Education World: Are You a Bully?

Education World: Are You a Bully?

Interesting view of teachers and administrators?

Amazing look at tomorrow!!!!!

One of my PLN's shared this video with me.  Teaching in a school with very poor equipment we try to model our technology use and share our personal equipment with students.  Our students were amazed by this piece. If you teach in a high tech classroom please let me know how your students responded.  Hope you all enjoy.....

**Vodcast** Easy file retrieval/movement

Using the Sata/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter

 

The Sata/IDE to USB 2.0 adapter costs $19.99 plus shipping and handling at Tiger Direct.  I did not search for other suppliers but have seen many online vendors carrying this similar product.

Week 12 Are you Flatter yet?

Yes!!!!! I have been preaching the message:  DO WHAT YOU LOVE. Anything you are passionate for will consume your time without your knowledge. I can sit down at the computer first thing in the morning consumed until someone asks, what's for supper. Honestly, I can sit at the keyboard for 10 to 12 hours without realizing it. Having just finished a business section on Entrepreneurship including leadership qualities with passion fueling many successful business stories. Movies worth considering are: Facebook, Ruby, Miracle on Ice, Google boys, Pirates of Silicon Valley (little dated), Bill Gates, and Pursuit of Happyness.  

Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder, who knew skateboarding before he came on the scene? Who hasn't heard or Burton snowboards? How long have they been around?  We can't train students to go to work in the “factory” because they really don't exist anymore. Not, that anyone would ever want a boring factory job when you have grown up as  Digital Natives or just plain Born Digital. If the United States wants to maintain the status of superpower, the battle will be in the classrooms of our country.  The 21st century,  the digital century with products and services we can't imagine, so how do we teach for them. It will not be teaching to the test; it will be teaching critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, and teamwork.  Our country needs every child to graduate college to compete in the global economy, raise gross domestic product, raise the standard of living, and dissolve the national debt. I don't see the 21st century with many letter carriers, do you?

Week 12 Inclusion

Inclusion is wonderful. Inclusion is for good for teachers, businesses, students, classrooms, and communities. Across the country public schools have focused on Adequate Yearly Progress or  AYP, which is measurement of individual student learning. AYP compares a student's academic scores year to year using standardized testing.  AYP has confirmed concerns that some students were not learning. We are spending money on practices that make students dependent on others, are very costly, and frequently don't produce results. What does work, is doing the right thing, which is exactly what we saw in the video.

Watching the video of Celeste's class it was clear that she was part of the class; she was accepted and included as a different “bodied student.” Yes, she is a functioning student within her class that was isolated from her peers by illness. It is so amazing that we have the capabilities to bring those individuals that are removed by illness, geography, or even anxiety from a classroom and have them become part of the classroom community. I found that truly inspiring! How could anyone question the decision to provide her instruction using Skype?

The use of Assistive Technology (AT) has been increasing but it is a mutual commitment that requires both teacher and student to be active participants. There is a National Public website on AT  listing of over 22,000 AT products with searches by function or activity.  The University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability is a leader in the AT movement offering classes and workshops on a variety of AT devices and strategies.  One upcoming class is titled, Universally Designed Technology to Support Reading, Writing, and Communication in the General Education Classroom. Most devices are really one time purchases and are more cost effective than the use of paraprofessionals or aids.

My ten years teaching in a large high school (2200+students) provided the opportunity to teach two students, Beverly and Nancy using AT. Both students had full mental function. Beverly was born legally blind, attending general education class only at the high school level. At age ten, Nancy was in an accident that left her only able to move her head. Beverly loved the general education courses and found AT provided many more options including independence for her in high school.  I was very comfortable with both students technology but was surprised by the lack of support for the teacher.  Teachers supporting students with AT receiving no extra training and must provide all student modifications without any extra time or reduction in schedule.  The class sizes are not reduced for AT students and after school makeup sessions may not be reasonable for the student to attend.  When considering significance disabilities shouldn't plans require the case manager review in detail the student's Individual Education Plan (IEP) and provide examples of prior modifications? A team type approach to make sure the student gets the best possible education with appropriate modifications.

The End…Reflections from a reluctant web 2.0 teacher

This has been a great experience for me!  Before this class I never considered a podcast, wiki, blog, Jing,  google docs, and now I can’t imagine live without those tools.   There is so much great material packed into this course, but if I had to pick one thing that my students love, it would be the wiki!  My wikis are very much under construction  gathering resources for 5 courses spanning 3 different content areas, will take time.  Oh yes, and all types of nasty things crawling around my laptop has forced me to make the change of a lifetime!  Working in an IBM "shop" since the age of 17 it was traumatic purchasing a Mac Book Pro this past Monday at age 52.  I love Disk Operating Systems (DOS)  and PC's but, having spent hundreds of hours cleaning equipment and bringing numerous viruses, worms, bots, and Trojans home, I had no choice.  I do feel that somethings were effected by the machine infections most obviously timeliness.  Productivity prevailed!

Wikis ensure student productivity with access available in class, resource, the library, or even at home.  Students can have greater control of their learning enabling more discrete repeated instruction from both school or home with the help of Jing.  The only negative is the district's policy to block all streaming video, meaning peers and students will not see the video clips inside the school unless they use my machine. Students seem to enjoy that I am teaching less and I believe even the lecture classes are  learning more utilizing the wikis.  Inspired "not to go quietly into the classroom" I emailed a request to remove the filters from my 3 wikis on February 11th, 2011.

There is still much that I can do while waiting for a response, including using the 2 flip video cameras I purchased for students to create their own "me" project.  Primary grades often complete an "all about me" project from which the flip project will spin. Students filling the camera's 2 hour video capacity, could be a source of improved understanding for families and staff.  Students will edit and burn a DVD of their work in class to share with family and friends, helping to foster the connections between home and school.  In August, freshmen orientation could continuing to capitalizing on students connections by incorporating pieces of all their videos to demonstrate the strength and diversity of our school. Could this impact student expectations and confidence?

Imagine a class focusing on second language learners creating flip projects in their own language to help and encourage younger students in acquiring english.  Students experienced in the transition to english could provide support and comfort to those beginning the process.  I am so impressed by the number of students that speak another language, since I have difficultly with my only language, english!  Having a non-english speaking mother-in-law created some interesting communications experiences for myself and children which technology eased.  

Memere (grandmother) as the kids called her was amazing in the kitchen, where cooking and baking dissolved the language barrier like sugar and water.  Memere would make their favorite dishes and though we tried to learn, we couldn't keep up and her fluent son didn't speak kitchen!  Attempting to create her signature dishes I got the idea to video record Memere and grandchildren making those "favorite recipes."   The recipe videos captured a woman who loved and cherished her grandchildren and truly enjoyed time spent cooking and baking with them. I have written many of the recipes down but, I like so many, prefer the visual. I believe that simple story explains the incredible power technology has to remove barriers and to connect people in many ways, even with Facebook. 

Living in a state that borders french speaking Quebec provides opportunities to visit relatives across the border on a regular basis.  Thanks to the many online translators (babel fish, and google translate),  Facebook has husband's french speaking family poking and sharing with me! Writing my thoughts in english then translating it to french.  When posting messages I use both the english and french text to ensure that anything lost in translation will not offend.  Could you envision foreign language classes using Facebook to communicate with native speakers, possibility from other countries. English speaking students using the target language and the non-english speaking students responding in english.  Think of the ability to speak the target language with a 21st century audio pen pal or rather audio pal. Technology is limitless to education.

 

There has been no class graduate or undergraduate that has influenced by teaching style and environment more than Plymouth State University's, Teaching and Learning In a Network Classroom.  Having coursework that can be used in the classroom immediately has lifted many frustrations and provided hope that tomorrow will be better.  Technology really lends itself well to project based learning which, I think we all appreciate for its deeper and enduring understanding.  I plan on taking a Windows operating system and Network Security classes at the technical college this summer hoping to stay ahead of classroom issues and updating the other aspect of my Personal Learning Network. However, saying the M word will take more time.

podcast test...pretty funny so I will leave it for all to enjoy

This is always the way I start the PowerPoint sections of ICT.....my students always remember what not to do after watching this......love it.