Once Upon A Teacher

Photo by DaveKav on flickr

To be completely honest, math was not my best subject in school. I managed through high school because I was a good student and I had a teacher that was willing to give extra time and help me, but in college it was another story. I took College Algebra my first semester and failed it. Waited another year and then failed it again. I finally ended up taking it my last semester of school (for the fourth time) and passing it with a C. Tutoring made only a marginal difference. I finally passed and understood what I was doing when I had a teacher that really taught me the how and why of algebra. She cared about whether I understood the material or not. She made me feel like it was okay to ask questions. I have never been more excited in my life to receive a C!

Today I know that my foundational problem was number sense. I am not able to figure sums in my head with confidence, or estimate reasonably. Directions, distance and elapsed time take me twice as long as others. I am beyond thrilled that I can calculate tip percentages and sale prices on my iphone. (I used to use a piece of paper.) And yet, the holes in my math knowledge continue to haunt me.

My 14 year old daughter struggles with math more than I did at her age. This year, she is taking Algebra for the first time. My life as a mathematician now has become...relearning Algebra! But there is a big difference between then and now.

Now, I'm not alone.

I have sent messages out on twitter to get help from my PLN and immediately had some great resources and tutorials that helped us struggle through her homework assignments. And thankfully, her teacher has agreed to hold morning tutoring sessions this year. This has made a big difference in my daughter's comfort in asking questions and getting help in class. She now spends most of our evening homework time teaching me.

So my life as a mathematician is all about learning right now. So maybe I won't have to use my iphone apps to "figure" everything out all the time anymore.

I wanted to add a class poll to the Fall Blog Challenge for the specific purpose of showing that sometimes...it doesn't need to be difficult. You don't need to struggle over what to post about on your blog. You can simply share the individual results of a question you posed to the class, such as their favorite part of an activity, what they learned in a lesson or their opinion about something. Kids also like to read what their friends wrote or answered.

That being said, I think there is an aspect of this that could be interesting to the edublogger as well. You might be surprised if you ask a question to the folks around you. I know I was.

I used my faculty as my "class" and asked the question: If you could buy any one piece of technology, what would it be? Here's what they told me:
Principal
S.Phillips - ipad

Kindergarten
J.Johnson - macbook

L.Perez - laptop

D.Barber - huge flat screen TV

N.Thomas - laptop

L.Sambito - ipad

D.Cothern - ipad

M.Ellis - ipad

JJ.Brown - ipad

V.Cole - ipad

B.Ciupak - ipad

First Grade

P.Wallace - smartboard w/tablet and ipad

T.Chant - smartboard

T.Ruark - smartboard

R.Roberts - smartboard

M.Mallon - ipad

C.Dillard - ipad for me, smartboard for kids

D.Harbour - electronic reader for me, smartboard for kids

D.Timmons - for tech to work!

Second Grade
R.Bridges - smartboard

H.Correia - laptop

L.Metzger- ipad

K.Morris - ipod docking station

J.Shaffer - headphones

D.Rossignol - headphones

K.Nelson - laptops for students

L.Morgan - iphone4 or ipad

W.Lankford - kindle

C.Walag - ipad

L.Thomson - flip video

C.McLeod - digital DVD recorder

B.Roberts - ipad

Third Grade

L.Patterson - new pool that can convert into a patio with push of a button

L.Hoffmann - smartboard

K.Symons - ipad

R.Timmons - student response system

M.Ross - ipad with camera

A.Russell - digital video camera

C.Constande - ipad

T.Sani - ipad

M.Corbett - smartboard

D.Evanko - flatscreen LCD TV

C.Tsengas - ipad

C.Chascin - kindle

Fourth Grade

J.Nash - student response system

C.Montero - smartboard

B.O'Connor - smartboard

J.Montisano - smartboard

A.Phillips - multimedia speakers

R.Pinchot - smartboard

M.Launey - whiteboard and laptop

Fifth Grade

K.Shannon - Google TV by Sony

T.Ruark - 4G cellphone

T.Lehane - laptops 4 kids

S.Rabe - iphone

C.Swidorsky - macbook

L.Werch - external hard drive
ResourceJ.Snead - large format photo printer

K.Cherney - 30 flip videos or ipod

D.Tamburrino - ipod docking station

N.Hall - flip video

R.Robinson - GPS for wife

J.Plank -smartboard

J.Gannam - laptop
S.Shall - macbook pro

B.McCall - ipad

And for me, I've been wanting a good pair of multimedia speakers and a microphone :)

I wasn't surprised that so many wanted ipads. I looooove mine. But I was surprised that so many wanted a smartboard. Especially since I'm not a big fan of smartboards, and neither are the few teachers I know that have them. It surprised me for sure.

What would you buy?

Check out the other posts from the fall blog challenge in the right sidebar of my blog!

Many years ago, I heard Lucy Calkins speak about teaching reading. There were many things she said that day that impacted my teaching in so many ways. One of the things she said was: Share your life as a reader. Let kids hear about your reading habits. They need to know it's not just a subject, but a part of everyone's life. I also think that sharing a little bit of the "personal you" with you students helps them feel more comfortable with sharing their own thoughts with you.

I am a zealous reader. If I don't have a book to read and a book waiting to be read...then something is very wrong. I love learning new things, meeting new characters, reading a new author's craft, settling in to a familiar writing style and escaping to a different time and place. If I find an author I like, I try to read all of their books. I'm such a snob about new authors because I don't want to waste my precious time on a book I won't like, so I only read books that have been recommended to me. I even keep a digital book log in Google docs, by author, to keep track of books I've read so that I don't accidentally reread them years later (I am the only one stupid enough to do that? ) But it's very handy when I'm at the store or library. I simply pull up my docs account on my iphone to check to see what books I haven't read by a specific author.

People ask me all the time, "How in the world do you find time to read?" I like to use a phrase that I learned from Lucy Calkins. I make time by carving out time for reading in my day. If I look at my busy day that starts at 5 am and ends after my 3 kids' extra curricular activities and their homework then I wouldn't find the time. But I start by always keeping a book with me. I read while I'm drying my hair, sitting in the car line after school, at the waiting room during appts. with the kids, while waiting for a training to start and then maybe for 15 minutes in a quick bath before bed. (My favorite reading spot!)

My life as a reader has changed in one signifigant way this year: the iPad! Once I read a book on my iPad, I was hooked! It's easy to keep in my purse, I always have the next book ready and waiting to read. I. Just. Love. It. But I do have one confession to make, after reading about 5 books in a row on the iPad, a friend loaned me a book she had bought. I opened up that paper book after several weeks of reading and realised... Acckkk! I could barely read the words. I had been using the larger font feature on the iPad and turning up the brightness on the backlighting. Ahhh, I guess it's time for glasses.

Check out posts by others participating the the Fall Blog Challenge 2010 on the right sidebar of my blog :)

Are you a steady blogger? Always coming up with more ideas than you can possibly write about, zapping out regular posts to your readers?

Well, I'm not.

And when I do have an idea for a post, it never seems to get written. Other things bog me down, or it seems that I let them. And I'm always feeling guilty that I'm not a better role model for those I coach. I know that if you provide regular content and read and comment on other blogs, you build your readership. And that's what I want to model for others. So I decided that I need to ramp up my blogging with a challenge. A challenge to myself to blog regularly and a challenge to the teachers I coach to think about different topics to blog about and to provide posts that they maybe hadn't thought about writing about on their blog.

So here's the challenge: Write one blog post a week for 10 of the next 11 weeks. Tag your post with "fallblogchallenge2010" and I will link back to your posts here as well. I would love an email so that I know you're joining our challenge. Here are the topics you can use, feel free to modify them to suit your needs. I felt like these are things, as a reader, that I would love to know about any educator.

TOPICS

Are you ready to dig in your heels and accept this challenge? I'm committing myself to being a better blogger and hope you'll join me. If we're all in this together we'll be stronger bloggers and blog readers in the end!

Ready to get your students started working with technology? Just like any new class year or procedure, you have to start with rituals and routines.

This week I had the pleasure of working with some classes on the rituals and routines of using laptops. After having some "aha" moments and tweaking as I went, I thought it might be worth sharing what I learned.

Prepare the kids in advance with a lesson where you chart some basic expectations for getting out the laptops or entering the room where the laptops are located. If they have to get them out, how will they carry them? If they have to share, who goes first? If you're in a lab situation, do they have assigned seats? One thing that is unique to a technology lesson is that sometimes students will have to look at the screen and sometimes you want them to look at you. How will you get their attention? What do you want them to do to show you that you have their attention? Put your hands up, hands on head, hands under legs... Simple things but they make all the difference in a smooth lesson and positive experience for you and the students.

I tried having students sit in front of their computers and follow along with me once and in another class we had them sit on the floor and went over procedures with a document camera. I think the document camera worked better. They were focused and motivated about learning so they could get their hands on the equipment. We went over things like: power button, trackpad, left and right click, using the shift key (why you need it) and enter. We played a quick oral game while they looked at the keyboard from the document camera. I told them to say "shift" or "no shift" and called out things like: capital M, question mark, dollar sign, comma.

Once it's time for the students to put what they learned into practice you have to tell them what to do to access the internet. Our pc laptops currently have internet explorer and firefox installed on them. Our technology lab has macbooks with firefox and safari installed. Tell the students which one to use, because later when you're giving instructions about opening another tab or a new window it is easier to have the same directions for all.

For each class I wanted to have some kind of quick activity for them to do online to practice with the trackpad and for a fun ending to the lesson. What I learned there is to check to make sure what you chose isn't blocked on the student wireless network! I found a great science game with drag and drop labels on a diagram but it was blocked to the kids due to high school content. Ugh! Fortunately we were still able to do a quick keyboarding practice website they enjoyed a lot. I think keyboarding is a great way to start and as we move into projects and activities they'll have these practice sites to return to if they finish early. Here are some favorites: Keyboard Climber, Keyboarding Games, Free Typing Game, Computer Lab Kids and Powertyping.

I would love to hear some more ideas about what to do with kids the first few times they come to the computer. Please share yours!

You know if you read a professional book during your summer break, it better be good! I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to read Make Me a Story: Teaching Writing Through Digital Storytelling by: Lisa C. Miller. This book met me right where I needed some help.

I have been very familiar with digital storytelling and have toyed with it in my work the last two years, but never felt like I could use it meaningfully with students. I have used and enjoyed Photostory, Voicethread, Windows Movie Maker and imovie but trying to get students to really use digital storytelling has been a challenge due to the lack of computers for student use.

This year, we have the exciting prospect of three laptop carts to be used in classrooms and I'm looking forward to supporting some deep and meaningful instruction with theses new tools. Lisa's book, Make Me a Story, was a great refresher for me on Photostory. She gives step by step instructions with screenshots. Perfect for the digital storytelling newbie or for a teacher to share with her students. The book also includes a CD with student examples of completed projects. A great tool for your instruction!

Finding a way to use digital storytelling in a Reading/Writing/ Language Arts class is a natural fit for me. In planning for other content areas, such as Science, Social Studies and Math, I have been floundering for purpose. Everytime I think of a project it seems like an unecessary "addition" to the work that is already being done by the teacher. In Make Me a Story, Lisa used a list provided by The Center for Digital Storytelling in California to state the elements that can make up a good digital story.

* an interesting question to answer
* impact
* a clear point of view
* economy
* the power of a student's voice
* art that helps tell the story
* the sound track

She has adapted this list to fit elementary students, with explanations of each point in her book. This is the road map I needed for content area digital storytelling! I can see using these elements to do a story explaining a math problem, explain a clear point of view on an event from history or use impact to demonstrate understanding of a science experiment or concept. I can't wait to dive in and give it a try!

I had the pleasure to speak with Lisa Miller about her new book, so I took that opportunity to record a podcast (I've been wanting to try one for a while!) We had a great conversation about meeting the needs of diverse learners while doing digital storytelling, class management and why you should give digital storytelling a try. I hope you'll give it a listen and I hope you'll order a copy Make Me a Story to use with your lesson plans this year. It's a great guide for all levels of digital storytelling learners!

My principal and I arrived in the Mile High City tonight excited and ready to attend ISTE 10 and our first Leadership Bootcamp! What a surprise to find Florida weather like ours that turns into jacket weather as the sun goes down. Who knew? We hope you'll follow us and learn along to with us too. I'll be blogging all conference sessions on our Professional Development blog: LIVE from the Creek Hope to see you there!

Today we had the opportunity to listen to Philippe Cousteau in a webinar about the effects of the Gulf oil spill, presented to students through Discovery Education Network.

Discovery Education sent an email out yesterday letting us know that over 60,000 educators had registered to attend! They were unable to host that many in the webinar, so we were fortunate to get in and DEN was awesome enough to get the whole thing archived quickly for others here.

Philippe explained, in terms that students could easily understand, what has happened with the oil spill in the Gulf. He explained that even though oil drilling technology has progressed over the years, the technology for cleaning up oil spills has not progressed. They are guessing at what would work each time a new "stop the spill" strategy is tried. He showed them images of wildlife affected by the oil spill as well as video footage where he went diving in the oil.

One of the most powerful moments in the webinar was when Philippe told the students that they should see from this that we need scientists and technology to find solutions to protect our environment. He told them that everything they do can make a difference if they protect our earth's resources. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. The students were totally engaged in every word he was saying. The teacher standing next to me looked at me and we both stood there with tears in our eyes. Hearing this message from Philippe Cousteau was so dynamic.

Philippe left the students with a call to action:
* Stay informed
* Join the Water Planet Challenge
* Become advocates for environment
* Reduce dependency on oil

When the webinar was over we ended by showing the live video feed of the oil spill. I think seeing the actual motion and force of the oil coming out as opposed to photos made the students really see the impact of this spill. I asked the teachers involved in attending the webinar to share with me their students thoughts. One teacher even sent me their class' wallwisher! Here are some of the students' statements that I thought were very meaningful:

* I learned that this disaster is the worst natural disaster in the U.S.
* I can help the environment by using public transportation and reusable grocery bags.
* What I learned was scary. It looks like it will come to our beach. (Jacksonville, FL)
* I will use reusable water bottles and ride my bike a lot more.
* I'm so sad that animals are dying from this.

Many, many of the students thanked Discovery Education for teaching them all about this, as well as Philippe Cousteau. I think it made a huge impact with many. For teachers interested in teaching their students about this, there are also follow up activities offered by Discovery Education Network here.