Category Archives: Technology

Laptops in Schools

The New York Times reported yesterday that Liverpool High School in Liverpool, New York is phasing out its student laptop program. The article is a perfect illustration of exactly what schools do wrong when they issue laptops to each student.

[T]echnology is often embraced by philanthropists and political leaders as a quick fix, only to leave teachers flummoxed about how best to integrate the new gadgets into curriculums.

The article’s refrain seems to be that teachers didn’t know what to do with the laptops, students only played with them, and nothing of any educational value happened as a result.

I am fortunate to teach at a school where students can reasonably be expected to have access to a computer at home. We have a wonderful computer lab at school. In fact, I am currently debating with myself whether it’s feasible to require my students to purchase a USB flash drive as part of their school supplies for my class next year (they are currently available online for as low as $9, which is certainly less than the graphing calculators required in math). I mention this because I think it illustrates the level of comfort our school community feels with technology. Many of our students bring their own laptops to school.

Because access to technology is not a problem for my students, I am perhaps not the best person to comment on whether laptop programs are valuable or not, as they are not relevant to me. I was disturbed by some elements of the article. Was there not one teacher who used the laptops in innovative, educationally sound way? No use of wikis or blogs, no research? No composition using word processors or presentation software? I just can’t believe no one found the laptops valuable at all.

Second, I am confused about what the school authorities hoped to accomplish in issuing laptops without first offering professional development to educators. I also cannot understand why the school didn’t anticipate the problems that ensued with students’ misuse of the laptops. In the photograph at the top of the article, it looks as though the student using the laptop has even applied stickers to it. What sort of discussion about how the computer should be handled was generated? The stickers are not exactly small, and if the student has been using the laptop in class, surely someone has seen them. I probably shouldn’t even get into the appropriateness of the student’s attire, but did a school that allows students to wear shirts that seem to advocate underage drinking actually expect its students to know how to take care of and properly use a school-issued computer?

It sounds to me as if the faculty was resistant to the idea of using the laptops, but the school authorities were convinced the computers would be a panacea — test scores and grades would magically rise just because students had 24-hour access to a laptop. That is simply not the case, and of course studies coming out now showing no difference between schools who have embraced laptops versus those who haven’t are going to bear that out. However, standardized tests cannot very well measure some of the learning that takes place in Web 2.0 classrooms:

Mark Warschauer, an education professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of “Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom” (Teachers College Press, 2006), also found no evidence that laptops increased state test scores in a study of 10 schools in California and Maine from 2003 to 2005…

But Mr. Warschauer, who supports laptop programs, said schools like Liverpool might be giving up too soon because it takes time to train teachers to use the new technology and integrate it into their classes. For instance, he pointed to students at a middle school in Yarmouth, Me., who used their laptops to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala and debate Supreme Court cases found online.

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said.

Integrating technology comes with its own set of problems, and if you really expect positive results, you have to address those problems head-on. The overall tone of the article is clearly biased against the laptops — it does not appear to me that much effort was expended to find examples of innovation and creativity in learning with laptops. I have to agree that throwing laptops at the students and expecting something great to happen as a result is foolish at best, but schools have to decide what results they would like to achieve and actually work toward achieving those results, just as they do with any set of standards in any field of study. We don’t check out books to students and expect them to learn course material themselves. Why should we expect that tactic to work with laptops?

[tags]laptops, education, New York Times, Web 2.0[/tags]

Classroom 2.0

I was invited to join the Classroom 2.0 community by Nani. I wanted to try it out for a few days before I wrote about it here just so I could be sure it would be something I’d stick with. Several familiar “faces” have joined up with Classroom 2.0. One of the interesting things about Classroom 2.0 to me, however, is the number of unfamiliar faces. The community is built around the subject of using Web 2.0 in the classroom, and I think it could be a good resource for anyone who wants ideas about integrating blogs and wikis (and other similar applications) into their curriculum.

[tags]Classroom 2.0, wikis, blogs, education, technology[/tags]

Interactive White Boards

I mentioned the fact that I use a SMARTBoard interactive white board in my classes, and I have received an e-mail and a comment about SMARTBoards.  In my book, if two people are wondering about it, perhaps it warrants a post.  Before I begin, however, I need to issue a disclaimer.  I haven’t used other interactive white boards, so I’m not sure how they work.  Second, I don’t work for SMART Technologies, and I am not necessarily endorsing their product.  I am very happy with their product, but it could be that other interactive white boards are just as good.  Finally, I need to add that this is my first year teaching with a SMARTBoard, and I don’t know it inside-out myself yet, so I haven’t begun to figure out all its potential uses; I can only speak to how it has transformed my own class.

What is a SMARTBoard?  It is an interactive white board, which means that it is hooked up to my classroom computer and works much like a touch-screen monitor.  I can access any program on my computer from the SMARTBoard at the front of the room.  Here is an FAQ for the kind of SMARTBoard I have.

SMARTBoards come bundled with software specifically for use with the SMARTBoard, including gallery content and templates.  I think the math materials look pretty good, but I will be the first to admit that the content provided for English/language arts is elementary and not really helpful for high school.  However, if you keep in mind that you are only limited by what you can do with a computer, then the fact that the bundled content isn’t that great shouldn’t be a problem.

What do I do with my own SMARTBoard?  The biggest way in which my SMARTBoard has changed my teaching is that I am able to save notes written on the board in class.  I tend to save them as pdf files so that my students can download them at home, but they can also be saved as SMART Notebook files (for which one has to have free SMART software installed), images, and Power Point files.  I write on the board as I would any white board, but the difference is I don’t have to erase.  I can add as many new pages as I need to add to get the content up, and then I can save the whole thing.  I can copy and paste images into my notes, as I did when I wanted to show students the parts of a Greek theater (see the second page).

I use the SMARTBoard to access the Internet in class.  We have viewed YouTube videos with the SMARTBoard (it’s also great for displaying DVD’s played through the computer).  I also have used it to demonstrate how to do something in a computer program, such as how to login to our class blog and post an entry, how to alter our wiki, or how to manipulate text in programs such as Word.  It’s so easy to demonstrate how to do something on the computer with a SMARTBoard.

Another frequent activity my students do on the SMARTBoard is correcting usage errors.  Many language arts teachers may be familiar with the DOL activity in which students are presented with two sentences containing grammar, usage, and mechanical errors.  The students learn grammar through correcting the errors.  What I am able to do with DOL’s on the SMARTBoard is type the sentences up in Power Point and display them.  Students come to the board and make the corrections using proofreading marks (which has an added benefit in that they understand what the marks mean on their own papers when I use the marks).

SMARTBoards work great with Power Point presentations, enabling the presenter to switch slides easily.  One can also write on the slide using the SMARTBoard pens to add information or clarify or emphasize a point.  You know how it is when you’re a teacher — it’s easier to keep tabs on all the students if you’re in front of the room, and a SMARTBoard enables you to access your computer from the front.

One thing I really like about having a SMARTBoard is that if a student has a question I can’t answer, we can explore it together right then.  I can pull up the Internet and we can search for the answer.

I know many other features exist, and as I said, I am still learning all the uses myself.  For instance, I know that I can record our SMARTBoard sessions like a video.  One of our math teachers can access the graphing calculator and demonstrate calculations.  You are only limited by your creativity and what you can do with a computer.

[tags]SMARTBoard, interactive white board, technology, education[/tags]

Teachers and RSS

I would be willing to bet there are three teachers at my school who know what RSS is — the two IT‘s and me. My colleagues are intelligent, capable teachers, but like many teachers, they are neophytes when it comes to certain aspects of technology. As far as I know, I’m the only teacher blogger at my school. A few other teachers are beginning to use wikis after my presentation, but my wiki usage is most extensive. I’m not bragging; I have simply had more exposure to blogs and wikis than they have. I have been writing online, in some form or other, for nearly six years now.

Lorelle recently posted about RSS feeds via e-mail; she quoted a statistic from FeedBlitz which indicated that only 11% of web users use RSS aggregators (link). I’m not sure where this statistic comes from, as the most recent study I could find with a similar statistic dates to October 2005, which is ancient in ‘net terms (pdf). However, I think it is safe to say, judging by my personal experience, that lots of people use RSS, but don’t realize they are doing so. They use My Yahoo, My MSN, Google Personalized Homepages, or a similar homepage to collect their favorite websites, bookmarks, games, news sites, weather, and more. All of this is dependent on RSS.

When I gave my presentation on using blogs and wikis in classroom to the faculty at my school, our IT was giving a presentation on RSS. I was really excited because I think teachers can really benefit from using RSS aggregators. When I asked faculty members about his presentation (which, unfortunately, ran concurrently with mine, so I couldn’t attend it), they told me he told them about Google Personalized Homepages. They didn’t seem to have a clue what I meant when I mentioned RSS. It’s not his fault, as I’m sure he was measuring his audience and decided to do the most helpful thing he could for them.

I think teachers could save a lot of time if they used RSS aggregators to keep up with content on the web. Before I started using an RSS aggregator, I checked my favorite websites for updates every day, which can be time-consuming. As a result, I know that I followed fewer websites and probably missed out on some interesting information. An RSS aggregator allows you to gather all the websites you follow in one place, and it even tells you when they’ve been updated. News on Feeds has a list of web-based aggregators (same things as RSS aggregator, different term). I think the most popular aggregators on their list are Bloglines, Google Reader, and My Yahoo. Subscribing to an RSS feed using any one of these aggregators is really simple in Firefox: you simply click on the orange square in the right side of the location bar (address bar). You will be asked if you would like to use Bloglines, Google Reader, or My Yahoo to subscribe to the feed. You may need to login to your RSS aggregator if you haven’t already done so during your surfing session. In Internet Explorer 7, you will notice the same orange square near the address bar. If the website you are viewing has an RSS feed, you can subscribe to it using Microsoft’s feed reader. I don’t much like this option, as I think it’s a perfect demonstration of Microsoft’s propensity to make things more difficult for users who don’t want to use a Microsoft product to do something. My suggestion is to copy and paste the feed URL into your own favorite RSS aggregator, which is not as easy as Firefox.

When you login to your RSS aggregator, you can see a list of feeds you follow, and it will be easy to see any that have been updated with new stories or posts since you last logged in. My personal favorite feed reader is Bloglines. I have organized all the feeds I follow into folders labeled according to the types of blogs in that folder (for instance, Education is one of my folders). I don’t have to visit all 93 (!) feeds that I follow every day. I just visit Bloglines and look at the ones who have updated. Can you imagine how much time it would take to check 93 sites every day to see if they’ve been updated?

Most blogging software programs come bundled with RSS feeds, so you are probably publishing one, even if you don’t realize it. If you aren’t, you can easily create feeds for your blog or site by using Feedburner. I would suggest that you allow your users to read the full post or story in their feed reader. My husband won’t do this because he feels it cheats him out of website visits. I contend that if a user wants to visit your site to see the pretty template you made, then they will. If you force your reader to visit your site to finish reading what you’ve wrote, you might put some RSS readers off. Ultimately, it’s a decision you have to make, but you should ask yourself this question: Which is more important, accessibility to readers or hits on your website? If readers feel compelled to comment upon what you’ve written, they will visit your site to do so. I know how cool it is to see those high site statistics, but it’s also pretty cool to see the number of feed subscribers go up. One thing you know about your feed subscribers is that they are reading what you say. Visitors who Google something and wind up on your site, only to find the information they were looking for isn’t there (most likely because the majority of people don’t know how to search wisely) aren’t reading anything. Those site statistics can be misleading. In my opinion, what you really want to do is develop a loyal readership, and RSS feeds make that easier for some.

RSS also makes it really easy for you to find out what others are saying about your blog, business, or product. Technorati makes it easy for you to see if anyone new has linked to your site. Technorati runs on RSS. When you update your blog, you can use its tagging system to allow Technorati users who are looking for information to find your blog. For instance, at the bottom of this post, you will see one of my Technorati tags is “RSS.” This will enable Technorati users who are interested in reading about RSS to find this post easily. Of course, this will help you increase your readership, too.

RSS is a good thing. Try it out.

[tags]RSS, education, RSS aggregators, Bloglines, Technorati, My Yahoo, Google Reader, Feedburner, feeds[/tags]

Great Gatsby Scavenger Hunt

This morning when I arrived at school, our receptionist, who is currently getting her degree in English Education, told me that her class had to do presentations on teaching one of two novels. I can’t remember the title of one, but the other was The Great Gatsby. She dug in her bag and pulled out a handout that her classmates who presented Gatsby had distributed. It had the URL to my Gatsby Scavenger Hunt, noting the activity was a really good introduction to the novel. I have to say that it is, and I can say that without being too boastful because I didn’t create it. Valerie Arbizu did. I have encountered problems with her site, namely that some of the links she created were dead. She thanked me for pointing out the dead links, but I think that she has decided not to update the page any longer. I recreated it, giving her credit of course, with all the links fixed.

Our receptionist’s reminder (I haven’t got to Gatsby yet this year) prompted me to check the page for dead links, and lo and behold, all the links to Valerie’s pages no longer work, so I had to recreate all of those, and the 1920’s slang page and one other site were all dead. One page was a little too complicated to recreate, so I simply linked to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine cache of the site, which my husband assured me would probably work unless the site’s author wrote to Internet Archive and asked that the site be removed. If you are unfamiliar with that site, you should really check it out. It is extremely useful when websites go down or are taken offline. So now my Gatsby Scavenger Hunt is in working order. Please check it out if you teach that novel. I’ve had great success with the activity. And thanks to Valerie for sharing it with us in the first place!

Update: Well, I got all excited and created all those pages for nothing; Valerie’s page seems to be working fine. Tell her how great her Scavenger Hunt is if you get a chance.

[tags]Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, teaching, education, webquest, scavenger hunt[/tags]

Podcasting

I am excited about using blogs and wikis in the classroom, and my students have used both to create content, discuss books, discuss writing and grammar, and to share their ideas. You can see their work at Room 303 Blog and Mrs. Huff’s English Classroom Wiki. I have to admit I’m daunted by podcasting for some reason. Many educators are beginning to use podcasting to great effect. Mike Hetherington and Bud Hunt have used podcasts to great effect, and I know both Will Richardson and David Warlick champion their use. I know there are many others, and if you know of someone or are someone using podcasting, please show me so I can check it out.

On Wednesday my freshman are going to participate in Socratic Seminar on the topic “Who is responsible for Romeo and Juliet’s deaths?” I had a brainwave that it would make an excellent podcast, but frankly, I’m not sure we have the proper tools to make one. I’m checking into that. At any rate, don’t look for a podcast soon. A certain level of comfort is required, and I’m not quite there yet. I also want my students to be prepared for and comfortable with doing one. I don’t think springing the idea that their discussion will be recorded the day before they have it would be a good idea.

I guess you could say I’m in the exploratory stage; I’m not ruling out podcasts in the future, but I’m not ready for one yet. However, you can learn about how one school is using podcasting to share what they’re learning about Jamestown in this 400th year of its founding.

You know, I don’t even own an MP3 player? I look longingly at them behind the glass in my local department store, but I have not yet been able to sock away the funds necessary to purchase one.

[tags]podcasting, education[/tags]

What is Web 2.0?

I must have missed this one when it made the rounds, for it surely must have. My friend Roger brought it to my attention. Better late than never! If you haven’t seen it, you need to:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Think about the ways in which this technology has already changed and will continue to change education — if we let it, that is. I am often exasperated by how little teachers are actually doing with Web 2.0.

[tags]Web 2.0, blogging, wikis, YouTube, education[/tags]

The Free Library and DailyLit

Ample Sanity provided two intriguing links that English teachers might enjoy.

The Free Library offers “free free, full-text versions of classic literary works from hundreds of celebrated authors, whose biographies, images, and famous quotations can also be found on the site” as well as “a massive collection of periodicals from hundreds of leading publications.” I spent about five minutes on the site and was immediately hooked. The potential for use in schools is enormous.

DailyLit offers books via e-mail to those “too busy for books.” I scratched my head at first, but then realized that this idea has a lot of potential. I know that I have trouble finding time to read books with three kids and a full time job. I sometime feel like I don’t read enough (I can impose more guilt trips on myself, I swear!), but I always have a book going. Getting books via e-mail can ensure that I will spend at least a few minutes reading, and the selection is great. I think I’m finally going to read Moby Dick.

[tags]Free Library, DailyLit[/tags]

The School of the Future

Computer LabWhat do you think schools will look like in ten years? In twenty? I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey today, and it made me think. In some ways, the 1968 film was oddly prescient about what the year 2001 would look like, but in others it missed the mark entirely. I have found this to be true in many works of science fiction. Predicting the future is incredibly difficult. Thinking about this made me remember a film made by Karl Fisch back in November:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7281108124087435381" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

I graduated from college in 1997 — ten years ago this year. I started teaching during the 1997-1998 school year. I taught at a poor, rural school in Middle Georgia. We didn’t have computers in the classroom. I can’t remember a computer lab or other widespread computer access, but I do remember we had to save our grades on a computer disk. I did mine on a laptop that had been a graduation gift. I can’t remember what the other teachers did. I realize that we had less than many other schools; the school where I did my student teaching had two computer labs. My supervising teacher had a computer in her classroom, but I think that was because she was the Journalism teacher and needed it to lay out the newspaper.

For the next three years, I taught at my alma mater, Warner Robins High, and we had classroom computers. We had a document camera in one classroom, and we thought it was amazing. I know we had a lab, but it was difficult to get into. I had to plan far in advance for time in the lab. This is probably still true in many places. I left that school in the year 2001.

I taught pre-K for a year, then returned to public schools, teaching middle school in suburban Atlanta. Again, we had a computer lab, but competition was even more fierce. I observed a class and saw my first online scavenger hunt, and I thought it was amazing. A fellow teacher had students reading online articles to learn about the Middle East. A peer showed us how to create Jeopardy games using Power Point software. It was hard to get my hands on the projector, however.

I began teaching at Weber in the year 2004. I had a computer in my classroom and access to computer lab most of the time when I needed it (provided someone hadn’t signed up before me — which rarely happened, and not because no one used it, but because our school is small). One of our teachers used a SMART Board. I couldn’t even imagine all it might do.

When we moved into our new building, I received a SMART Board. We have two sizable computer labs with new computers. All of us who had computers older than two years old received new classroom computers (I was one). The SMART Board has so completely transformed my teaching that I’m not sure how I did without it. I introduced my colleagues to blogs and wikis in the classroom on our January staff development day.

My point in recounting all of this is that in my first year of teaching, I hardly could have imagined what might be available to my students and me as far as technology, and this was ten years ago. I suppose some possibilties in the next ten years might include the following:

  • Widespread use of laptops. I would say about 20-50% of my students use them, but I do teach at a somewhat affluent private school. In the future, as laptop prices drop and schools become forced to be more open to technology, I think laptops will be everywhere.
  • Interactive white boards (SMART boards) will be commonplace. Mine has transformed my classroom, and I cannot help but feel it will have a similar effect on others.
  • Blogging and wikis will be used widely in education; in many circles, they may be required. The middle school where I worked required us to use School Notes. I think my administrators are reluctant to require all teachers to have websites, but mine has been well-received by parents (even if it hasn’t quite been used by the students as much as I wish they would).
  • Increasingly, teachers will be responsible for teaching students to navigate the sometimes murky waters of technology; lest we hope such education would be relegated to parents alone, I remind you (or inform you, if you didn’t know) that character education is required by the state of Georgia.
  • Students will increasingly produce products such as videos, podcasts, websites, and the like for school.
  • Students might one day opt for distance learning, plugging in to a school across the country, if they wish, to learn from the comfort of their own home.

That barely scratches the surface. What do you think the future holds in store for education?

[tags]technology, education, future[/tags]

Never Forget

Holocaust PosterMy students will be collaborating with Mr. Murphy’s students on a project involving the Holocaust. His 8th graders, who are studying the Holocaust in literature such as the play based upon The Diary of Anne Frank, will chronicle the family histories of my students, whom Mr. Murphy’s students will interview. I teach at a private Jewish high school, and many of our students are the family members of Holocaust survivors. Students on both sides of the project are excited. I think Mr. Murphy, our students, and I all know that this could potentially be a big, life-affirming, amazing project.

Mr. Murphy posted our e-mails back and forth on his blog. I will lay credit for coming up with the idea squarely at his feet. All I did, as you can see if you read the blog, was offer to help in a small way. It was his idea to make our classrooms “flat” and reach out across the country to enable our students to exchange real stories, making history come alive. In the apt words of Mr. Murphy’s student: “We should make a book out of whatever we get. That way we have a history book that’s about the stories, and not just history.”

It could be delusions of grandeur, but I thought, yes! It could be a book! I am excited about this project. This couldn’t happen without current educational technology, namely blogs and wikis. I wouldn’t have ever cyber-met Mr. Murphy if not for his blog, and our students could never have collaborated on such a project. You’ll indulge me perhaps if I throw up a little appropriate (but somewhat nostalgic) tune that sums up how I feel:

Download link

[tags]Holocaust, flat classroom, blogs, wikis, education, collaboration[/tags]