How Technology is Used in other Schools - Part 2

In this post I've listed two additional innovative uses of technology - both from Heritage. At Euclid we are not currently doing anything like this - it's neat to see how others are solving problems through the use of technology. The first example involves a conversational Spanish class at high school.

Unsatisfied with student performance on a written assignment involving students interviewing a famous person and asking them about their vacation, Miss Mary Kay Cummings Spanish Teacher for Heritage High showed the committee how she increased student proficiency and enthusiasm for learning by using the Eee-Pc webcam feature. Miss Cummings had students record and video tape conversational Spanish dialog in teams of two acting as famous people using puppets. The exercise was very entertaining and provided a great way for students to learn and have fun. Miss Cummings was able to upload the performances to her website and Wiki where students could view them giving them authorship. Student progress in conversational Spanish was notably improved.

This second example involves distance learing - I wonder if we'll ever have all our course content on-line and teach kids who are at home or in a remote location? My daughter was in this Physics classroom last semester. She didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that some students were watching the class and interacting via Skype.

Through Dim-Dim, a Smartboard and some Eee computers, Mr. Mike Rudolph Physics teacher showed how he can conduct a Physics class not just for students within the Heritage High School walls but also includes 5 students in Center Colorado who are distance learning with him. This method of communication is called Skype. The students in Center Colorado are able to see Mr. Rudolph as he conducts experiments and writes on the Smartboard. This is great way to fill out seats in a partially filled classroom and can be used to generate revenue.

How Technology is Used in other Schools - Part 1

I've decided to write a few posts about how technology is being used in other schools around the district. At Euclid I am keenly aware of the uses of technology, but I wanted to look outside the box and see what's going on elsewhere - maybe it will give us a few ideas to try there in addition to what we already do.

My first post is about the use of technology at HHS in their music department. Here's a quote from the ETAC presentation given back in Sept. 2008.

"Who thought technology could be used in so many clever ways to enhance H.S. marching bands and orchestral group participation! But Kevin Keena Band Director showed a number of ingenious ways technology has improved both the student learning curve and provided an integrated participation both in and outside the music classroom. Kevin embedded a beautiful audio of the wind ensemble band he conducted as background music on his website. For parents, the website contains announcements, schedules, answers to frequently asked questions and required forms. There are links to LHS and AHS high school band sites and links for every instrument used in the program to aid students who are having difficulty with fingering techniques, or rhythmic issue. Kevin makes use of an MP3 player to record band rehearsals, students upload the rehearsal, listen to themselves practice, and then provide feedback on how they thought they performed and what could be improved. Finally, Kevin incorporates a link that can illustrate animated drills for the marching band so students can more easily see where they need to be on the field and why.

I like that they use the HHS website for communicating to parents - we do this with our site too - our music teachers post all the upcoming evening performances for the year and provide a lot of additional detail for parents too - how to obtain instruments, expectation for students and much, much more.

Euclid's website

I've been scanning the use of our website by our staff. I'm pleased to point out that many (most) of the teachers have started using their own teacher page to communicate homework, project due dates and share general information with their students and parent community.

Isn't this a better way to communicate with students than using Homework Hotline? I'm wondering if by the fall that we couldn't do away with Homework Hotline? I know that some of you are still experimenting with using your webpage to announce your homework, but by next fall you'll probably be ready to "go live".

I think that parents would welcome this approach if you were to announce in Back to School night that this is the main method of communicating homework, field trips and other communications to them.

Good job everyone!

What do you think - should we do away with Homework Hotline next year?

Incoming 5th grade students

Hi,

I think you’ll  find this interesting – especially you 6^th grade LA teachers. Intrigued are you? Well read on…

 

So what is this all about?

What follows in this email discusses the 5^th grade students that are part of a pilot project called: “Powered Up Writing”. The project is being held in five LPS schools: Whitman, Hopkins, East, Field, and Moody. From that pilot we know of approximately 120 students that will be attending our school next year – that’s half of the incoming 6^th grade students next year!

 

I encourage you to read some of the responses from these 5^th grade students. Parents and staff  have chimed in too. As of this email there were 75 responses mostly from the kids! Click this to read Dan’s post. (From the time I started writing this email, the number of comments went from 64 up to 75 responses! Yikes.)

 

Background: Last week I commented on a blog posting written by Dan Maas – LPS’s CIO. His blog post included some questions about the “Powered up Writing” pilot project.  It seems that we’ve created a minor stir amongst these students in 5^th grade. The students (particularly East Elem.) have responded to my and Dan’s questions and given passionate responses. Their comments are well-written, cohesive and LONG. Who knew a young 5^th grade student could write so much and with such passion?

 

So where is all this going?

• In a few weeks I’ll be visiting these students at East Elementary. I’ll be going with Dan and a few LPS board members to meet the students and get a feel for the classroom environment. I also have a meeting to see the pilot classrooms at Hopkins too. I’ll get a first-hand glimpse of how they are learning with their laptops in Language Arts classes. (They use them every day – that’s part of the project). I’ve already visited Newton and saw how they are using eee’s there, but this is different. These 5^th grade students use their laptops nearly every day of the week and they use them for their other subjects too – science, math, social studies, and beyond. (They take spelling tests on them too - which speeds grading!)

 

• Perhaps you’ll want to take your PLC over to visit one of these classrooms too. After all, next year you’ll have these students in your classes. Judging from their writing, they will be hungry to continue writing – especially on a laptop or PC. I think that’s a great formula for success.

 

• Next fall would it be possible to conduct your daily LA classes using laptops too? How do you think this would facilitate learning? What would you need to be successful? (Go ahead and dream!)

 

• Do you think our future students will come to expect this level of technology? They seem to really love writing!

 

• Keep reading Dan’s blog. It will keep you up to date with the direction our district is headed with regard to technology and he’s a pretty good writer too!

Pi Day

One of our Math teachers, Mr. Otte (that's him wearing the Pi shirt standing next to the Pi image on his Smartboard) is really into Pi! Each year the students in his classes join together to celebrate Pi Day - which occurs each year on or around March 14th (3.14). The students complete worksheets, learn about Pi watching United Streaming videos and get to experience pi in all sizes and flavors (Pie! - Yumm!)

Here's a few photos of the big round day in Mr. Otte's classes.

Astronomy - the United Streaming Way

These 7th grade students are learning about Astronomy. But instead of being force-fed a single video about our solar system by their teacher they were directed to explore on United Streaming.



Back in class the students were engaged and sharing what they had learned. One student had learned that Venus had no moon and the class pondered why this inner planet lacked a moon. The teacher allowed the discussion to gather steam and generate more questions... Other students who examined different US videos offered that the outer planets had moons. Hmmmm.

So the class as a whole had gained bits of knowledge that they could share. No one student could have learned ALL the facts about our solar system from a single video, but the combined class-wide knowledge led the class to insights about our solar system that happened because the teacher allowed the students to learn and research independently from a reliable source. AND the students are learning a valuable team skill of listening to their peers and bringing their knowledge together.

Just a few years ago our school district network could not have supported the task of having 30 students watching streaming video in a computer lab. It's wonderful to have the infrastructure and United Streaming service available for our student community to use. I'm glad our teachers are finding innovative ways to use it! Thank you Mr. Coll for empowering your science students with this tool.

The Networked Student 2.0 aka "Collective Intelligence"

Okay now. This youtube video rocks for several reasons. While I don't suggest we have our middle school students ONLY using tools like this, I do think it is vital that we start preparing them for this kind of life. Today's successful college student needs to have these skills available to them - believe me I took a Chemistry course last semester and I was using these tools to extend my mastery of the chapters we were covering.



It is within our "charter" to get our kids started on this journey. I believe that middle school is not too early to get started in modeling their skills. For example, a 7th grade LA curriculum requirement is to write a research paper: how many middle school students even know how to validate a web source? Do they know how to write a research paper using web sources - ones that are valid?

At about 4:25 seconds into this video you'll see how you, teacher, can assist in this learning process - even at the young, tender age of our middle school students.

Now the one thing that I struggle with is that our students often lack the rudimentary skills to even form a sentence (subject-verb, capitalization, tense, topic sentences... the list goes on!) That's the focus of your teaching because it's part of what's handed to you, but now there's good reason to teach those basic skills within a 21st Century framework - use blogs, wikis, the web to reinforce those skills and you'll be prepping the students for what comes next while your teaching and honing the LA skills that they should have learned before even entering our school.

[Rant follows] And yes, I'm getting really tired of the whole "web2.0" tag. A better term is "collective intelligence" - one that's used in the more refined circles of elite intelligentsia. Oh yes, there's a "web3.0" term that's been tossed around for several years too. It's also called the "Semantic Web" - something my wife has centered much of her research around as a PhD at UCD. Ok, I'm done ranting!

Does This Describe You?

I like this video by Kathy Schrock (you’ll need to use the filter override to watch if you are at school). It describes us adults as “digital pioneers” as opposed to the term that’s been tossed around a bit more: “digital immigrant”. The “digital pioneer” term more accurately describes the staff here at Euclid Middle School. And I’m proud to see how it plays out each day in your classrooms. Now that this term has been pointed out to me I find the term “immigrant” somewhat debilitating. I like “pioneer” so much better! (Other words that come to mind all with “digital” tacked on in front are “journeyman”, “coach”, “guru”, “teacher”, “professional”).

 

It’s a short video that you’ll enjoy. Also in case it didn’t dawn on you I am pretty sure the animated sequence is from Second Life – a free virtual world – that this person has created a character, log cabin and pioneer environment in. Could you imagine a digital version of Euclid Middle School made in a virtual space where you could meet with your students – all on computer? That aside, I think the animated video is pretty awesome for an old immigrant turned pioneer – thanks Kathy Schrock!

 

Heading West - the non-tech way?

I dropped in on Rondinelli's 8th Grade Social Studies to see their mini-plays (melo-dramas) about taming the west. Each group of three or four students had to create a mini-production about life in "pioneer" times. Among the groups were the 49ers, Mountain Men, Pioneer Women, Mormons, you get the idea.


While the productions were decidedly not high-tech I think it made perfect sense to me that they were so. Given that there was no technology like we have back in the day the students faithfully created productions that were educational and engaging. It seemed that one way to bring the audience into the story was to have them be the sound-effects when needed. The audience was queued for the needed sound effect and it made for an enjoyable time and kept us engaged in the story.

While I'm not a historian I vaguely remember that this was one way that melodramas were made - having the audience be active members by creating the sound effects.

Now the students did quite likely use technology - computers, the internet, WWW, printers, etcetera to create their production and acquire the knowledge and background for their story, but their actual production was all non-tech. Sure the students could have used voicethread, photostory or some other digital application, but that would have taken away from the melodramatic effect of being involved in the actual play for the audience.

I guess that the point I am making is that what is important is the content and engagement - how one teacher delivers it may be different than another.

Livescribe Pulse Pen

Our librarian Carolyn Mast came across a neat product while looking through one of her periodicals. The product is the Pulse Pen made by Livescribe. This pen has a built-in audio recorder and infrared camera.

Using paper you can download from their site for free (or you can buy it too) you can record your audio along with notes you take on paper. Then later you can click anywhere on the notes you took and playback what was being said. It's great for note-taking or lectures. If you like you may also download and share the notes/audio on the web.

We used it in Sue Lloyd's Language Arts class to tie into the student discussion that was supposed to happen afterwards as homework. Students were assigned to comment on topics that their peers introduced in class that day. They were to make posts on the teacher's weblog regarding the discussion. They could listen to the actual discussion if they needed additional detail. Here's the link to the classroom discussion. It's sort of like a built-in podcosting device with real-time note taking added on.

Online learning

In ESchool news today an article was released about online learning. Now online learning is available in most colleges and universities. There are a few high shcools offering online classes too. Did you know that Heritage High School offers an online physics course that students in remote parts of Colorado "attend"?

What if all instruction for secondary schools was done on-line? What if your classes were offered online? How would you adapt your teaching style to it?

(You may read the first page of this article without registering, but to read the remainder you'll need to register - it's free).

Another note: The article mentions Digital Equipment Corporation in the article. In my past life as an IT director and 'techie' I used their products extensively. I loved the old VAX/VMS Operating System architecture. It helped to make me a logical thinker!

Wordle used in Language Arts

I've seem some teachers find novel uses of Wordle. Wordle can be a great tool for anyone to use. It's free and easy to use. Here are Euclid we have used Wordle to compare literature, analyze presidential speeches or just find out more about yourself or your own writing style.


You'll enjoy this post from a LA teacher at AHS.