM by Patrick Donovan - USING PADLET IN THE CLASSROOM I am a big proponent of collaboration and any digital tool that allows collaboration to take place regardless of where or when everyone can use that tool. Using Google Docs ...
Posted Feb 3, 2014, 12:14 PM by Patrick Donovan - APPLE TV IN THE CLASSROOM (MACBOOK AIRS) I think that an issue that many people have when viewing how to use technology use in the classroom is that they only look at the surface abilities of a ...
Posted Feb 4, 2014, 8:10 AM by Patrick Donovan
Friday, February 14, 2014
Tech Tips of the Week
Here are the Tech Tips I have posted onto my other site within the last week or so.
These tips and others can be found on my other site at http://bit.ly/ahstechint.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Audience of More Than 1
One key thing that can happen when students have easy access to technology is that their work can be shared with so many other people. When we have students produce work in class that just goes to the teacher, there is an audience of 1. If we have that same student share that piece of work with others, they have a much larger audience and often times this can have a positive impact on engagement and learning. Many students put in the minimum effort when they know that the teacher is the only person seeing what they create. They focus on how much they have to do to get the number of points that they want instead of taking real ownership of what they are creating.
Ways to increase the audience
Issue to watch out for
Our students want to create, and they should not have to hide their creations or only show them to the teacher. They should be able to use the technology that they already use in the classroom to share their learning and achievements with others. Our job as teachers is to help them learn how to share out, how to protect themselves and to protect their own creations. But our job is not to hid them or to make them only produce for ourselves. Give your students an audience of more than 1 and you will see learning happening like never before.
Ways to increase the audience
- I would first start by just sharing with the other students in class. This can easily be done by using a Google Doc that students put the links to their work in or you could even use a form to collect the work and share the results with everyone. You also could just create a class group using Google Groups and then just have the students share their work (view or comment only) with the group so that they could offer feedback. I would suggest having guidelines and showing how to leave proper feedback, reminding students that are jobs are to learn and to help others learn, not to discourage learning with ill comments.
- Using a blog to have students posting their work to and sharing with others is another road you can head down. You could use free tools like Blogger, Weebly or even a Google Site. A teacher could use the script pagemeister to produce a separate page for each student on their own site to get started. The student would have more ownership of their learning if they were the owners of their own blog, which is why I would suggest eventually moving towards a tool like Blogger or Weebly or even having them create their own site. Imagine a student who creates their own site in middle school and uses it to share their learning all through middle school and high school. That student would have a great record of their learning which would allow them to reflect on how and what they have learned.
- Have students create their own podcast, or vodcast, and share that out. Have them interview others and have others share their work through their podcast. Let them create what they want and they will surprise you with how much it improves their learning.
Issue to watch out for
- Of course privacy has to be a real concern when sharing online, whether it is the student sharing or the teacher sharing. One thing that might help is to use either only first names or to use a made up name to protect the identity of the student.
- One teacher, that I saw that had students create blogs for their class, had the students use just their first name and last initial. The teacher and the students knew who each other were but not anyone outside of that group. This made it so the student could share out without having others know exactly who that person was.
- You have to find the right level of privacy for your students, and the parents, that makes them feel comfortable but also allows them to share their work with others.
Our students want to create, and they should not have to hide their creations or only show them to the teacher. They should be able to use the technology that they already use in the classroom to share their learning and achievements with others. Our job as teachers is to help them learn how to share out, how to protect themselves and to protect their own creations. But our job is not to hid them or to make them only produce for ourselves. Give your students an audience of more than 1 and you will see learning happening like never before.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
1:1 Round 2
This is not my first time going through the implementation of a 1:1 as I was previously at another school before and during the first 3 years of the 1:1 there. There we gave our students the white MacBooks and we had some successes as well as some, well, we will just call them not-successes.
There were many variables that caused initial problems, such as new administration, a state site visit and a switch from a block schedule to an eight period day. Due to all of those changes there wasn't a lot of time or energy that first year to do a whole lot. There were definitely some changes that happened to improve the learning environment but not a lot seemed to change overall. The integration of the technology into the classroom and into the learning was slower than would have been had we been able to only focus on that as opposed to the other changes.
During year 2 and year 3 there was a lot more that was done, more pd and more opportunities to learn from each other. Some teachers would make certain changes to their teaching style or would integrate certain tools in order to help the students, and the students would actually ask the other teachers to do the same. While teachers were required to have a class site (or blog depending on how you look at it) there were different ways to go about this and some teachers would only do the bare minimum while others would attempt to create a truly blended learning environment.
It took me a little over a year before I found the way that I really wanted to use the new tools in the classroom. While looking for examples from other teachers I had stumbled upon examples from a flipped classroom. I also found out how others were using mastery style learning and standards based grading in connection with technology in order to create a more student-centered learning environment. My focus was just on integrating new technology, it was on how I could best use these tools to better meet the needs of my students. I understood that there might be a lot of work to change but I felt that if it helped my students learn, then it would be worth it.
I think the best indicator of success for a 1:1 is the change of instruction to better meet the needs of the students. Did the changes that took place end up positively affect the student learning that was taking place? Did the teachers try to find new ways to help students or did they just digitize the old methods and tools? Are the teachers willing to try new things and even fail along the way, as long as they keep trying in order to improve?
In Sean Nash's Blog post he discusses how the comfort level with seven elements will determine if you are ready to undertake the 1:1 change or not. A big message throughout those seven elements is, are you willing to give up teacher centered strategies and move towards student centered ones instead. We have to make sure that we are truly focused on the student, no matter what initiative is being introduced or what changes take place. If we are not focused on the student with each step we take, we will not succeed.
There were many variables that caused initial problems, such as new administration, a state site visit and a switch from a block schedule to an eight period day. Due to all of those changes there wasn't a lot of time or energy that first year to do a whole lot. There were definitely some changes that happened to improve the learning environment but not a lot seemed to change overall. The integration of the technology into the classroom and into the learning was slower than would have been had we been able to only focus on that as opposed to the other changes.
During year 2 and year 3 there was a lot more that was done, more pd and more opportunities to learn from each other. Some teachers would make certain changes to their teaching style or would integrate certain tools in order to help the students, and the students would actually ask the other teachers to do the same. While teachers were required to have a class site (or blog depending on how you look at it) there were different ways to go about this and some teachers would only do the bare minimum while others would attempt to create a truly blended learning environment.
It took me a little over a year before I found the way that I really wanted to use the new tools in the classroom. While looking for examples from other teachers I had stumbled upon examples from a flipped classroom. I also found out how others were using mastery style learning and standards based grading in connection with technology in order to create a more student-centered learning environment. My focus was just on integrating new technology, it was on how I could best use these tools to better meet the needs of my students. I understood that there might be a lot of work to change but I felt that if it helped my students learn, then it would be worth it.
I think the best indicator of success for a 1:1 is the change of instruction to better meet the needs of the students. Did the changes that took place end up positively affect the student learning that was taking place? Did the teachers try to find new ways to help students or did they just digitize the old methods and tools? Are the teachers willing to try new things and even fail along the way, as long as they keep trying in order to improve?
In Sean Nash's Blog post he discusses how the comfort level with seven elements will determine if you are ready to undertake the 1:1 change or not. A big message throughout those seven elements is, are you willing to give up teacher centered strategies and move towards student centered ones instead. We have to make sure that we are truly focused on the student, no matter what initiative is being introduced or what changes take place. If we are not focused on the student with each step we take, we will not succeed.
Technology as the Mutliplier
One thing that many people have trouble with when viewing the effectiveness of technology in the classroom, is that technology can not solve bad teaching. In many classrooms you will see techniques that are not effective but they are still being used, due to many reasons such as a lack of time to develop better methods or even a lack of energy by the teacher to get better. When technology is added to these situations, the technology by itself can not improve the learning going on in the classroom.
Technology acts like a multiplier where it can help make good teaching great but it can also help make bad teaching worse. If a person is using methods that do not focus on student learning but instead of a set instructional path, all technology will do is make this more efficient or give the teacher new ways to keep doing bad things. If a teacher is student centered and using formative assessment tools, project based learning or any other method that has shown to be very effective, then the technology can amplify the effectiveness of that classroom.
One key is to look at who is using the technology. If the teacher is the main person to use the technology in the classroom, there is little the technology can do to help the students learn more effectively. That becomes a prime example of a teacher-centered classroom. If the teacher is the focus of the classroom and the focus of the technology use, then the learning taking place will most likely not be improved by just using new tools.
If the students are the main ones using the technology, then there is a greater chance that the use of better tools or techniques can have a greater impact on student learning. But giving new tools to the students without having the proper environment for the learning to take place will not result in success either. There is a deep connection between the effectiveness of technology, and any other tool for that matter, and the environment of learning that is set up by the teachers and the students.
Technology acts like a multiplier where it can help make good teaching great but it can also help make bad teaching worse. If a person is using methods that do not focus on student learning but instead of a set instructional path, all technology will do is make this more efficient or give the teacher new ways to keep doing bad things. If a teacher is student centered and using formative assessment tools, project based learning or any other method that has shown to be very effective, then the technology can amplify the effectiveness of that classroom.
One key is to look at who is using the technology. If the teacher is the main person to use the technology in the classroom, there is little the technology can do to help the students learn more effectively. That becomes a prime example of a teacher-centered classroom. If the teacher is the focus of the classroom and the focus of the technology use, then the learning taking place will most likely not be improved by just using new tools.
If the students are the main ones using the technology, then there is a greater chance that the use of better tools or techniques can have a greater impact on student learning. But giving new tools to the students without having the proper environment for the learning to take place will not result in success either. There is a deep connection between the effectiveness of technology, and any other tool for that matter, and the environment of learning that is set up by the teachers and the students.
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