MACUL - and other reflections

I remember fondly my days of Oregon Trail and Number Munchers on the old-school Apple computers. In elementary school, we were rewarded with educational games loaded from floppy disks, a concept that seems as outdated today as Ataris. These floppy disks had memory capacities with the unit of 120 MB. Today, we have thumb drives with capacities of 64 GB (or 65536 MB). When the computers didn't work, we removed the disks, blew into the computer and started over. Even in the most technologically backwards classroom today, it is interesting to note that the capacities here far exceed those of the most advanced classrooms of the 1980s and 90s.

With this in mind, I recently attended the 2014 MACUL conference, featuring a range of cutting-edge technology providers and ideas for the classroom. On the one hand, I loved seeing the potential presented by all of these technologies. On the other, I felt somewhat taken aback by this rush to using new technologies, just because we can.  The skeptic in me cautions against for-profit companies trying to sell me the "new best thing".  Regardless, the day was instructive.

My first stop was a presentation of Google Glass. Right off the bat, I think this is equal parts scary and exciting. Google Glass allows you to attach what equates to a computer-camera to your glasses. A small monitor, mounted just in your blind spot, displays a simple menu with commands such as "Take a Picture" or "Directions". When you select your option, you get a small, transparent image of pictures or a map. At one point during the presentation, one audience participant asked about classroom applications. Teachers can record a procedure from their perspective and dictate instructions as they go. They allow students to see exactly what the teacher is seeing at a given point and they free up hands for taking notes. Students could use these to record a dissection, video and audio, all from what they're seeing.

All this aside, I fear, most of this comes back to a price point. As I mentioned above, for-profit companies, though offering a lot of educational tools, still want to sell you things and Google is at the forefront of this. I have used Google forms for tests and surveys and loved most of it. I use gmail because it is powerful and the best part of all of it...they're free. Google Glass...for those prototyping the hardware...$1500, plus the cost of shipping and glasses frames (and prescriptions)...expect to pay roughly $2000 for the experience. At the current price and accessibility, I can find a much better use of $2000 than hands-free notes and videos.  The same can be said for most of the exhibitors in the $20 per person Exhibitor Hall. While the technology is cool, the pricing is far too much than I could justify for the benefit.

All is not lost, however. At the end of the day, I went to a conference all about using technology for formative assessments.  As I previously mentioned, I have used Google Forms for tests with great success.  Teaching students the life-skill of taking high-stakes tests online is crucial as more and more of their world is digital. This seminar introduced me to a new suite of FREE (with caveats, I'm sure) programs for gathering data.

1. Poll Everywhere: This simple tool is completely anonymous, which encourages all students to participate. This allows for the class to brainstorm together, provide anonymous feedback the classroom community and archives all responses. If you are interested in giving students complete control without tracking who shares, this program is great. For high school, perhaps anonymity is not the best way.
2. Today's Meet: When you don't want anonymity, this program allows for a very similar feeling. Teachers can open up a free chat room, though students have to "sign in" by typing their name. No accounts are needed. It was suggested to initially give no guidelines to help students learn about digital citizenship...with names, you can show students exactly what you can see and do with the record. The groups are not public, so nobody need fear interlopers.
3. Socrative: One step more formal, we have Socrative. Similar to Google Forms, you can write quick quizzes and tests in this program. Additionally, you can write very simple exit tickets for students to complete at the end of the day. It grades questions automatically and gives detailed reports to the teacher. Finally, this software does not require a 1-to-1 environment for technology. When somebody finishes, they can pass their phone/computer to a classmate and resubmit a new form.

 I am not afraid of new technology, though I am hesitant to adopt the new thing, just because it's "cool" (or "Ma-cool?). With so many companies out there, it's important to keep in your mind the cynic, constantly asking you to follow the money trail. Who benefits from you using their program? If the answer that you finally find is the company, you're looking in the wrong place. If, however, the answer is the students, you may have found something worth investigating.

Are you ready?

Technology in our lives

Thursday morning, I woke up and headed to Erie High for a day full of teaching.  I rode my bike through the early  morning fog along the beautiful Erie River on the Edge to Edge (E2E) protected walker/biker trail and arrived to my classroom about 10 minutes before Mrs. Anonomateacher, though I'd already received a text from her that she'd be running late, so I didn't panic.  A fellow teacher let me in and I rigged a doorstop with three bookends and a sponge to let early arrivals keep working on their disease essays before school started.  7:40 rolls around, and we begin.

Our daily schedule is projected from a computer to the screen.  Students are to collect a green pen (for edits later) and start working on a journal prompt all about prokaryotes and eukaryotes.  After a while, we raised the projector screen and took a moment to jot down everything they know about these groups of organisms.  After a few minutes sharing out ideas, down comes the projector to introduce a web-based extra credit assignment, which involves uploading a video to our teacher's blog, followed by a video about bacteria.  After a doc-camera note sharing session, students collect laptops to continue working on their Google doc essay assignment.

It has occurred to me that as much as I try to traipse around technology, it finds its way in.  I have never considered myself much of a "tech" person, but there it is.  Between 6:30 and 8:30am, I had cycled along a river, carried a bike up two flights of stairs, eaten basic cereal breakfast, had students write in paper journals and edit with pens and talked face-to-face with at least 30 people.  On the other hand, in the same time-frame, I'd received and sent a text message, listened to 20 minutes of an audiobook on an iPod, checked my e-mail at least twice, connected two separate computers to a projector screen, manipulated a digital document camera and encouraged 30 students to write an essay not on paper, but electronically.  Somehow this, is a normal way to start your day.

Throughout the remainder of the day, I subconsciously navigated endless levels of electronics, walking through countless wireless networks, checking student work online and discussing the relative merits of online integration in the classroom.

A common theme in our tech class has obviously been technology.  Thursday night, at least half of our 40 person class met in the School of Education, only to subdivide into individual classrooms where groups of two-four presented 20-minute webinars.  Webinars are fantastic tools allowing people to connect across continents.  The first presentation was all about Shmoop, an online essay lab for students and teachers.  Next up, we presented a geometry tech tool known as Geogebra.  For any curious folks who missed out, check out our screencast tutorial and webinar.  After our stunning presentation, we listened in on an online archiving/portfolio sight, Pathbright.  Next up, Duolingo, a really nicely laid out language learning program.  Finally, to take us home, a concept mapping software known simply as Cmap.

The webinars were surprisingly fun for occurring at the tail end of a really long day.  I went home with a surreal feeling that most of the people I'd been talking to for the last two hours were less than a room away, but the potential uses of webinars as well as all of these tools remained.

In a sea of computers, internet, cell phones, cameras and iPods, I sometimes feel that we start to lose connections with our immediate surroundings.  We're so obsessed with cataloging our days and not "missing" anything in the world, that we lose sight of what is right around us.  The flip side of all of these tools is that we can immediately connect with the rest of the world and perhaps begin to see something new.  The world gets smaller every day as data sharing and networks get strongly.  I think my life and teaching will be an eternal battle between these two forces.

I can't wait!

The many thousands of things that are on the internet

Edublogger - this is a term that I'd not really heard of before the technology class began.  The last time I wrote about an edublogger, I included a link to a fantastic, student-made video all about dinosaurs (10 reasons the dinosaurs are extinct).  I think I'm responsible for a not-insignificant portion of the 150 or so views it's received...so if you've not seen it, you should.  On a related topic, I stumbled upon a parent's blog with a post all about dinosaurs as well!  Some parents decided to declare that November was DiNovember and every night, they posed dinosaur statures in various places around the house.  The dinos got into all sorts of trouble as their kids discovered each morning.   I'm not sure why dinosaurs are in my head recently.  It might have something to do with the fact that in our literacy class, we were discussing ways to get students hooked into reading.  Evidently, we like dinosaurs.

Moving on.  A little more than a year ago, I was investigating hexaflexagons.  "Why?" you might ask...though more likely, you'll ask "what?".  I spent six-seven years working at a children's science museum in town where one of my main job tasks was to create interactive, science and math related activities for preschool - middle school students.  I saw a very "simple" hexaflexagon in action and was impressed and turned to the internet to help me understand what was going on.  Here, I discovered Vi Hart.  This is the video I found:

 

I spent a good portion of my highly productive day repeatedly stopping and restarting this video in order to make one/several and investigate how to teach children the secret.  Ultimately, I ended up with a few good samples and could teach older kids how to make the most basic.  Interested, there is a follow-up video.

Promptly, I forgot about this YouTube channel...never to be seen again until I saw this:

This video led me to her blog and YouTube channel where I've been whiling away time.  Her vlog is reminiscent of Flipping Physics, the flipped classroom presenter in our tech class.  While not overtly a blog dedicated to "education", I think videos like these show students some of the beauty of mathematics, physics and music.  Vi has a talent for giving real-world applications of strange concepts which I think could quite nicely fit in a classroom.

Here are a few more videos to check out in your infinite "free-time"!

Technology in Gloria Glade

Earlier this term, we all explored what technology is available in our schools and what that might mean for our classes.  My high school (call it Erie HS...you know, next to the Erie River) appears to have many more resources than most other schools represented in our class.  I think this is largely due to Erie High being located within the city of Gloria Glade (or, G-squared, as they like to call it), which is home to a large university.  The city of G2 is relatively affluent with great resources available for students.

At Erie High, teachers can check out a cart full of laptops for classroom use.  In our survey, we discovered that the school (2000 students) has 11 carts, each with 30 laptops.  During class, teachers can then run a session that incorporates technology directly into the curriculum.  Teachers can give class time for students work on papers.  If they don't have enough class time, students can head down to the library and work on a school computer.  It is important to note, however, that all of the school computers can be monitored by the tech staff (which exist) for misuse.  Technically, there the school has filters, but to date, these have not been on.

All the classrooms are equipped with projectors and the teachers are assigned quasi-personal laptops that don't have any filtration software on them (and are not connected to the big-brother in tech).  Teachers can easily hook their machines up for presentations of any kind, be it a powerpoint, video, photo-journal writing activity, audio clip...etc.  In my classroom, we project the daily agenda as well as any bell work for students to start upon entry.


Overall, most of the students have some form of computer, but the school is well equipped to support those that don't.  The tech staff (remember those "big brothers" mentioned above?) are tremendously helpful and enthusiastic in connecting students with resources and well trained in helping them figure out how to accomplish certain tasks.  Regarding personal devices, the school (or at least Mrs. Anonimateacher) does not have a strict no-tech policy.  Cell phones are not allowed to be used for personal business during class, but some teachers will make use of the calculators/cameras/internet for classroom use.

I'm excited to use the many resources available to Erie High of Gloria Glade!

Science in the streets

Last week, we had a guest speaker presenting all about Flipping Physics, an example of a creative, well thought out flipped classroom.  Generally speaking, a flipped classroom has video lectures that students watch at home in place of their standard homework.  In class, students work directly with the teacher and in small groups working through the content and what would typically be considered "homework".  A major benefit of this is that the teacher can get one-on-one interaction with all of the students essentially every day.  Compare this to a "normal" routine where a good chunk of the day is spent in presentation of material vs. interaction.

A few ideas came from the presentation.  First, as a side note, he had a copy of a Dr. Seuss book which he read to his classes on the very last day of school every year.  Each year signed a page.  Flipping through the book, the first thirteen pages are filled with notes from students and signatures.  Just looking at this inspired me to think of a similar approach.  I think this sort of keepsake would be a powerful memento.

Now...back to the point.  Do I think a biology classroom could serve as a "flipped" class?  The answer...maybe.  A feature of this format is that students are watching a lecture at home while I would hope to veer away from a heavy dependency on lectures.  Additionally, having a very specific plan would almost restrict you from the flexibility of being able to change your schedule on a daily basis...for good or for bad.  However, to remove the "talking head" element from the classroom would free me up to lead experiments and demonstrations as well as work through tricky material.

What the presentation really inspired was helping me think more about my idea for a science busking character.  For those not familiar with busking, picture those street magicians and musicians who haunt big city squares and take donations for a living.  Imagine that, but with science!  I'd like to develop a side character to my classroom time where I go out into the city square with a simple science experiment to share with the public.  Donations would theoretically go towards classroom materials and such. A further element of this could be to have students volunteer to come out and assist with the show.  Perhaps it could be a "science festival club".

How does this relate to the flipped classroom?  Film them all.  Take a 5-10 minute segment from each of these busking days and I could start to compile a large database of really cool experiments for students to watch at home, share with family and perhaps learn something.  If I were creative enough, I could have classroom demos filmed in public so students could revisit them later.  The ideas are scattered and vague right now, but they're out there.

Google, oh benevolent overloard

I've always had a tough time with online integration of my life.  Every time I enter a new site, I'm asked the same series of questions.  No, I don't want to link it to FB, no I don't want to link to my gmail...honestly, I'd prefer that everything remain completely distinct and separate.  My name is common enough that it makes is pretty tough for individuals to track me down online with just my first and last names.  I recognize, however, that as I type this, I'm entering information into a massive database that is probably being scanned in some capacity somewhere.  It's entirely possible, the paranoia in my screams, that somebody can actually read this while I type it.  Honestly, it's not even that unlikely.  At my placement school, all the school computers, at least, have software installed that allows the tech specialists to mirror anything on the screen.  I doubt that they can mirror personal computers.

I digress.  In our last tech-ed class, we discussed integration of classroom assignments into a database like Google.  Google Docs allows students and teachers to generate word documents, spreadsheets and presentations.  Google Forms lets teachers create instant tests and share responses with the whole class in real-time.  Specifically interesting about these suites is that students can retain "ownership" of their documents in a way that regular submission of papers does not allow.  For instance, if a student turns in a paper they've spent days (or the night before) constructing and the teacher doesn't find it on his/her desk, it's simply one person's word against another.  Through the online option, students simply send a link to their teacher, who can see when it was completed, what revisions have been made and much more.  After the class is over, the students can revoke access to their documents and keep all of their content in one space through their entire HS career.

I have to admit that the permissions had not occurred to me.  Additionally, it would be nice to have ready access to all of the papers that I wrote in High School and college.  The presentation gave me new perspective, but I am still hesitant to turn to the dark side.  We trust our privacy to these companies, but I've seen so many policies change and completely violate our faith in them.  Who is to say that Google won't turn around in 10 years and release a paper I wrote when I was 18 to the media when I'm running for office somewhere?  I believe they won't, but it really relies strongly on trusting that there are people behind the algorithms.

For now, I'll continue to try to keep my online life as disjointed as possible.  As a teacher, I also must get past the idea that I have any privacy period and start to embrace some of the advantages of integration.  Someday, I'll have a plan...