The Connection

Nicole LaBeau provides an excellent post in her blog where we are sometimes like a deer when it comes to new technology. We find ourselves on the road of change but don't really know where to go and need help making a move before those strange lights coming at us get too close. Using a Tablet PC is like this. We have it, wonder what to do with it, and need some guidance.

So, why use a tablet PC?
The first response I notice from teachers when this discussion begins is typically a glossy look in their eyes that conveys, "Yeah, so what? I can type faster than I can write." I think the disconnect is that people think using the stylus replaces typing, permanently, and, therefore, the Tablet PC offers no real advantage over a laptop. The realization that one doesn't need to stop using the keyboard with a Tablet PC is something I have to stress. I will be the first to admit that there are certainly times when typing beats the heck out of writing; like when I'm in my office answering email or creating a document in Word or crunching data using Excel. Using a Tablet PC goes beyond the keyboard, though.

Productivity
At conferences, I can draw a picture when, to me, the concept being presented makes more sense being written down visually compared to simple note taking. Writing notes is also a lot less distracting to others than the constant click, click, click, of the keyboard. More than one person has leaned over to see what I was doing and asked for a demonstration. I can write to my blog live (as long as I have a wireless connection!), take a picture of a workshop presenter with my cell phone and use Bluetooth technology to send the picture to my computer and load it into the blog, all on the fly and all without a keyboard.

I can walk around class with my Tablet PC and immediately access documents, web pages, recordings, videos, etc., that I have pre-loaded into my OneNote classroom lesson plan notebook. Further, I can work with a cooperative group of students and instantly bring back any information I had previously shown to the entire class in order to reiterate a point and provide more individual clarification. OneNote allows me to digitally have the entire school year of lessons with me all the time. "Hey, Mr. B., remember that time when you showed us that web site with the cool animations of molecular movement?" "Yep, I do, in fact, I can bring it up right now," (from my OneNote notebook).

I can add my own handwritten comments to anything in a shared OneNote notebook that I use to collaborate with my colleagues on teaching techniques, tools, and assessments.

Students can send me their papers electronically, I can ink (write using the stylus) on them, save them, and return them electronically. No paper exchanges hands. Think of the peer editing that could take place should all students have access to a Tablet PC.

Engagement
Various screen capturing methods using OneNote (windows key + S) or the SnipIt! program provide visuals to help make any email note, worksheet, or anywhere text is used, more meaningful.

I can present a PowerPoint presentation using a Tablet PC that is wirelessly connected to a projector and add inking to make the presentation more engaging. Imagine brainstorming on the spot with your students and recording their thoughts using inking tools along with your original presentation. I can save the ink annotations along with the presentation and make it available online for students to review on their own. Better yet, I could go further and have the Tablet PC record the presentation along with the inking and the audio from the class using Camtasia software (available on our computers) and save it all as a movie for replay. Anytime, anywhere learning?

Looking ahead, I can imagine all students using tablet PCs one day along with Classroom Presenter software where students interact with a teacher's presentation and provide visual feedback to the teacher for immediate or post teaching review. This is going further than using the CPS units.

Teachers can create and/or display anything on their Tablet screen and have their students use the stylus to interact with it. Provide a storyboard of people buying tickets for a train in World Language class and let students create a possible dialogue by writing on the Tablet in the target language. Let students correct the grammar in a sentence projected on the screen or identify the parts of a cell, balance a chemical equation, fill out a business form properly, write the next two or three notes to a music score, identify muscle groups and predict which muscle groups are needed to perform certain movements, have students create their own military deployment plans for previous wars and compare those to what actually took place in history, use the Ink Art program to demonstrate brush strokes and color manipulation, and on and on.

Mobility
I've noticed some teachers walk around with the Tablet PC in their classroom and enter grades into the electronic grade book using the stylus and the Input Panel. No need to set the Tablet down somewhere and type in a score as would have to be done if they had a laptop to use instead.

Teachers could also write comments in OneNote to help them remember specific situations where students may be confused on a concept. A digital reminder like this can help them remember to make lesson plan adjustments down the road. Sure, paper can do the same thing, as long as you can keep track of the paper!

I can access information from files on the network or send an email on the fly if I need to get some information while I carry the Tablet PC. I don't need the keyboard. Have you ever used your own handwriting to respond to an email? You can.

Your Turn

I invite you to share your own experiences with the Tablet PC. How does it help you become more productive as a teacher, with lesson planning, and in the classroom interacting with students. How does it help you as a coach or as an activity sponsor? Feel free to build upon a use already mentioned. I'd like to hear about the negative aspects of the Tablet PC, too. What doesn't work like you think it should? Don't be shy.

Remember, one person's love of a particular Tablet PC use may not be important to another but it's the possibilities that move us along. Let's brainstorm and keep supporting everyone who finds themselves a deer on the road of technology change.

Pep Rally

Today is our Homecoming Pep Rally!

A rather energetic atmosphere has engulfed our school this week. Students and most of the staff look forward to the daily dress up themes as they help lighten the overall mood of the school day. How cool is it that we can come to work in our pajamas? Seeing the majority of students in their class colors and the staff sporting the ever fashionable black pants, sweaters, and shirts has always been special for me. I like the feeling of so many different people coming together for one cause; Fremd High School. Although class competitions exist and freshmen take the brunt of many ill placed jeers, we really are one body and move together in an amoeba-like herd to the gym excited to partake in one more event where we can all be proud to be Vikings. Ah, the Pep Rally.

I’ve watched students and staff participate in the Pep Rally over the years in their own way, whether it is being on the floor, cheering in the stands, or not at all. I see a similar level of participation with the Tablet PCs and the word from my TC colleagues is that Fremd is not alone with teachers participating at different levels. All of us are struggling with the fact that teachers are not coming for training as quickly as expected.

How cool is it that I can come to work with my computer in my bag and be mobile with it throughout the day? Seeing different staff members carrying their tablet around is exciting. That signals something new is happening with that teacher and their classes that was not in place one year ago. I like the feeling of so many teachers coming together for one cause; our kids. I don’t think we are an amoeba-like body yet. More like a mass of conflicting impulses at times. Movement is there, though.

The movers and shakers in the building are having their own quite Pep Rally with the Tablet PCs. Competitions do not exist, however, as teachers are eager to share techniques that helping them make a difference. I continue to believe we have to work with and celebrate those who are on the floor, nudge those in the stands, and hope the non-participators watching from the wings will begin to think that participating in the Tablet Pep Rally can be fun even though technology in any form might not be their style.

Ah, the Pep Rally.

The TechSpot

New members continue to join the Fremd TechSpot wiki. New content is not really being added at this point, but I have this feeling people are wanting a place of collaborative ownership; somewhere to go to for quick help, general information, or to share their own educational technology tips and discoveries. I blogged a few weeks ago that OneNote can be that personal organizational tool that gets you going everyday. The Fremd TechSpot wiki, on the other hand, can be that place to wander with the comfort of knowing the information found there has been added by our colleagues both close to home and perhaps even in the neighborhood. Colleagues from PHS have caught wind of our wiki and have joined so they can help add to the knowledge base, too.

The wiki is taking on its own structure so be sure to follow it should you want to add a new page. I am promoting some of the more active Tech Coaches to the role of moderator as I know you will enjoy having more freedom to make changes as you see are needed.

Tablet tips will be archived at the Fremd Tech Spot wiki. Summaries of our monthly technology learnings will be kept there as well. I'll even try to do something with the tablet training topics. Less email is more and a more centralized location for information, beyond a static webpage, where true collaboration takes place, could be a welcome sigh of relief for us all.

I hope I'm 'getting' it. Please let me know.

Open House Week

This week saw a flurry of activity surrounding the use of technology in preparation for Open House. A few teachers stopped by the TLC wanting to learn how to use the Classroom Performance System. They had heard of other teachers using this as the sole means of presentation for the evening and wanted to join in on the fun. My hope is this will carry over into further use of CPS in classroom activities to enhance learning. I actually got busy and created a quick start guide for the new version of CPS software found on our computers. It is a bit different but easier to use, overall. The guide was prompted by Angie Gergen asking me to show her and her staff how to create a CPS database and enter questions into a basic multiple choice format. Angie and her staff are now able to take questions from teachers and create CPS presentations to help save teachers some time.

A few more teachers stopped by to learn or re-learn how to update their web pages as they knew their site was going to be presented to parents. Web sites are a good way to present one-way information to the world and teachers are aware of the importance of keeping these pages current although actually keeping them current is another matter!

Another teacher was motivated to create a blog after hearing how several teachers would be commenting on their blogs during their Open House presentation. A fruitful discussion resulted in him creating three new blogs for his classes that will be up and running soon. I believe a sense of community is established in a classroom when students comment to blog posts and thought a brief summary of blog use at Fremd, as I see it, would be appropriate, as well as little nudge into a new direction.

I see Fremd teacher blogs currently being used in three ways. First, teachers are using them to report on daily classroom summaries of lessons. Second, they are being used as interactive tools where students have to respond to comments to the teacher's post. Third, a combination of the first two exits. I am not aware of any Fremd teachers who are using students to make a post that summarizes the lesson of the day, however. The idea is to use students as daily scribes. This concept has actually been used by teachers for a few years. High School math teacher Darren Kuropatwa has been recognized by his peers as a pioneer in this area. The link above makes for good reading. I love his thoughts about the scribe posts actually becoming a 'text book' for the course as it evolves throughout the school year. Imagine being able to return to a certain point in the school year and re-read posts to review the area(s) where learning was especially difficult. It seems to me, without trying this myself, that scribes would automatically become more attentive in class especially if no one knows who the scribe will be for the day! (Yikes!) All students would know that their peers will by relying on them for an accurate summary of the lessons!

Teachers who have students respond to blog postings already know this aspect of blogging helps them see areas of weakness in their own teaching and student learning. The same type of teaching reflection could also take place with a scribe system in place. Teachers could also begin the next day with a class reflection on the scribes post the prior evening.

One way to jazz up a blog post is to add some photos or videos that might correlate to the days lesson summary or response type post. TeacherTube and YouTube provide a wealth of material. What about podcasts in a blog post? Can do! Technology even exists where you can phone in comments to your blog. Please let me know if you are interested in learning more about adding these to your blogs.

Nicole LaBeau uses simple Smilies from SmileyCentral.com to add some eye-catching fun to her posts. I love them and have begun using them, too! Thanks, Nicole! Currently she can only add them from home as the SmileyCentral site is filtered at school; something I am working on to remedy! Smilies are cool!

Nicole LaBeau's post about the 'extras' echos what I believe to be the thoughts of many teachers who are feeling that while technology can help "enhance, improve and save time," it may actually cause you to have less time because of learning curves, or the additional work that gets added to your plate since you now have more time. Nicole is entirely correct when she states it all comes down to balance and priorities.

Remember, it's not the technology tools that will make a change in teaching and learning, it's how we use the tools with our students. So, while it is nice to use the new tech tools for the 'WOW' factor at Open House, it is important to remember that technology tools must be sustained by the teacher and their use continually evaluated as to whether or not they are impacting our student's education as they are currently being used.

OneNote Before the Weekend...

OneNote fever seems to be spreading among our teachers. I am excited about this and feel we should all be prepared to assist teachers to get up and going with this program as quickly as possible. Teachers are eager to learn on their own and are finding ways to organize not only their personal teacher life but also their classroom lessons. Please assess your current proficiency as a OneNote user. Perhaps we can visit this topic during our first meeting on September 23.

I see OneNote becoming one of the first programs teachers open in the morning; sort of a OneNote Starbucks. Yeah, that's it. Imagine creating a page with links to your blog, wiki, Delicious bookmarks, news feeder, favorite webmail program, course websites, your activity website, and so on. Imagine if Lotus Notes could somehow be incorporated into OneNote. On second thought, scratch that. Sorry.

I admit that using Google bookmarks or Delicious bookmarks can accomplish everything I've mentioned above. These two tools are, after all, available from any computer that has web access. OneNote, however, gives me the ability to add notes on the fly for each of those items. "Update blog," is a nice reminder that I would see everyday using OneNote. I am excited to see actual teacher examples of how OneNote is being used to manage courses and lessons. Bookmarks won't get you to that arena, either.

The largest, single factor, that seems to be driving teachers to use OneNote, though, is the ability to write directly on a page. Second, is ability to bring in copies of documents and webpages for easy access. Your lesson plan is ready to go when you walk into the classroom. The third driving factor, in my opinion, is the ability to share notebooks between users. Some departments are already using OneNote for their PLC.

A nice set of very useful OneNote links is available below, in our Tech Coach notebook, or you can view them at the Fremd Tech Spot wiki.

Visit the Microsoft Office Online OneNote site for an introduction! All of the links below are taken from this site.
OneNote Help and How-toOneNote Community (blogs on OneNote)
August 7, 2007 webcast (with some education ideas-download)
Top OneNote TipsKeyboard Shortcuts for OneNoteOneNote TemplatesPodcasts for OneNote (and other Office products)
RSS Feeds for OneNote (Visit the Fremd Tech Support RSS page to learn about RSS!)
Calculate Mathematical Equations in OneNote!
OneNote Mobile Quick Start Guide - Take OneNote with your phone!

Zoho Notebook is an online application that seems to have many of the features of OneNote except that you cannot ink directly on the page. This may be yet another evolution in our quest for that all-in-one early morning Starbucks Technology stop.

How do you see it?

Tablet Training

Several teachers came to the TLC or worked with Tech Coaches in other locations this week for tablet training. I am happy to say I've heard that teachers are generally happy with the information they learn. Are they sponges soaking up whatever we give them? Maybe leaky ones right now but repeated use of new techniques will help them retain what they learn. We all know this is a daunting task we face. Thanks, Tech Coaches, for making a difference! Let's hope these teachers go back to their departments and spread the word about their easy and enjoyable tablet training experiences!

I don't know about you but I seem to learn something new every time I help someone. I am hopeful this is a sign of the tablet learning/using/sharing culture being alive and well. Teachers are investigating on their own and discovering ways they can make the tablet do what they want it to do. For example, using the SnipIt! tool to encompass the entire IE7 window is a slick way to 'ink' on the Internet. (Normally, this can't be done with the standard inking tools like those found in MS Office.) Using SnipIt!, one can drag the + cursor over the open IE7 window to make a screen capture. That part won't be completed, however, until you tell SnipIt! what to do with the capture. So, ink away on the screen; just don't finish the capture unless you want to save it for a future use.

I had to trouble shoot an issue with a Word 2007 document all of a sudden not allowing inking. I found that if I save the document as a 97 - 2003 version, I was allowed to ink on it. I was also able to ink on the document if I then convert the 2003 version to a 2007 version. Very strange.

Please notice the new counter at the top right of the blog. Thanks to Nicole LaBeau for sharing that with me. Click on the link over there to go to the Easy-Hit-Counter.com site. Choose a counter and copy the code supplied. Go to the HTML/Java gadget and paste the code in the window that opens. Click OK and you are done!

That's it for now!

Off we go!

Staff Development, Late Start, and Institute day plans are all being made behind the scenes as we enter our third week of the school year. I am part of the Technology Staff Development committee that also includes Tony Miller and Eric Wenckowski. We've already met with Lisa Small and will provide her with what we think are most pressing needs of the staff for this school year. So far, we think that Tablet PC training, Web 2.0 tools, and Office 2007 are those top needs. Please think about these topics as I will ask for your thoughts on them at our first meeting in September.

Tablet training felt like 'Tablet draining' for me this summer but the enthusiasm teachers brought to the Phase 1 training sessions energized me each time I met with a different person or small group of teachers. They are excited and eager to continue training so it's up to us to hit a home run and provide the sustained support teachers need to bring the tablet into the classroom and anywhere else learning takes place. Many of you are setting a great example for your teachers, already, by using the tablet when you can with your students or to manage your daily teacher life more efficiently. I am so proud of you!

Phase II training will begin this week (as soon as I get the information out I tried to get send last week!). Please encourage teachers to use the TLC as the location for training. Perhaps a little reminder note in your office or even a cool poster (like Nicole put up in the English office!) will serve to remind teachers of the training they are expected to complete. I will continue to provide training to you and act as a sounding board for you so that you can become a Tablet PC pro. Remember, I'm only a few steps ahead of you so please don't be afraid to show me something you learn about the Tablet PC! I want to learn, too!

The DEG will have updates only a few times a year. Technology Services is going to put in fixes as needed, of course, but major changes, such as those listed in Jeff Butzen's recent email, will occur only a few times during the school year. This will help reduce the amount of time we spend troubleshooting any problems every time a change to the DEG is made.

Please remember to keep a log, journal, blog or some kind of record of your tech duty. This information should be updated periodically and made available upon request of your department chair.

I'm very excited about this school year and look forward to working with you, again!

Off we go!

New Beginnings, Part II

Honestly, it can't already be a month since I first started this post! Click on the title of this post to read the original....

I am approaching this year as one that will see us playing a bigger role in Professional Development. You are ever expanding your repertoire of technology knowledge and I hope we continue using our monthly meetings as opportunities for further learning. I welcome your comments and thoughts about last year as well as suggestions for this school year. Web 2.0 tools will continue to be used by more and more teachers as they see what other teachers are doing with them in their own classrooms. I would be happy to help you learn about these tools! Please don't be shy at volunteering to share your own expertise!

Tablet PCs will be provided to many more teachers this summer and fall and instruction will fall upon our shoulders. Add to that, Office 2007, and we are already setup for a pretty busy year. So how do we approach Professional Development (PD) to help teachers make sense of it all? I don't see late start days, institute days or even revolving faculty meetings as an answer.

For me, this is an opportunity to step back, slow down, and assess where teachers are developmentally with technology. You and I can jump all over technology and see the benefits but that doesn't mean other teachers will, too.

I truly believe teachers want sustained help with technology. This seems to be the number one complaint from teachers around the US. One day, or one hour snippets of tech may nudge a teacher to investigate but a sustained use by the teacher will not occur unless there is continual support available. The more we can make ourselves available and approachable to teachers, the more we will be viewed as agents of change. One idea is to invoke the All-volving method of PD where a Tech Coach works with a teacher during the entire school year to help the teacher with some aspect of technology. HEHS has used this approach successfully in the past. This idea was also received favorably when I tossed it out there at our last Staff Development meeting in May. (I'll provide more details at our first meeting.) Karl Craddock has suggested that Tech Coaches should rotate to different departments on a daily basis. This is a great idea, too! (How do you feel about that?) Either way, we need to get teachers to realize that teachers exist beyond their own departments who can assist, provide ideas, and walk the talk when it comes to making technology an integral part of their day. These people should be you and me and anyone else who fit this description.

Wes Fryer, author of Moving at the Speed of Creativty, says,

To make technology integral to learning, teachers must be able to seamlessly use
technology tools throughout the day as they access, use and share information.
It must become part of the way teachers process and work in their world.
Personal uses of technology are pivotal here, in fact I am sure they are a
prerequisite to higher level uses of technology throughout the curriculum. I
think too many leaders want teachers to skip developmental steps in their own
technology use, and taking that approach is as developmentally inappropriate as
giving a kindergartner an encyclopedia to read instead of a picture book.

So, we (or is it more me?) have a new beginning. Please let me know your thoughts!

Web 2.0 School

Scott Weidig and I are teaching a Web 2.0 School course this summer. We have broken the 5 day course (four hours/day) into Organizational tools, Social Networking, and Utility Tools. The remaining two days will be devoted to the participants creating lessons that can use the tools they find will support the lesson. Please visit the wiki to see the course and please feel free to explore any of the items on the site. Some of the wiki pages will look familiar because they are taken directly from the Fremd TechSpot wiki which is geared for Fremd Teachers. The Web 2.0 School wiki will be reserved for the class.

Today is the third day of the course and we have let the teachers go out on their own to discover everything they can about the tools listed under the Utility section of the wiki. The teachers are continually showing one another what they can do with the tools. Brainstorming classroom applications has become the mantra for the day.

I just observed Darrell Robin (SHS English teacher) and Karl Craddock (FHS Science teacher) having a conference call using Drop.io, an online storage site. The beauty of this tool is that you can 'drop' a file, fax, voicemail, etc. to the site and visit it from anywhere, anytime. Imagine students in a class conferencing live while looking at a document that someone has dropped for others to view. Drop.io could be the answer for teachers who want a place where students drop an assignment for the teacher to pick-up later. Drop.io has a widget feature that allows you to put it on your blog or website. So, students could visit your blog or school website and click on the 'Drop' icon and turn in their assignment right there. They are not able to see other files that have been dropped in so confidentiality is maintained. This offers a little more flexibility than relying on a drop folder on our Extras drive that one would have to access from school or via NetStorage.

Below is an example of a cartoon created by Karl Craddock. I've saved this as a delicious bookmark to most of you, by the way! Karl experimented with ToonDoo as part of his 'assignment' for the class. Is that a thong I am wearing? Enjoy the laugh but be sure to let us know your classroom applications! I can already see the World Language teachers jumping on this one!

Another example of a relatively new Web 2.0 tool that we investigated is Wordle. This tool lets you turn text into a visual 'map' that shows the frequency of certain words by making them larger than others. This is a wonderful tool for pre-reading a selection and getting the gist of what the selection is trying to convey. Below is an example of a Wordle that visually shows the highlights from a reading selection about using tags! Many options are available for your Wordle. Try it out and let us know how you might use it with your students!



I am very excited to follow these teachers as they finish creating their wikis, blogs, drops, Wordles, and other applications using Web 2.0 tools. Feedback from these teachers will help Scott and I tailor the course to meet the needs of teachers. I also look forward to learning how these tools are actually impacting their classroom teaching and student learning. You can help by sharing what you do with these tools or any form of technology. There is not much data out there on how the use of technology is affecting 21st Century teaching and learning so any data we can gather will help support or even disprove the notion that technology is, indeed, helping.

New Beginnings

Another year has whisked by with many new educational technology changes being put into place.

The DEG improved in speed, recently, and new features are making it ever easier to do the tasks we used to grudge over in the past. Many new improvments are in the works and teachers are generally pleased with the progress, albeit, slow progress that is being made. I am impressed with the patience teachers exhibit as they absorb every single bit of electron text I send as I report pro-active instructions, or reactive fixes to problems with the DEG.

The Apperson Scanners are another matter altogether. I encourage you read Nicole LaBeau's post on her own and department frustrations with the machines, especially during finals week. I could not write a better essay on this topic. I am hopeful that changes will be put in place either during the summer or during the coming school year.

I have more to write and will continue after I help my daughter get a truck to help her move out of my house to her own dwelling in Lincoln Park this Saturday!

The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom

Please take a moment to read this excellent blog posting by Ryan Bretag. Here is a teaser...

"...this article isn't another push for organizations to embrace a collaborative learning culture. It is a push for teachers to stop waiting for the organization and become a collaborative professional learner by changing fundamental behaviors inhibiting this and embracing action items that will allow it to happen."

Off you go, then. Don't come back here until you've read the post!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading his blog post and commented on it at that site. I am including my comment below, as well. It's in green.

I thought about our Fremd house as I read the post. I am seeing a good amount of collaboration among teachers at Fremd and I like to think our continued use of technology is partly to thank. For example, teachers ask teachers how to do this and that with the new tablet PCs and it is my hope that these conversations continue and include more talk and walk about best practices in their teaching. They are replacing old practices with better ones in the hopes that students learn better. Way to go, I say!

The key to this is managing your time by collaborating with others in your personal teaching network so that your teaching bag is full of tools for all kinds of learners. You won't have to worry about having enough time to collaborate becuase collaboration is part of what you do everyday. All of us took time in the past to learn how to be the teacher who continually looks at our own teaching and student learning with a critical eye toward continued improvement. I am so proud of so many teachers at Fremd who practice their teaching and student learning this way. Collaboration has become a way of life and survival for them as it was for me when I was in the classroom. As Ryan states, 'What if your students told you they did not have time to learn your subject?'

My comment to Ryan's post....
Closing the door to learning is key for me. This is what I encounter most often from teachers. The reason? Time. But this is 'false' time. Many teachers continually think teaching 21st Century skills are just something else to add to their already full plate instead of realizing that collaboration with colleagues will always keep that plate fairly clean! [This may seem like a confusing statement but it is very clear once you move this way!]

Second, the notion that a teacher is an independent contractor who can, and often will, do what they darn well please in 'their' classroom regardless of school/district goals is a very real attitude. Professional Learning Communities force teachers to expose themselves, as you say, and for many, this is frightening. Yet, this is what we expect students to do on a daily basis in a collaborative classroom.

Alfie Kohn, 'What to Look for in a Classroom,' (1998), mentions cooperative learning can be threatening because

1. it reduces control and predictability,
2. it demands attention to social goals,
3. it challenges our commitment to individualism, and
4. it challenges our commitment to the value of competition.

The same things could also be said about teacher collaboration and personal professional development. There is comfort in familiarity and teaching the same way year after year is easy. Teachers have to be reminded to 'see' students. What works for this student may not work for the next. What are your options? Collaborate with colleagues (near and far!) for they may have some thoughts worth thinking about and implementing. Explore Web 2.0 tools and the possiblities they offer for differentiated instruction.

Ask one simple question everyday, "Are the students actually learning anything?" It's not our plates that should be full but our bag of teaching tools that should be overflowing. This comes from "exploring, challenging, refining, and enhancing your professional practice" [everyday].

Forums

While I like the wiki notion, I'm still working on learning more about them. I have blogged with classes and as a daily (or weekly) class update for students, parents, and any helpers to students to access. With my creative writing class, I want something that students will use to interact with one another, free-form. Designing a blog for this was easy, getting students to participate freely and willingly was is more of a struggle. Comments ranged from, "I only do those for class when it's part of my grade, and then only sometimes," to, "Do we have to?"

When my answer to the 'have to' is, "No, you don't HAVE to; I thought it'd be a nice place for claiming victory over wrting struggles or venting through writer's block," I shy away from dictating exact numbers of posts required per student. I realize I can dress up the blog much more to help lure students to it, but I am considering the notion the class overwhelming suggested of a forum. Not only would it perfectly direct my aims to target free conversation on-line about writing, students 'promised' they'd partake. Either way, I would like to try one.

Any thoughts on how to start a forum or what requirements are needed, or limitations, for that matter? Last year I did jump into a on-line forum and found the interaction much different than blogging. It's more like a major party-line, phone conversation than a blog induced stack of letters, notes, and messages; forum felt more phone-like while blog felt more pony express like, in terms of idea and thought exchange. That was just my experience on one forum, though. It's something I'd like to try, if anyone has thoughts on how best to do so....

I have been browsing through Go2web2o.net and found this new search engine called Searchme. It is a visual web browser that lets you look at large pictures of the actual website before you actually visit the website. It also has a wonderful feature that will help you narrow your search if your intital entry is too broad.

This search engine is currently in beta testing mode and you do have to be invited to partcipate in the testing, but that is a simple click to request. Below is a video from the website. Check it out!

SharePoint Showcase

Has anyone used an online software called SharePoint Showcase?

At the ICE conference I went to a one-day workshop on using this software which is an "one-stop" shop for all your online portal needs (content management, discussion boards, wikis, calendar book, etc.). The instructors indicated that free version with not all the features as I just mentioned is offered in a wws 3.0 version. This is a Microsoft Windows driven software package. I have provided a link that outlines all the features of this software. Quite powerful. I am not sure of the site-license cost. Bob Small indicated that the district is looking into creating something internally and that it is one to two years out in the strategic planning agenda.

http://www.sharepointshowcase.com/default.aspx

Let us know if you have used this software and its pros and cons.

Happy Teching!!! - Tony Miller

2008 ICE Conference

My first workshop of the week was Web 2.0 Tools for Developing Differentiating Digital Content. Quite a bit of time was spent on learning to use the Digital Generation's Curriculum wiki. I liked some of the philosophy that was discussed as Web 2.0 tools can be used in different ways for different learning styles.

Using the wiki, however, seemed difficult. We had to learn some formatting commands in order to place pictures, add audio, etc. The wiki I created is called Understanding Matter. If we want to move teachers away from being web developers, I'm not sure this particular wiki is the place to go. There are other options such as wetpaint, wikispaces, pbwiki, etc.

Visit Classroom 2.0

Let me know what you think!

Proof Happens

Most of us are cautious about new technologies and claims that they will improve the teaching and learning in education. Often, we need to see the proof before we take the plunge. So, who are the people taking the plunge without seeing the proof?

For some people, the proof lies in their own imagination or idea of what learning could look like should the technology exist to make it a reality. This often leads to discussions with others who are able to share and/or expand on the idea. Discussion and imagination leads to action. Ultimate proof is found in actually using the technology and witnessing first hand how the students are benefiting from it.

Wiki technology is out there as a powerful collaborative tool for both teachers and students. Will students buy in to this technology? Is there any proof it is helping students learn? Fremd English teacher, Trish Weidig, wanted to find out after her Schaumburg High School Technology Coordinator husband, Scott, had directly approached her on the topic of using a wiki in her teaching. Not convinced about the usefullness or how her students would react to using a wiki, she decided to bring the idea of creating a Tale of Two Cities wiki to her English students.

Trish pitched the idea to students in her first English-108 class of the day. Reception was positive. During the day, two students from this class (Nigel Rolfe and Jeff Pearson) had visited our Drop-in lab, created a wiki for the class and, by the end of the day, eight students already signed up to use it. By the next day, some 20+ students were ready to go. The students also began to discuss parameters such as who will moderate student additions to the wiki and how to best communicate this information to all participants. Trish is floored by all of this as the wiki is already being driven by students.

Nigel and Jeff also came to me on their own to share what they had done and invited me to be a part of the wiki. I was impressed with their concern about privacy for the students and limiting the use of the wiki to class participants. They also told me Trish is already establishing additional parameters with her classes.

Trish is taking a bold step. She may or may not find the proof she needs to show that the wiki is changing the way she teaches and her students learn, but, she is taking the step rather than simply dismissing the possibility.

Wiki Resources

Think Wikis (Super site for ideas on using wikis in education and other wiki links)
WetPaint (Free Wikis with minor advertising by Google)
WikiSpaces (Free wiki and no advertising to educators but this site has pages that get websensed! Augh!)

Teaching, and Learning with Web 2.0

If you blog, use a wiki, Facebook, Thinkature, Zoho, Delicious, Podcasts, Digital Stories, RSS feeds, or any tools like those listed to the left in your teaching, you are part of the Web 2.0 Learning Community. These tools are not a fad and they won't go away. They are being used by teachers, students and businesses every day. The list of Web 2.0 tools continues to grow. I look at this list and I get scared. How can I possibly keep up? I can't. What I can do, though, is pick a few tools and really try to see how they could be and are being used in the classroom. I can choose to be a mover and a shaker by using Web 2.0 tools with my students or I can choose to be moved and shaken by them.

Wikipaedia defines Web 2.0 as an idea in the head rather than a new form of the internet. Regardless of the definition, it cannot be denied that these tools share one common feature; the ability to share information. 21st Century learning is all about collaboration and the skills necessary for functioning in a 21st Century world can be taught using Web 2.0 tools.

George Benard Shaw said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself." I hope you continue to be unreasonable.

Please try to carve out some time over winter break to really learn how to use your blog. The Award Winning Blogs noted on the left and the Fremd Classroom blogs listed below are great places to get you started.

Exemplary Blog Sites

The list to the left, Award Winning Blogs, provides links to the best blogs out there...at least in the opinions of those who voted for them! The Edublogs site provides very useful education examples. In fact, the finalists have just been announced. I'm impressed.

By the way, don't be afraid to check out other blogging sites. Like Blogger, you can get an Edublog in seconds. The nice thing about Edublogs is that it has a tie to the Education community straight away. For example, on the front page of the site is a link to 10 Ways To Use Your Edublog to Teach.

Below is a list of other blog providers you might want to evaluate. Just so you know, some of these may be websensed at school because of social networking...

Blog Hosts
Edublogs
Dairyland
TypePad

Server Side (Blogs that require a download and installation)
Greymatter
Moveable Type
WordPress

How do you add a picture to your Blog homepage?

How can I get a photograph on my blog homepage. It is asking for a URL address, is there an easy picture upload feature?