The world is constantly changing. As a biologist, I understand how important the ability to adapt to change is. Without the ability to adapt, a life form will not be able to survive. I know a lot of you right now are feeling overwhelmed by the change from our Mac laptops to our new HP laptops. This is a hectic time in the school year for all of us. A few thoughts that might help you adapt.
Remember that the computer is just a tool, it is what you do with it that has value. The three main items that most people do with their computer are send email, organize information and access the internet. I have put detailed directions on how to do all these things on the LIVE HP Laptop Help Page (see the HELP resources on the right side of my blog) I will update this page regularly as we discover new issues and solutions.
On the new HP laptop, you can access email by using our online webmail by going to http://fairview.k12.oh.us/webmail. You can also choose to download and install Mozilla Thunderbird . It is an email client that acts very much like Mac Mail.
Your documents are all organized in the library of the new HP laptop. The easiest way to find it is to open the START menu and then find the word DOCUMENTS in the list at the right. Hold down your left mouse button and DRAG the word onto your desktop - it will create a shortcut to your "MY DOCUMENTS" library which contains any documents you may have created on the new laptop, document files you may have copied to the desktop from your macbook and files that you have saved on the teacher drive. You can easily search your computer by installing Google Desktop.
Accessing the internet on the HP laptop can be done 3 different way. You can open START and "show all programs" to choose Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. OR you can find those options in the START menu - and drag them to the lower left corner of your desktop to create a shortcut OR you can drag them onto your desktop to create a shortcut. You can also choose to download Google Chrome as another browser option.
Do not give up. Ask for help...help each other. Summer will be here soon!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Age of Metrics - How Technology Is Influencing Education
I recently heard an interview with a New York Times reporter about The Age of Metrics. Now, as a science teacher, my first thought was about measuring in base ten, but this is not what the Age of Metrics is all about. His premise is that as our society becomes more integrated with computer based technology, we are beginning to place a higher value on quantitative information and less value on qualitative information. His examples were based in the business world where marketing decisions are now made based on website hits and advertising click throughs. More philanthropic organizations are basing their decisions to fund research and programming on data based decisions and not intrinsic or cultural value which are difficult to measure or test.
The world of education certainly is being impacted by this shift to the Age of Metrics. Books, articles and blogs share ideas for how to gather data and use the data to make decisions in your classroom and schools. Research supports the fact that one of the key to improving education is to analyze data to see if a program or curriculum is really doing what it supposed to do. No Child Left Behind has shown the value of standardized assessment of identified standards as a measure of the information that a student has learned. Students are identified by demographic information and test scores. Data driven decision making is the educational buzz phrase of this new century.
There is certainly a role for quantitative data in education.
But where does technology fit in? Is there room in a data driven curriculum for qualitative decision making? I think there is. Laptop technology offers students a wide range of choices for expressing their thoughts and ideas creatively. Open source software offers the ability to design visual presentations of ideas. Blogging, wikis and Google Docs allow students to collaborate on ideas and share information, building on each other's strengths and perspectives. Audacity and other online music programs allow them to create original music or utilize music to emphasize a mood or concept in their presentations. Access to a wide range of information and primary source materials allow students to think more quantitatively as well - by gathering information from varying points of view, by observing how society responds to challenging situations, students can form their own ideas about the world.
It is difficult to measure creativity or the value of experiencing a new piece of music or sharing an original poem or the impact of researching information from a broad range of sources- but I feel that there is still room for qualitative experiences in the 21st Century classroom and that netbooks or laptops can be a tool to do this.
Ideas for making a lesson more Qualitative:
Related Articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21iht-currents.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://astoriedcareer.com/2009/12/what-stories-can-do-that-metri.html
http://blog.ubervu.com/
The world of education certainly is being impacted by this shift to the Age of Metrics. Books, articles and blogs share ideas for how to gather data and use the data to make decisions in your classroom and schools. Research supports the fact that one of the key to improving education is to analyze data to see if a program or curriculum is really doing what it supposed to do. No Child Left Behind has shown the value of standardized assessment of identified standards as a measure of the information that a student has learned. Students are identified by demographic information and test scores. Data driven decision making is the educational buzz phrase of this new century.
There is certainly a role for quantitative data in education.
But where does technology fit in? Is there room in a data driven curriculum for qualitative decision making? I think there is. Laptop technology offers students a wide range of choices for expressing their thoughts and ideas creatively. Open source software offers the ability to design visual presentations of ideas. Blogging, wikis and Google Docs allow students to collaborate on ideas and share information, building on each other's strengths and perspectives. Audacity and other online music programs allow them to create original music or utilize music to emphasize a mood or concept in their presentations. Access to a wide range of information and primary source materials allow students to think more quantitatively as well - by gathering information from varying points of view, by observing how society responds to challenging situations, students can form their own ideas about the world.
It is difficult to measure creativity or the value of experiencing a new piece of music or sharing an original poem or the impact of researching information from a broad range of sources- but I feel that there is still room for qualitative experiences in the 21st Century classroom and that netbooks or laptops can be a tool to do this.
Ideas for making a lesson more Qualitative:
- What choices will the student have for representing their mastery of a topic?
- What collaborative tool might the student be able to access during this lesson?
- How can technology be used as part of the reflection process either before, during or after the lesson?
- What web-based tools might the student access to expand their creative thinking abilities in this lesson?
- What tools might the student be able to access to help them map their ideas?
- What opportunities will the student be given to research information from opposing or different points of view in order to draw their own conclusions on a topic?
Related Articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/us/21iht-currents.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://astoriedcareer.com/2009/12/what-stories-can-do-that-metri.html
http://blog.ubervu.com/
Friday, February 26, 2010
Being a Transformer
When you think about transformers, you probably think about cool robots that are also cars or planes. With a few quick turns and clicks any child can convert the car to a robot and back again. The robots do things the car can't and take on the world in a whole different way.
Next year, we will be adding a one to one netbook program for our freshmen and increasing the number of computers and labs we have available for the upperclassemen. It is time to think about how netbooks can also be transformers. Students will now be able to use their imaginations and knowledge to create and share ideas in ways that would never have been possible with paper and pencil. Teachers will be able to collaborate with students and their peers, have access to a global network of resources and teach using real world data. It will be possible to make connections to classrooms beyond the limits of our brick and stone building and our fieldtrip budget. This kind of transformative learning is at the core of the 21st Century Learning concept.
In order for the netbooks to become transformers, teachers will need to be transformed. This is not an easy task. Their approach to classroom management, assessing student learning, sharing knowledge and mastering content can not just be bent, twisted and clicked into place to create some new, 21st century teacher. Instead, teachers need to be coached and encouraged to make these changes themselves. They need to see concrete examples of how technology can be used in a transformative way in their classrooms, they need access to tools that work and they need the support and recognition of their peers as they try out new ideas. Over the next year, it will be my job to help with this transformation.
To help us get started, I have put together some guiding questions to use as you start to plan lessons for next year.
Guiding Questions for Transformative Technology Planning
- Am I using the netbooks/labs as a subsitute for existing materials in my classroom or am I using it in an innovative way to assess student learning, help students work towards content mastery or develop 21st century skills?
- Are my students passive users of the technology or active users of the technology?
- How has technology changed the way I think about teaching?
- How has technology changed the way I collaborate and communicate with my colleagues?
- How has technology changed the way I collaborate and communicate with my students?
- I am embedding technology into my daily teaching or is it more of a "special event"?
- What are the state technology standards that can be embedded in my course?
- How can I integrate technology standards into my daily lessons?
- How can I integrate 21st century skills into my daily lessons?
- How can I use the technology to differentiate my lessons for different learning styles, different learning levels and different ability groups?
- How can I encourage students who have an interest in working with technology hardware or innovating with technology?
Monday, January 25, 2010
Walking the Walk
For the past 6 months I have been talking the talk about 21st Century learning and Web 2.0 skills - and how important it is to integrate these into ALL classrooms. Now it is time to model what I have been promoting. This semester, I am teaching a 21st Century Learning class following a model developed by the Graham School in Columbus, Ohio.
The course has 6 core components. The first is Community. Our students are involved in social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. They create profiles and share information with people from our school and throughout the world. We will start with an emphasis on building a community within our classroom. We will be using blogs, wordle and animoto to share who we are with each other. A second focus is on Collaboration. Students will use Google Apps and Moodle to work together on planning and implementing Service Learning Projects that will benefit our school or other schools in our district. Examples of projects might be creating a Wiki page of review games and resources for 2nd graders to use or helping to assemble board games to be used to review for assessments at the elementary school. Research is an important 21st Century skill and students will be creating their own research projects, then utilizing Gale Data bases and Advanced Search Functions in Google to gather information. They will also be able to use Freemind and other mindmapping software to begin to organize their information and Google Docs to publish their finished work. To develop 21st Century Communication skills, we will use Moodle to learn how to follow a discussion on a threaded blog and conduct a live chat. They will also use Twitter and Delicous to share information and create a group in Facebook to plan a service project. We will spend time talking about different levels of internet communication, more formal and more casual, along with professional and private internet presences. Technology use is interwoven throughout the course. We will have access to video conferencing equipment and will be reaching out beyond our classroom to find educational partners. The students will also look at positive ways of using podcasting, videocasting and texting in the world of education.
The course is designed to be conducted without textbooks or hard copy student materials. All lessons, assignments and assessments will be done virtually using Google Sites, Moodle and Google Docs. Instruction will be done using a mix of live classroom presentations and videocasts. Students will be evaluated using a rubric based grading system and performance based assessments. They will receive feedback through real time comments posted on the discussion threads or added to their shared Google Docs work.
I am excited about the opportunity to teach this model class. I hope that I will be able to share what I have learned with not only my students, but my peers. It will be an interesting 18 weeks!
Follow how the class it doing by visiting our website http://sites.google.com/site/fhs21c/
The course has 6 core components. The first is Community. Our students are involved in social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. They create profiles and share information with people from our school and throughout the world. We will start with an emphasis on building a community within our classroom. We will be using blogs, wordle and animoto to share who we are with each other. A second focus is on Collaboration. Students will use Google Apps and Moodle to work together on planning and implementing Service Learning Projects that will benefit our school or other schools in our district. Examples of projects might be creating a Wiki page of review games and resources for 2nd graders to use or helping to assemble board games to be used to review for assessments at the elementary school. Research is an important 21st Century skill and students will be creating their own research projects, then utilizing Gale Data bases and Advanced Search Functions in Google to gather information. They will also be able to use Freemind and other mindmapping software to begin to organize their information and Google Docs to publish their finished work. To develop 21st Century Communication skills, we will use Moodle to learn how to follow a discussion on a threaded blog and conduct a live chat. They will also use Twitter and Delicous to share information and create a group in Facebook to plan a service project. We will spend time talking about different levels of internet communication, more formal and more casual, along with professional and private internet presences. Technology use is interwoven throughout the course. We will have access to video conferencing equipment and will be reaching out beyond our classroom to find educational partners. The students will also look at positive ways of using podcasting, videocasting and texting in the world of education.
The course is designed to be conducted without textbooks or hard copy student materials. All lessons, assignments and assessments will be done virtually using Google Sites, Moodle and Google Docs. Instruction will be done using a mix of live classroom presentations and videocasts. Students will be evaluated using a rubric based grading system and performance based assessments. They will receive feedback through real time comments posted on the discussion threads or added to their shared Google Docs work.
I am excited about the opportunity to teach this model class. I hope that I will be able to share what I have learned with not only my students, but my peers. It will be an interesting 18 weeks!
Follow how the class it doing by visiting our website http://sites.google.com/site/fhs21c/
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