At a staff meeting this week we talked about our "Homework Hotline." This is a phone feature where teachers record their homework daily for parents to check on in the evening. Among its inconvenient features is that parents have to call back to access different teachers. We quickly agreed this technology was past its prime, and I volunteered to help set up teacher websites that could all be linked to the district site.
So...one week from tomorrow I have one half of an hour to train over 30 teachers to set up and use their own blog (Don't worry no one expects to complete this in that limited time. It will be an introduction). Maybe half of the teachers have been exposed to or set up some kind of on-line site before. The other half are likely to be a bit intimidated by this and are looking for simple and easy. I created a Google Doc survey to try to determine what the teachers want to do on their site. Most teachers do not check their e-mail on weekends, let alone a holiday so I hope to get most responses on Tuesday.
My thoughts are to show them my blog, class blog, and class wiki along with a few other teacher/school blogs so they can see some possibilities. In particular, I want to show them how I am using Google Calendar as my lesson plan book and embedding it in our class wiki to share with parents and students. I am leaning against a website because it might be too complex. I am also thinking against blogs because I feel like they are more difficult to customize. I think teachers do not really want posts as much as pages divided by their classes.
Therefore I am leaning toward teaching them to use a wiki, in particular Wikispaces. It is simple yet allows them to add almost anything. It is also easy to maintain different pages. The biggest disadvantage that I see is that "the look" of them is simple and not very attractive. But the biggest thing is that they are easy for teachers. Later I can introduce something more complex for those who are interested.
Teachers will be able to choose whatever platform or site that they want, but most will use whatever I show them. So readers what platform would you recommend? Blog, website, or wiki? What site would you use? Remember we are looking for simple use.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
PLN as Crediblity Test
This week I sat through a six hour ESL training that was painfully presented. The presenter was a university professor. We were given a book co-written by a husband/wife team who were her colleagues at her school. The intended audience of said book was student teachers in a college ESL program.
She presented with "Death by Powerpoint" the whole day using almost 300 slides. It was a canned presentation of the author's work with many slides being identical text to the handouts sitting in front of me. I am positive that she did not create the powerpoint presentation herself. She was working for the publisher of the book.
Now you can probably already guess I was not engaged or overly impressed with this professional development. During a break I went up to the presenter and asked if she knew Larry Ferlazzo from my PLN. Larry is in my opinion one of the top educational bloggers and sources of ESL resources in the world.
She said, "No." When I explained who he was she said, "I am not good with technology." (I already knew that I am watching your Powerpoint for hours) Later is her preso, she shared his name with the whole group again telling everyone, "I am not good with technology."
This was unacceptable to me. Now I have lost all credibility with her. How can a professor, paid speaker, "expert" tell us that she "is not good with technology"? How can she not know other experts in her field? How can she NOT be connected with other ESL teachers from around the world? I do not teach ESL but off the top of my head I can name 5 ESL teachers located around the world that I could tweet at anytime and have answers in less than 24 hours.
What if I told her, "Oh, I don't teach ESL" and dismiss her whole session as not relevant to me. That would not be professional of me. I am expected to learn new teaching strategies, and rightly so. Of course it was repeated over and over that the reason she was brought in was because our ESL students were our greatest weakness on the state standardized tests.
Since I have been involved in building a PLN on-line, I now feel that this is a new standard to evaluate speakers in my professional development. So am I being too harsh? Is it fair/right to judge people based on whether or not they are connected to other experts around the world? Should a professional speaker lose some credibility (notice I am not saying all) if they do not have a PLN who pushes them philosophically and keeps them engaged in current discussions in their area of expertise?
She presented with "Death by Powerpoint" the whole day using almost 300 slides. It was a canned presentation of the author's work with many slides being identical text to the handouts sitting in front of me. I am positive that she did not create the powerpoint presentation herself. She was working for the publisher of the book.
Now you can probably already guess I was not engaged or overly impressed with this professional development. During a break I went up to the presenter and asked if she knew Larry Ferlazzo from my PLN. Larry is in my opinion one of the top educational bloggers and sources of ESL resources in the world.
She said, "No." When I explained who he was she said, "I am not good with technology." (I already knew that I am watching your Powerpoint for hours) Later is her preso, she shared his name with the whole group again telling everyone, "I am not good with technology."
This was unacceptable to me. Now I have lost all credibility with her. How can a professor, paid speaker, "expert" tell us that she "is not good with technology"? How can she not know other experts in her field? How can she NOT be connected with other ESL teachers from around the world? I do not teach ESL but off the top of my head I can name 5 ESL teachers located around the world that I could tweet at anytime and have answers in less than 24 hours.
What if I told her, "Oh, I don't teach ESL" and dismiss her whole session as not relevant to me. That would not be professional of me. I am expected to learn new teaching strategies, and rightly so. Of course it was repeated over and over that the reason she was brought in was because our ESL students were our greatest weakness on the state standardized tests.
Since I have been involved in building a PLN on-line, I now feel that this is a new standard to evaluate speakers in my professional development. So am I being too harsh? Is it fair/right to judge people based on whether or not they are connected to other experts around the world? Should a professional speaker lose some credibility (notice I am not saying all) if they do not have a PLN who pushes them philosophically and keeps them engaged in current discussions in their area of expertise?
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Google Docs Computer Use Survey
Thanks to a tweet and link from @intrepidteacher I got the idea and source to create a survey about computer usage to start off the school year. He shared this PDF file to me via twitter. I do not know the original author to give credit to.
I find PDF to be terrible to work with plus I wanted to tweak it a bit so I used it to create a survey form in Google Docs.
The beauty of this is that it is paperless and I can invite students by e-mail to fill it out and the results will automatically be put into a spreadsheet for me to easily see the results. If you do not know how to do this check out this video which explains how to make a quiz in Google Docs simply.
I have shared a copy of this Doc with everyone giving you editor's rights. Feel free to use this survey or adapt as you see fit. Just go to this link. Got to File-Create a new copy. That step is important; otherwise you will be sharing results with everyone and they can edit your copy.
Next rename it as you please and change the rights so it is not shared with everyone.
If you goto Form you can see options to edit form, see live form, and embed form.
To use with students share it with them to view only by their e-mail addresses.
I find PDF to be terrible to work with plus I wanted to tweak it a bit so I used it to create a survey form in Google Docs.
The beauty of this is that it is paperless and I can invite students by e-mail to fill it out and the results will automatically be put into a spreadsheet for me to easily see the results. If you do not know how to do this check out this video which explains how to make a quiz in Google Docs simply.
I have shared a copy of this Doc with everyone giving you editor's rights. Feel free to use this survey or adapt as you see fit. Just go to this link. Got to File-Create a new copy. That step is important; otherwise you will be sharing results with everyone and they can edit your copy.
Next rename it as you please and change the rights so it is not shared with everyone.
If you goto Form you can see options to edit form, see live form, and embed form.
To use with students share it with them to view only by their e-mail addresses.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Teaching math backwards
As I have mentioned I will be teaching my first math class this year-6th grade (not counting student and substitute teaching). I want to drop the textbook as much as possible, but have to admit that I am a bit intimidated to commit to not using it at all. I see textbooks as a crutch for teachers because I think that they are terrible. But textbooks do make it easier to plan and teach and I am not sure I can prep without it every day.
Today I was challenged by two blog posts to give it a realistic try. The first is by Nancy Stewart about 8 principals that she will use in teaching her special education math class. She mentions ditching the textbook which is encouraging just to hear that others are taking the same step. She also gives some good ideas on how to at the same time make math more real world and personally relevant to students.
She also mentions one of my favorite bloggers Ira Socol and links to this post. Math teachers you must read this post as Ira paints alternative ways to teach math and turns much of my thinking upside-down. He shows examples of using sports, construction, cooking, and money to make math authentic and meaningful. I am sure he would argue that my times table idea is a waste of time.
The most challenging thought to me was a comment (you must read the comments) by Homer the Brave:
"Start with philosophy. Teach kids about logical systems. Teach them how to understand a provable statement and how to spot a fallacy. Then say, 'We're going to now apply this same set of rules about philosophy to math.' Then teach algebra. The details of arithmetic will then follow, imbued with purpose and meaning.
So basically we teach math backwards arithmetic, algebra, and then philosophy. I personally was an excellent math student in school because I was very good at memorizing and working algorithms. It was not until taking classes about teaching math in college that I understood the philosophy and reasoning behind the math. Homer argues that we should start with the philosophy (logic) and then move to algebra with arithmetic last. This is very new to me but does make sense.
Of course this change would have to happen at the district curriculum level. The easy cop out for me is that I must teach to the standards assigned to me. But I can at the same time as teaching the standards, teach the logic and philosophy behind the math. I can teach authentically without the textbook as much as possible. I am up for the challenge. How about you?
Today I was challenged by two blog posts to give it a realistic try. The first is by Nancy Stewart about 8 principals that she will use in teaching her special education math class. She mentions ditching the textbook which is encouraging just to hear that others are taking the same step. She also gives some good ideas on how to at the same time make math more real world and personally relevant to students.
She also mentions one of my favorite bloggers Ira Socol and links to this post. Math teachers you must read this post as Ira paints alternative ways to teach math and turns much of my thinking upside-down. He shows examples of using sports, construction, cooking, and money to make math authentic and meaningful. I am sure he would argue that my times table idea is a waste of time.
The most challenging thought to me was a comment (you must read the comments) by Homer the Brave:
"Start with philosophy. Teach kids about logical systems. Teach them how to understand a provable statement and how to spot a fallacy. Then say, 'We're going to now apply this same set of rules about philosophy to math.' Then teach algebra. The details of arithmetic will then follow, imbued with purpose and meaning.
So basically we teach math backwards arithmetic, algebra, and then philosophy. I personally was an excellent math student in school because I was very good at memorizing and working algorithms. It was not until taking classes about teaching math in college that I understood the philosophy and reasoning behind the math. Homer argues that we should start with the philosophy (logic) and then move to algebra with arithmetic last. This is very new to me but does make sense.
Of course this change would have to happen at the district curriculum level. The easy cop out for me is that I must teach to the standards assigned to me. But I can at the same time as teaching the standards, teach the logic and philosophy behind the math. I can teach authentically without the textbook as much as possible. I am up for the challenge. How about you?
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