Cameras in the Classroom

I should be able to embed this, but it’s not working like I expected.  Here’s the prezi link!

My Fight with Google Forms.

I am very tired.  Please don’t expect this post to be coherent.

I hate Google Forms.

I created a spreadsheet and entered all of my questions in the first row.  Forms–>create form.

First frustration:  default option is text.  I never use text.  It’s either multiple choice or paragraph text.

Now I copied the spreadsheet and tried to edit the form in order to modify the test for my English learners.  Suddenly the questions are out of order, and some of the questions have mysteriously changed.  The multiple choice responses are still there, but the actual question has been replaced.  I didn’t copy/paste any questions.  Weird.

Next, I tried to add section headings and page breaks.  I have to physically drag each object from the bottom of the page to its place. This is ridiculous.  How are forms saving me time here?  I’m not asking for the moon, just a worthwhile form editing tool.

Google, you need to make this easier.  The random glitches and interminable editing time are killing me here.

Apps!

DropBox
GoodReader
Pages (Not free)
Doodle Buddy
StoryKit
iTalk
Bluster
Free GraCalc
3D Cell Stain
Textropolis
GeoWalk
National Geographic (Subscription)

Go to http://bit.ly/eusd-ipod-apps for a constantly updated list of free apps. You can sign up for email updates.

Cautiously Optimistic

I am not a huge fan of standardized testing.  Accountability and assessment have a place in the classroom, but this system of high-stakes bubble sheets is simply ridiculous.

Last year, I exercised my autonomy of curriculum and declined to give several practice tests, but that decision ended up hurting the reputation of my principal and school.  This year, I decided to bite the bullet and waste, I mean, spend the 160 minutes the kids would need to take the test.

I did offer an incentive; after all, I was taking their educational time to administer a practice test that won’t be much help in the long run.  We’re about a third of the way through the year, so students who earned 30% would earn 10 extra credit points on their final, while those who earned 50% would earn 20 extra credit points.  Students who earned 70% (which is considered “Proficient” on the CST) would be excused from the final to work on a project.

The practice test is built on the same blueprint as the California Standards Test, although the questions come from a database (OARS.net) that tends to be slightly more difficult than the actual exam.  After poking around a bit, I realized that I could administer the test online.  Using my mad mail merge skills (thank you, Mr. Marcy at Sequim High School!), I created labels with the website, instructions, and login information to go on each kid’s “Websites and passwords” notebook page.

With the information on that label, the students had no trouble signing into the OARS website and taking the exam, and I quickly discovered several advantages to testing online:

1. The test presents one question or reading passage at a time.  Kids can see their progress by the question numbers, but they focus on that one question without being distracted by a great big sheaf of papers.
2. Pinch and zoom.  My kids LOVE making the text bigger.  Some of them do it because of vision problems, while others just need to manipulate their environment.  The iPad gives them a chance to play around while still focusing on the test.
3. The online test randomizes the questions, so there’s less cheating.  It also helps that someone can’t “accidentally” see an entire bubble sheet full of answers.  This testing precaution actually seems to help some of my students; they don’t feel like they can cheat, so they focus on their own work instead of trying to peek when I’m not looking.
4. Instant feedback.  Instead of waiting 4 months for their results (like they do with the CST), they get their scores immediately.  I let kids decide whether to tell me their scores right away or wait for me to get the report from the website.  Kids who earned extra credit got their names on the board.

Here are some of the numbers:

About two thirds of the kids have finished the test.  They have until Tuesday to finish, so I’m not worried about the rest.  So, with scores for 61 of my 96 kids, we have an average percentage of…

wait for it…

61%.

In NOVEMBER.  My kids are rock stars.  But wait, there’s more!

• Twenty three kids are above 70%.  For the rest of the year, they’ll have self-directed projects.  I’d love to have individualized plans for everyone by the beginning of next year, and this is a great place to start.
• Twenty one kids are between 50% and 69%.
• Only 3 students did not earn at least 30%.

I have more data crunching to do after the rest of the kids finish, but so far their progress is pleasantly surprising,  to me and to them.  You should have seen the grins in class today!  Kids who have never earned extra credit before got their names on the board, zapping a boost of confidence into people who were used to earning low scores.

The idea of subjecting kids to big long bubble sheet tests still makes me squirm, but this week’s experience was more positive than I had hoped.  Now my job is to figure out how to best use the data, as well as to identify exactly what’s working (technology and reading!) and what I need to fix (the same classwork and homework for everyone).  Oh, wait, it sounds like I already know.  I guess my job is to actually fix it!

Photo Credit:  ”Orange Day Lily” by Charles Bell on Flickr Creative Commons.

Another Bit of iPad Rambling

Here’s another dump from the google doc I use as a blog at work.  See the first parts here and here, or just follow the iPad tag.

9/30/11
Oops…6 weeks, and I haven’t done any writing.Right now, the kids are reviewing some student-created videos that they just watched.  I put the rubric and comment sentence stems in Pages (yes, we have Pages now!), and they are using shapes to show the rubric grades.  It’s another activity that could be done on paper, but using the iPads saves copies and teaches them how to use Pages.A couple of iPads have started to have minor issues.  The headphone jacks just randomly stop working.  I found a FAQ page that said to start the Skype app, and the fix worked.  Weird.  I’m not going to complain, though!We’re also discovering that the screen protectors really do interfere with tapping, especially on small buttons, so I’ll probably remove them now that the kids have learned to be more careful.

The Bluster app is awesome.

Mail settings don’t transfer when you back up and restore ipads.  What a pain!

10/5/11
Midterm Exams.  On the iPads.  Yes, that just happened.

The Trimester 1 midterm has several parts:  a Reading Comprehension benchmark, a Cloze-style vocabulary quiz, and questions from The Clay Marble, including Multiple Choice and essay questions.  Normally I’d print these out and make a million copies, but the iPads have enabled an almost-paperless midterm.

• The Reading Comprehension benchmark comes from the Online Assessment and Reporting System, which gives a test booklet and bubble sheets for each student.  I converted the test booklets (four versions) to PDFs and put them on the iPads, and I only printed out the bubble sheets.
• I printed the midterm standards, total points chart, vocabulary quiz on the back of the bubble sheets.  This gives each student one page to show their parents during their Learner-Led Conference next week.
• The questions from The Clay Marble went into a Google form.  Ta da!  No more back-breaking tote bags full of germy, illegible papers!  No more half-finished work, because the form can’t be submitted until all required questions are complete.

Somebody somewhere has heard my complaints about the wireless access in my classroom.  It works now!

10/12/11
Interesting.  Very, very interesting.

Students at my school are divided into three cohorts at each grade level.  Each teacher takes one cohort as a sort of homeroom, and teaches PE, Advisory, and some Science to that group, in addition to the teacher’s subject area.

The effect of this setup is that one third of the 7th Grade students have more time with me and, consequently, more time on the iPads.  This group of students seems to be much, MUCH more proficient with the technology, a fact that has made today’s lesson remarkably difficult.
Today’s lesson requires students to use two apps, Dropbox and Goodreader, for the first time.  In the first block, I taught my cohort, and they became familiar with the apps without much trouble.  We had a great system – I showed one group of four students how to get the files, set up their folders, and use the annotation tools, and they each went and taught one group.  In just a few minutes, the entire class was ready to go. I was giddy through the whole process:  “I can’t believe this is really happening!!!”  Our class ran so much more efficiently without the burden of paper management, and I didn’t have to spend 10 minutes inhaling copy machine fumes this morning.

When one of my MERIT friends stopped by the classroom at the beginning of the next block, I was on a natural high.  I couldn’t wait to show her what the kids had done!

Of course, students at my school are subject to “The Visitor Effect.”  We are different from other district schools, so we get a lot of visitors.  Our differences are controversial to some audiences, so we never know the bias of people who come to observe the classroom.  The teachers don’t talk about this with the kids, but they know because their parents are involved in making the school successful.  The students are immensely motivated to give the best impression possible.

Unfortunately, even this motivation did not make up for the 2nd block students’ lack of technical skills.  When I asked students to go and teach other groups, many of them looked as if I had asked them to fly.  Even with my coaching, they opened the wrong files, deleted other students’ work, and, when their frustration increased, some of them started to give up on accomplishing the goal.

For the third block, I changed tactics.  While they were working on the Do Now, I pulled one person from each group of four to be the “Tech Geek.”  Those students brought their devices to the center table, and I walked through opening the apps and files with them.  If the Geek Squad understood after the first time, they went back and taught their groups; anyone who was confused stayed with me until they knew the procedure well enough to explain it.

When the entire group of four had finished the first task, they sent me another representative.  I taught that person how to set up folders and move files, and a third representative learned how to use the annotation tools.

This technique made the lesson work, and I’ll definitely use it again.  The biggest downfall was that the students who weren’t learning a procedure had nothing to do.  I’ll have to find an easy sponge activity – maybe I’ll make a longer Do Now and start pulling group representatives earlier.

Dropbox and GoodReader are great apps, and now that we’ve learned how to use them, we’ll be able to operate much more efficiently.

10/19/11
I’m working on streamlining and improving the quality of my fluency testing procedures.  Earlier this year, I had students work with their partners and test all at once, but several issues make that data less reliable:

1. The partner who takes the second test has a chance to hear the passage, so half the students are doing a cold read while the other half get a preview.
2. The noise level when 16 students are all talking at once is ridiculous.
3. Students have been less than consistent in their naming and sending of files.

Today, while the class worked on a narrative writing assignment, I trained two Masters (students who have earned Advanced CST marks and done well in class) in the testing procedure, and then sent two students at a time outside the classroom to be tested.  My classroom faces a large open space, so it was a quiet location…until 3rd block, when students from the other school went to lunch.  Ah, the joys of sharing a campus!

I’ll still have to test those masters separately using a different passage, but the process we used today was so much more accurate than our previous procedure.

On a separate note, Flubaroo worked like a dream to grade my midterms.  I should have sorted the spreadsheet before I graded it, because the sort functions were locked after grading.  This could have been my own error…

Another addendum:  One of my students came in with a broken arm.  Instead of requiring him to write left-handed, we were able to quickly upload his Social Studies and Language Arts documents to Dropbox.  He’ll use GoodReader to complete worksheets, lecture notes, and writing assignments.  I love iPads.

Photo Credit:  ”Lotus” by Pandu Adnyana on Flickr Creative Commons

Sad Things and Worries

A girl who runs away.

A kitten with its ears cut off, found outside a classroom door.

Another CPS report, another family with a court date.

Way too many kids who can’t, don’t, or won’t do homework.

Why are so many kids out of school today?

Why doesn’t this child’s insurance cover her obviously serious medical issue?

Is this boy with ADHD being overmedicated?  Why does he seem angry so often?

Is this girl exaggerating because she has no idea of the horror of abuse, or is she truly worried that her parents are going to beat her?

Why don’t these counseling interns know that most of my kids don’t live with “momanddad,” and the CST is NOT easy for half of them?

All this…and today was my prep day.

 

Photo Credit: “Lily” by Ann W on Flickr Creative Commons

This day really happened.

This is the day of every teacher’s dreams.  Lightbulb moments, hard work, just a few minor discipline issues, alumni memories, and even a few personal compliments.  Who would believe that a day like this came from a morning like…that?

I overslept…again.  The alarm went sounded, I hit snooze, it blared again, and still I couldn’t get up.  It was a bad hair day, a bad skin day, and definitely a bad wardrobe day.  Jeans for the second time in this four-day week, and I don’t often wear them unless I’m on prep.

Speaking of prep, I didn’t get it.  My school schedule has me teaching T-F and off on Mondays for planning.  This is normally the greatest thing ever; homework is due Mondays, so I can collect and grade it before I even see a class.  It’s not so great on Labor Day, not so great when it’s too hot for PE (when I’d normally make up lost prep time), and definitely not great when a colleague suddenly has to take a week and a half because a family member died.  Extra work + stressed out kids + no time to plan = terrible days, usually, but not this time.

I spent a little extra time on my hair, artfully applied as much makeup as my skin would hold, and threw on the new wrap that I just finished making, and dug my super cute (but super painful) espadrilles out of the closet.  I’m pretty sure espadrilles aren’t in style right now, but what do 7th graders who have to wear uniforms know of that?  In a moment of lucidity, I brought along some socks and sneakers as I headed out the door.

Covering the colleague’s morning homework center, I had exactly the amount of time needed to complete some before-school tasks.  I had completely forgotten to create the day’s vocabulary warm-up, but the kids needed the extra time to work on their grammar videos.

After checking notebooks, we packed up 8 cameras and chargers, 3 laptops, 4 makeshift tripods (two barstools, a step ladder, and an old projector cart), and a bunch of student chairs and headed out to the front lawn.  In the fresh air and under the trees, the kids finished filming their grammar videos, and a few of them decided to take on iMovie (which I’ve never taught them to use) and edit their work.  The scene was beautiful:  every child working toward a goal, nobody bored or stuck, everyone learning.  I overheard conversations about the best ways to explain things, arguments over “what IS a preposition, anyway,” and even discussions about how to add comedy without being offensive.  To put the icing on the cake, several kids complimented my hair and shoes, and one entire class fell in love with my shawl.  At one point, I was watching a group set up their shot, when I looked over my shoulder to find that a little guy had grabbed a corner of the shawl and was nuzzling it.  He couldn’t figure out how something so soft could be made of bamboo!

Lather, rinse, repeat for two more classes, then it’s lunch time.

The union president stopped by to have lunch and let us know how everything was going.  I distinctly remember union meetings in which everyone griped and whined and complained the entire time.  Not my colleagues.  We asked questions and discussed district-wide issues, but nobody had a disparaging word to say about our working conditions.

After lunch, it was “Social Justice Day” in Advisory.  Well, usually it’s just Wednesdays, but the kids had asked so many questions that it carried over to today.  We watched part of “Isaac and Ishmael,” an episode of The West Wing.  This is the episode that pushed back the Season 3 premiere and aired just after 9/11.  On Tuesday, the kids had asked what it meant to “dispel stereotypes,” and this episode addresses many of the issues that arose in their discussion.  I had planned to finish the episode today, but kids kept stopping me to ask about a word or make a connection to something their parents had told them.  We talked a lot about fear, and they agreed that they were glad they didn’t live every day being afraid that they would die in a terrorist attack.  We didn’t talk about the threats they do face, but we’ll have time next week.

Finally, after sending the kids out to PE and getting some much-needed prep time, I had a visit from a former student.  She was looking at the books the 7th graders will read this year.  I asked if she had read A Wrinkle in Time, which was an option in her 8th grade year.  ”No,” she said, “I read To Kill a Mockingbird again.  I’ve read it 5 times since then.”  That’s the ultimate compliment:  she loved a book that I had introduced.

I came home to find that my extra duty paycheck had arrived, my husband made a fantastic dinner, and tomorrow is Saturday, so my alarm won’t blare at 5:45am!

Photo Credit:  ”Lotus” by TANAKA Juuyoh on Flickr Creative Commons

A Touchy Topic

Whenever I post a DonorsChoose proposal, I have to carefully select the family members who receive the link.  Some people are happy to send money, but my brothers get irritated.

“Schools shouldn’t be all about money,”  they grumble.  ”I already pay my taxes to Papa Obama” (never mind that less than 10% of the education budget comes from federal funding…).  ”People need to fix the problems in education, not just throw more money at them.”

True, true, and true.  Way too much money is wasted in the education machine.  We pay ridiculous administration and management salaries (I’m looking at you, gotta-have-a-golden-parachute former superintendent and pay-me-six-figures-to-take-pictures-with-my-iphone former PR person), we spend millions of dollars on practically-worthless textbooks, and we hire consultants to bully teachers and waste classroom time.

::steps down off soapbox::

Here’s the thing.  DonorsChoose is awesome.  Your money is going directly to a classroom led by someone you know and love.  If you aren’t sure your dollars are being used correctly, just ask at Thanksgiving dinner.  Family holidays are awkward enough – this would probably be the most enjoyable topic…for me, anyway.  And you can build a little goodwill.  It’s even tax-deductible!

So, instead of grumbling when your relatives in the Education profession ask for money, fork over $10-20 bucks (seriously, that’s enough to thrill me!) and build up some good karma.  Save the whining for your blog.

PS.  If you just happen to be good karma deficient, you can go do my DonorsChoose website.

PPS.  At the moment, that link isn’t working for me.  You can also go to www.donorschoose.org.

Photo Credit:  ”Dollars Roll” by Images_Of_Money on Flickr Creative Commons

20% Time, Part 2

Earlier, I mused on the idea of giving students 20% of each day to work on an individual project.  I have to admit that I was worried about the nuts and bolts, especially in terms of guiding kids through the process of designing a project.

And then I met…INTERROBANG.  According to the website, “InterroBang is a game in which you complete real-world missions to win prizes, learn problem solving and connect with others to change the world… We believe the InterroBang represents the essence of problem solving. Problems are like a question mark that opens up interesting inquiries. The exclamation point represents the deeds that result from solving those problems.”

Sacre Bleu!  This website already has missions related to culture, creativity, exploration, and science.  Kids select, plan, and complete a mission, uploading proof that meets the requirements outlined in a fairly rigorous rubric.  They earn points for completed missions.  They can work in teams or alone.  They can even create their own missions.

On the management side, missions are judged by InterroBang administrators, NOT ME.  Yes!  I can spend my time helping kids complete their missions instead of slogging through endless hours of grading!

Here we go.  For 20% time, kids have to earn a certain number of points each grading period.  As we continue, I might specify the category of missions they need to complete, but for now…we have a plan!

Why I Pursue Technology

Hi, I’m Amanda, and I was unschooled.  My experience includes a handful of textbooks and a boatload of experiences.  When I went to college, sitting in classes for hours on end almost drove me crazy.  I adapted, but I still avoid sitting in desks whenever possible.

During my freshman year of college, my Educational Psychology prof made the observation that a homeschooler who goes for a teaching certificate tends to have a messiah complex.  My irritation at his apparent prejudice faded away when I realized that I do have a bit of a complex.  I’m out to save the world from wasted time.

Kids deserve better than endless lectures and numb buttocks.  We talk about fast food and school cafeterias as contributors to childhood obesity, but say nothing of the sedentary lifestyle into which we force them.  Children are our future, but that future has to wait until the whole class has finished the reading.

Technology, carefully chosen and skillfully used, can allow kids a better learning experience.  They can explore, collaborate, create, and even have the freedom to move around the room.  Maybe someday we’ll be able to allow them to physically move around the world…but I digress.

I wish that every child had the carefully tailored, interesting, and fun education that I did.  Until that happens, I’ll do everything I can to prevent my students from turning into zombies.

Photo Credit: “Lotus” by TANAKA Juuyoh on Flickr Creative Commons