Ed Tech Trek

iPods Pilot Project with ELL Students - SUCCESS!!

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:53:00 +0000

Back in January, I posted about an iPod pilot project that we conducted with a small group of ELL students at one of our elementary schools. Overall, ELL students in our district have not tested well in math on our state's standardized test called the CRCT. Vocabulary has been an issue for them as well as understanding concepts such as fractions and decimals. We needed to try an "out of the box" approach to supporting their learning, and after becoming aware of other iPod projects in existence, we chose to move forward with our own pilot.

Our model consisted of the students w0rking with the iPods both in school and taking them home on a rotating basis for further remediation and acceleration. Kristi Johnson, the Literacy (Technology) Coach at the school, worked diligently to find and/or create media as well as associated activities for the iPods.

Unfortunately, we got a rather late start on the project, not beginning to use the iPods with the students until November. I wasn't sure how much using the iPods might help them given the fact that they would be tested in early April. Based on her observations, Kristi had told me how much the students enjoyed using them and that she had seen progress in their learning. Early benchmark tests also showed the students performing much better than they had in the past. The true test, however, would be the results from the CRCT.

I am very excited to report that 100% of the students passed the Math portion of the CRCT!! Last year, as 4th graders, only 20% of this same group passed. We haven't had a chance to dig into the data yet, but on the surface there appears to be a correlation between the iPod use and their achievement. We know that from August through the end of October the students did not use the iPods, so we're wondering how well they performed on content taught during that time versus content taught with iPod support. As soon as we have more data, I'll report back.

As for now, current budget restraints will most likely prevent us from expanding this project. However, we will continue to use the iPods with ELL students at this school next year. I, for one, am extremely excited about the test results for these kids who have struggled in the past! It's a great accomplishment for them, their teachers, and (hopefully) demonstrates how the effective use of technology can impact student achievement.

Image by Sagolla on Flickr

Two sites to share...

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:36:00 +0000

The following two sites were ones that came via my Google Reader from the Makeuseof.com website. They post quite often, and these were two that caught my eye.

Keyboardr

Keyboardr is a search engine of a different breed. I know, I know....not another search engine, right? I've looked at a lot of engines, but this is the first that I've found that actually displays the search results as you type them. No need to hit enter or click on search. Simply begin typing your keywords and the results appear in the window.

Pretty cool. But Keyboard doesn't stop there. Not only does it give you search results as you type, but it also offers Wikipedia, You Tube, and Google blogs, and Google Image search results as well. I typed in "educ" and these were the results I received even before finishing the word "education".

I'm always a sucker for sites that are geared for photos (even if I don't use them very often), but every once in a while I need to create a panorama picture, but I don't have software that will do that for me. Now, I don't need any thanks to Clevr, an online panorama creator. It allows you to stitch a series of photos together into one picture. Below are some of their other offered features as well as some sample panorama pictures created with their service.

Blogging with students - Summary of responses

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:03:00 +0000

Last week I asked for assistance regarding blogging with students for the first time. Since I'm not a classroom teacher, I don't feel qualified to offer guidelines for the teacher in my district who is interested in blogging with her 5th grade students. However, there are members of my PLN who are experienced, and this is a summary of the advice they offered.

Talk to administration first - This isn't something that I had thought of myself, so I was very grateful that Jim Gates brought up this suggestion. Without the administration on board, the whole project could fall flat. Their support and understanding is essential when embarking on a new project such as this.
Talk to parents BEFORE you start- I had already planned on recommending this, but I didn't think about this aspect of it: "Let them know what a blog is." (Jim Gates) We certainly cannot assume that every parent automatically knows what a blog is, what it's for and the value of its use in the classroom.
Commenting on others' blogs is important - Grace Kat echoed Kymberli Mulford's sentiment that commenting is an important element of student blogging and not necessarily a skill that comes naturally. Commenting both appropriately and meaningfully has to be modeled and learned.

Steve Kirkpatrick (MrKp on Twitter) encouraged commenting on others' blogs (not in the classroom). "Get a conversation going." J Allen reminded that "just like regular bloggers, kids need to realize that blogging is a conversation." Amen to both pieces of advice.
Don't feel that you must grade the blogs - Again, I never would have thought to offer this piece of advice, which I did receive from several people. Jim Gates made the point that the blog is there for the kids to feel free enough to speak without worrying about being graded. I can definitely see that if the students attempt to blog knowing that their every word will be critiqued how that could inhibit their writing process.

Coming from another angle regarding grading, Kimberli Mulford (aka @kmulford on Plurk) offered her perspective. She doesn't post grades on individual blog posts, but due to the nature of her class, she does have to grade the students. Instead of assessing posts, she provides students with a standard "bar" to meet in order to get an "A", which for her students is to have five quality approved posts in the final five weeks, and they must support their fellow bloggers by commenting regularly on others' posts.

Kimberli went on to explain that she does have a quantity and quality standard which all posts must meet before she approves them, which is made clear to students through modeling and talking through the process.
Maintain moderation rights on posts and comments - I happen to agree with this completely and had already offered this advice. As much as we'd love to give our students free reign, it's important to moderate both posts and comments to ensure quality, substantive content, as well as appropriateness.
Blogging Platforms - I received a mixed bag of comments regarding various platforms available for student blogging. Edublogs, which I had mentioned in my post that the teacher was considering, has advertisements unless you pay. Of those who offered advice, here are the platforms they are currently using: Wordpress, VLE, ePals, and Edublogs. Which she will end up using is up in the air as of right now. I, personally, have mixed feelings regarding advertisements. Regardless that they are "suitable" for the content of the blog, I'm not a fan of them. I had considered ePals, but Kymberli indicated that they have grown faster than their service can support. We do not have an internal option to offer, so I'm wondering what might be the best path to take for a first-time blogging teacher?

Thank you for the advice! From my perspective, I feel much better being armed with first-hand information to offer her. I'll keep you posted regarding her project.

Added information 2-27-09

I thought I would add a couple of lists of blogging resources that I have compiled in Diigo.

Blogging Examples: Student and Classroom

Permission Letters - Forms for blogging/wiki use

Advice Photo: Wurzle on Flickr
A grade Photo: Futureofmath on Flickr

Blogging with Students - Where do you start?

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:44:00 +0000

I have an elementary teacher who is interested in having her students blog. She's new to blogging herself, but is enthusiastic about getting her kids (5th graders) started and will be using Edublogs are her platform. Although I am extremely excited that she wants to do this, and I plan on doing whatever I can to assist her, I do not have any first-hand experience with student blogging. I can (and have) provided her with a few links related to student blogging, but I have a few questions about how she should progress.

1) For elementary students, what is a good "permission" form to send home? Does anyone have a sample?

2) How should she begin? Should she start with one blog where her students can be "authors" or should she set up a blog for each student?

3) If she sets up a blog for each student, does she have moderation control over approving new posts first?

These were just a few questions that popped into my head, but I'm sure there will be others. I want this to be as smooth of an experience for her as possible, so I'm asking for helpful advice from those of you who have been there. How should she begin? What hiccups might she expect? What problems have you run into and how were they handled? Thank you in advance for your help and I will compile the advice given in a new blog post.

Photo credit: DavidGilmour on Flickr
Photo credit : BJMCCRAY on Flicker

A few "finds" to share...

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:42:00 +0000

I realized that I stumble across some great links, whether from Plurk, Twitter, or my Google Reader, but I'm not very consistent about sharing them. So, with that in mind, I'm going to try and be a bit better about that and here are a few that I've become aware of in the past two weeks.

My Brochure Maker
@kjarrett on Twitter mentioned this Flash-based brochure and flyer maker for making brochures as Publisher isn't exactly "friendly" for younger students. I have to agree with his assessment, too. I checked out this Web 2.0 application and it's very simple to use. There isn't a lot of room for customization, which I liked. Why? Because it will force them to focus more on the content and less on design.

Real World Math with Google Earth
I'll be honest with you...I hate math. However, had Google Earth been around when I was learning math, I can honestly say that I would have enjoyed it far more. This great site offers a variety of lessons broken down into four categories: Concepts, Project based learning, Measurement, and Exploratory. Within each category you'll find at least one lesson along with a Google Eart kmz file to use. What I also liked was the fact that both NCTM and NETS*S standards are listed along with other lesson information.

Educational Blogs You Should Be Investigating
This blog post is courtesy of mrssmoke of Plurk. There are other lists out there of educational bloggers, but sometimes going through them takes forever. She offers a nice, concise list of educational bloggers and has categorized them by field of discipline and grade level, which I find particularly useful.

Life Magazine Photo Archive - Hosted by Google

Search millions of photos from the Life magazine photo archive from the 1750's to today. Many of the images have not been previously published.
You can apply a filter to a Google image search by adding "source:life" to any search.

For example: computer source:life

50 Tools and Tricks to Revolutionize Your Notetaking
This blog entry by Holly McCarthy features 50 tools that "that let you share ideas, store your thoughts directly on a web page and more". Holly has sorted the tools into eight categories, which is helpful if you're looking for one particular function.

Picasa 3 Collage Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:00:00 +0000

I love it when I drop in to quickly check out my Plurk PLN and end up getting distracted by a few great finds! Jamielpeters shared a Youtube video introducing Picasa 3. I have used Picasa in the past, but never really got into it since I already have Photoshop, and for quick fixes I use Irfanview. After watching just a small portion of the video, I decided to update my Picasa. Why? For the photo collage feature!

In my district, I am hosting a web-based 23 Things class and I try to find Creative Commons licensed pictures to use for each "Thing". Creative Commons and Flickr are two topic that we'll cover, but I also want the participants to explore some of the creative things they can also do with what they find. The image that I created above is via Picasa and a group of photos that I found on Flickr, most of which I used in a recent GaETC presentation that I did on building a Professional Learning Community (PLN). I LOVE the way it turned out!

Some of the past photo "collage" features in Picasa didn't allow for a lot of customization. I'm very happy to report that has changed in this version! I was able to customize the background color, tilt and resize photos, go back and grab additional photos from other folders and provide frames for the photos (white or polaroidesque). Just another great, FREE tool from Google!!

iPod, therefore iLearn - How we're piloting them

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:43:00 +0000

About this time last year, I first became acquainted with the concept of using iPods in the classroom, and the idea appealed to me very much. With the pressures from NCLB to meet AYP (don't you love those acronyms), we are always looking for methods to ensure student success. And how can success be defined? For some schools, even in my own district, that means pouring your efforts into those one or two sub-groups, which sometimes by one student failing, can cause the entire school to not meet AYP. Using iPods to support learning for the "bubble" students made sense. Technology engages kids, the technology itself is not terribly expensive, and the content can be readily available and easily adapted if you know where to look.

Although iPods are a less expensive investment compared to a laptop computer, with limited funds, I was only able to purchase five 80 gig video iPods for use in a pilot program. The question that remained was which group should be the focus of the pilot. Since I work in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at our Board of Education, finding that sub-group was thankfully easy, as well as choosing which subject area to target.

Image by Yum9me on Flickr

Our school system is growing. In fact, we have consistently been one of the fastest growing counties not only in Georgia, but in the United States as well. And with that growth, we've seen our ELL (English Language Learner) population follow suit. As ELL students are held to the same accountability standards for AYP as the rest of our student population, we chose this group to target for a pilot, especially since funding for these students is so limited.

This year, one of our elementary schools developed a Literacy/Technology Coach position using Title 1 funds. This is also the same school that has a significant ELL population, which made it a natural choice for the pilot. Given past performance on standardized tests, we chose to focus on math concepts and vocabulary acquisition for 5th grade students. Although other subject areas will be incorporated into the pilot, we are most interested in seeing how the use of the iPods may affect student performance in math.

Before beginning the pilot itself, I worked closely with the L-T Coach to determine the type of content available, how to make it work on the iPods, and how the students would use the iPods. It was always my intent to have the students take the iPods home for one night at a time along with some form of assignment that would correlate with what they watched. By having a structured pencil and paper activity that parallels a video or other activity, we would be able to determine which types of content reached students the best.

A parental agreement was drafted and approved by our board attorney, which outlined the guidelines of the program and expectations we had for the student and parents. This was presented to the parents at an evening meeting where we had two interpreters available, the ESOL teacher, the L-T coach, our Family Engagement Specialist (who is also a former ESOL teacher), and myself. The students were present as well and this was their first opportunity to actually use the iPods. For some students, they had never used one, but they quickly learned while the parents discussed the agreement. We had seven students in this pilot group and every parent signed the agreement allowing their child to participate. They were concerned about how they would reimburse the school system in case of damage or loss (which was part of the agreement), but we assured them that a plan could be worked out.

Image by Pedroaznar on Flickr

However, now that the pilot is underway, I honestly don't believe we'll need to worry about damage or loss. These students understand the responsibility of having the iPod when they take it home and guard it with their life. It's too early to make any assessments regarding student performance, but we can report that the students are very enthusiastic about using the iPods both at school and at home.

Our pilot program was recently featured in our county newspaper, which also talks a bit more about the type of content that is being used on the iPods. If you would like to read the entire article, it, along with pictures, is available here.

This type of technology can be applied in a variety of ways with many different children. What prompted me to write this post today was a link from Pat Hensley's (aka loonyhiker) Instructional iPods blog post where she offers some ideas for using iPods in the Special Education setting. In her post, she mentions Christine Southard's blog post Introducing Ipods into Special Education. As an aside, I love it when one blog post leads to another such as in this case. Christine featured the following video in her blog post, which really captures the power of this technology. In the near future, I will share this video with my own Special Education Director

(If you have any questions regarding the pilot, please feel free to post them in the comments. If I can't answer them, I will pass them on to Kristi Johnson and Sandra De Castro who are the two teachers implementing the program. )

Other Resources regarding iPods in Education:

Google Notebook Phasing Out? Say it ain't so!

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:00:00 +0000

I haven't had a lot of time in the past few days to catch up on Twitter or Plurk, but when I get the indicator on my Diigo tool bar that there is a new message available, even though I'm busy I will at least look at it. Today, I wish I had not because this is what I saw:

Yes, Google is halting development on Google Notebook. Here is the official word.

Usually Maggie Tsai of Diigo is the bearer of good news, and in this case at least she's (Diigo) is moving to assist those of use who are Google Notebook users when we lose that service. For me, it's not just about the ability to grab pieces of text and URLs. If that is all I want, I use Diigo's highlight feature for that purpose. Notebook is where I store images and text together.

Maggie linked back to Richard Byrn's blog post Free Technology for Teachers: Choosing a Google Notebook Replacement where he not only gave a few more details, but also offered some possible replacements as well. One solution a commenter suggested was to use Evernote, which does have a Firefox plugin. I have an Evernote account, but haven't really needed it since I had Google Notebook. I suppose I will begin using it now in anticipation of the day that I lose Google Notebook. For now, I'm going to start importing my Google notebook exerpts into Google Docs unless I'm able to easily bring them into Evernote.

For even more options, this Lifehacker post, Where to Go When Google Notebook Goes Down, offers some solutions as well.

Yes, I'm going to move on, but right now I plan on sulking for a bit.

7 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Me

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:36:00 +0000

I've never been tagged for a meme before until one of my fellow Plurkers, Heidi chose me for the task. The purpose of this meme is to share with others seven things about me that you might not know. Here is Heidi's post about herself since she tagged me. The rules are simple: link back to the person that has tagged you and then tag seven other people. If you would put your name for others to see on this wiki then you can see all of the other social networking people that have done this so far :)

One: I love sci-fi movies and TV shows!! Right now I am anxiously awaiting January 16th when Battlestar Galactica will return for it's final shows. I hate that it's almost over. I remember watching the original series as a child, but this one is soooo much better. Luckily, my boys share my love for sci-fi or I would be the odd ball in the family.

Photo credit: scott.armitage on Flickr - click photo for link

Two: I'm a total sucker for reality shows. Not all of them mind you, but I do get caught up in them. American Idol, So you think you can dance (amazing talent!), The Amazing Race. There are more, but I think I've embarrassed myself enough.

Photo credit: 427 on Flick - click photo

Three: I scrapbook, make cards and occasionally other items. Right now I'm making cards more than scrapbooking because it's faster and I really need hours if I plan on scrapbooking. Why? Because I LOVE to spread all of my paper, pictures, and tools out everywhere. If I have glitter on my face or my fingers are stained from ink, then you know what I've been doing. I hate to admit this, but I'm something of a "paper whore(der)". That would be a person who collects paper with the intent to use in a project, but then falls in love with it and can't bring themselves to cut it. It's a disease that I need to get over. These are a sampling of a few things I've made, all of which are older items. I really need to take some newer pictures.

Four: I've been to France four times, although I can hardly count my first trip as having "been" there. I got to walk on a beach for all of five minutes and entered France via Calais on a crossing from England. The other three trips were much more significant compared to that. In college, I lived in Tours, France for two months while working on my BSED in Education with a concentration in French. I absolutely LOVED every day I spent there and was fortunate enough to be able to travel around a bit. I took a small group of students to France with me (again going back to Tours) after my first year of teaching in 1994. That was followed by two more trips with students in 1997 and my last trip being in 2000. After that, I left teaching French behind along with the free trips I earned for bringing the kids with me. It was great while it lasted though! Again, here are a few pictures from those various trips.

Five : I was a cheerleader in middle school in a tiny little town called Burlington, KS. I think the fact that I was the only girl who could do a front walk over was reason why I made cheerleader in the first place. That and I can shout really loud. Not exactly being athletically inclined, except for gymnastics, cheerleading was a great outlet for me. Sorry, no personal pictures for this one.

Photo by Suessian on Flickr on Flickr

Six: I suffered from temporary insanity back in 2000 and coached a high school cheerleading squad. I have the utmost respect for cheerleading coaches as a result. Dealing with all of that estrogen made me very glad that I did not give birth to girls. Trying to "coach" these girls how to toss each other was a hoot considering I had no personal experience myself. I did learn a great deal about basketball though.

Picture by Eagle102 on Flickr

Seven: When I moved from Oklahoma to Washington in the middle of the third grade, I had a persian cat named "Snowy". He stuck around for all of two days in Washington and then deserted us. I didn't get another pet until my mom saw me "playing" with the fishing worms we kept in the refrigerator and that's when she took me to K-Mart and bought me a parakeet. His name was Daniel (after my first crush) and he lived for five years, surviving a move to both Kansas and then to Texas. Daniel was an incredible bird who had a healthy vocabulary of over 50 words! He even knew my name and yelled it whenever I brushed him off of my cup of sweet tea. The little devil would land on our dining room table where we had puzzle pieces spread out, pick one up, walk to the edge, drop it and then laugh. However, we were hardly amused. This pic below is close to what he looked like, but his head was yellow instead of white. I miss that bird!

Photo by Pliabletrade on Flickr.

Well, this ends my meme. Unfortunately, I think most everyone has already done a meme such as this or I would tag you myself. However, if you haven't done one, please let me know. I'll edit this post to tag you and then you can carry it on.

Plurk Inspired 365 Random Pictures Flickr Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:58:00 +0000

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to challenges, I tend to fall flat. However, this one might be doable for me. How hard can it be to take pictures daily anyway? Yes, that statement might come back to bite me in the posterior later, but I'd like to give this a go.

I created a blog to feature my daily pictures along with a bit of text, but I have a photostream of the pictures embedded into the sidebar of my blog as well. By using my Blackberry Storm to take and upload many of my pictures, I hope that will enable me to be more successful .

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Oh, and in case you're counting...I started a few days late.

Personal learning is a job?

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:52:00 +0000

I don't often do these kind of "in response to" posts, but I'm taking this online course where we have to dig through our reader and share a post that is particularly meaningful to us. Looking through my own reader, I ran across The Job of Personal Learning from injenuity. Although I will have already blogged about it for my class, I felt compelled to cross-post here as well.

I only wish there had been time to read this before I did my presentation, Time for a PLaN, at GaETC. Had that been the case, I think I may have changed the approach I took just a bit. Why? Because in her post, she approaches the building of a PLN by looking at it as a job. I knew that building a PLN was work, knew that it takes time, and knew that you have to dedicate yourself to your tools of choice and to fostering the connections. Even knowing all of this, I didn't think of it as a job, probably because I eat this stuff up. I quickly realized the benefits of my network and I was hooked!

This part really rocked me, that rang true with me (the grace of 20/20 vision after the fact) was this,

"When I look at it as a job, I can see why introducing it to groups en masse doesn’t lead to successful adoption."

Yes, I enjoyed a rather self-depreciating laugh. After all, that's exactly what I attempted to do. But hey, so did David Warlick and Steve Dembo, too. At least I was in good company, right? Of course. My expectations were a smidgen too high though. Yes, I am a glass 1/2 full kind of girl, but I believe in the power of positive thought. Yes, I thought I might could possibly start a PLN wave. I think perhaps it was more like a pebble dropped into a large lake though.

Regardless, Jen's quote above is all too true. After reflecting on it, I realized that I have had much more success with colleagues becoming involved in aspects of building a PLN because I have been able to intimately demonstrate the power of my PLN and I have been able to, in effect, mentor them. Those who I have been able to do that with have stuck with it. Given that, I think perhaps exposing people to the concepts of PLNs is fine en masse, but if I would truly like others to embrace the possibilities a PLN can bring to their professional practice, then I need to think small.

Steve Dembo - Extreme Makeover: Education Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:15:00 +0000

I have been looking forward to attending at least one of Steve Dembo's (aka Teach42) sessions at GaETC 2008, both because he's in my PLN and I have heard great things about his past presentations. I introduced myself before he started, which was odd in itself. I mean how many times do you go up to someone and say, "Hi, I'm cobannon from Plurk"? Thankfully, he recognized the name.

His session was titled "Extreme Makeover: Education Edition" and before the session began he gave me a quick overview of what he would be doing and told me that I didn't need to be in it, that I probably knew everything because this was going to be geared for the Web 2.0 newbie. That was exactly what I needed though - an approach to introducing teachers in my district to Web 2.0 tools. He further described his presentation as non-linear and that this was would be his first time doing a session like this. That alone intrigued me.

As he began, I felt a little like an audience member of a game show. He chose a newbie out of the audience and sat her at his computer. Then he brought up a game show grid, like something you'd see on Jeopardy or "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?", and had her pick a category of interest. Each category was then linked to a particular Web 2.0 site that he had his volunteer, Fiona, sign up for and use. During the presentation the rest of the audience got involved by yelling out the names of categories they wanted to Fiona to explore.

In the end, I did learn of a few sites that I had not seen before, but more importantly, Steve gave us all ideas about how to incorporate these sites into classroom instruction, which to me was the most valuable piece. Had his session lasted two or even three hours, I think we could have kept on using a variety of volunteers. I plan to set aside some time (hopefully soon) to exploring some of the ones that were featured.

For a complete accounting of his session, I live Plurked it. Steve said that he'll upload his presentation including the links to the sites he used to his blog.

Photo Source: Gamerscore on Flickr
Technorati Tags: gaetc gaetc08

TIme for a PLaN - My Presentation at GaETC 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:30:00 +0000

After years (Okay, so it only felt like years) of preparation, I finally presented at GaETC this morning to a rousing crowd of less than 10 people. Granted the session began at 8:15 am and often people choose to sleep in (aka "ditch") the first session of the day. Regardless, I am very pleased with the way the presentation went and learned that what I presented cannot be done in one hour!

I thought, which was my first mistake - never assume, that my presentation itself would last half an hour leaving me with another thirty minutes for my participants to explore some of the PLN sites. Nope. I think we had oh, five minutes? Even though I went long, my evaluations were very positive. (Wipe sweat off brow).

I chose to Ustream my session, which I have never done before and it worked! I was very pleased that I could share my presentation with some of my PLN since without them I certainly couldn't have done it. Adding to that, my Plurk buddy csgodfrey, who I had not met until the day before, was there for both moral support and to lend a hand. I hope others get the chance to meet her because she's a sweetheart in person!

On the downside, I was so nervous that I forgot to record my Ustream. (Insert expletive here). I want to thank everyone who did watch and also to those who replied to my Plurk shout out. Can I say how much I loved it that within 10 minutes I had over 15 replies? I sincerely hope that I what I shared resonates with them enough that they pursue building their own PLN. Whether it's using microblogs or simply reading and commenting on blogs, it if allows them to feel more connected and to learn, then it will make my day.

The wiki for the presentation includes all sorts of links for beginners to help build their PLN. Right now the wiki is public, so if you'd like to add to what I have there, feel free. I'll shift it over to protected within the next few days most likely. My presentation is also uploaded to slideshare and posted on the wiki (and here). You can download it and modify it to meet your needs if you'd like. If you weren't able to listen to my presentation, then some of the slides might not make sense. If I get time, I'll use Camtasia to record the presentation with audio.

Time for a PLaN

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: pln networking)

Technorati Tags: gaetc gaetc08

GaETC Keynote - Ron Clark

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:24:00 +0000

I just left the Keynote at GaETC given by Ron Clark of the Ron Clark academy. I had heard incredible things about him, but to say that I was blown away by him is putting it mildly. It makes me want to go back to teaching (almost).

One of the first things that he spoke about was the Presidential Rap song that his kids did that was recorded and put on YouTube and has since gone viral and gotten attention from major networks. He performed a bit of it for us and here is the video of his students.

The man is a dynamo of energy and creativity and much of what he said really touched to the heart of what teaching is all about - at least for me. He spoke of innovation and creativity and how we cannot expect our students to be innovative or creative if WE are not allowed to be. Teaching to the test has become the mantra in so many of our classrooms. We have to teach "down" to our brightest kids, they have become the tutors for those struggling, but what about them? He says that we have "flipped the script" entirely in teaching to attempt to not leave any child behind. He approaches things from a different angle, teaching to the brightest instead and raising the others up and he had succeeded.

Music in his classroom, finding what "clicks" with his students and incorporating that into his daily instruction is key. He says it's all about the atmosphere in the classroom. Set the tone, smile, let the kids know that you care because if you don't care about them and let them know about it, how can we expect them to care about themselves and to take ownership of their learning? We've got to think outside the box.

He has 55 rules in his school. I was shocked to hear he had that many, but he defended them by saying that they provide a strict structure that his students appreciate. They know the expectations, they are aware of the consequences. Once those are in place, then he can be as crazy, innovative, silly, and jump on as many desks as he wants to. Set the structure in place first. Being proactive in the beginning gets better results in the end.

Some of the funnier moments in his speech is when he spoke about promoting his book on Oprah. He said that it was she who encouraged him to write a book and after sending her a copy she invited him back to the show. She showed the book to her audience, told them to buy it and then hugged it. From Ron Clark's mouth (loosely), "When Oprah tells you to write a book, you do it." "When Oprah hold your book close to her bosom, you're in." The next day, his book was number two on the best seller's list - right behind Harry Potter.

It was the proceeds from his book that he used to found the Ron Clark Academy in an abandoned factory in South Atlanta. They had 19 break-ins during construction, but he did a four month tour of the neighborhood introducing himself and speaking about his school, eventually the community took ownership of it and helped to build it into what is today. He said that buildings to the right and left have graffiti, but it's like his school is this fortress because not a mark you'll find on his building. He even got some of the street walkers to pitch in. "If you call them, they'll come. They won't stay long, but they helped." And these were some of the very people who were trashing the neighborhood in the first place.

Clark says, if our schools aren't what we want them to be then it's our fault. If you want to make changes, if you want innovation, then everyone has to be on the same page.

Clark says that he doesn't like every student that he's ever had and tells the story of Rondell - a child who he particularly disliked. And of course, Rondell was one of those kids who was never absent. He might be late, letting Clark think he had a reprieve from his nightmare, but then he'd show up with the tardy slip in hand. On the outside he'd tell Rondell, "It's great to have you here, I thought you weren't going to show up today!" but on the inside he'd say "Oh shit!" However, Rondell never knew Clark's true feelings about him because he had established a relationship with the child and an atmosphere in his classroom where students knew that he cared about their success.

One of the last examples he shared with us was of a baseball game of a student that he attended. The student asked why he was there and he told him that he was there to watch him. Not even the boy's mother was at the game. The student would continue to look at him during the game to see if Clark was watching and he was. The next Monday, that student who had not been engaged in class was paying attention and even telling other students to be quiet. Others have said that they have families and don't have time to visit homes or spend three hours at a game. Clark's reply? Three hours at a game can save you a year of heartache.

I think my favorite example that he shared with us was about his chocolate milk chugging. His Harlem kids loved chocolate milk, to chug it in fact. He brought in carton after carton of chocolate milk and told them that he was going to teach them about dangling participles and for every three minutes they paid attention, he would chug a carton of chocolate milk and continue to do so as long as they paid attention and eventually they could see him throw up. They did, and after 14 cartons, he threw up. Now that's sacrifice to get your students engaged in your lesson. It also created conversation within the homes of these children, conversations about school that wouldn't have occurred before and that helped him gain parental support.

The key to it all is high expectations. Continue to teach to the brightest. Be innovative, creative. Think outside the box and engage the students. Find what interest them and bring it into the classroom. His test scores are proof. Can everyone teach like Ron Clark? No, but there are certain ideals that he embraces which every teacher can take to heart.

Technorati Tags: gaetc gaetc08

Harnessing The Power of My PLN : Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:08:00 +0000

After making the decision to apply to present at GaETC this year, I turned to my PLN for help. First, I needed a name for my presentation and I knew I could get some creative help from my fellow Plurkers. I wasn't disappointed either. Here are some of the suggestions they came up with. You can click on the screen shot to take you to the Plurk page.

I was able to take these great ideas and combine them into my title : Time for a PLaN: The Power of Connectivism and Collective Intelligence. With my title in hand, I created my proposal summary and once again turned to my PLN for their invaluable feedback and received many replies with great suggestions.

Thanks to their assistance, my proposal was accepted and as I write this, I will be presenting in two days. Being able to harness the power of my PLN in order to educate and encourage others about about building one of their own has been invaluable. This presentation will most definitely live up to its title. From the development of my proposal to the content of the presentation, none of it would be possible without them. A true example of collective intelligence at work.

It was about this time last year that I embraced the idea of building my own network of support and I haven't looked back. It's been a whirlwind of a year with a huge learning curve that at times made my head spin from the information overload. However, I wouldn't trade "them" or the knowledge I've acquired for anything.

Web Search Strategies in Plain English from The Common Craft Show!

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:52:00 +0000

Another basic, yet great explanation, not to mention timely. I just had a teacher asking about this very topic the other day so I hope she'll find this useful for her lesson.

Web Search Strategies in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Follow up to CoSN CTO Session

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000

My battery died, but I was able to take notes of the 2nd presenter on my Blackberry. In Forsyth County Schools in Georgia, they are doing some interesting things regarding the re-distribution of equipment and changes to their AUP policy to allow for student-owned devices.

Here are the notes that I took unedited (mostly).

They have a desire to "extend" the school day.

Direct efforts more toward the safety of the network and away from the tools they will be using.

Students don't need our wifi access b/c they have their own on their phones for the most part.

Saturate the classroom with access and let students desire for the use of technology in instruction drive the change for instruction. Peer pressure almost. They are doing it in Mrs.X's classroom, why not in here?

Leverage student owned resources to allow use in school. Changed their AUP.

Rolled out wifi.

Separate VLAN for student devices with filtering to access district resources/Internet.

How do we provide for students without their own devices?

They have notebooks available for checkout to some during the daytime. 3 year refresh cycle on technology and give away old ones after they are refreshed and wiped clean. Loaded with Opensource software.

Thin client access to get to school resources from home.

Using web based resources as well. Dropping MS office and going to Open Office. Student don't have access to office at home so went open source this past school year with refresh.

Asus EEE and classmate PC they are looking at these types of laptops, but won't go with until battery life is addressed.

New notebooks have limited use but focuses on what we want teachers to use in the classrooms, away from canned software.

Seamless was important to them regarding putting students on their own network with their own devices.

Citrix clients not available for all of the devices that they would see students using such as the iPhone, Blackberry.

Remote access to gateway. They aren't providing support for it. They have few problems with students mostly with adults not knowing how to connect.

Changed AUP, but it has not been promoted yet. They are watching as kids bring in their own devices to see what problems might arise.

Greater potential to make learning more engaging than to worry about them being off task. Risk, but learning potential might be worth it.

Teacher and admin management of the students using devices will be up to the schools so far.

Question / Answer Time:

Q: They lease computers. How did they get around tax payers receiving school goods?

A: Cost of ownership goes up and better for students if they took it. Bid process? No. Board approved, local funds, surplus. Put out an RFP to a company who wiped them clean, put Open Office on them and gave 60 day warranty. That company was only allowed to sell the PC's back to who Forsyth County specified.

Q: Bandwidth Impact from student laptops /devices?

A: Not enough of devices out there to see any kind of a bandwidth impact right now. Gig fiber to each school.

Q: How many PC's were refreshed with OpenSource software?

A: Refreshed 5000 PC's with open office

Q: What are the connections like in school (wireless)?

A: Public ssid for visitors like in hotel

Student connection goes straight to citrix page but some devices so not have citrix client so they will need to investigate

CoSN CTO Clinic : Web 2.0 Technologies to Create Ubiquitous Learning Enviornments with Steve Hargadon

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:50:00 +0000

Announcing Diigo Educator Accounts!

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:13:00 +0000

For the past several weeks, existing Diigo users who are educators have been piloting the Teacher Console. So what is this? In short, it allows teachers to create students accounts without the need for email, something that is typically a stumbling block for many Web 2.0 sites given that many younger students do not have email addresses.

"Students on Diigo? Isn't that a social networking site?"

Yes, it is, but safegaurds have been put in place with the student accounts that limit the social aspects of the program. First, student accounts are automatically placed in a private class group with the teacher everyone in the group is automatically "friended" as well. The Diigo messaging system will allow students to communicate, however students are only allowed to message withing their class. Also, student profiles are only viewable by other students in the group and by the teacher, so their exposure to other Diigo users is limited.

So, how do you get a Diigo Educator Account? First, you'll need to apply here if you are an exsiting Diigo user. Once approved, the accounts will work as follows:

A teacher can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
To protect the privacy of students, student accounts have special settings which only allow their teachers and classmates to contact them and access their personal profile information.
Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.

For more information about the Diigo Educator accounts, please visit any of the following links:

Diigo announcement on their blog.
FAQ Page for Teacher Account
Diigo Educator Getting Started

K12 Online Conference is coming!!

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 02:12:00 +0000

Save the dates!!
October 20 - 24 and October 27 - 31, 2008

Location?
Your PC!

Want more information? Check out the flyer below for the conference information or go to the K12 Online Conference 2008 website.

Don't miss this exciting professional learning opportunity available right at the click of your mouse.

K12 Online Conference Flyer - Upload a Document to Scribd

Harnessing The Power of My PLN : Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:06:00 +0000

This summer, I made the decision to submit a proposal to present at my state's educational technology conference, which is something I have never done before. In truth, I never felt as though I had anything to offer. However, after attending GAETC last year and sitting through a less than accurate session about wikis and blogs, I felt almost obligated to present. I have learned a great deal about many different Web 2.0 tools, so the question wasn't "Will I?" but "What will I present on?".

I have become a fan of wikis in the past year, Wikispaces in particular, so much so that our district purchased a Private Label license for Wikispaces. Even though I am huge proponent of the technology, there are others out there, such as Vicki Davis, who I feel are much more versed on using wikis than I am. Also, I am not in the classroom and I feel the ones who can best speak on the classroom uses of wikis are those who use it with their students. So, perhaps after another year of using wikis in my district with my teachers, I might take up that topic an co-present with a panel.

Then there is social bookmarking. I have used Del.icio.us (now simply Delicious) for years until Diigo came onto the scene. Could I speak on Diigo for an entire hour? Sure. Do I want to bore them to death? No.

Then I thought about Twitter and Plurk, the latter of which I discovered this summer during the NECC conference as Twitter took a complete nosedive due to the high volume of traffic. Both are microblogging platforms, however each platform is a bit different. Could I talk about both of these for an hour? Yes. Did I really want to? Again...no.

However, what all of these had in common for me, plus a few other Web 2.0 sites, was that I use all of them as a part of my PLN (Personal or Professional Learning Network). When I created my it, I had NO idea what I was doing or how to foster its development, much less how to get started. It all kind of happened at random and had there been a "guide", I might have been able to gain so much more from my PLN earlier than I did.

So, that settled it for me. I was going to do a presentation on Professional Learning Networks and how powerful of a resource they could be. With that resolved, I turned to my own PLN for assistance, which is what I'll talk about in Part II of Harnessing The Power of My PLN.

Wikispaces Celebrates 100,000 Free Teacher Wikis

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Wikispaces just announced that they have reached their goal of giving away 100,000 wikis to teachers! How are they celebrating? By giving away 250,000 MORE wikis!

Also in their announcement they have promised free online live events that will,

share Wikispaces news, give short tutorials on how best to use Wikispaces in the classroom, hear success stories and best practices from educators like you, answer your questions, and connect people so we can all share and learn from each other.

I would like to applaud their support of educators and ask that more Web 2.0 developers follow their example and that of sites like Animoto and Voicethread, too.

For those time I DO get mail...

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:14:00 +0000

This was shared on Plurk today and couldn't resist posting it here. This would be one letter opener I don't think I'd misplace.

How NOT to use Power Point

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:44:00 +0000

I was searching for a completely different video and ran across this one on TeacherTube and thought I would share it. It's funny, but the scary thing is that I know people who use Power Point like this!

How to Private Plurk

noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Bucky-Beaver) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:03:00 +0000

There seems to be a lot of discussion on Plurk about how to privately plurk. I admit to struggling with it myself and it is a bit finicky. So, I created this video, which I hope will help.

I'm cobannon on Plurk. Come try it out. The conversations are great!