Learning, Teaching & Technology

I chose to view this session for two reasons. The first is that at some point in the coming years I hope to be a traveling teacher connecting back to students in Yarmouth, Silvia’s presentation gave me great suggestions for tools to use to record and interact with a range of age groups and grade levels during travel. I am familiar enough with iMovie, Audacity & delicious to follow her ideas and suggestions. Live video conferencing has gotten even easier in the past year and tools like MacBooks with integrated webcams, and tools like flickr, Skype, and even ustream continue to add features that make access easier and the experience of using them richer.

The second reason is that I am constantly looking for ways to build connections to a broader worldview for our students. While we don’t have a Global Awareness curriculum per se I do believe that we all need to be developing global connectedness and understanding of other cultures. For many years our 3rd graders have studied another country as part of their progression through the social studies curriculum. For most classes this is a research project using encylopedias and print resources to find information about traditional foods, dress, etc. with a few photos and resources found online. This year I would like to add a web 2.0 component using Google Earth to explore terrain and landforms, finding some classroom blogs that emanate from other countries and connecting with teachers who can help with language and time zone issues so we can communicate with students firsthand. Even without having someone travel to another country/culture I think we have can find ways to have electronic access to explore, ask questions and learn about the world.

I chose Kathy’s session even though it was from 2006 as we currently are not doing much at the primary (K-1) level with web 2.0 tools. Teachers used to create iPhoto web pages to share with parents, but even that practice has waned over the years. Although parents were enthusiastic about the photo views of the classroom there must not have been enough benefit:cost for the teachers. In my view the missing piece was student work and a connection to showing learning happening over time for students.

What will it take to have at least a few teachers consider a classroom blog as a way to do this? As the technology integration person I find that teachers tend to think that I know and love all things connected with computers and I must have some unique way of knowing and learning that would take too much time and effort on their part. I can attend team meetings, create help sheets and screencasts, run support sessions, but it really means more if they hear and see a presentation done by someone who is espousing a technology use who is currently a classroom teacher and thus seems more similar to them. In Kathy’s video and support materials she makes it clear that she is a veteran teacher who has found some new learning tools that are making a difference for her students. I hope that I will find the right opportunity to share her session with some interested teachers of Kindergarten or Grade 1 this year.

At NECC 2007 I had the opportunity to met Maria Knee from New Hampshire who is similar to Kathy in her passion about classroom blogging with her Kindergartners. Last year Maria presented at our Maine Technology conference and was an inspiration to two teachers at the elementary school who then began to use classroomblogmeister with their students. I find that each time a teacher makes that connection with another educator that then leads to new conversations within teams and grade levels about new possibilities. Then they are in a position to ask me for help in learning the tool, whether it is their first slideshow on bubbleshare or maybe a team blog as the first step toward a classroom blog.

Perhaps then I will have some more colleagues who find that as Kathy says, “…nothing has ever inspired & motivated my children to learn like the way that blogs, wikis and podcasts have…”

I was curious about this session for a couple of reasons. I wondered about the title and I wondered if there was something we should be doing in all classes. Once I saw that it was about using cartoon creators and mindmapping online I knew there would be plenty for me to learn. A couple of teachers and I have used the read/write/think site for writing activities and we have had some conversations about the idea of using the comic creator site for an engaging way to storyboard, print it out and then have kids write from their beginning, middle, end story starters. I had planned to use the site this year and this session movie will be a helpful tool to share with teachers in a team meeting.

I was intrigued by the ToonDoo site as a web-based tool that has more creative possibilities for learners who want to go further. Last year was the first time I heard a lot about some 4th graders being drawn to graphic novels and some would have loved a place they were allowed to do their own creative work. I will work with teachers this year on using this site, esp. as I will be spending two days a week working with Alice Barr at our High School after 16 years at the elementary level. Wendy points out the safety option of marking a “toon” so it can only be viewed by friends which could be useful even at the high school level.

While I have made podcasts with iPod or iBooks and microphones, I hadn’t tried Gcast. I setup an account and I am wondering if this might have some options for students at home recording book reviews to a class site via. the phone. Certainly we will be expanding our use of podcasts in many ways this year. Kids love microphones!

While I was aware of gliffy as a mindmapping site I hadn’t thought about using it for spatial design planning or some work we do with “structure workshop” in 4th grade. It all starts to blend with sharing photos, thinking about design and sharing work in new ways for conversations.

These tools and sites that Wendy references are all changing and expanding their utility. I found this session a good way focus on a select few and I will use her wiki and the conference blog as places to return to when a need another tutorial.

Over the past year I have been working with teachers on the initial idea of blogs, for themselves and then for their students. Teachers who take our district technology courses have to set up an edublog and they have to enter the conversation by responding to others during the course. The first resistance is, “Why a blog?” We have had an email system for about six years, why not just write to each other by email? During the course it is wonderful to watch the process as teachers are thrilled by the comments that others leave on their blogs and the ways that interaction adds and even changes the relationships they have with colleagues. Some have sustained their personal/professional blogging practices, more often they become readers of blogs at first and hang back a bit on the writing.

Last year I had my first elementary classroom teachers setting up classroom blogs. I was surprised that it was at 2nd and 3rd grades and I wondered how well they would be able to “sustain” the blogs beyond the initial buzz. The teachers were careful in setting them up, added student artwork, brought drafts of student entries to the lab and wrote letters explaining blogs as part of the classroom reading and writing instruction. I was so impressed by the way they brought their skills of good teaching to the process of the blogs. One of the blogs can be viewed here: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=135362.

Today I talked to a teacher who has been a pioneer in other aspects of assimilating technology into her classroom, but has not been able to see a way to sustain blogging, thus has not started it. This summer she began to interact with a group of teacher/writers who had found each other through an online course and agreed to give each other feedback. This collaboration has been unlike anything she has experienced in 18 years in her school setting and has helped her feel empowered to try some new things in new ways. Her network of teachers has naturally included conversations about blogs and this year she is able to conceptualize a way to build writing and reflecting about science observations into a blog format. I shared with her the quotes from classroom teachers that Jeff posted on his wiki page and I know she will now be part of the collegial conversation about the possibilities of 4th graders learning through blogs.

I have sent elementary teachers in my courses to this session, but I hadn’t fully reviewed it myself. I had referred teachers to Anne as I had read enough of her blog to know that the important aspect to her was the pedagogy, not the tool. When I work with teachers I ask them to explore some new web 2.0 learning sites and then respond with first “Why?” they would use a tool, followed by the practicalities of how and when that fit with curricular planning. To me, this path fits with Anne’s chosen definition of pedagogy:

The strategies, techniques, and approaches that teachers can use to facilitate learning.

I spent some time today on the pbwiki Anne created and compared her work to work I have done in using wikispaces as a similar tool. While I had tried most of the tools, some have evolved and changed as we now have AnimotoforEducation and Google Page Creator has become Google Sites. How great that the sites and options keep evolving! I didn’t know about Newspaper Clipping Generator, The Talking Cat Generator and the http://www.fodey.com site had some other options to explore.

This session has given me even more material to put on a wiki I have started that has resources for teachers at the elementary school. Some have been pioneers at moving to web 2.0 tools and they love to have places to learn and share with each other. The more we can create set of resources online, the more teachers can teach each other and refer back as they need a refresher on a particular tool.

I have read or viewed some of the materials Dean Shareski refers to by Daniel Pink and Sir Ken Robinson. I haven’t really used “design learning” as a premise for all my instructional planning for grades 2-4 who use the lab and iBook carts. I have always aimed to teach our students to be the creator of what happens on the screen as the primary focus of learning, from back in the days of “Delta Drawing” on Apple IIe computers (see NYTimes 1983). Dean stirred my curiosity at the beginning by holding out the prospect of some key techniques that I could apply to teaching design. Indeed they make sense: 1. Planning (focus) 2. Imagery (visual literacy) 3. Transitions & White Spaces 4. Constraints (less is more) 5. Innovation (significance). I enjoyed reading Bob Sprankle’s project for this course of having students learn design principles while designing a logo for Wells Elementary School. Our high school students have done real world projects along this line, but there might be a way to use these ideas for a product that would be meaningful for our elementary students. Like Bob, I responded to Clarence Fisher’s thoughts of designing a classroom as studio. I have two options at the elementary level: a lab where we can introduce students to writing, creating and communicating and laptops that are in learning centers in classrooms or on carts to provide a 1-to-1 environment.

I will be using this session as a basis for planning my classes and projects with teachers this year. There is so much to talk about during Shareski’s session that it will make a terrific faculty meeting focusing on our uses of classroom web connections to share with parents and ways to teach our children to tell their stories using digital photography.