PLN

Working hard on my PLN, I met a lot of very grr people at the NJEA convention this past week and I am connecting to them using Grouply, Ning, Thinkfinity Community, Linkedin and Delicious.  I have learned how to USE my network on Delicious instead of just treating it as a repository for my bookmarks. Adding my Delicious feed to my blog was easy but it is disappointing that I only get the last five bookmarks I added on this Blogger site.  I will start to post the feeds of the people in my network and this will give me a bit more of what I really want. I have taken charge of connecting to people outside of my personal Facebook and have started honing my Twitter friends into categories that match the different interests in my life.  While this takes lots of time, I am sure it will be rewarding and will help me stay on top of my game in my field of study.  My fingers hurt. Now I have to have a professional look over what I have done and get back to me with more direction. I have to wait for people to accept my friend requests on the various social platforms as well.

We have had lots of problems with the grouply, apparently only the group creator can send invites to our group, in the Ning platform we could all invite people into the group.  It could be an administrator setting that is off, but whatever the reason, it is not acting as user friendly.  I have 119 members to connect to in this group, but the never share anything.  I guess if it is a mandatory thing instead of a passion, you just don't get participation.

My blog is getting some major updating, I have been tagging appropriately, so that I can split off some of my posts to specific blogs if I need to do so in future. Zemanta in Firefox has been helpful as it suggests tags I do not think about. You all know I just throw everything in here and sort later, so I am in the sorting process. I have added feeds of some of the blogs I follow in my personal life and in class on this site as well.

Who Follows Directions Anyway?

Do we read directions anymore?  Sometimes I do, and it is the thing I complain about to my son, "Always read the directions, honey."  If I followed my own advice,  I could have saved myself some time in last week's class. This week I had a new dilemma, after setting up edublogs for 25 students and having to go into their emails getting their logins, and then logging in to change their passwords to be the same as the other web 2.0 tools they use, I could scream.  Turns out I could have set the password if I had clicked on the advanced blog creation button and set the password from the very beginning.  I WAS looking for the manual but all they had were a bunch of pdfs, not even addressing the issue.  It seems that when I go looking for directions I never find them. When they are there, I may ignore them and play for a while instead, trying to figure out the solution.

 I have always liked to explore as opposed to going the way the arrows point in life, and there lies the crux of my problem.   My happiest days are the ones when I strayed off a path to see what else might be there. I do not ignore signs that point out danger, I am not that ridiculous, but I always like to play with tools as opposed to reading about them.
I do usually go to manuals when I cannot immediately discern the way to work something.  Since I started going blind as a bat, I am less inclined to read, except for pleasure (Can't live without my books).  I just can't be bothered to take out my glasses so I don't have to squint.  My days of "Dreamweaver for Dummies" is behind me, it better have  a video tutorial for me to follow or you will hear me complaining as I search for those stupid Progressives.  I can't make them work anyhow, the reading zone is too darn small.
I am willing to get a Kindle or ipad this Christmas just to be able to make the text bigger. Of course I will have to make friends with so many people so I can borrow the books they bought.  I read way too much to buy the books I read, I go to the library every week and stock up.   I am not really interested in free ebooks, they are books that I don't really want to read or I have read already.  Wow, I have really strayed off topic here, another thing I tell my students and kids not to do.   Back on topic, following directions.... Good or Bad?  Hmmmmm, ask me next week... meanwhile I have enclosed a helpful article about teaching students how to read directions.

Why are you raising your hand?

Mrs. V asked, "Why are you raising your hand? So the computer can see you?" She was using the Smart word randomizer feature to call up students to share their daily journal stories.  The students wanted to be picked,  and kept raising their hands. It was the funniest thing.    Apparently that paradigm shift has not yet occurred.

Tech Slam

Check it out, tech slam.

Smartboards need Smart Teachers

In the last week, after our training from Faisal, I was really struck by how well the mimeo worked.  I have heard of mimeos hiding in closets in some districts and I personally know some teachers that have Easyteach boards in their rooms that they never touch. Why?  They lack training.  It is not a good idea to spend money on technology and not FULLY train teachers how to use them.  I had no training when I received my Promethean board. It took a me a year to fully understand how to use all the features and I would have used it for more if I had been trained for a few full days.  The training has to involve not just the features, but the content area toolbars and resources.  Teachers need TIME to build or change resources.  Unfortunately, districts want the biggest bang for their bucks, so they choose increased technology over training.  If we had the chance to learn our craft, we would be more effective and could turnkey our knowledge with other teachers in our district during district professional development.  I am seeing a trend toward this area in some schools, simply because districts cannot afford to bring people in from outside.   It is not enough.
If there is a teacher in a school who knows what they are doing, we can use prep times to be in their rooms and learn from them as they use the technology.  Both can get professional development hours for this.  We started off in the field as simple observers in our fieldwork classes, and it is still a wonderful method of learning as we attempt to keep up with the latest innovations in education. Here is a district goal outlined by Alan November, senior partner at Educational Renaissance Planners in Evanston, Illinois:

• Develop a technology budget, earmarking funding not only to acquire technology and design the infrastructure but also to ensure successful plan implementation by means of professional development for school staff and adherence to rules of thumb for professional development. Include funding for a technology specialist to provide ongoing support and feedback to staff.

Since this is the job I am performing right now, Technology Integrationist, I am more aware than ever of the lack of technology education our teachers have.  The little things like saving to a jump drive and printing in greyscale are big dilemmas to teachers who are now expected to provide interactive lessons using Smart boards.  I only hope that we move away from the drive-by trainings that don't provide the ongoing assistance teachers really need.  Only some of the teachers are comfortable with screencasts and webinars, a huge population of teachers need hands-on training that can be repeated as they need it. As I try to squeeze such trainings into lunch periods and preps, I get frustrated.  I feel like every other teacher feels when their students are just about to complete an objective and the bell rings.  I will be pushing for some substitute coverage so I can get more time with individual teachers.  Luckily I work in districts that have technology-rich goals, so I may actually get somewhere.  

Parent Night for Talent 21 Grant

It was a rewarding evening for the parents of the Talent 21 students in Woodbine, NJ.  They were able to use their child's new laptop and learn about the acceptable use policy, insurance options and the rationale for  the laptop rollout. Parent asked questions abou the use of laptops in their homes and in school.

 These students are the lucky few, they will have one-to- one computing for three years, across all subject areas.  One of the challenges they face is the learning curve to use the technology in a constructive way to learn content and share what they have learned with others.  Every day new challenges arise, new technologies are available, and they will keep pace with theses lightning changes.  This ability to adapt will serve them well in the future as they compete for jobs in a technology rich society.

Technology-enabled Substitutes

Yesterday, The substitutes of one of the school districts I work for participated in professional development. They learned how to access the teacher's websites and to use the Smartboards. Technology-enabled substitutes will be able to carry on with lessons in the technology-enabled classrooms when the teachers ...moreare away. The laptops can still come out and the students do not have to complete worksheets all day long.

The substitutes spent the morning in trainings and the afternoons with teachers in their rooms learning how technology is used in the classroom. This experience was the first of its kind that I ever witnessed. The principal also conducted a training session with the substitutes on how to be an effective substitute in the district. This planning for school-wide and student success is commendable. We will provide substitutes with a list of every teacher's website until the district website can be updated to include that information. They were also given directions for laptop basics and turning on projectors and smartboards.  An issue still outstanding is the ability to log into the teacher laptops.  A substitute username and password will have to be enabled on all machines and laptops that are connected to the smartboards. It would
be helpful to create hotsheets for each room that is technology enabled for the subs with quick reference sheets for the programs the students may be using.  We should also create a substitute website that has information and training tutorials.  Since the technology-enabled substitutes will be called first to serve in those classrooms, it does provide incentive for them to learn on an ongoing basis.
UPDATE!
On a sad note, in another school, the susbstitutes  allowed students from another class to use the 6th grader's laptops.  Substitutes need to follow the plans we leave for them as teachers, they definetly shoud never allow students to tell them what they "usually" do, because the students "usually" lie  to substitutes.  When in doubt, check with another teacher nearby, call the office and just maintain that it is your responsibility to follow the teacher's plans.  As a teacher it is hard enough to miss a day with our class, it causes huge problems when susbtitutes deviate from our plans.  We spend time getting those plans ready and it is frustrating  when we come back to havoc. In this instance, the offending students tried to visit blocked sites, they changed the students backgrounds and settings and added items to their favorites.

Teacher Interview Questions

As an offshoot of last week's discussion in my Intro to Ed. Tech class, I though I would share a helpful link with anyone out there still looking for a teaching job this year. You know that if we get the interview, and that is pretty hard these days, we have to make the most of that moment. You may have read about some of my worst job hunt moments last year in this blog, and I hope to help alleviate some of your fears.
The Apple posted this article recently on how to answer the toughest interview questions effectively. There were some admirable answers, especially to the question, "What is your greatest weakness?"  We hate to have to answer that one!  It is impossible to do correctly without being self-serving and we want to be honest, but we can't because then we would appear weak.  If you like, please post YOUR toughest interview question in my comments section. If you would like to share YOUR worst interview moment, I can give you a link to be a guest blogger on this site.

Post Tutorial Search Behavior

Loving it!

She gave me top status!

This morning I walked into the teacher's room whom I had worked with last week.  She just started teaching again after having a baby and does not have a lot of technical experience.  She is by no means afraid of technology, but she has not had exposure. Nor did she attend any of the summer trainings.  She saw me and her face just started glowing, she had three new ideas for for technology integration that she wanted me to teach her how to implement.  An OnCourse teacher website, uploading word documents to the smart assessment tools and assessing her students with the PE clickers and having her students blog their daily journals, WHEW! She also shared her experiences of technological mishaps that happened when I was away from her room.  The most impressive thing she said was that she felt like she could be helping other teachers by the end of the year.  A teacher-learner becomes a teacher-leader!  I wish we could all have "students" like this; people who are just dying to know something and can't wait for you to give them that little nudge in the right direction.  I couldn't have been prouder than her mom when she told me how she had figured out some things for herself and shared them with her team.   The she showed me how she had "added" me to her class.  At the end of the day I was wrung out, trying to get her trained in everything she wanted to know, but it was so worth it!

Mindmapping is supposed to be clear, isn't it?

I was looking at the examples of the mindmapping exercises that previous Intro to IT classes had completed and there were many that were too busy for me to want to look at.  I recently had to get glasses so this is an issue for me personally, but it may not affect a younger generation.  I enjoy  the clean lines of Facebook  and find them preferable to the busyness of Myspace that my younger students frequent.

This image is from the Worst PowerPoint Presentation

I teach my students that when they create PowerPoints, that they should use images effectively and no more than 2 per page.  The type should be 30 points or more.  I was impressed with the inventiveness and creativity of many of the IT History projects, but there was just so much going on that the message of the history of IT was lost. It would have been helpful to  have the guidance of the presenter to take one through them.
I started looking at various mindmaps on the web to see what I liked and what I disliked.  I loved this simple drawing of the life of William Shakespeare, but it was not interactive.  Another one I enjoyed was the ICT/Glow and Learning styles Mind map, again, it was not interactive.  I did eventually find a few that I thought were useful and interactive using free software called Freemind. This mindmap on Ubuntu was compelling, I liked the mouseover effects. It reminded me of  annotating The Heart of Darkness for our Litt. Reaseach class with Professor Honecker's class.  It will be interesting for me to see how busy our group project turns out...