Carlson’s Corner

I have enjoyed the many people I have met through our E2T2 cohort. I am a visual learner and love to see and hear about real examples of how people are using the tools we discussed in their classrooms.  I have found sharing, discussing and collaborating with my new PLN members to be extremely valuable.  I also felt taking the course for credit helped me in many ways.  I was forced, in a positive way, to keep up with home play and try things I may have pushed off my plate if they weren’t required.  I also reflected more deeply in my blog entries than I would have if I wasn’t being graded on them.  My experience was enhanced because I decided to take the class for credit and complete the additional assignments required.

I enjoyed the panel discussion on Friday.  I didn’t realize how prevalent online education is here in Minnesota.  It was nice to have some key players in our district listening to the same message and starting a conversation on where our district is in planning for this trend.  I wish we could have had more time to discuss and plan next steps, but it was a good start.  I hope the conversation continues.

Last week I  took  del.icio.us social bookmarking class as well as a Thinkfinity class at TIES.  They were both marvelous.  I can’t believe I had never used Thinkfinity before.  It has amazing search options.  I spent the remainder of the day exploring new sites I found using Thinkfinity and adding them to my del.icio.us bookmarks. I love the fact you can tag your sites, write a brief review and share with others!   I will be showing my fellow peer coaches how to use del.icio.us to create their own database of resources this week at our PLC meeting.  I hope to share both resources with the staff before the end of the year.    

Last week I worked with the 7^th grade science team to create a lesson that integrated SCRATCH into a heart project.  We took an existing project, a heart booklet that depicted the journey of a drop of blood through the heart and integrated it into a SCRATCH lesson that animated and narrated the journey.  I spend time creating a sample project, creating written instructions and experimenting with SCRATCH before I presented the project to the students.  The science teachers then tried the project themselves and we discussed things we could do to make it clearer to the students. 

This week I introduced the students to SCRATCH during their science classes.  Prior to our initial conversation, neither teacher had heard of SCRATCH.  The science teacher and I co-facilitated the lesson.  It was fun to see her get more confident and participate more in the demo each period.  During the final class (our 5^th time) we truly were an equal team.  The students were extremely excited to be able to be creative and create and name their own blood cell and find clever ways to depict their journey through the heart.

Today the students started their projects in the lab.  Most came prepared with their storyboards and were ready to go.  It is amazing how quickly the kids adapted to the program. Several even asked if they could add the lungs as another stage. They quickly discovered new and better ways to do things.  They were proud to share their accomplishments with me.  I enjoyed watching them think through the process, make changes and experience success. 

At the end of the day we realized that there were a few glitches with the project.  Students that didn’t set their original coordinates had trouble, students that made their cells hide, would lose them if they forgot to include show in their script and some forgot how to create a Sprite. When the project is done with the other half of the grade, we will incorporate a resource sheet for importing stages, backgrounds and other tips.  I can’t wait to see the final projects!

I had the opportunity to see a few of the Photo Story quests created by the 7th grade students today.  They were absolutely amazing.  The quality and amount of time they put into creating them was astounding.  The kids were so excited to turn them in and share their work with their friends. One of the student’s parents is a high school French teacher.  After watching her daughter work on her quest at home, she contacted me about showing the high school language teachers how to use the program.  The other 7th grade English teacher also asked if I would help her with the same project for her students.  She said her students keep asking her when they GET TO do the same project.  It is so fun to see the impact one program has had in less than a month. Imagine middle school students wanting to do a writing project!  I even heard students who created quests talking about using Photo Story instead of Power Point to do other projects!  I am excited to see where Photo Story might pop up next!

Last week a 7^th grade English teacher approached me about how she could use digital storytelling in her classroom.  I set up a technology coaching session with her and we talked about her objective for the lesson, what features she needed the program she used to have (music, narration, movement…), and the timeline for the project.  After discussion, I realized that Photo Story 3 would be the best fit for her criteria.  After we decided upon the program, I showed her a sample of a digital story created using this program.  She loved it an we moved forward

Next, we talked about how important it was to have a storyboard for the students to use to plan the project and how vital it was to start with a rubric that outlined the specific pieces she would be looking for in the final project.  I showed her Rubistar.com and she was amazed.  She decided she would look it over at home and come with a rough rubric we could look at the next day.  We also viewed some sample storyboards I found online.  We took aspects of each and created one that fit her needs.  Once the storyboard and rubric were created, she introduced the quest writing part of the project to her classes.  She told them that they would eventually be using them to create a Photo Story project.  I found an example of a completed story that she used to excite her students and give them a glimpse into the powerful features of the program.

I realized I needed to fine-tune my understanding of Photo Story, since I had only played with it once.  I also started writing instructions for the students to use as they created their projects.  Another peer coach offered to help create a sample Photo Story using the quest the English teacher had created to illustrate the project.  She incorporated photographs, drawn pictures and flickr photos into her sample to let students see that options they had.

A few days later,  the teacher introduced the technical aspect of the project.  She handed out the rubric and storyboard and explained them.  That same day the sample project was shown to the class.  The following day, I taught a lesson on how to use Creative Commons to find pictures, site sources, download music from Free Play Music, and finally put all the pieces into Photo Story.

Today I taught the Photo Story lesson to all 5 of the 7^th grade English classes.  It was a blast.  They were so excited.  They asked lots of great questions and were eager to get started.  They caught on so quickly.  It is amazing how different it is to teach technology to students versus teachers.  The students, digital natives, just seem to soak it in.  They don’t need to take notes or practice step-by-step.  They can visualize and seem to not get stuck on the details, but can see the bigger picture.  They aren’t afraid to dive in and get started.  They don’t need manuals, and rarely refer to their written hints. I can’t wait to see their final projects.

I had a chance to share some of the applications we have discussed in a presentation to the language arts teachers at their curriculum review.  The entire morning was dedicated to sharing web 2.0 applications and how they might be integrated into the language arts classroom.  Various teachers, technology specialists and peer coaches shared applications with the group.  It was fun to see all the amazing things teachers in our district are doing using technology and share some new ideas. 

I talked about Wordle and SMART Recorder.  I focused on using Wordle to promote higher level thinking, to start discussions, share information and activate prior knowledge.  I also shared how teachers can use SMART Recorder to publish narrated class books, show students how to complete example problems, demonstrate specific applications and record student presentations to post to teacher web pages.  I also let teachers know that I was willing to help them develop a lesson or co-teach a technology lesson with them. I hope I am taken up on my offer.

The January session was the most productive for me thus far.  I learned a lot about many different topics that I can see myself using or coaching others on how to use.  Each topic seemed to have a direct correlation to me, I could envision a purpose, we had an opportunity to see it and then had a chance to interact or try it.  I don’t know if it was the fact we only focused on a few varied strategies/technologies or the fact I am comfortable with the format after four months, but I truly enjoyed today. 

I found the Technology Resource Scavenger Hunt interesting and useful.  I would like to bring it back to the tech team and propose we use something similar in our district.  I can also see how a scavenger hunt like this could be adapted to use for literacy strategies, math games, science topics or behavior management strategies.  It was a quick way to reflect on what you know, what you can share and what you can continue to develop.  It also celebrates the fact everyone does have skill to share and no one knows it all.

I also truly enjoyed Kathy’s coaching presentation.  I liked the method she used to present.  By providing small amounts of information, then having us discuss or try them, she successfully engaged us in learning and helped me better understand the different types of coaching and how important it is to establish the speaker’s purpose or expectation for the coaching session. I will take the information she presented back to our Q-Comp team and hopefully have Kathy come and do a cognitive coaching training for us.

I was intrigued by the Elluminate application.  I have never seen anything like that before in action.  I would like to try it with my sister.  It would be fun to have our kids share with each other.  It would also be interesting to use Elluminate to include people on maternity leave in important faculty discussions or allow people with sick kids to participate in a staff development by watching and typing in questions and being asked questions.  I am excited to try it!

At the beginning of January, I attended an internet safety presentation by Officer Harris from  Washington County.  He shared a compelling presentation on Keeping Kids Safer on the Internet.  I was surprised and shocked to see just what kids were posting on social networking sites. It made me realize that teens don’t truly realize that what they post is really there forever and can be seen by many more people than they may intend.  I also don’t think they realize that there are predators that are using social networking sites to find and stalk people.  Some are even befriending teens with fake personas and convincing them to leave their families. Officer Harris shared that he has posed as teens online and arrested predators in Washington County who had tried to meet with and take teens they “met” online. The presentation was scary and made me think about what we are doing to keep our kids safer.   The fact is they are going to use social networking sites, so someone needs to educate them and make them think before they post.

The people who attended the session had a wonderful discussion throughout the presentation. As I learned more (I didn’t realize how easy it is to identify a person, their school, the activities they are in, their address and phone number in just seconds) I were surprised and frightened at the same time.   One of the questions posed had to do with social networking education for middle and high school students.  I believe that as we prepare students to be citizens in a 21st century world, social networking safety is a critical issue.  We talk to kids about washing their hands, saying please and than you, not talking to strangers and the dangers of drugs, so shouldn’t we teach them to be thoughtful about what we post, where we post and how they portray themselves online?  I would argue that this issue can cause as serious of dangers as any of the other social issues we address in schools.  Our school district has started the conversation and will be working on a way to share with students how important it is to remember that there is always a digital footprint left behind when you post things on the internet.  Students need to be reminded that if you wouldn’t want the same article, picture or poll to be posted on the bulletin boards in your school, you should think twice about posting it on the web. There were several powerful public service addresses that Officer Harris shared with us that would make kids think and be great points to start discussions on this topic.  He pointed us to NetSmart411.org for more information and PSAs.  I went home and talked to my 6 year old again about never sharing personal information while on Club Penguin or Webkinz World. 

Last week I attended and presented at the TIES Conference.  I attended several sessions on digital storytelling in the classroom and was inspired.  Some of the ideas I liked included creating digital lab reports, making commercials convincing people to do or not do something and creating public service announcements.  I was impressed with the way teachers created projects that made students go much higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy and get to “big picture” issues and questions.  I was so inspired that I downloaded Photo Story and created an Astronomy project and then used Animoto to create the same project, so I could show the final products to teachers I coach, so they could see what types of things can be done in a few class periods with these two tools.

I also attended an interactive response session that focused on ways to use clickers to assess more than low level or recall type questions.  This session also discussed the use of Senteo as a formative assessment tool that can and should be used during a lesson to assess understanding and guide instruction, not just as a way to take a quiz at the end of a unit.

Another session I loved was on ThinkQuest.  After attending the session I was hooked on the benefits on this FREE product.  The testimonials from fifth grade students sold me.  The fact that students were discussing books, writing lab reports and posing interactive questions to one another amazed me.  I was also impressed with the ascetic qualities Think Quest offers. It truly looked like a fun social networking site.  The fact kids could have a fun page to work on at home appealed to them and got them to look at it from home and add to their assignments too. When I was sharing what I had discovered with my colleagues, I discovered two of the middle school teachers are currently using ThinkQuest.  I would love for them to share how they use it with staff at a staff meeting.  I plan on talking to our principal about it.