Any of you that know me knows that I hate to read! I know, I know…I’m an educator and I need to foster that desire to read and to learn in students. We need to encourage students to read the great classics! I agree, but for me this never came easy! Ugh…I’m a math geek and I could never figure out why some people could sit for days and read those hundreds and thousands of pages of text called literature. Reading is hard for me and frankly when I was young my parents had to practically bribe me to read (…or threaten …whichever way one looks at it! ) Being mathematically inclined, everything is literal to me. I absolutely cannot read between the lines. Why then should I read something I do not understand?

Well, here comes Miss Havisham! I came across this article in the USA Today ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-09-07-jenny-sawyer-60-second-recap-classics_N.htm) which explains that a young, very tech-savvy and very smart woman is opening doors for those students like myself to actually understand the reasons behind those long, long novels. This is a huge task to accomplish, but from the samples on her site that I’ve seen so far, this idea is a winner! Hey…she even has tempted someone like me to want to read!

For almost all of the books listed, she has 60 second clips of the overview, plot, cast, theme(s), symbols, motifs and conclusion. Unlike SparkNotes or CliffNotes, these clips do not seem to give enough information for a student to attempt to take a test without reading the book. However, it does explain enough to entice students to read or clarify information. It seems to direct students to the correct train of thought. Of course, don’t listen to this non-reader, watch and listen to Gabby, a student, responding to Great Expectations on this 60second club recap – ( http://www.60secondrecap.com/club/thread/50/ ).

Keep in mind, I’m not an English major and not a huge reader, so I would love to hear thoughts from those of you that are English teachers and/or avid readers. Has Jenny Sawyer (Miss Havisham) created something that can be used in your classroom to entice young readers? Is her information about the books on target? Do you think this is something needed today? Let me know.

Visit the 60 Second Recap at http://www.60secondrecap.com/.

A couple of coworkers and myself were working today on a digital imaging presentation.  My part of the presentation will be to talk to the group about resizing images.  Of course to increase my knowledge, I googled it!  One of my finds was “Windows Live Photo Gallery”.  Being a Microsoft product I felt somewhat confident it would be a safe download so off I went to learn more.  While at the site I viewed two short video clips on the product’s ease of use from Alexa age 7 and Kylie age 4 1/2 (which are both worth viewing if for no other reason to verify the fact that it’s okay to ask for help from your four year old grandson or granddaughter!)   I’m sold…so I start the download.  While downloading this product it asked me to check which of the Live products I would like to download.  Besides the Photo Gallery, I also downloaded Window’s Live Writer.  This is a tool to help you with your blog writing.  Since I was reminded that it was my turn to blog…I thought “why not try it?”  In fact, I am writing this blog through Live Writer right now.

When I first started using the program it asked me to configure the program for use with my blog.

Next, it asked me what blog service I used and if I wanted to create a blog if I did not have one.   I went through the rest of the process of setting up the blog. 

Once finished, a new window appeared so that I could start writing the blog.  It was very user friendly.  I would however recommend that the user check the blog after writing to make sure that it appears the way the writer intended. 

After I’m finished with writing this blog, I am planning to click “Publish” at the top of the screen.   If you are reading this right now…then “it worked!”   This is a good little tool. I would recommend this for those of you that would like to start blogging but need something easy to use.

Peggy Sheehy

The theme seems to always be “We’ve got to change, change, change”…”We’ve got to prepare for the future!”…We have to change the way we teach!  Students are not the same as they were when we were young!”   Yet…where are the answers?  Where is the “how”?  I feel like I’m in a house on fire with no doors.  I feel the urgency to get out…I know what I need to do…but no one is showing me the exit!  They yell “GET OUT!”  There are no doors or windows.  I know I have to create one…but how?

I keep hearing people state “we want people to start asking questions, to start thinking.”  True…but many educators “do not know what they don’t know”.  I want people to start developing answers and to show educators “how” to start finding their own answers.  Granted there were a few sessions at the conference that did just this.  Sonny Magata’s session  21st Century Learning Communities was absolutely incredible.  Not only was the information he gave relevant in showing a teacher how a student learns, he modeled wonderful techniques using the promethean board.    Peggy Sheehy’s session From Good Intentions to Best Practices:  Ramapo Islands Year 2 was extremely inspiring.   And while most districts are eons from incorporated virtual classrooms with avitars into their school environment, I do strongly believe this will be the classroom of tomorrow.  

I urge today’s ed tech leaders to stop lecturing schools as to what they are doing wrong and start teaching them how to do it right. 

This was a concurrent session that I conducted at the Upstate Technology Conference this year.  The session was really directed at simplifing one’s life outside the classroom.  We discussed Google Documents, Google Calendar, Bloglines and Jott.  Jott seemed to be the tool that attracted the most interests and responses.  If you are not familiar with Jott….try it out.  It does quite a few things but what interested teachers the most was the ability to call Jott, leave a message, have it converted to text and then have the text sent to their son or daughter’s cell phone.

Is this of educational value?…maybe not..but it’s my experience that if you can get someone excited about one piece of technology then they are much more approachable about other areas.

Today is the first day of the Upstate Technology Conference with pre-conference sessions starting.  My first session is a hands-on session using Audacity.  Audacity is a great FREE program that one can download to record and edit audio.  This program is easy to use and the site has quite a bit of information.  If this isn’t enough information to get you started then check out their wiki or forum!    At the wiki, there are great tutorials and tips.  If you are one of those (like me!) that need a manual, check out these two…   the reference guide and the user’s manual.

In my session, I also mentioned the Christmas present I had given my husband.  (For those of you who were not in my session…my husband has over 500 record albums which are gathering dust!  I bought him a device that will let him connect his turntable to his iPod or flash drive and record his albums.)  The name of the device is iRecord.  You can find more information about this device by clicking here.  We bought the cheaper one of the two…and it works great!

Oh yeah…one more thing…click here to download my PowerPoint for the audacity session.  Feel free to use it, add to it, or whatever! 

Most people probably know of this tip…but in case you haven’t… Using transitions from page to page is very useful in your flipcharts.  When I don’t use transitions, I sometimes forget “have I turned the page or not?”  The default setting in ActivStudio is “no transition”.  So if you would like to add just a wee bit of flare – do the following:

Right click over your arrows that cause the page to move forward and backward.   

If you then click on the arrow in the transition box, you will see options for page transitions.  My favorite is cube face rotate.  Once set, the setting is kept until you change it. 

Now my flipchart pages change with flare!   ( …and I get less lost!)

Finally a web 2.0 that’s easy.   I ran across this website approximately 6 months ago called Jott, cool site allows you to call a number, leave a message and then Jott translates and sends it to your e-mail. It’s your own personal recorder without the sticker price. listen  (when you get to the site – click on the speaker to the left to hear the original message I called in)

Powered by Jott

What’s really cool is that the paragraph above was a voice message I called into Jott and asked that it be translated into my blog.  I did not have to type it! (.. I did have to correct a few minor errors but after listening to it I understand why it made the mistakes…I did not talk very clearly!).  Jott takes the first few words of your message and uses that as the title of your blog…then you have 30 seconds of recording time to leave a verbal message that will be translated.  Jott allows you to convert voice messages into emails, reminders, blogs, even twitter.  Just call – tell them where you would like to jott and in less than a minute it’s there.

While I may not use it regularly to blog, I think I will use it alot for reminders.  I’ve never got the hang of texting…but I do know how to speed dial!  Jott gives me a means to have those thoughts and ideas while driving down the road turned into a list or email that reminds me of things I need to do.  This is one web 2.0 tool that even my husband said he could use! 

It’s been almost two months since I’ve written in my blog, been in the office more than an hour, or slept an entire night without waking up from computer or Promethean dreams.    I need to be “refreshed”!  ha-ha

For those of you not from Greenville County, South Carolina….let me explain.  I am very fortunate to work in Greenville County.  Our county is very supportive of technology integration and actually places money into such integration.   We have a “refresh” program where once every five years, I go into the schools and help organize an update for computers, technology, etc.  However, this is a year long process.  We do not just go in and buy new equipment.  For a school to get this “refresh”, they must spend a year working on a technology plan unique to their school.  From this technology plan, we (district) desides what equipment is needed.  After being “refreshed”, a school should have a 1 to 4 ratio (1 student computer per 4 students).  This ratio does not include teacher computers.  That is our goal anyway.  Just recently we moved 5 schools into new facilities over Christmas.  There were many people in our district that gave up their Christmas break to help get these schools ready for the beginning of January.  I bet most of our community and other school employees do not realize how many people and hours are involved in setting up these schools.  I know myself that I worked everyday of Christmas Break except for two.   I want to personally thank the many many employees that put forth hours upon hours to help me with all of the technology.  All of you are incredible!

 Well, hopefully it will not take me two months to post again!  Have a great day!

One of the biggest weaknesses I see in schools is their technology plan or lack there of.  In my 20+ years of teaching I have seen many plans created at the school level.  Usually these plans, whether they are technology, school improvement, or accreditation, are created first because it is a requirement and second because it is a requirement.  Just curious… how many times have you seen a school, without any prodding, decide that they need to plan because they have a deep desire to improve the school or better the education they are giving the student?  Now don’t get me wrong, teachers individually do this type of planning on a daily basis…but we are talking  the school as a whole.  Very rarely do I see this voluntarily.  Usually the district or state has mandated this planning and it becomes just ”one more thing” that has to be done by the school.   Because of this “extra” burden schools develop committees to research and create this plan.  Many of these planning processes dictated by the state or district are very good….and if don’t correctly can lead to much success.  However, as we all know, by the time it gets to the school level, the school is given such a ridiculous time-line to create the plan that rarely does anything of value come from it. When I first started in Instructional Technology, my district had implemented a five year “refresh” plan for technology.  I am very proud to say that I feel the support my district has given to this effort is incredible.  I am also very proud to say that I feel that the teachers in my district have resources that very few districts have.   However, planning at the school level still needs to take place and take place in such a way that the needs of the students are met without overwhelming a faculty that does not yet have the technology skill to implement it nor in some cases the funds.So what should a school do first?  Develop a technology committee.  This committee should be no less than six people and no more than ten.  When a committee gets too large, especially a committee of teachers…no one can agree!  You might also ask why even numbers?  Six and ten.  Because the first person on the committee must be the principal, who always has the last word (thus giving him/her an odd number of members left to have a majority rule). “ Sorry Mr. Principal…this is not a committee that you can pass off to one of your assistants.”  If your faculty is to integrate technology well, they must know that the head honcho feels this is important and has his/her hands in the process from start to finish.  So Mr. Principal you are not tech savvy?  Do not worry.  The BEST planning process and plan I’ve seen thus far came from a principal who had a hard time with the mouse…but was quick to say that technology IS important and his students were not going to be left behind!  His insistence on this fact made his faculty want to move forward and allowed the faculty a comfort level.   It was okay not to know technology but what was not allowed was the unwillingness to learn! This leads me to the second person that must be on the committee.  One of your committee members must be a NON-tech savvy person.  “But this is a technology committee!”  Precisely.  You need someone who does not have technical skills but has the attitude that they will do and learn anything to help their students.  This person is key…many times a technology committee consists of people who are technology experts per se.  Those of us that know…sometimes forget what it is like not to know.  How can a committee with knowledge create valuable professional development for those who do not?  Many times, we who “think” we know, forget what it was like not to.  When dealing with technology one cannot assume what the basics are.  You need an expert in that field…thus the “great attitude” non-tech savvy person.  This person also is a valuable asset because he/she can sell your plan to all those with technology phobia.

Person number three should be your Instructional or Curriculum coach if your school has one.  Person number four should be the media specialist.  If you teach high school, consider also that one of your committee members might should be a student…since they have a vested part in this plan.  The rest of your committee should be teachers…one from each grade level for elementary or various departments if secondary.

I have been working with technology planning in schools for approximately three years.  In these three years some of the mistakes I have seen are:  1) “The Crowded Committee – too many people on a committee…plan tends to go off in many directions with too many goals.  2) “The “I” Plan” – too few people on a committee or the one person that writes the entire plan…school has no buy-in and the plan becomes useless.  3) “The Token Committee” – committee is created but not used…either the principal or another key player ignores committee and writes plan on their own.  4)  Believe it or not…”The Parent Committee” – too many parents on the committee.  Parents and community are vital parts of technology planning, but they should not outnumber educators on this committee. 

Creating a sound technology committee is just the first step in effective technology planning as I have observed.  You’ve created the committee…now what?  That’s in my next post.

I just watched a webcast of “Wireless & Well Prepared:  The E-mergence of Technology in the Classroom”.  Interesting…I felt that it was a sincere attempt to talk about technology in the classroom but that was about it…just talk.  It gave creedance to the fact that technology is here to stay in our education system and may have increased the awareness of technology in education, but unfortunately it did not give a clear direction where each individual school district should go in aiding their teachers with this new technology.  I feel very strongly about this topic.  One of my main responsibilities in my district is to work with individual schools to create an effective technology plan.  The very first thing I discuss with these schools is to NOT look at other school plans.  Each school is unique and their needs and financial situations differ.  One size does not fit all.   In the next couple of posts, I will go through the process that I use with my district.  Hopefully this may help someone.  Also, if you have any suggestions about school technology planning or individual teacher planning, please feel free to leave a comment.  Have a great day!