Students at EDS are taking a stand against negative language. They have all signed a pledge to watch what they say and make their school a safer place for everyone. Teachers and staff are also signing a pledge to watch their language and help make the school more positive. Congratulations to our staff and students for being the first school in Maine to declare: Not In Our School!
Not In Our School!
A Couple of Great Resources You Will Probably Love!
Many of you know that one of my favorite blogs is written by a Kindie teacher in Moose River, Canada. If you haven’t seen it before, please check it out. http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blog_id=689281
Today, when I checked it out, I checked her wiki for workshops she gives. One her wiki, she links to Support Blogging, a wiki with lots of education blogs. http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+BloggersOn this wiki, I checked out http://achatwithmary.blogspot.com/This blog is advertised as practical ideas for implementing technology. Her most recent post talks about LookyBooks. She also provides a link to this fascinating website. It is a website that links to many online picture books. The best part of this is it is FREE. Check out Mary’s blog. I think you will love it!
Catching Up and Having Fun
It has been awhile since I have written on my blog. The start of the year has been incredibly busy. It is wonderful to see the children use Compass Learning. They really seem to enjoy it. Our teachers have done such a great job of making assignments and helping their students learn how to use the system. Even our youngest children are online and learning. We are going to be getting some new teacher laptops so more of the old laptops will become workstations for Compass Learning. We have figured out that if we reimage the old laptops they can access Compass Learning. We will be having more staff development soon about Compass Learning. Lisa is a wonderful resource in the mean time.
I have been using a program called Smilebox which makes interesting scrapbooks and ecards. Parts of Smilebox are free but they do have a premium service which I love. You can send your creations to relatives and friends by typing in their email address. They pick your creations up online so you don’t have to worry about attaching huge files to emails.
Here is one of my Smilebox creations
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| Make a Smilebox photobook |
This is made with pictures from my husband’s cellphone, because, of course, we forgot the camera! This site is so much fun and helps me keep my mom up to date on my grandchildren’s antics! If you like scrapbooking, this site is for you!
Schedules
I have been spending the first two weeks of school getting the MLTI computers ready to go. This is frustrating for me because I would rather be spending the time in each school working out the bugs that you are experiencing as you start the year. Next week (9/8-9/12), I am hoping to start my regular rotation:
Monday: SES
Tuesday: CES
Wednesday: CMS
Thursday: EDS
Friday: Office
If you want to get in touch with me, PLEASE don’t leave a message on the office phone. As you can see I am not there everyday. The best way to reach me is by email.
I am so happy that some teachers have already approached me with technology integration ideas for the year. I really enjoy working with you to help you and your students integrate technology into your learning. Jen and Mysti at EDS spent many hours this summer visiting important places in their two communities and interviewing the people who work there. They are in the process of making a DVD to use as a resource for their community unit.
We have the Kurzweil program in two of our schools. It is a program which allows you to scan in a book and the files you generate will be converted by the Kurzweil program in files which the computer can read to your students. This is great for students who are learning disabled or are behind in reading. Cassi, at CMS, is an expert using this program. If you have questions, she is the person to ask. The program is only available at CMS and EDS. (Your MAC computers can also read to your students. Ask me how when I am in your building, if you are interested. You can also record your voice on your macs to make files for your students to listen to. )
Five more teachers got new MacBook computers this week so if you see any of your colleagues with foolish grins on their faces you may know why. These computers include ISight cameras which allows a teacher to do portfolios of a child’s reading.
Have you ever gotten a file you can’t open in an email? Try this website to convert files: http://www.zamzar.com/
Have a great week!
Communication
It is important that Tonya and I know your concerns about the technology in your classrooms. We are currently busy trying to get MLTI computers reimaged and assigned to students. That means that we are spending nearly every second on that process. I know that is frustrating for the schools that do not have MLTI computers because you are not seeing us to answer quick questions. PLEASE do not leave us voicemail messages at Central Office. I am rarely there because I do spend MOST of my time in the schools. Email is the fastest way to get to both of the tech staffers because we always have our computers on and check our emails frequently. Soon we will have a published schedule so you will know exactly where we are each day. You are welcome to call me on my cellphone as well. Your principals and secretaries have that number. You can call me during the evenings at home. My phone is listed in the local telephone directories.
Some teachers have already started to use Compass Learning and they are impressed. What they have found is that the printed material Pam gave you is useful as you set up your first students. This is particularly true for the middle school staffs who attended the first day. If you still have questions, please email me and I will see if I can find the answers for you. There is much information contained within the program including a users’ manual. This is found under curriculum resources.
As the superintendent pointed out, communication is so important as we work to educate our students. I know that sometimes when I am in a rush to get things done, I do not communicate as well as I should. I am trying to make sure that all your concerns are attended to in a timely manner. Please bear with me as the year begins. I am sure that things will get better as the year progresses and before we know it we will be getting ready for summer again.
Here is an open source program for your advanced math students. GeoGebra
Remember to please add comments about things your find that are helpful to other teachers. There are many talented teachers in this district that have MUCH to share.
A New Year Begins
Can you believe it? Here we are about to start the 2008-2009 school year. A lot has changed since I’ve been in education and I’m sure you have also seen many changes. This year we are going to try to keep you updated with Web 2.0 technology. This is my blog. I initially started it two years ago but didn’t do anything with it. In April I took a Web 2.0 class from Barbara Greenstone, MLTI tech mentor. What an eye-opening experience! We were required to start and post to a blog. So I restarted mine and have decided that this is the way to efficiently communicate with the most people.
Here are some important tech announcements for our districts:
1. The MLTI computers have a new image. You can now automatically back up your files if you program the “Time Machine” to link to a specific removable hard drive. This is a really neat program. You can go into Time Machine and find files you may have deleted. What happens is that Time Machine copies your files at least once a day. If you know approximately when a file was saved you can look by date and find it, EVEN if you have deleted it in the meantime. There is a wonderful new science program on the MLTI computers which works with programming and simulations. It was piloted by Maine science teachers.
2. All MLTI teachers need to have their computers reimaged so that your computer will be like your students’. Other teachers may have their computers reimaged if they would like.
3. Repairs will be handled on a wiki this year. If your computer is not working you will need to take it to your tech lead first and they will troubleshoot the problem. They will then list it on the wiki for the tech staff to attend to. Your tech leads will be introduced either by your principal or at the opening day workshop.
4. Compass Learning has been installed in all four schools. This is a wonderful program which is very engaging to our students. It is one more way to differentiate curriculum for all students. Compass Learning will generate reports about your students’ learning and prescribe other modules for them to complete. There will be a trainer at the opening workshops to help you learn what Compass Learning is all about. If you need help after the training please ask us.
5. We are here to help you integrate technology into your classroom. If you are doing a unit and would like ideas about using technology, just ask and we’ll help you find ways to do just that. Below are links to some helpful resources that have been put together for you:
http://robertadoughty1.googlepages.com/home
http://computercamp2008.wikispaces.com/–Ask to become a member and you can edit these pages.
http://delicious.com/robertadoughty1 –Delicious.com is a social bookmarking site. I have bookmarked many wonderful educational sites here. You might want to get an account to collect bookmarks for your students.
Have a great year. Keep coming back here for ideas and announcements. Also add your own ideas and other information you’d like to share by commenting. This makes the blog so much richer for all of us. I learn from each of you every day.
Computer Camp for Teachers
Last week my district held its annual Computer Camp for Teachers. We worked with the Read/Write Web. I have just finished taking a Web 2.0 course and found so many wonderful resources that I was anxious to share my “finds” with my colleagues. To gather the resources together and make it easily accessible to my learners I developed a wikispace with many links.(My Computer Camp Wiki)
Not only did I have a great time finding resources for my wikispace, I find that I am still adding to it. Today I shared it with the total staff of our district. I asked if anyone else would like to take the three day Computer Class later in the summer using these resources. I have already had three replies from teachers who had taken last week’s class. Apparently they enjoyed the experience as much as I did. I was so impressed with the work that the teachers and ed techs did at camp. Three teachers started blogs for their students and parents and three teachers started webpages chock full of resources for their students’ families. The quality of the work they did was awesome. Other teachers looked for resources for units they teach each year from the links I had provided on the wiki. It was a experience that I am anxious to repeat! It is a joy to work in a professional learning community.
Responsibility
This week, my colleague and I have been taking up the MLTI computers and getting them ready to reimage for next year. These IBooks are a great learning tool and we are really lucky to live in a state where they are issued to each seventh and eighth grade student. My concern is though that the students seem to take them for granted and do not take good care of them. This is not all students. In fact, most of the the students do take care of them but as I have said to the principals: When they are good, they are very, very good and when they are bad they are AWFUL! We have had several broken screens, lots of lost or broken chargers and many cases have so much writing on them that they look like a subway wall in a big city that is filled with graffiti. We have meetings with parents at the first of the year and explain the students will be charged for lost chargers and broken screens but at the end of the year, I am faced with writing to parents and requesting payment for their child’s lack of regard for these learning tools. I try to explain to everyone that when the laptops are misused, they don’t work as well and it takes time and money to fix the problems so that students can use them next year. How do we teach our children responsibility for school tools? I think this teaching has to start when the children are very small. Do we live in a society where we are so busy that we sometimes fail to teach these important life lessons. How often do we replace things that are carelessly broken by our kids instead of expecting them to somehow help foot the cost of that replacement. Even young children can do “chores” to help and thus learn responsibility. This article from the University of Virginia gives some interesting ideas, including changing the caregivers behavior! http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/family/350-052/350-052.html What ideas do you have?
Enthusiasm Pays!
Today I spent a half a day at one of my elementary schools. More and more teachers are coming to me and asking for ideas for integrating technology into their classrooms. Since I have been taking my Web 2.0 class, I have found so many great tools on the web and am having a great time using them. I think my enthusiasm for these tools are rubbing off on the teachers around me.
I found some interesting Watercycle videos on You Tube for my 3rd grade teachers and linked them to a wiki so the teachers could just log on to the wiki and play the videos. For one of the teachers, that was the first time she saw the academic potential of YouTube. I guess she spent a lot of time the evening I sent the wiki address (http://watercycles.wikispaces.com/) to her looking through YouTube for other resources for science.
I am now using wikis to schedule our tech work. This way all of us who are responsible for repair and troubleshooting knows what needs fixed and who might be the lead person on the repair. I am also using a wiki to keep track of who has signed up for our three day technology computer camp. The advantage of the wiki for these kinds of tasks is that it can be accessed from any computer 24/7 and edited by any member of the group. We’re not tied to our desktops or the computer we use most of the time.
MLTI Student Tech Team Conference
I attended the MLTI Student Tech Team Conference with my students last Friday. At this conference the students got a chance to choose three project based courses that deal with cutting edge technology. I told the students to choose what THEY want to learn about and attend those courses. They were so excited! They don’t often hear a teacher tell them that they can learn whatever they want to. I’m wondering how they will use the knowledge they gained on Friday. Will they share with their fellow learners back at school or will they keep their learning to themselves? If they share with their fellow learners we will have students who are quite competent. My hope is that they will share what they learn and everyone will know a little more about computers than they did last week.
