So what’s been keeping me so busy? I now have 145 student blogs up and running. Whew! I can tell you that many times over the past couple of weeks I kept asking myself if I was out of my mind! When I came up with the idea of setting my students up with blogs I figured I would start with two classes. Then, almost without thinking, I jumped in with both feet, hands, and every other appendage, and now all five of my classes are blogging.  So here’s the question…has all this work (see my reflections) been worth it? I can easily say “oh yeah”.

Here’s what I am seeing with my students blogs (blogs are listed on the right side of the home page):

1.  Excitement. My students were given an assignment that I started last year. The Weekly Reader, which I got from Jim Burke, is an incredible assignment that I enjoyed grading each week. However the students seemed to dread it. But now what I am sensing is an excitement from them. Now they know that I am not the only person who’s reading their work. Now there is so much more a sense of ownership because they are producing work and ideas that are being shared with the world, rather than “just their English teacher”.

2. Community. What I told my students is that blogging is a community thing. That the idea is you read what I say and comment. I read what you say and comment, and then maybe blog about what you’ve written, etc., etc.  I did not make it a requirement that students go to other blogs and make comments. Yet every blog that I go to seems to have anywhere between one and three comments. It’s fantastic! They are creating a community on their own that I don’t think I could have created had I tried to.

3. Teacher Involvement. Okay, admit it, mostly if something doesn’t involve us directly we don’t put much energy into it. Well, I took a chance and announced my student blogs at our last faculty meeting. My thought was really and truly no one would take the time to even glance at them. Boy was I wrong! Not only have teachers been visiting the student blogs, they have been taking time to make comments on the blogs! Wow! Seriously, I don’t even need to address what kind of message this sends to the students.

Right now I am riding high. Looking back at the immense amount of time put into this entire thing I can say it was more than worth it. Actually I have no words to express how worth it this whole thing is. What my students are getting from this is amazing and priceless.

So in closing I want to thank all of my colleagues who have supported and continue to support OUR students; and I would ask all my readers (my PLN) to click on over to Lahaise’s Lair and check out my student blogs. Hey, you might even want to comment on one or two.

BTW, if you don’t have OneNote in your MS Office suite. You can download a trial copy. It’s good for 60 days, and if you find that you don’t want to purchase it, just transfer all that stuff into a Word document. OneNote makes it really easy.  Remember, Microsoft offers teacher and student versions of for reduced prices.

So check back often, and I hope you find something useful in my OneNote notebooks.

What do you think? Possible? Desirable?

Thanks so much to Darren @ A Difference, for turning me on to this great video!

I spent the better of this past week going through the software, searching online for extras, watching video tutorials and essentially thinking about how I will incorporate this “tool” into my daily lessons. You see I found out this board, and all the accessories, cost the school about $8000, so I feel a huge sense of responsibility for using the heck out of it.

After spending the some time doing all of those things a thought hit me: why do I want this? I’m already a good teacher, without any technology in my (physical) classroom. How is this going to make me a better teacher? How will this make my students better?

Then as I’m thinking about all of this I start going through some old blog posts that I am (very!) behind in reading and there is this one at The Tempered Radical , Bill Ferriter’s blog, that further confuses things. His post about technology in the classroom is actually a spin-off from another blog I follow, Will Richardson’s, Weblogg-ed.  You should most definitely click over to those posts, but the gist is a back-and-forth conversation about technology being useful in the classroom. Bill quotes Marc Prensky’s comment which essentially says that verbs are skills and nouns are the tools we use to teach those skills. Verbs are essentially static, changing little over time, yet the nouns will continually be dynamic. Bill response to that was what really hit me:

Prensky’s right when he argues that fixating on individual tools is a dangerous trap that schools fall into.
Look around any building in your community and you’re bound to see thousands of dollars of wasted resources: Classrooms outfitted with interactive whiteboards that students never touch, sets of student responders used to ask low-level knowledge and understanding questions.

Now I have all these thoughts swimming in my mind. Add to that the realization that if I really am going to use this tool properly it requires an immense amount of pre-work. It isn’t like walking up to a whiteboard and writing a journal topic. There are slides that have to be pre-programmed, etc., etc. Sure, there are some pretty cool things I’ve found, but they all require pre-planning like I’ve never done before.

So here’s my bottom line… I have to wonder, is this going to turn into a “be careful what you wish for”, or am I just not seeing the big picture yet, and once I get into the school year will find my new IWB to be the best “noun” since sliced bread?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Actually I am frequently taken aback because I just assume that everyone knows about this stuff. Ok, Well, that’s why I started this site actually, because I really want to help everyone who doesn’t know this. Sure, if you are an experienced pro, this post isn’t for you, but for everyone else, you might want to keep reading.

Common Craft, an amazing group who make simple to understand videos, explain RSS quite well. Check out this video by them (it’s only 3 minutes long):

The bottom line…using RSS to pull all the things you want to stay abreast is such a great tool. I use Google Reader because all I have to do is sign into my GMail account and click on the reader link. In addition, I have multiple Google accounts, personal, work & blog (you don’t need to do that, but that’s what works for me), so I can also pull in my RSS feeds into each account based on the topic. See the screenshot below of my Google Reader page:

Create your own caption

For example: I have all my ed tech blogs feeding into my personal account. This fall I am starting all my students with their own “blogs”. When that happens I can pull all their feeds into my work account.

Just about every site you come across today has an RSS feed. If you are using Firefox you simply need to look at the address bar and see if there is a little RSS icon present. If one is there, that means the site can be subscribed to and you simply need to click it.

I know IE 8 has a similar feature in the toolbar. However I apologize that I don’t know about the functions in other browsers (really, you should be using Firefox anyway!)

If you read yesterday’s post about Google Calendar, and you followed my advice, that means you are already signed up with Google Reader. So why don’t you click on the little heart chocolate and subscribe to this blog. Then, go to my Ed Tech Blogs Page and subscribe to any that look interesting to you.

If you didn’t see my post about Google Calendar, well, you should read that, then you will be so on top of things by the time September rolls around, your students will be completely blown away.

This post has been provided especially for my friends Annie, Brian, Kris and my husband Paul.

Be sure to check-in tomorrow when I discuss Google Voice.

I’ll start with a basic, and the one that saves me the most time: Google Calendar. One of the great things about the calendar system is that I control everything from one place and it’s all automatically updated on the website. This means that even if you don’t want to have a fully functional class website, you can still have a basic one that simply uses the calendar to broadcast events. Because you control everything from your Google account once you have your site set-up you never have to go back fiddle with it if you don’t want to.

Here’s how I use Google calendar:

I have a calendar set-up for each of my classes, and each of those calendars are embedded into pages on my student’s website.

As you can see each calendar has it’s own color. This is an important detail because it can get confusing if you are looking at all the events at once:

(BTW, to see the images larger, just hold down your control key and use your mouse’s scroll wheel to zoom in and out; or just click on it.).

Of course you also have the ability to turn individual calendars on and off, so that if you just want to view one (or however many you choose), you are able to do that.

The biggest feature for me is the ability to add as many details as I want, such as “what”; “where”, “when” and “description”. I love the “where” feature because I use a few different methods of turning things in. Under the “where I can let them know if it’s something that is happening (or due) in class, or Turnitin.com, or if it should be uploaded to Drop.io (see previous post on about that awesome site).

All the students have to do is click on the event and all the details pop-up. Here’s what it looks like for them:

BTW, unless I need to set an assignment or event for a specific time I use the all day feature. That makes the event stand out in the color highlighted box.

Once I started using Google calendar on my website (almost) all homework related problems stopped. Think about how many times you hear: “I was absent, what was the homework”? Or “I forgot to write down the homework”. Or my favorite, “There was homework”? Using the calendar system made all of that go away. It took a tiny bit of training in the beginning of reminding my students to check the calendar, but rather quickly I was able to stop saying that and they just knew to do it.

Frequently I will “teach” right up to the bell. On those occasions I was finding myself scrambling to think about what I wanted the homework to be and then writing it on the board (a tedious task). Now I get to sit down when it’s quiet, and calmly type away. It is a much smoother process which has saved me loads of time and aggravation.

The system is so intuitive and user friendly there is no reason everyone can’t use it.

Check-in tomorrow for my next product highlight.

]]> http://www.paigesprose.com/2009/07/google-rules-the-world/feed/ 0 http://www.paigesprose.com/2009/07/52-teachers-52-lessons/ http://www.paigesprose.com/2009/07/52-teachers-52-lessons/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:50:13 +0000 Paige http://www.paigesprose.com/?p=261 While I am no “newbie” when it comes to reading blogs, I most certainly am a newbie when it comes to authoring and setting-up one (see previous post!). That’s why I am extra honored to have been included yesterday in Tom DeRosa’s series 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons. Tom asks the insightful question: “what is the most important advice you can give to other teachers?”

It was so hard to narrow down my thoughts, but in the end I opted for some advice for a new teacher.

Tom is on week 25 of the series, and I’m pretty sure he is open to more contributors. Even if you don’t want to contribute you should definitely check-out his blog, I Want to Teach Forever (If you subscribe to the feed of my blog subscriptions then you already know his is included).

I heard about Drop.io last year and immediately thought of a dozen ways to use it in my personal life. In fact, it just came in handy when I needed to get a huge slideshow to a friend for use in his wedding. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized just how useful a tool Drop.io could be in my classroom.

First let me back-up a few months… Sometime last Spring I read a blog (I am SO sorry I don’t remember the blogger’s name) whereby the author/teacher discusses her idea for a paperless classroom. Well, the more I read, and the more I pondered, I realized this was something I too wanted to achieve. So I set about in search of the tools I would need to accomplish this goal.

Now at this point I had already been using my (old)  blog to post announcements and homework, and our Ning (sorry it’s a private community) to post discussions. I am also lucky enough to have a school subscription to Turnitin.com (something I cannot recommend enough if your school can swing it) for major essays and peer editing, but I knew there had to be a better way for students to submit their daily homework. Until this point they had been bringing in the questions/answers to class in hard copy form. One thing I frequently noticed was how many students were typing their homework. So it seemed like a natural progression to offer some sort of online submission venue.

I did a bit of research and found Moodle. Now you must know that I am extremely lucky to be married to a computer programmer. That means that I have access to many things most teachers do not. So when I approached my husband about setting up Moodle on our server he said no problem. On a Sunday morning he and a programmer friend set-up the entire system on our server. Wow. How much do we love open source code? Unfortunately when I started playing with the system I realized how complex it is, so much so that I knew my students would not navigate it with ease (more on the myths of gen Y’s computers literacy, or lack there of,  in a later post). So once again, my search continued to find a better, easier way for students to submit daily homework.

That’s where Drop.io comes in. With Drop.io I am able to set-up “drops” where files can be uploaded. They allow file uploads of up to 100 MB!! That’s huge and something you will rarely ever use in the education community. They offer so many good features, but for my purposes the best part is that I can have “secret” drops, and taking that even further, simply embed the upload link into my student’s site. Go here for an example. Why is this important? When I first explained to my husband (remember, non-educator) what I wanted to do, his reaction was “now you are going to make it even simpler for them to copy each other? Right, if I simply let them post their homework to a site where they all know the address, each of them has access to everyone’s paper. With Drop.io’s system none of them even knows the site address. It’s really a beautiful thing.

Some of you are probably scratching your heads, asking why don’t I just use Turnitin.com for all of this. Well, sure I could, however Turnitin.com’s system is complex (in a good/bad way). Unfortunately I would be spending at least 30 min. per day setting up assignments Turnitin’s system, EACH day. I would have to remember the assignment title, due date, etc., etc. With Drop.io the onus is on the student. All I do is sit back and watch the assignments get uploaded. It has really simplified my classroom.

Ok, so what about students who don’t have super easy access to computer or the Internet. Look, honestly, I teach at a Title 1 school, and even there it is very rare for students not to have some access. But in those rare instances there are a number of computers available at school. My students know that I rarely leave my classroom and they are always welcome to use the couple of computers I have. No, it isn’t the best situation for them, however, they need to get used to it now, because technology, and the need for basic computer skills, are not going to go away.

I’ll be writing more about my paperless classroom ideas/progress in the future. At this point however I must say that Drop.io has been an incredible tool helping me achieve that goal.

TED Talks are very commonly referred to and blogged about these days, so I won’ t bore anyone by simply reiterating what my colleagues have already posted.

What I would like to say about the TED videos is that I am finding them to be my number one go-to resource with students and adults, inside and outside of the classroom. I cannot think of another resource that has proven to be as versatile as the TED videos.

However, just like all everything else in this world, not all TEDs are created equal. With that in mind I would like to highlight just a few of my top picks. BTW, these are pretty much hands down the top picks amongst my students, teachers and friends.

John Francis:  didn’t speak for 18 years because he knew he needed to learn something. After showing this TED the first time in one of my classes a student looked at me and said “I am so inspired I want to try it. I want to stop talking and just listen to what everyone is saying.” Yes, those words from the mouth of a teenage boy!

I have seen this TED multiple times now and get something different from Mr. Francis upon each viewing. Perhaps the most important thing however was the realization that I, like most educators, haven’t been truly listening to my students. How many times do you have a student who is talking and you immediately jump to the end, knowing full well what he/she is going to say?

I cannot recommend this one enough.