Math Reflections

Area of Irregular Shapes

2011-04-14T08:10:00.001-06:00

Fourth Graders...

What was this activity all about? What was hard about it? What does it have to do with fourth grade math?

Area of Irregular Shapes

2011-04-14T08:08:00.000-06:00

Fourth Graders...

What was this activity all about? What was hard about it? What does this have to do with fourth grade math?

Area of Irregular Shapes

2011-04-14T08:05:00.000-06:00

Fourth graders...

Why were you doing this activity? What was a challenge about it? What does this have to do with math?

PEBC Math Institute: Teaching Math for Understanding

2011-01-16T21:02:00.001-07:00

--Takeaways --

How do I teach math for understanding? "Teach the mathematician, not the problem"

How can I take what I have learned into student blogging?

Workshop Model -- I have to begin implementing! What are my first steps?
Three parts, crafting/mini lesson, composing/ work time/ conferring, reflecting
A "catch and release" process

1. MiniLesson / CraftingPutting doc cam on floor so we can share more closely?

2. Composing / Work Time
listening, conferring, sharing ideas, praise for good thinking.

3. Reflecting
what did you notice, a ha! from today?
sticky note, ticket out the door.
so what?
has your thinking solidified or changed?
self assessment

Quote: "Teaching is a personal craft."

How do you build a community of learners?
--they need to know you care
--they need to have a voice

Discourse: What is it?
Learners making meaning of content through accountable, engaged conversation

Concept mapping

WHAT NOW??
Implement 3 step problem solving process (article)
Revisit Checkerboard Problem with students, have them create posters of their thinking. Affirm good thinking over correct problems.
Concept Mapping - science or geometry. Give a list of words, students create posters and hang up.
Workshop model
-get rid of groups
-rearrange front of room
-First plan? work on minilessons/ catch and release.

Promethean PDU Final Reflection

2010-05-19T12:52:00.002-06:00

I received my Promethean Board in January. Actually, it was delivered and being installed on the Friday before winter break. I was a little disappointed to go to break knowing that the board was in my classroom waiting to be used. When I returned from break, I was eager to get started.

Prior to coming to DPS I had a SmartBoard in my room for two years and I really enjoyed using it and felt that in some ways it changed the way I taught. The first thing I did upon returning from winter break was to attend my first training. During Modules 1 and 2 I learned the basics of using the software and creating flipcharts. I also felt it was really important for me to simply use the board every day, even if I was using it like a glorified white board. This was a great opportunity to get used to navigating the software by creating flipcharts, duplicating pages, using features and exploring resources.

One of the most useful aspects of the training and the PDU is the experience I got exploring resources that are already out there, especially on the Promethean Planet website. I think it is crucial that we share the flipcharts with each other, rather than every teacher creating everything from scratch. During my Module 3 and 4 training, I found a flipchart on ecosystems that I used in my classroom. It was a very creative flipchart which used layered images and reveal tools. I downloaded the flipchart and added video to make it work better for my students. This inspired me to be more creative in the way that I created flipcharts for my classroom. I spent a workday creating my own math flipchart on addition and subtraction of fractions. I was disappointed that it took me all day to create what I thought was a useful flipchart, but in the end I was proud of what I created. It really impacted the learning in my classroom because I had thought that fractions would be difficult for my students to grasp. I created a flipchart with pattern blocks that were the same that students would use at their desks. By manipulating the pattern blocks, they could better understand the meaning of the problems they were solving.

During this PDU I also reflected on my experiences in two ways. I reflected on my blog and I participated in discussion groups on the Promethean Wiki. I was asked to answer various questions about my experiences with the Promethean board on my blog. The most interesting question asked if I frequently offer control of the ActivPen to your students. Offering control of the ActivPen has been key to students being more engaged and that is the whole point of having an interactive white board in my classroom. These kinds of boards are sometimes criticized because it is still a "one person" centered learning environment. But if kids are offered control of the board through the pen, or the slates or the clickers, they are much more engaged and it is much more student centered. If they aren't offered the opportunity to use the Promethean Board, they run the risk of being passive observers rather than participants. I was in a training once with a middle school teacher who had a SmartBoard and his philosophy was, the students should be touching the SmartBoard more than the teacher.

This PDU has been important to me for a couple of reasons. First, I think that it has helped me increase the student engagement in my classroom. During one lesson students were manipulating shapes to demonstrate addition and subtraction of fractions on a flipchart that I created during a Promethean work day. As a problem came up, one student was solving it on the Promethean Board, while others were doing it with manipulatives at their seats. Students at their seats were checking the student up front, while also checking their own work. The whole time they were staying on-task because they wanted to be the next one at the board. It was very engaging. It has also been important for the purpose of sharing information with other teachers. Often, teachers feel that we our isolated in our classroom, struggling to help students learn. This PDU has given me an opportunity to share ideas on the blog, discuss issues on the wiki and discuss ideas and issues with other participants. For example, I was having an issue playing videos on the board and then using a feature to capture individual frames of the video. This is a great feature for stopping video and discussing certain sections of the video with them. I was playing a cooking video that was about fractions and capturing frames of ingredients being measured and added. I posted my question on the PDU wiki and received an answer within a day that allowed me to utilize this important feature.

I learned a tremendous amount in this PDU. I learned great ideas from other participants. We had our final face-to-face meeting at the beginning of May where elementary teachers shared a lesson that they had created. I was totally impressed with what other teachers have created. There was an art teacher teaching kids about color theory. A music teacher was teaching kids about setting goals and creating bar graphs about what they want to be when they grow up, melding together music and math. I learned how to better link pages in my flip charts to other flip charts. I learned how to drag and drop actions from the action browser onto pages, which makes accessing features on the fly much easier. I learned that there is another teacher in my grade level who has created a flipchart for every math lesson in everyday math in the fourth grade. It would be very useful if all of the lessons were available to all teachers so that we aren't recreating lessons independent of each other. I am planning on using the ActivInspire software to plan lessons in math and science. As we create these lessons that are aligned with our curriculum, it will become much easier to use and modify these lessons that are directly related to what we teach every day. I am excited to apply all that I have learned in the modules. I have learned about creating containers in the ActivInspire software. A container is where you can place other objects and then you can tell the container to accept or reject certain kinds of objects. This would be very useful for teaching kids about polygons for example. I could create a container that accepts only polygons and if a student tries to place an object that isn't a polygon, it will be rejected.

There are also some specific tools in the ActiveInspire software that I have used a tremendous amount. I was using a timer found in the shared resources, but found out about the clock in Module 3/4 training. The clock is found on the menu bar under "tools" then "more tools". You can display an analog and/or a digital clock. You can also have it count down like a stopwatch and then repeat automatically, or perform an action after the countdown, like move to the next slide. Very basic and very useful. I use it all the time to keep students on task, especially when we are working through a multi-step science experiment. I also love the resource browser. I can find gadgets like timers, dice and backgrounds. Some of my favorites are the paper backgrounds. I can make the board look exactly like my students' science notebooks and model how I want them to create entries. Another is desktop annotation. I don't use it everyday, but when I need it I like how convenient this feature is. I have been using it to annotate over math websites to demonstrate how to play math online activities and to annotate over maps to demonstrate scale. The ability to save these annotations using the camera tool makes it extremely powerful.

This PDU has impacted my practice. It has changed the way that I plan. For math, I create the math message and mental math as a page in my flipchart. Then I can create pages with pictures, links, videos, demonstrations that will supplement my direct teaching. When it comes time to teach the lesson, I simply open up the flipchart and consult it as I would consult the teacher manual. Then, I can reflect on the lesson, modify and save it so that it is better next time. It has also made me think more deeply about how to best engage the learners in my classroom. I don't want the Promethean Board to be a place where students look to see me teach, or a piece of technology that they don't get to touch. Having this technology has made me think: Am I engaging students? Are they getting the opportunity to get out of their seats and interact with the board and with each other? It has also impacted my day to day practice. I use my Promethean board constantly. One lesson that I thought went well but wasn't planned ahead of time was one where I used the board to help kids plan a project they were doing on our ecosystems unit. I took all of the required documents they needed and made them into a flipchart. We reviewed, they with highlighters and paper, me with the Promethean highlighter. I then imported all of the pages as .jpg files and put them on our class wiki. I was amazed at the number of students who told me that they accessed the documents online to show their parents or to work on the projects over the weekend. I thought it was very effective to have the exact documents on the wiki that we did in class. It wasn't fancy or pretty, but it seemed to be very effective.

Another major impact is that everything can be saved, unlike on an old-fashioned white board. So, if I begin a conversation with students about food chains, we can save and continue or review the next day. I also create science groups on my Promethean Board, save it and look at the groups every couple of days. Another impact is the ability to move from the white board space to anywhere else on the computer or web. Again, we have a conversation about food chains, then move over to a BrianPop movie about the topic. Links can be embedded in flipcharts as well.

This experience has impacted my students' learning in many ways. They are simply more excited and engaged in the learning in my classroom. I am able to engage students with a piece of technology that is very exciting to them. The Promethean Board can still only engage one user at a time (with the "Dual User" feature it can engage two users). It is still often a situation of 25 students in their desks, watching two users at the board. I still need to be a good teacher and engage those students in their seats with questions that keep their minds active, so that they aren't just sitting there disengaged, hoping they will get chosen next. Yes, engagement is higher because you can utilize all things that are on your computer, like images, video, flipcharts, websites, but it doesn't automatically improve engagement. This is why I think the ActiveExpression Learner Response System is the best for student engagement. They are really simple to use, you can setup a quick assessment on the fly, and every single student is engaged. Most days I use my Promethean Board constantly, sometimes just jotting notes like I would on an old fashioned dry-erase board.

There are many ways I will use my learning in my future practice. I am going to continue with the learning modules. I am most looking forward to learning more about how to better use the ActivExpressions Learner Response System. I can use it in a very basic way, but I am seeing from other participants that there are many features that I haven't used yet. I am most interested in having students take self-paced tests. I will continue to use it to access interactive manipulatives for math using EM Games or the Virtual Manipulatives math site. I would like to extend this to allowing students to do math activities on the Promethean Board as center work, or when they are normally playing other math games. I will continue to create flipcharts around my Everyday Math lessons. I will use it to create a system where I put my warm up on the PB and begin my lesson there. I will continue to watch science videos with students circling key parts that demonstrate a concept. I want to continue to create science files with my class throughout a science unit beginning with KWL, adding concepts, ending with key points, vocabulary. This way, when I want to teach it next year, I have a document of what I did. I have also thought that it would be really useful to have students create a Virtual Science Notebook with the help of the Promethean Board.

Our school improvement plan is focused around writing. Although I am not a writing teacher, there are many opportunities for students to write when they are in math and science. In science, students need to keep themselves very organized so they can keep track of the steps of their experiments and data. I use the Promethean Board connected to my document camera to keep my own science notebook so I can carefully model how we progress through the steps of the scientific method. I also use it, with the help of the notebook background, to also model science notebooking. In math we have been focusing on how to think deeper and explain our thinking in math. As CSAP approached, we spent time as a class creating exemplars of constructed response questions. Every day we would look at a couple of examples and together we would read over the question to find out exactly what kind of information we need to gather and what the question is asking. We took notes together on the board. Students would then work on the problems. The we would use the document camera and Promethean Board to collaborate and craft advanced responses. Students would take turns coming to the board and showing their answers. I displayed their responses outside my classroom door. I found students to be very engaged in this process. Without the Promethean Board I think they would have found it dull.

Overall, my experience in the Promethean Board PDU has been a very positive one. I would be attending the trainings even if I didn't participate in this PDU, but the PDU allowed me to collaborate with my colleagues around the district. At our final face-to-face meeting many, including myself, expressed interest in continuing to reflect on our blogs, engage in discussions on the wiki, and find a way to continue to share flipchart lessons that we create.

Teaching Elementary Philosophy?

2010-04-17T21:06:00.001-06:00

“The world is new to them and they want to figure things out,” says Professor Matthews, who has written extensively about children and philosophy. “Young children very often engage in reasoning that professional philosophers can recognize as philosophical, but typically their parents or teachers don’t react in a way that encourages them. They might say, ‘That’s cute,’ but they don’t engage the children in thinking further about whatever the issue is.”

This fits in to our conversation about deeper level thinking. The New York Times article is here. It is about a philosopher, Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg, who is teaching elementary students (second graders) philosophy through children's literature. He wrote a book about it called, "Big Ideas for Little Kids: Teaching Philosophy Through Children’s Literature” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009)

Published: April 8, 2010
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

Q8: Favorite Promethean Lesson

2010-03-24T12:57:00.002-06:00

I created a lesson at a work day that was on fractions. Students had to use pattern blocks to determine the fractions. What fraction of a hexagon is a small triangle? What fraction of a large rhombus is a small triangle? Students did the manipulating at their desks while I demonstrated and guided them at the Promethean board. By the end, students were coming up to the board to demonstrate their understanding. I did the lesson several weeks ago, and when we did a review yesterday, students seem to have retained the information well.

Another lesson that I thought went well but wasn't planned ahead of time was one where I used the board to help kids plan a project they were doing on our ecosystems unit. I took all of the required documents they needed and made them into a flipchart. We reviewed, they with highlighters and paper, me with the Promethean highlighter. I then imported all of the pages as .jpg files and put them on our class wiki. I was amazed at the number of students who told me that they accessed the documents online to show their parents or to work on the projects over the weekend. I thought it was very effective to have the exact documents on the wiki that we did in class. It wasn't fancy or pretty, but it seemed to be very effective.

Ken Robinson Makes Sense

2010-03-21T19:00:00.001-06:00

"Kids are living breathing people". Uh, yes, but we continue to act as if they are data points and run them through our mass education factory and expect them to care about test scores. Ken Robinson wants us to "radically transform" our schools.

A New Lens

2010-03-14T12:41:00.001-06:00

Okay, it has happened. We have been talking at length about what we call "Deeper Level Thinking" and now nearly everything I have been reading and seeing on the web is related to it and I can't keep up! Here is my preliminary list:

Neil Degrasse Tyson talking about Science Literacy - "I am often asked, 'How do I get my kid more interested in Science?' GET OUT OF THEIR WAY!" (Straight A students get straight A's because you [teacher] don't matter to them. --ouch...)

Daniel Pink, DRiVE - The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

The Thinking Classroom - Learning and Teaching in a Culture of Thinking, Tishman, Perkins, Jay. Meg Torres' blog on this topic.

Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins

How do I (we) filter through this vast body of knowledge that says that we need to be valuing the thinking process in our students, not their grade, not the standardized test. I see my school jumping from resource to resource, then presenting each to the whole faculty like the latest is the greatest. The topic is a good one, and I think it is worthy of us spending our PD time working on it. We should collectively vett this information, experiment and experience it, then boil it all down to its most valuable points. HOW?

Technology Transformed Learning Environments

2010-03-13T08:39:00.001-07:00

As usual, David Warlick nails it when he talks about the use of technology in the classroom in this article.

Tech-infused learning certainly involves the effective and appropriate use of information (contemporary literacy), which includes accessing, working, expressing knowledge — through the networks, digitally, compellingly, and with consideration of others. But what do you look for to see that? What does the learning experience look like.

His list of 5 mirrors (not surprisingly) what we have been talking about in my school PD sessions on deeper-level thinking. Deeper level thinking involves the nurturing of the same skills. In our impromptu book study group we are reading the book THE THINKING CLASSROOM: Learning and Teaching In a Culture of Thinking by Shari Tishman; David N. Perkins; Eileen Jay. Same stuff: creating a language of thinking, emphasis on questioning, a comfort with ambiguity, encouraging conversation. If we raise the bar in terms of how much we require our students to think, they will rise to it. This doesn't require the use of prescriptive curriculum just as it doesn't require the use of technology. But the more opportunities we give students to ask and answer deep and thoughtful questions, the more confident they become as THINKERS and PROBLEM SOLVERS.

And, in following the thread between DW and another EdTech guru, Will Richardson, Will emphasizes the need to continue to talk about the value of technology in the classroom. (His blog post here.) Right now does the use of tech still remain an alternative to the "traditional" text book-paper-pencil classroom, or is it better, more valuable, more engaging in the hands of the tech-savvy teacher? Parent perception is sometimes that this is frivolous and unnecessary. My teammate and I have talked about doing a "Tech Day"-type of workshop with parents, instead we are presenting a project combining students' ecosystems projects that span science, literacy and technology. If the focus was on tech, it would still seem to be something separate from the core curriculum. Hopefully, students, parents and teachers will see the infusion of technology into the content areas as effortless and completely logical.

Q7: Do you frequently offer control of the ActivPen to your students?

2010-02-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

I think offering control of the ActivPen is key to students being more engaged. If they aren't offered the opportunity to use the Promethean Board, they run the risk of being passive observers rather than participants. I was in a training once with a middle school teacher who had a SmartBoard and his philosophy was, the students should be touching the SmartBoard more than the teacher.

Today, students were manipulating shapes to demonstrate addition and subtraction of fractions. As a problem came up, one student was solving it on the Promethean Board, while others were doing it with manipulatives at their seats. Students at their seats were checking the student up front, while also checking their own work. The whole time they were staying on-task because they wanted to be the next one at the board. Very engaging.

Q6: Student Engagement

2010-02-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

Do your students seem more engaged since you have started using your Promethean Board?

Yes, students seem more engaged. The "clickers" are the best for instant feedback and engagement. We just had P/T conferences and I heard from many parents saying that their son/daughter came home raving about the clickers. I also had a student who, after his conference was over, ran to the Promethean Board to show his mom. I gave him a blank flipchart and he demonstrated away, showing her how he had learned multiplication.

I have a question though for anyone who would care to answer: Does the Promethean Board really engage more students? My answer is this... I think the Promethean Board can still only engage one user at a time (with the "Dual User" feature it can engage two users). It is still often a situation of 25 students in their desks, watching two users at the board. I still need to be a good teacher and engage those students in their seats with questions that keep their minds active, so that they aren't just sitting there disengaged, hoping they will get chosen next. Yes, engagement is higher because you can utilize all things that are on your computer, like images, video, flipcharts, websites, but it doesn't automatically improve engagement. This is why I think the ActiveExpression Learner Response System is the best for student engagement. They are really simple to use, you can setup a quick assessment on the fly, and every single student is engaged. Don't get me wrong, I am not looking for the "silver bullet" where --poof-- everyone learns without any effort from me. That situation doesn't exist. But I find myself going back and forth. Some days I use it constantly, sometimes just jotting notes like I would on an old fashioned dry-erase board. Other days I don't use it as much, going back to paper flip charts for groups to jot ideas and post on the wall.

Engagement, ultimately, is a teacher quality.

Q5: Time Savers

2010-02-15T17:01:00.001-07:00

Here is the question: Which aspects of the software are the most effective time savers for you, allowing you to be more efficient with creation and delivery of content?

I think the biggest time saver is the "annotate over desktop" feature. Funny, I was so confused by this at first and now I really like it. I find myself showing students pictures, websites etc. and using this feature to point out key things that they need to know.

I also began using the Active Inspire clickers. I was apprehensive because I thought there would be a lot of setup time. But, I had a teammate who did it and said it was simple. Sure enough it was, and I took a Friday to just hand them out and do some review of the content from that day. I had a backup in case it didn't work. We did some multiple choice, some T or F and then I asked students to text. It comes so naturally to my third and fourth graders! I now need to do a better job of integrating it into my lessons. What a great way to do a quick review or a "ticket out the door" type of check-in after a lesson is over.

Q4: Favorite ActivInspire Tools

2010-01-23T20:52:00.003-07:00

My favorite tools so far...

Timer/Clock: I was using the timer found in the shared resources, but found out about the clock in today's Module 3/4 training. The clock is found on the menu bar under "tools" then "more tools". You can display an analog and/or a digital clock. You can also have it count down like a stopwatch and then repeat automatically, or perform an action after the countdown, like move to the next slide. Very basic and very useful.
Resource Browser: I honestly think that Smart Technologies does this better than Promethean (it may be the only thing), but I DO love the resource browser. I can find gadgets like timers, dice and backgrounds. Some of my favorites are the paper backgrounds. I can make the board look exactly like my students' science notebooks and model how I want them to create entries. I just found out that there are more resources to be downloaded at Promethean Planet, I will download them on Monday and maybe it will be even better.
Desktop Annotation: I don't use it everyday, but when I need it I like how convenient this feature is. I have been using it to annotate over math websites to demonstrate how to play math online activities and to annotate over maps to demonstrate scale. The ability to save these annotations using the camera tool makes it extremely powerful.. I'm just not there yet.

Q3: Promethean Board vs. Dry-Erase White Boards

2010-01-23T20:29:00.006-07:00

There are so many ways a Promethean Board is different than the dry erase board. I think the first major difference is that everything can be saved. Yes, I may be using my P-Board as a glorified whiteboard right now, but I can save my work from one day to the next. So, if I begin a conversation with students about food chains, we can save and continue or review the next day. I also created science groups on my glorified whiteboard, saved it and look at the groups every couple of days.

Another difference is the ability to move from the white board space to anywhere else on the computer or web. Again, we have a conversation about food chains, then move over to a BrianPop movie about the topic. Links can be embedded in flipcharts as well.

How about engagement? If students know that they will have an opportunity to interact with the P-Board, they are all engaged. With the "dual user" feature, I can hand pens to two students. This week we experimented with the slate and the kids love it. I found myself giving them tips on how to use it, but they are just fine experimenting and playing, this kind of stuff is in their blood!

And the thought of buying a lot less Expo markers doesn't break my heart...

Where do I want to be with my Promethean skills?

2009-12-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

It is a couple of days after Christmas and the break is half over. When I left my classroom last Friday they were in the midst of installing my Promethean board and the room was a disaster. I am anxious to return sometime this week just to clean up and arrange my room with this new awesome technology.

As soon as I return I want to become proficient in the use of the PB. In my experience it is best for me just to dive in and start using it. I often project images of our class blog or wiki so I can demonstrate how to do something or show a really good comment from a student. I see myself doing simple things like this initially just to get used to using it and for my students to get used to seeing me use it. There are great interactive math sites that I can use on the board I can also use initially. Then I am anxious to begin to plan with the PB in mind. I want to write math or science lesson plans as PB files so that there is much more interactivity in my classroom. I think it would be ideal if the students were using it as well, but with the SmartBoard, it was very difficult to have more than one student at a time use it. Some thoughts for math and science:

Interactive manipulatives for math using EM Games or the Virtual Manipulatives math site.
Math warm up - Putting a system in place where I put my warm up on the PB and begin my lesson there.
Science videos with students circling key parts that demonstrate a concept.
Class created files throughout a science unit beginning with KWL, adding concepts, ending with key points, vocabulary. This way, when I want to teach it next year, I have a document of what I did.
Virtual Science Notebook?

Where are you now with your Promethean Skills?

2009-12-11T21:56:00.002-07:00

I am very excited to have a Promethean Board in my classroom. Actually, it isn't in my room yet. It is being installed the Friday before winter break. A sly ploy to try to get me to visit my classroom when I should be on break? I don't know, but I normally do not look forward to the end of a break. In January however, I will be eagerly anticipating the opportunity to begin playing with my new Promethean board.

The boards are being installed in mine and 5 of my colleagues classrooms as we speak through a Morgridge Family Foundation Matching Grant. I have agreed to 45 hours of training in the next year so that I can get up to speed.

Over the last two years, I had the pleasure of having a SmartBoard in my classroom when I taught at Alsup Elementary School in Adams 14. I suspect that the Promethean Board is very similar to the SmartBoard, but I am anxious to figure out the differences. The Promethean board I am getting is much bigger than my SmarBoard was. It also has a fixed-mounted projector at the top of the board, which makes it much more stable, and much easier to stay out of the way of the projection. My SmartBoard had to be re-oriented several times during the day because of the projector getting bumped.

I will be contributing to the DPS Promethean Blog and Promethean Users Wiki throughout this process so that participants (100 or so) can share ideas and lesson plans. Many more updates to come...

Give and Take Final Projects

2009-05-27T18:59:00.000-06:00

This IB unit was entitled Give and Take and addresses the limited resources in our world. Students were challenged to build a section of a community on the edge of a river. This is loosely based on our own community, so they were also challenged to add a community center, an amusement park, a college, a football stadium, a wildlife preserve and a power plant. Their communities should reflect their knowledge of renewable and nonrenewable resources and how a community reduces pollution and waste. In addition to this project, students also completed an expository writing about ways that they think we could help our environment. Those writings are also posted below. We also experimented with a "Wall Wisher" which is posted here. Double click to add a comment of your own.

We collaborated on this project with Mrs. Heaton's fourth graders from Mossy Oaks Elementary in Beaufort, South Carolina. They mirrored this process in their class and we are going to spend some time looking at the issues that they feel are important in developing their community, and how those issues are the same and different from ours. Thanks to Mrs. Heaton's class!

Great job room24, this is a great start. If there were more than a handful of days left we would continue to discuss in class. This is certainly a discussion you will need to have throughout your lives. Comments are welcome.

Students' India Presentations

2009-05-10T20:26:00.003-06:00

Students recently were given the task of studying another culture for our "Cultural Comparisons" unit. Originally, I was going to have students do a voicethread, but with some recent technical difficulties I had, I decided to have students make a presentation through Google Docs. Students were separated into groups to study a different aspect of the Indian culture: Money and Education, Geography and Climate, Food, Diet and Health, or Family Structure and Traditions. I put together a presentation with the questions that they had to answer, and each group had to find or create a visual to go along with their information. The final product looks pretty good. I would have liked students to be able to access the presentation without having to sign them in. I also had intended to embed this in our class blog so students could comment on their work, but the unit ended before I got to that step. We may still do this in the last couple of weeks that are remaining as a review of their fourth grade work.
Cultural Comparisons IB Planner

Sharing Discovery Streaming Videos

2009-05-10T19:38:00.011-06:00

Recently, a colleague of mine and myself were given the job of beginning to consolidate Discovery Streaming videos that teachers were using in their grade levels to support their IB units. There are a couple of tools in Discovery Streaming that make it very easy to keep track of your videos. (Here's their help page on this subject.)

First, once you find a video you should save it in a "My Content" folder. I have different folders within "My Content" for each of our six IB units of inquiry. This has made it very easy to find the videos that I used last year.

After the videos are in your own folder, it is very easy to then share them with others in your building or in the district. Click on the drop down menu on the right and select "share".

If you are sharing with others in your school, select which folder you would like to put it in, or select "share to new school folder". I am sharing all of my videos that I use with our unit on renewable and nonrenewable resources with my colleagues who are teaching the same unit. The next time they sign in to their account, they will see the video in the school content folder.

Want to share the video with a Global Learner in another school? Click on "Share to District" in a folder of your choosing or create a new one. There is already a video there from Idledale Mayoral Candidate, Dave "Mountain Lion" Tarwater.

This has been a great discovery (no pun intended) for us so that we can do a better job of keeping track of resources that we use to support our IB units at Alsup. There are a couple of things that are a little glitchy. For example, I will give a crisp $1 bill to anyone who can tell me how to delete a school content folder. I'm stumped...

I used two videos from Discovery Streaming recently to have students compare life of people in India living in cities to those living in the country. Cultural Comparisons planner is here.

Shared Reading and the SmartBoard

2009-05-09T15:32:00.012-06:00

Using a combination of StoryTown online resources and the SmartBoard screen capture tool, I have a routine that I use for my Tuesday shared reading lessons. While we are reading the weekly story together as a class, we are focusing on two outcomes:

Recognizing new vocabulary that we have learned that week. (Usually the day before we play our vocabulary game on the smartboard to reinforce the words.)
Practicing a new skill for that week like identifying main idea, sequence of events or cause and effect.

First, at the beginning of the year I downloaded pdf files of the student practice books and reading transparencies from the StoryTown website.

Next, when it is time for us to read the weekly story together, students have their text books in front of them along with a skill practice page. For example, we were reading a story called The Bunyans and the skill of the week was sequencing plot events. As we were reading, students needed to identify characters, setting and the plot events on their practice page as we worked our way through the story.

I open the practice book pdf file that I have saved on my desktop and project the page on the SmartBoard. Then, using the Smart Capture tool, I capture an image of the part of the page that we are working on, like the first part where we write the characters and setting. Then when we read, we pause to talk about characters and setting and I write them down on the SmartBoard as they work in their practice books. When it comes time for us to do the next task, I quickly capture an image of it from the pdf file and it automatically puts it into a new page on the same notebook file.

Two reasons why the use of the SmartBoard and Screen Capture have been so useful:

It is very easy to do. I don't have to set up anything ahead of time. I can do it so quickly and easily that I just do it as the kids are getting their books out or as I am teaching the lesson.
Students are looking at exactly the same page at their desks as I have on the SmartBoard. It is a good time for me to model how they write in complete sentences, with caps and punctuation. Also, I am modeling my thinking as I am working on the task.
Wait, there's a third... It is save-able. If I do this lesson on Tuesday and I run out of time, I save it and we pick up where we left off. I will also save it and use the chart to review the story and skill before I go into guided reading groups on Wednesday.

My Wall

2009-05-02T20:50:00.000-06:00

Exploring the Gulf Coast

2009-04-16T16:07:00.003-06:00

A podcast created by our fourth and fifth graders. We made our own audio CD of the story because the one given to us through our reading series is terrible...according to the fifth graders.

Polar Clock

2009-04-04T21:50:00.003-06:00

Love this screensaver. Read about it in Wired.

Probability Voicethread

2009-04-04T08:30:00.003-06:00

This is a voicethread my students have been commenting on. The process was as follows:

Students filled out a chart showing all the possible combinations that can be rolled with two dice. We then created a bar graph showing the probability of rolling a 2, 3, 4 etc. all the way to 12. They discovered that the probability of rolling a 7 was much greater than rolling a 2 or a 12.
Students worked in pairs to roll two dice 50 times and tally the results.
They used the laptops to visit National Library of Virtual Manipulatives and created a bar graph showing their results.
I screencaptured their graphs using the PrtSc/SysReq button on the computers because their wasn't a screencapture program installed on all the computers.
I uploaded the pictures to box.net which now has a feature where you can easily edit the pictures using picnik. I cropped the screenshots down to show just the graphs.
I imported the pictures to Voicethread along with instructions on how students should comment.

Students are choosing to comment using voice and text. I instructed them on how to choose their own "identity" icon before commenting although sometimes they are forgetting to do so. We began this process before spring break and before the blizzard so unfortunately we didn't finish. I will re-introduce the process when we get back and have students finish commenting. I am hoping that others outside the classroom will comment as well, giving another perspective on this activity. Lesson plan to follow.

To Do:

2009-04-03T13:53:00.005-06:00

Here's the plan for the remainder of the year:

Create podcasts with the fifth grade, re-recording the reader's theater at the end of each Storytown theme. We started this before spring break. We were going to record on Thursday, but the blizzard cancelled our plans.
Publish lesson plan on using Voicethread to teach probability/graphing lesson.
Publish students creations from buildyouwildself.com along with their poems about where they live.
Publish student created Voicethreads for Cultural Comparisons unit. My group will publish information about India. I will check in with other fourth grade teachers to convert their ppt files to Voicethreads and allow everyone to publish comments.
Participate in PlanB 3.0 project with Todd and Liz. Integrate into our Give and Take unit on natural and man made resources.
Remain connected, and flow through the rest of the year.

Leadership Summit 12/5/08

2008-11-22T07:34:00.000-07:00

We have been learning all about leadership in Room24 at Alsup in the fourth grade! Now it is time for our second annual Leadership Summit on December 5th from 10:00 to 11:30.

The Leadership Summit is a chance for fourth graders to reflect on what it means to be a leader. They will be reflecting on these four questions:

What qualities to leaders have?
What problems exist in my school or community that could be solved if I were a leader?
What obstacles stand in my way that prevent me from being a leader?
What goals can I set for myself to get past these obstacles?

We need your involvement! Here's how:
We will present the answers to these questions on December 5th in three ways. First, we will publish them on the room24 blog . The questions will be posted and students will be commenting. You can comment too. Second, we will Tweet them (follow room24). What is Twitter? It is a way for students to respond online through 140 character "micro-blogs". We will also invite anyone to join us in a live conversation via WiziQ where participants can address these questions themselves, thinking about themselves when they were young, giving advice to Room24 or sharing a story of a great student leader. Sign up for this free session here.

We look forward to sharing all that we have learned. --Jeff

Planet Film Fest

2008-10-24T14:18:00.004-06:00

Our "Planet Film Fest" was on Friday. Dave and Emily were there in addition to 8 of my students' family members, my principal and learning coordinator. I posted plans and resources that I used to help my students through the process of creating Powerpoints and Photostories on the Global Learner wiki.

This is the second year that I have taught this unit and used digital storytelling as the culminating project. Some thoughts:

Last year I had movies, using Moviemaker, as a choice and I found it to be too hard for me to manage so I just didn't make it an option this year. Any suggestions for integrating Moviemaker? It is so difficult to manage multiple groups using two (or more) different pieces of software.
I found last year's movies to be a little "thin" on information so I really tried to organize myself better to make expectations clearer. This group's is better, but there are some groups that clearly worked harder than others.
I would still like to make the process more streamlined so that projects could be completed quicker. They took about 3 weeks to finish, which seems too long to me. Is it possible for them to do this faster, and still produce quality products? Do I move on to my next unit earlier and do the filmmaking process at a different time in my day, like writing?
This is the first time I did a Film Fest and invited teachers and parents. I really enjoyed it and I think that it really put students on the spot (in a good way). They focused better and seemed very proud of the work they had done. Next time, I would like students to run the entire Film Fest on their own, but this time around I didn't feel like I had enough time to prepare them, and this group of students requires more "coaching" (shall we say...) to stay on task.

You can see the final projects here on our class blog. Students would be thrilled to hear your feedback.

Netiquette

2008-08-30T12:58:00.002-06:00

(Picture Credit: Wesley Bedrosian)

I find myself starting off a little slower this year than last. I am trying to be careful how I set up expectations with my fourth graders on blogging, using Twitter and general internet safety. In addition to that, a Global Learner recently expressed frustration in students' blog comments. "There are so many mistakes that they are not postable." It is making me think about the importance of high quality work and helping my students be successful with the integration of web2.0 tools in our classrooms.

I read an article in the latest Edutopia magazine. It addresses the importance of teaching "Netiquette" to our students. But in a larger sense, it talks about how students can be safe on the web, and how to help our students make their writing appropriate for online viewing. Will Richardson is quoted in the article:

"A lot of schools are beginning to put in Internet-safety and Internet-etiquette units, but they're not systemic in any way, and they really need to be."

It is also acknowledged that we need to incorporate netiquette into everyday education. Rather than, "Let's go down to the lab to learn about Internet matters."

So, what is netiquette and how do we incorporate into everyday education? And, how do I set expectations for computer/internet use at the beginning of the year, just like I set expectations for all behaviors in my classroom and make it systemic? I see there being three different categories:

1. Behavior
Netiquette rules are going to vary depending on grade level of course. My fourth graders don't know much about instant messaging yet, so we don't need to have the conversation about IM-speak not being appropriate in other online (or offline) settings. Our rules center more around the golden rule. Treat others as you would like to be treated:

Blog comments on others' work should be constructive and also say something positive about the work.
Blog posts and comments cannot be anonymous.

There are many other suggesions in the article in a sidebar entitled, "Don't Even Think About It".

2. Quality of Work
Again, this conversation is different in elementary than it is in secondary, but I am always having a conversation with my students about the quality of their work. Their work on our blog or twitter should be no different. This takes patience. Students don't necessarily know how to do this upon entering the classroom. They are also anxious to push the boundaries with their new teacher to find out where the boundaries are.

Set High Expectations: I set high expectations for all the work in my classroom (I try anyway), but am having the conversation with my students about the importance of publishing high quality work on our blog, considering the number of people that could be reading it. All the work on the blog needs to be revised and edited before it is published. By fourth grade, there should be no errors in caps, punctuation or spelling. If there is a mistake after publishing, you need to go back and fix it. If, after fixing it, there are still minor errors with grammar or layout, or trouble with spelling a complex word, I will let it go. Students could be turned off to the whole process if I insist on perfection and have a student go over the same post over and over. On Twitter, my expectation is perfection, considering it is only 140 characters. Updates should have some substance. What did you learn during math, not what you "did". Ask a question to encourage a response.
Represent Yourself Positively: This is a standard conversation I have had with students on our way out the door to any field trip. You are not only representing yourself, but you are representing Alsup, Adams 14 and Commerce City. Act accordingly. The same could be said about how you represent yourself on our blog. Take pride in yourself, our classroom, school, community when you are writing about it.
Work Together: Students work in pairs when updating on Twitter and will often work in pairs when they first publish to our blog. I am already finding "experts" in my room that are eager to get started and want to help their classmates.

3. Safety
Students are well aware of the online boogieman, ready to pounce and steal your identity. One way to keep students safe is to stick to a more student-friendly blog site like edublogs or blogmeister. Epals, gaggle and think.com have their own as well that are part of a suite that includes their email service. But I really have been pleased with Blogger and the way that it allows my students to reach a larger audience and we had no problems with safety during our first year of blogging. I do feel obligated to go over safety with my students, especially after last years' group was so eager to reach out to people outside of our school. I found this internet safety document online that I have revised and will go over with my students this week. I will add a signature at the bottom and send it home. I did this last year as well, but only after we had been blogging for several months. I realize these are not legal documents, but I am making an effort to better document my expectations and make my students accountable before there is an issue.

Two other resources from the article. A sample acceptable use policy from Bud Hunt. The other is an email safety pdf for students that was created by the Modesto city schools, which might be useful to students at the high school.

These are just my thoughts. How are you addressing these issues in your classroom? What kinds of behaviors do you encounter in your classroom that keep your students from accessing these tools efficiently?

The 20th

2008-06-20T21:27:00.006-06:00

Spent a lot of time the last two days working out the details for my TIE presentation. I am now putting it down for a few days and not thinking about it. I will be tweaking for the next week before the day anyhow.
Went to a birthday party last night for a friend's 50th. The kids were at home so I just hung out and enjoyed. I knew practically nobody so I just enjoyed the beautiful evening, cool enough as the sun went down that I needed to stand by the fires they had burning.

Tonight I was back at my brother-in-law's house for cheap beer, elk steaks, potatoes and corn. The perfect summer meal, another ideal weather day! My daughter didn't care that the coloring book was Christmas themed.

June 18th

2008-06-18T23:39:00.002-06:00

June 17th

2008-06-17T21:55:00.002-06:00

Today my wife went back to Denver to return to work. I am staying here in Gunnison with the kids. Cathy had a headlight out in the car so I went to change it and found 5 more lights out in her car. Her Volvo has 12 lights in the back alone! Got it all fixed and she hit the road. I hung out with the kids all afternoon as they went back and forth to the neighbor's zip line. Rounded out the day with leftovers and watching my 3 year old and her grandmother dancing to waltzes on the vintage Motorola Stereophonic record player.

No Brain, No Headache

2008-06-16T20:57:00.005-06:00

Missed a couple of days, so here are two more pictures:

I pulled into town and unloaded the car. I slammed my trunk, forgetting that my trunk bike rack was on it, and it clocked me in the head. I literally saw stars. The reaction from most is, initial sympathy, followed by ridicule.

These two hoods showed up for the barbecue tonight.

My kid's a better photographer than I am

2008-06-13T16:33:00.003-06:00

I even took a class once.

June 12

2008-06-12T20:23:00.003-06:00

I'm a man with a plan... my plan kind of stinks right now, but its a plan.

Today did an "egg challenge" with my egg allergic daughter. She failed - lots of hives after less than a teaspoon of eggs. We will try again in another year. She is one of the rare ones who is allergic to both milk and eggs at the age of 6. Most grow out of it by now. She was very brave to eat a food that she knew would most likely make her sick.

Worked on TIE plan and cooked dinner for brother in law who is recouping from eye surgery.

My Productive Day

2008-06-11T22:22:00.005-06:00

With summer here, I am finally able to relax a little and reflect on last year. More importantly, I am able to recharge and plan for next year. I spent much of this last year integrating technology into my classroom and it has been transformational. At the beginning of the summer, I spent 3 days exchanging ideas with our new batch of Global Learners and then another 2 doing technology PD . I am thankful for the opportunity to be on the "other side" and training. I think that the experience of teaching others about blogs, wikis, Smartboards, has clarified the purpose of these tools in the first place. I am presenting at TIE in Copper Mountain on the 27th on blogs and wikis in the elementary classroom. Aside from that, I am looking forward to NOT thinking so literally about these tools for a while and letting things settle.

How do I check out for a while without going completely off the grid? I stumbled upon a great project that was happening on Flickr that I am going to do my own version of. 366 photos asked participants to take a picture a day for a year (leap year) and publish it to the Flickr group. I am way behind the curve on this one, but was interested in the idea. Hanging out with my kids in the backyard today, I thought that I would do my own version on this blog to keep this thing alive over the summer by taking a picture a day. Why does this belong on my "world learners" blog? What if students did a picture every day of the school year? What if room24 did a picture a day for a year? What would it reveal about our journey? What would it reveal about what is important to kids? What picture would they choose to represent their day?

Today, I had a very productive day. I took my kids to art camp, brought them home and took a nap with my 6 year old on the couch, pushed the swing a few hundred times, went to the library (twice) and had dinner out with the family... perfect.

Reflection on Blogs in Education

2008-06-09T22:31:00.006-06:00

Today is June 10th and we discussed blogging this morning. Look and listen to the VoiceThread by Darren Kuropatwa. Read question#5 about the potential benefits of blogging. Which potential benefit do you see having the biggest impact in your classroom? Which has the smallest impact? Are there other benefits that we should consider?

Link to VoiceThread website

Leadership Summit: May 2nd

2008-04-27T21:21:00.008-06:00

Please join us on Friday May 2nd for a Leadership Summit with Room24.

Students have been learning all about leadership during a unit entitled Follow My Lead. Each student researched a great leader (some researched a negative leader) and they spent some time identifying the qualities that made them leaders. Now it is time for students to make some connections between those great leaders and ourselves. We will spend some time this week addressing these four questions:

What is leadership?
What problems exist in my school or community that could be solved if I were a leader?
What obstacles stand in my way that prevent me from being a leader?
What goals can I set for myself to get past these obstacles?

We will present the answers to these questions on Friday by publishing them on our class blog (room24.blogspot.com) and Tweeting them throughout the day(follow room24). Please comment on students' blog entries and tweets.

I also invite you to join us in a live conversation on Friday morning from 9:30 - 10:30 mountain time. We will be broadcasting live from our classroom where students will be presenting the answers to their questions and asking additional questions of participants. Join us by clicking on this link to WiziQ. You will need to set up a free account. After that you can type comments or talk to us directly using a microphone or webcam.

You can join us and interact with my fourth graders by:

Addressing the questions above by thinking about yourself when you were young (maybe you're still young!).
Give some advice to the future leaders in Room24.
Share a story of a great student leader.
Do any or all of the above on our blog, via twitter or via WiziQ.

Email me directly if you have any questions. jdlewis@acsd14.k12.co.us

Multiplication Arrays on the Smartboard

2008-03-01T14:59:00.005-07:00

I taught a lesson on the SmartBoard a few weeks ago on creating large arrays out of 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication problems. The lesson was an accessible algorithm from the Houghton-Mifflen math series that we are piloting in my grade level. We are also teaching multiplication in the traditional way, but this was an opportunity for me to approach the same old lesson in a new way.

I was very skeptical about this lesson. It began with direct instruction with the whole group. The next day, I worked with individual students on creating arrays with 2-digit by 1-digit problems (the 2x2 problems were a little too much at the outset). I was blown away by how quickly some of my struggling students "got it". I grabbed the digital camera and started recording. Later, I had another struggling student demonstrate the process for the class on the SmartBoard. This was also an attempt to model "math talk" where students talk through the problem, and then their peers ask them clarifying questions. This is very much a work in progress. The old ways are very hard to change for both students and their teacher.

I am very pleased with how the lesson went. I think it served as an alternative method for reaching students who otherwise may not have been able to access the skill. It was also a way for students who already knew the "traditional" method to extend their knowledge by representing the problem in a different way.

I posted the video and the SIOP lesson plan on the Global Learner Wiki.

Learning 2.0, A Continuing Conversation

2008-02-23T13:12:00.003-07:00

Today, Bud Hunt and Karl Fisch put on Learning 2.0, A Colorado Conversation. What a great experience! This really felt like a conversation from beginning to end; a bunch of tech minded educators discussing successes and frustrations around LEARNING. Almost secondary to the conversation was the best uses of the tools themselves. You really get the sense that everyone is really trying to get their heads around what it all means and how we can best meet the needs of our students with technology in mind.

A good conversation piques your interest and leads to more questions and continued conversation. Choose, Act and Reflect right? Here are my takeaways (the ideas are a little messy, but I will lose them if I don't get them down):

How do I help my students build their own personal learning networks? Skype, Blogs, Twitter? Are other teachers already doing this?
Tonia Johnson and I discussed the possibility of building a network of learners within our district, Adams 14. A collaborative blog? Following on Twitter? This would be a great "first step" to expanding the network outside later. If we began it now, it would be a great model for future Global Learners and reluctant teachers who are wondering about the practical applications for these 2.0 tools in the classroom. Great way for students to collaborate with other students about the "why" in the classroom and to get a window into other grade levels.
Am I most effectively blogging by using Blogger? I wonder if there is something out there that helps my students more easily access the benefits of blogging without having their own email account? What are others using for student blogging?
Student forum with Arapahoe High Students where they discussed the importance of technology in ed. Why not ACSD14 students? (Tonia's question) There were some very powerful ideas:

Learning is the focus not the tools (the first point made by a student)
They can take charge of their own learning (researching their interests, decide what is useful for the learner, customizing/tailoring their credits by creating personal curriculum)
Personal (student)Learning Networks rather than "top down" (their words) teaching
A teacher created a "help me blog" so that students could help other student with problems they were having on a particular subject.
A lot of talk about connections that these students were making for themselves. They are accessing and taking charge of the learning like never before!

These tools really bring a renewed energy to the classroom, increase motivation and effect achievement. We need to share the "energizing" effect that this technology brings to the classroom. We need to do this without cheapening it by calling it "fun" or "cool" (I sometimes find myself using these types of words and then kick myself...).
How do we begin to put data to all of this? I think the Global Learners in ACSD14 are in a good position to begin doing this next year.

After today's conference, I have less answers and more questions. Excellent!

The conversation continues.

Top Ed Tools

2008-02-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

Obviously, since today's date is February 3rd, I'm a little behind on this, but I just stumbled upon the eLearn Magazine's Top 100 Tools for Learning 2007. I was struck by two things: 1. The number of tools that the Global Learners are using regularly in our classrooms, we are ahead of the curve in Adams 14. 2. They note that only two of the top ten (Word, PowerPoint) are commercial applications, the others are free. 75% of the tools in the top 100 are free.

Tools are just tools without great teachers using them to impact learning in their classroom. Tonia's post addresses this important point: learning comes before tools. Take a look at the top ten. What tools have impacted student achievement the most in your classroom? In 2007, my students have improved their writing through the use of blogger as a publishing and reflection tool. They have become more reflective and better editors by tweeting our lessons throughout the day. Our wiki has helped my students use the internet better for research.

There is a call for best tools of 2008 already. How will student achievement in Adams 14 be impacted through the use of these tools in 2008? (I can't wait to find out...)

Bucket List

2008-01-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Jeff O'Hara to do a Bucket List for 2008. A variation on resolutions I suppose and I'm sure much more entertaining than the movie of the same name... (never getting those 90 minutes back.) A Bucket List is a list of all the things that Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are going to do before they kick the bucket. This list consists of some things that I want to accomplish in '08.

Here they are:

Continue to build a network of like-minded educational technology folks.
Continue to dab in the role of trainer in educational technology.
Present at Learning 2.0 a Colorado Conversation in February and TIE in June, just to push my comfort zone.
Explore these possibilities while still being an effective fourth grade teacher.
Expand my formal education... Masters in Educational Technology, Doctorate? Decide whether this is even necessary to expand my learning.
Encourage a sense of wonder and love for learning in my own children (this is number 1)

A Friday Idea

2008-01-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

On Friday afternoons, I used to put kids on the computers because they had been asking me all week and I finally gave in. I had about 4 or 5 websites that they would explore, none of which were very good. Now... with all this embeddable media, class blogs and wikis, students are on the computers all week long. Given a little Friday afternoon freedom, they willingly visit our blog, wiki or website to read and comment on each other's writing, revisit a video clip related to our reading or listen to each other's poetry. They are literally creating and exploring their own online content, in fourth grade!

Along that line of thinking, I am experimenting with VoiceThread. This is one of those resources I keep hearing about over and over again from different educators, here's Dave's post on the Global Learners Blog). I have been exploring and thinking of ways I can use this in my classroom because it is just so cool. Is that a good enough reason??

I think it is a great collaborative tool. It gives students the opportunity to contribute with text, voice and image through a webcam... lots of different choices. It is also great for all of my students to bring their "voice" to a single image or idea. We talk a lot about how we are all different learners, some of us learn quickly, others slower. This would bring out the idea that we can all have a different, and correct, idea for a single image. I like this one below that has different kids exploring the meaning of a piece of Norman Rockwell art. There is also a good demo of kids commenting on a Venn diagram comparing the heart to the skeleton.

Embeddable as well? Cool! I could post it on the blog and kids could review a concept at their convenience... on Friday afternoon.

Classroom 2.0, Edmodo and Twitter

2008-01-14T15:20:00.001-07:00

A goal I have set for myself this spring is to build myself a network of teachers, including Global Learners, to engage in student-led projects with other teachers around the world and to share ideas. A year ago, this goal would have seemed impossible... but within the last few weeks, I have been making some connections with extremely smart, creative educators. I thought I would share...

Classroom 2.0 is a social networking site for educators. There is a post where you can introduce yourself and then subscribe for responses to your post via email. I have received four responses since Saturday, including one who knows our exchange teacher from Melborne, small world indeed. They have posts organized by tool, flickr, podcasting, wikis etc. They are also in the process of organizing "live" events, one coming up in San Francisco. There is a teacher at Rocky Mountain School for the Gifted in Boulder who has volunteered to do one there.

From Classroom 2.0 I received a introduction from Jeff O'Hara who is developing Edmodo which is advertised as a free web service to connect schools, teachers, parents and students. It is still in development and you can add your email to receive updates, they also have a blog. The cool thing about finding someone like him on Classroom 2.0 is you can be stay in touch with the development process and provide input.

Finally, I am back on Twitter and amazed at the networking possibilities. I don't have very many followers but have found it to be a great impromptu meeting place for educators discussing, not so much what is happening right that second, but what ideas are crossing their minds and what challenges they are grappling with. I didn't see its value when I was introduced to it in August, now I do. Also my class is tweeting and it is embedded in our blog.

Anybody have experience with these tools they would like to share?

Teaching to Teach

2008-01-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

Just returned to the classroom after a relaxing winter break. Students returned ragged! Two of them missed most of the week, one throwing up, the other with a migraine. Had another complaining of stomach issues. Jeez, I thought they would come back relaxed and ready to go! Hopefully they will go home this weekend, regroup and come back healthy.

Nothing makes me reflect on my practice more than when an "outsider" comes in and starts askin' questions. I have two new outsiders in my professional life right now. One is a student teacher from the University of Colorado finishing out his undergrad and licensure program. He is all of 22, enthusiastic and curious... a good combo. The other is an exchange teacher from Melbourne, Australia. She has 30 years of teaching experience, is enthusiastic and a bit overwhelmed after two weeks in the states and a week in a Commerce City classroom.

I tweeted the other day that I was discussing the finer points of pukey fourth graders with my teacher candidate. Seriously... I was. We had a student make an emergency run to the bathroom so I sent my TC to the office to fetch the nurse while I stayed with the class. He asked what I would have done had he not been there. The question seems a bit silly, until I remember what it was like for me stepping into my classroom for the first time. My TC asks lots of these kinds of "what do you do when" questions, which is a good thing, but I realized how difficult it must seem as a pre-first year teacher to take into account all of the things you must remember, and all that can possibly go wrong. I do my best to answer all of his questions, and hope that I demonstrate with my actions, my ideal: That I am a teacher who teaches with enthusiasm and abandon with a complete willingness to fail, knowing that I can't control every detail. I commented to him today that I think we sometimes try to control too much in our classrooms, forgetting that these 10 year olds are just kids. They need to socialize, play, laugh, joke, sometimes they are ill, sad, frustrated... we can't control it all.

Our exchange teacher had a trial by fire this week (her words). We had CELA testing all week which pulled 1/3 of her kids out for the first hour of the day and replaced them with 1/3 of mine while I tested. Two of her boys had a fight in the classroom and were suspended. We tried to express how this is not the norm in our school. She shouldn't expect fistfights and standardized testing every week. This was right before discussing the finer points of CSAP testing. This weekend she is spending time with other Aussies who are exchanging in Colorado and I wonder what their conversation is going to sound like.

Chicken Lips

2008-01-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

Two members of an improvisational group called "Chicken Lips" presented at our inaugural 2008 professional development meeting today. They were posing as Department of Ed stuffed shirts there to present about CSAP testing. Instead their purpose was to inspire and bring humor to our meeting. Their message was simple and powerful:

Laughter is important and productive.

"Yes, and..." is a game we played in groups of four. One person starts talking about a subject, the next person takes over their thought by saying, "yes, and..." It is what you say when you are improvising in a group to validate what the previous person has just presented and continue the thought. It validates their work and makes them look good, which makes the group look good. This is what we should be saying to students and colleagues as an alternative to "yes, but" or just "NO".

Improvisation is about LISTENING and COLLABORATING... so is education.

Thanks to Chicken Lips, we ended our winter break and began our new year with laughter and positive energy. Great stuff!! Now just to continue the momentum into the coming months.

Resolution

2008-01-01T18:07:00.001-07:00

With the new year comes new resolutions. I hate to be cliche but ...

More personal/professional posts - Considering my last post on this blog was two months ago, it would stand to reason that I would resolve to post more often. I value having a place where I can reflect on my practice, especially during a year where my practice has changed so much. My thought is that I would post every Friday about the week that has just passed.
More student posts - In conjunction with this, my students will also be reflecting daily using Twitter. I embedded it into our class blog and I am going to have them post every day (too ambitious?) a reflection on what has happened during that teaching period (math, writing, reading or science). I am going to work this into a job that a handful of students have for the week. Given their relentlessness on reminding me about their jobs, I think it just might stick.
More collaborating - with my team, with the Global Learners, with other technology minded teachers. It seems natural to me that with all of these great tools would come great opportunities to collaborate beyond my four walls. I am going to actively seek out these types of opportunities. Ever heard of eduwikis? I heard about it from a wikispaces email update. At first glance, a good place to engage in long distance collaborating. Lots of teachers from PA.

Surely you didn't make new year's resolutions... or did you?

3 Months Down...

2007-11-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

With the first trimester over, there is much to reflect on. Tonia's post has spurred me to think about how much my teaching has changed this year, and it's changed so much that it is difficult for me to sit down and put it into words.

I am still experimenting with much of this technology. Am I "improving student achievement by the use of 21st century tools"? I have much that I will do better after having a year under my belt. I am learning as much from my missteps that I will apply to my teaching next year as I am learning from my successes. One goal I have for myself is to continue using our class blog to show student work, but to use it more as a place for students to reflect on their learning and to set goals for themselves, rather than just to post work. I wonder if I am doing an effective job of EETT, enhancing my students' education through technology. I have been so excited about some of the projects my students have completed. But when I step back, I wonder if it really enhanced, or just supplemented. Along this line of thinking, another goal I have is to post and comment to other blogs, especially Global Learners' blogs. I think the strength of this group lies in the potential for collaboration among colleagues in the same community facing similar challenges. In order for this collaboration to happen, I have to be more a more active participant. What are other GLs doing that is really going well? There is a vast network of teachers out there who are making technology work for them, I want to tap into this network more than I am now.

Successes... the Smartboard is great! I think one of the best parts of the SB is all of the resources that come with it. Students are interacting with the SB, especially during math and writing and are very excited. Wikis... I am using our class wiki as a place to put links to projects that my reading group is working on as part of their independent work. That has also worked really well. My students are much more focused during their time on the computer and can get right to work because everything they need is in one place. I thought I would be using the wiki as more of a professional collaboration tool by now, but I think that may be a goal that takes longer to achieve. My students completed videos on a planet they were studying using digital still or video cameras. Some of the videos were a little "thin" on real content, but there are parts of the planning I will do better next year. An unexpected benefit was that they were so excited about each other's projects that they learned much more about the solar system from each other than if they had been doing a written report or even a PowerPoint (or if they had been learning it from me?! Self-directed learning?!)

So?? What's happening with other Global Learners? I look forward to reading everyone else's reflection on the past 1/3rd year. I appreciate everyone's honest blog posts. It is always very refreshing to read a post that expresses frustration or disappointment in the outcome of a particular project... makes me feel that I am not the only one.

Moving forward...

Field Trip Podcast

2007-10-25T10:15:00.000-06:00

powered by ODEO

Our class went to The Wildlife Experience in Parker. While we were there, we learned about adaptations and watched an IMAX movie about wildfires. If you listen to this podcast you should be able to picture all that we were seeing. Students were describing their surroundings using the Visualizing and Verbalizing structure words.

Mr. Lewis

Alsup Smartboard Training

2007-10-23T15:10:00.000-06:00

Thank you for attending the SmartBoard training on Tuesday morning. It is impossible to cover all of the SmartBoard features in 40 minutes over two days. But, from what you have seen so far, how do you think you could use this in your classroom? Click on "comments" below to tell me.

What would you like to focus on for our last 20 minutes on November 13th? I am planning on having two Smartboards and showing you how to connect them. We should have some time after that to cover additional features, continue practicing or talk about resources. Let me know by responding to the survey on the left. If there is something else that you would like that isn't listed, let me know by leaving a comment to this post. You could also do it the old fashioned way by sending me an email...

Shift Happens

2007-10-06T22:32:00.000-06:00

Reflections on Fourth Grade Posts

2007-09-25T11:37:00.000-06:00

My fourth graders posted their writing last week. Read their funny stories on our blog. I am impressed with their sense of humor. Many stories are genuinely funny. This week, I am giving them time throughout the day to sign on and leave comments for each other.

Reflections on this process:

Typing skills, or lack thereof, really slowed the process down. I am not satisfied taking a whole writing period, or two, to type. I think I will have them post one out of every three writings. Another option may be to scan their handwritten copies.
Students have to sign in with their email address to post. Their email is (firstnamelastinitial).alsup@think.com, along with a password. Some students are signing in without a problem. Others (15 of my 20?) are taking forever to sign in and/or can't remember how to do it. I made each a laminated cheat sheet to keep in their desks, but the process is tough for them to get used to. Again, a huge time-suck.
I really like that my students get a chance to comment on each other's writing. Doing this through the blog is very motivating. Some of my lowest writers are finding errors and are giving feedback through a comment.
I have wondered whether this is the best way to post student work. With everyone posting within a couple of days, the first ones to post become "old" very fast and are sent to the second page. I tagged each with their name so that you could click on a student to read their writing. If I post on my website, readers can't comment. I don't think a wiki is appropriate. Maybe blogger is not the best for education. I looked at blogmeister and am not crazy about the look of it. I have looked at edublogs, that may be a better option in the future. Just mulling it around.
The hit map and cluster map are awesome! Kids are checking every couple of days to see who else has read. I told a funny story to my fourth graders about me and my college roommate, Neil, who is now a teacher in San Francisco. We looked at the hit map last week and there was a hit in San Fransisco, about 5 of my kids yell out, "Neil!" It is so exciting to see them making connections to the larger community. Seeing the hit map has really changed their perspective of the world.

Feedback? Comments? Insights?

Fourth Grade posts

2007-09-19T12:09:00.001-06:00

My fourth grade class began posting their funny stories on our room 24 blog. With the help of Joe, I used Adobe Pro to export their writing as a jpg files. They posted those along with a short reflection on the project. Four are posted today, the other sixteen by Friday! They are very excited and are already leaving comments. The layout of the posts don't look like I want them to, I may tweak them a little this weekend. Check them out and PLEASE leave a comment. It means so much to my students when they see that they are being read.

--Jeff

Slideshare test

2007-09-14T23:10:00.000-06:00

This is a test on embedding a slideshare of a pdf file. I would like to use this so students could post their writing on our blog, along with a posted reflection on the piece.

A Collaborative Effort

2007-09-03T15:33:00.000-06:00

On Thursday, I presented my wiki, alsupibworldschoolunits.wikispaces.com, to my grade level team, principal, learning coordinator and UCD site professor. I looked at this project in a much different light in preparation for showing others.

First, I realized that my vision of adding all of the units for all grade levels is much too ambitious. I decided that I would add the units for my grade level as the year progresses and invite others to add theirs as they see value to the wiki. The wiki still shows all of the grade levels in the navigation on the left side, but I'm not going to add any units, unless a grade level is really interested in having them there. (Better yet, I am going to show them how to do it.)

Second, the wiki is of real value if it is a collaborative effort. In order to bring others on, they need to see the potential of it. I don't think the wiki shows much potential when you see the units without any reflection or student work. It isn't much more than another place to house the units. As I am teaching the unit on the Solar System I am adding resources, screen shots of our work and a screencast of a review of a previous lesson. During the presentation I think this showed that the wiki can be used as a way to reflect, as well as collaborate.

Some interesting questions/comments came up along the way that I didn't anticipate. First, Lynn, my principal asked whether this would be a site for just teachers or for parents as well. I think it is for teachers, but made us all think about the potential for more parent participation in the development process of these units. They may be able to provide a unique reflection piece to the units. Our special ed provider for the grade level saw the great collaborative potential. She thought that she could view the wiki before it is taught and add scaffolding/accommodations for her students. Our UCD site professor who works with all of the TCs (Teacher Candidates) in the building has an exchange professor from Asia that she wants to come see all of the great new technology in our district. She took note of the url for the wiki and our global learners blog and is going to show us off.

Thoughts?

Follow Up

2007-08-28T22:46:00.000-06:00

Using the SmartBoard during lessons definitely engages students. Today we discussed yesterday's introduction to the Solar System. The use of yesterday's slides provided visual cues that brought the discussion right to the point and allowed us to move forward very quickly. Without this technology I would be referring to something I wrote on the white board yesterday, but is now long gone.

I experimented with TuneTalk Stereo for the iPod. It is a microphone that plugs directly into the bottom of the iPod, records and saves the recording as a file on the iPod. When you sync, the file is uploaded to iTunes so you can edit it and use it as you like. The sound quality is surprisingly good. I carried the iPod around the room as I facilitated the review and one of my students was advancing slides on the SmartBoard. TuneTalk could be used to get student reactions during a field trip. It could also be used to measure fluency in primary students or for my fourth graders to record read alouds for our pre-school reading buddies. Student recordings could be burned on to a CD at the end of the year as a measure of progress or just a great keepsake. What other tools are teachers finding to make their instruction more engaging? Are there tools for the SmartBoard that you are using every day with your students?

Irony

2007-08-27T15:10:00.000-06:00

Ironic is the word I would use to describe today's introduction to the solar system.

I had asked my students to name a system so we could talk about the necessary components in a system and how if one component wasn't working the whole system breaks down. I had great plans to do this on my SmartBoard and it wasn't orienting correctly! (My system broke down.) I went old-school and made a list on my Not So Smart Board with Expo pens. As we were having this great discussion I commented that this would be great if my SmartBoard were working. With the encouragement from my students, I gave it one more try and it worked. I still don't know what the issue was.

This was the first time using it in a lesson, and I was playing with tools as I went. The screen shade is a great one. There is another screen where we created a list of all of the parts of the solar system that they currently know. I am planning on using this to compare what we know now to what we know at the end of the unit. I am realizing that a great benefit to the SmartBoard is the ability to capture everything that would normally be lost on the white board or on pages of flip chart paper. Capturing and sharing ideas on blogs like this one is great as well.

Alsup Fourth Grade Wikispace

2007-08-05T15:09:00.000-06:00

I have created a wiki for the fourth grade to engage in online collaboration around the creation of our IB units. This seems like a perfect way for us to continue to develop these units and have our information in one place with the ability to pull it up any time. This summer I have worked on developing two units specifically: I Am Seeing Stars, a study of the Solar System and, A Timeline Study of History, a study of historical people of Colorado. I have done these on my own without consulting anyone... hardly a collaborative effort. But, I am hoping that this space will encourage everyone who has taught these units, or anyone else for that matter, to go in and add information, great ideas, resources and inspiration.

I am also hoping that this will better enable the current third grade team to go in and add any insight that they have from teaching these units last year. Third and Fourth grade teams loop, so the Units of Inquiry that I will be teaching this year were taught by this year's third grade teachers. I have found it very difficult to continue to improve these units when I only see them every other year. It is also very difficult to carve out time in our busy schedules for two grade level teams to collaborate in a "traditional" way to improve the units.

The units are not complete. I inserted information that teams worked on in the development of the planners, essential questions, student questions, summative assessments etc. Then I added specific lessons at the very bottom of the page (number 10). I Am Seeing Stars uses much of the resources from a fourth grade FOSS science kit. I am working on adding online resources and adding documents to the unit that teachers would need as they are teaching, guiding questions for journal entries for example. I also have found videos on each of the planets and downloaded those videos on to the ipod. Students will be able to pick up an ipod, look for the playlist on their planet, and view 2 or 3 short videos on that planet. This would be one of the way students will be gathering information about a planet they are studying.

A Timeline Study of History focuses on the influential people of Colorado from prehistoric times to the development of Farming and Ranching. I have been working on this chronologically so the first few lessons are very well developed, and the last few haven't been developed at all yet.

Again, I did this without any input and have been anxious to get this out there so the collaboration could begin. I believe you have to request to join the space. Click on the link below and join the process!

Third Grade Biographers

2007-07-21T15:02:00.000-06:00

My third graders from last year put together some great PowerPoint presentations. One of them was a biography where they researched a famous person and created a ppt with that information. They did a wonderful job. I am very lucky that I get to teach this same group of kids so that we can build on the work that they did last year. Here is a sampling in SlideShare format.

Mr. Lewis' Fourth Grade Class Website up and running!

2007-07-13T16:30:00.000-06:00

Here it is.... Exciting right?

I have all of the structure in place that I think I will need when the school year begins:

I was able to create a direct link to my Google calendar so that parents will be able to see what is going on throughout the year. I can update on Google calendar and it will automatically update on the website. I don’t know if there is a way to wrap text so that some of my entries, like “Back to School Night”, aren’t cut off.
I am planning on updating the “What’s Happening” page in addition to sending the updates home as a hard copy.
I used many of the links that Andrew has on his Central website for kid’s links, I thought they were great. Thank you Andrew…
I would really like to record the first few stories as podcasts and post them on the website next, with the intent of having students do that throughout the year. I am also planning on having students post their writing throughout the year on a classroom blog. Students could also react to each other’s writing as well. I haven’t quite worked out how that is going to look yet.

This is my first crack at creating a website, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Jeff

WELCOME!

2007-06-11T11:15:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my first post! I am a fourth grade teacher at Alsup IB World School in Commerce City, Colorado. We will be integrating much more technology in our classroom during the 07-08 school year. Part of our technology integration will be creating this blog that my students will be posting to and commenting on.

I am very excited about this opportunity for my students. They will get an opportunity to post their work, comment on eachother's projects and see how many people they can impact with their work.

I am still formulating ideas about how all of this technology will impact my teaching and student learning. I invite anyone to post comments and ideas about how this technology can be used in an elementary school setting. There are so many great ideas out there... I look forward to hearing yours!