Eliminate the Excuse

One of the first lessons I got in teaching was to develop strong classroom management procedures to handle the problems that I did not want to deal with. For example, passing in papers, I have my students do “School Olympics” where each class passes in papers to the back, then to the right, then into their box. I do this activity in the first week and again several more times to keep it fresh. This way, when I say pass in your papers, the kids know which way to go and where the box is to turn papers. No more questions on where papers go, no more kids, “here” instead of passing it in to the box, just a smooth simple procedure. Technology is the same way for me, I developed my resources for the sole purpose of eliminating problems in class: forgetting assignments, forgetting work, not doing work because the student needed help, forgetting books, losing a handout and much more. By adding technology resources to my classroom I am able to build stronger connections with my students while at the same time eliminating the excuse for not doing what is expected. 

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Fast Follow is more than Following Fast

I’m always impressed with people who feel that teenagers are the tech savvy generation. Keep in mind that teens are very good at texting and Facebook, but not much beyond that (in most cases). When I first started using cell phones in the classroom, I knew that texting was the key. However, I did not want to individually text 150 students. So, in a moment of inspiration, I started using Twitter with my students. After four days and only one student signing up I was in a jam. I took a chance on Twitter Fast Follow, a service Twitter offers that allows someone to follow a person on Twitter without even creating an account. It took me two days to get 80% of my students signed up with Twitter.

Fast follow is simple, send a text to 40404 with the phrase “Follow (username)”. For example, I had the kids text 40404 with the words “Follow Soethengclass”. This was a great way to do informal surveys, send out information, connect with kids and make myself available for questions or help.

The first thing I did to get student involvement was start some give-a-way projects. For example, I would tweet out that the first five people who replied to a tweet would get a prize. The next day, I gave out at least one king sized candy bar in each class. My goal, to create interaction in social media. I wanted the students to know they could reach out to me and to pay attention to the tweets going out.

In class, I started backing off the amount of writing the kids had to do, especially during discussions. We spent a lot of time going over class discussions and the expectations for class discussions, and I would have a student keep track on the board of the main points that we would go over. Then, at the end of class, I would take a picture with my iPhone and tweet it out to my students. Their job, make a copy for their notes. My goal, one tweet a day as I knew if I could get my text or tweet to show up on a student’s phone I could make them think about me or class. Anytime a student thinks about my class outside of school is a good thing.

Now, the evidence that supports using Twitter. About two years back I had a conversation with another teacher by the name of Corey Bess. Corey did what I did not, research. You can read Corey’s blog to get more specific info, but I will boil it down. Corey created two identitcal sets of students: grades, race, socioeconomic, and class size. At the end of one year, he found that his students who used twitter socred- overall – 8 percent better on their final grade than those who did not. This number grew significantly over the course of year as students who used Twitter scored almost 10 percent better on standardized tests than those who did not use Twitter. That gap grew over the course of the year. Corey did the same thing I did, one tweet a day. And the tweets can be specific like “HW tonight on page 29, make sure you read the paragraph first,” to the casual, “Happy Friday, remember to wear your Orange and Blue.”

I started using my Twitter for various purposes. I would do spirit updates, pictures, assignments for that day in class, or motivational items like “do your best today.” Over time, I found my students were very happy to contact me via Twitter and ask questions on assignments. In the past year, I have seen my students who use Twitter increase by fifty percent. While I used to have to explain Twitter, I am finding that less and less as kids are jumping on board and following each other or their favorite celebrities. Additionally, with only 140 characters, Twitter forces students to be concise with their communications. At the same time, the Twitter community frowns on abbreviations and misspelling, so a lot of the text speak that kids use is fairly non existent in the Twitter-verse.

One other passionate educator I know who uses fast follow is Ron Ippolito. Ron and I have had some great discussions on fast follow. On of those discussions involved using fast follow as part of a school Twitter account. Now, you have a free way to communicate with parents via text or Twitter. Granted, there are a lot of text services out there, but I don’t know too many that are free. Twitter is a great way to have a conversation with your students, parents or staff. It’s a great way to stay connected and gives your community one more option in getting their information or contacting you. That’s a great lesson in customer service for your students to take to their professional lives.

 

Cell Phone Karma, It’s Real

About two years ago, right after my daughter was born, my wife and I managed to escape for a night to a movie, our first one in months. As the previews started I noticed the faint glow of Facebook on a smart phone beneath us. I ignored it at first, but it was distracting in the dark theater. When someone behind us yelled, “turn it off!” I decided to do the same and asked them to turn of the phone. About ten minutes later after the previews, the phone was on again back to Facebook. I had to ask again, got a rude reply, but did not see the phone till after the film. Constantly in social settings more and more people are oblivious to acceptable social norms when it comes to technology. Schools are not addressing the issue as many districts ban the use of phones due to fear of liability. The downside are students who enter the world with covert cell phone skills as they text like ninjas all the while oblivious to the information they have access to through their phones. Additionally, these same students are ill prepared to take jobs at corporations who expect them to be able to use the resources available to problem solve, communicate as to use professionally.

Keep in mind, that we are not only fighting the kids but the kids’ parents: the ones who bought the phones, pay for the phones, expect their kids to answer anytime they call the phones, and any other number of reasons parents want their kids to have a phone. Think about how many times you have students who go to the parking lot to meet a parent during lunch or between classes? Or, a student comes up during class and says, “My mom is here can I go to the office?” even if you have not gotten a call or note from the office stating that someone is here for the student. If you were to ask them, “how do you know your parent is here,” the answer usually revolves around a text. I was getting tired of this behavior, so I knew it was time for a little professional development with cell phones and my students.

My first lesson was when students could have their phones on and off. So, I would ask kids to take out their phones, and done one of two things depending on the lesson:

1. Everyone please take out your cell phone, make sure it is turned off right now as we won’t be using them for a bit. Once your phone is off please put it on the left hand side of your desk so I know you are ready.

2. Everyone please take out your cell phone, make sure it is turned on, and when you are ready please place your phone on the left hand side of your desk.

The left hand side is key as most students are right handed. The motion of reaching across a desk for a phone will be awkward and noticeable, plus it was a visual cue for me to know when kids had their phones and were ready. If students felt more comfortable putting their phones in their bags while they were off, that was fine. However, if the phones were out or not where I expected them to be, the phones were mine.

In the early days I did not do much: some texting, a few surveys, definitely Twitter (fast follow is one of the best inventions ever) which I will touch on later.

One of the most common questions I get is access. When I started this, over half my students had phones, about half could text during school. So, for certain projects students partner up or work in groups. Over time, I have more students with smart phones or the ability to text so that number has gone down over the past two years. As early as 2008 Nielsen reported that over 70% of students had a phone while over 80% had access to a phone. That number has risen significantly.

Smart phones are a game changer. Where I had one or two kids with smart phones I now have over half my class with smart phones. Now, I can have the students do research, look up films, find articles or do basic research as necessary. Some studies I have read estimate that as of December of 2011, over half of all phones that students use are smart phones.

As tech savvy as we think students are, they are not as good at technology as we give most of them credit for. Students are only as good as their needs, and most of their needs occur on Facebook. Basic skills such as searching, analyzing, filtering content, or even recognizing marketing trends are deficient. Much like the old musical number from Bye Bye Birdie – it’s not the phone lines that are tied up but how many text messages one person can send in a minute.

As for AUP’s, I will include one I got from Ron Ippolito – a fellow teacher with an amazing blog – who is doing some great work with phones and other items: AUP Policy. After researching all over, the basics are this: you can have it, you may use it with teacher permission, it’s a privilege to use your phone at school, we are not responsible if your phone is lost or stolen. Keep in mind, phones are a part of the curriculum, they are not the only way to complete the curriculum, therefore phones enhance the learning process but are note required for the learning process.

In the end, my students enjoy have greater access to me via their phones either through texting or through Twitter. I’ve noticed that the level of understanding, respect and responsibility with technology has gone up immensely while the lessons I am able to figure out from basic social skills to applicable career skills is astounding.

Video Time Machine

Living in a media drive age, it would make sense that we, as educators, have access to videos and clips that feature some of the great moments in our history: movies, music, tv, news, sports, games and ads.  To truly understand history in any context is to know what is going on in that time period. There are many ways to set the scene, YouTube is one, though researching all of that video footage takes time; the Library of Congress has some great videos to download via iTunes if you have the time; or how about the vidoes and DVD’s which are delivered with our textbooks (in my case, laser discs and reel to reel – totally up to date on technology here).  Even better, how about a device that let’s kids research or identify the videos that best describe the time period? Enger Video Time Machine, a new app available for the iPhone and iPad that carefully selects videos that best represent the time period they were made. As the site claims, “You can watch over 10,000 handpicked videos from 1860-2011.”

Podcasting Made Easy, Part IV: Video

My introduction to video came in 2001 with an early edition of Final Cut.  I had to work on two different computers as the file sizes – at 14 GB – were too large to use on just one Mac.  This was so much better than using two VCR’s to create the high-light tape for our college team.  That’s right, I was at a UC school and we were using two VCR’s to create the high-light tape for our final awards dinner … not any more. This idea stuck with me as I began to incorporate video content into my podcasts – I needed to provide video of good quality to make my episodes interesting to watch.

Podcasting Made Easy, Part III : The Interview

For one of my first podcasts, I called upon Phil Boyte who lived up in the foothills two hours from where I live.  He agreed and I offered to drive up and meet him.  We sat and spoke for a bit, and it became clear I did not have a vision of what I wanted the subjects of my podcasts to be.  I had ideas, and most of the time I left that idea choosing process up to the person I was interviewing.  However, with that much choice, my subjects would often get lost and be unsure of a topic.  I lost a few interviews that way, especially from people who are not used to be recorded.  Phil and I eventually did a great podcast on ideas you can use for the first days/week of school – but it took a little time to get there.  I began to learn – thanks to my conversation with Phil – that I needed to get dialed in to the content I was looking for in the podcast.

My Next Scavenger Hunt

Try this with your camera, it's a great way to find my blog.

I love QR images on so many levels.  The are around us, some subtly some not so subtly, on bust stops, billboards, website, produce and even on some of the packages you receive in the mail from the postal service or UPS.  Founded back in the 1990’s by the Japanese Auto Industry, these images are being used by marketing companies for gorilla marketing campaigns to gain the attention of a tech savvy crowds.

I recently purchased some produce and on the inside of the label was a QR image to scan an enter a contest to see if I won the sweepstakes.  I was recently at a wine tasting  in Lodi where the winery was using QR images to download tasting notes.  I could scan the image and I was taken to a website with notes, pricing and ordering information.  I can then save the info in my scans and access this data any time I want.  “What was the wine I liked again, I will look at my phone.”  Jimmy Fallon used an image on his Late Show during one of his comedy bits that took you to a link of the video he was making. This technology will start to pop up more and more and in many different ways, so how can I use this in education?

Same Standards, New Instruction

“I can’t understand why people are frightened by new ideas, I’m frightened by old ones.”

-John Cage, US Composer 1912-1992

AR, or augmented reality, is nothing new to the technology world. You have seen it on Hallmark cards – they all say “for an added bonus, hold this card up to the camera on your computer,” – and if you are into graphic design you have used this technology when creating 3D graphics for analysis. You may have heard of Pranav Mistry, the MIT graduate student who developed augmented reality software which will undoubtedly be used on future cellphones and other devices that work off of cameras. The potential and ramifications of this technology are endless. Now, this technology comes to the iPad and iPhone for free from String. A new augmented reality app for iOS.

My friend Erica holding up her iPad over one of the free images from String.

The images you pull up are highly interactive, you can click on the images, move them around, send them away, or bring them back. Think of the content you can bring in to your class room with just using a camera on your smart phone or iPad: interactive 3D images of historic land marks, interviews with people in history, designing and building circuits, devices, cars, houses or anything else your imaginations desires.  You don’t even need a printer, though you may want to print out the images, you can scan directly from your computer screen.

I can even see this taking the place of learning stations, where kids can either describe, evaluate, research, or analyze the image that is there. In English, characterization is a big standard and evaluating character is tough. I can take a character in augmented reality from a story we are reading, and have the character get up and walk around on the students screen. Now, just from what the kids see, I can have them describe what they know about the character. Next station, the character interacts with another person, now kids can analyze what that character is like through what they do. Lastly, I can have that character speak and the kids can tell me what that character is like through their words. Now, I would have the kids type up an analysis and we can discuss their conclusions as well as my characterization – as the author – based upon my design of the character in the first place. All of these elements would be important in analyzing character within a story.

Even better, have your students create their own AR image and have them share it with the class as another type of project based analysis.  Think diorama on your iPad or iPhone.

If you notice, with augmented reality I’m teaching the same standard while using a new technology. If I can create an interactive and engaging lesson that is presented in a medium that students interact with on a daily basis – I have them hooked. At the same time, I am demonstrating technology to students and modeling it’s use, quite possibly inspiring a few to play with this technology and create a few things they might enjoy as well.

What’s Your Next Presentation

When I first started teaching eight years ago, I was so excited to finally get to use PowerPoint, no writing on the chalk board – yes, I had a chalk board – for my students. Fifty slides later, I still cringe when I hear the break glass sound effect, I knew I was off to a bad start. I had a great technology and no idea how to use. With a lot of practice, collaboration and seeing other professional examples I was able to begin creating some amazing PowerPoints. Eventually I also branched off into Keynote and finally Prezi. In the end, it was not about the presentation, but the content that drove what I was presenting to students.

People will disagree – I’ve noticed that in a Mac and PC world – but in my mind Keynote and PowerPoint are relatively the same. They are both slide/presentation programs where you can create your notes: bullets, pictures, movies, graphs and charts. I do feel that KeyNote is more sophisticated, you have more options and your ability to export into many formats has me enjoying that app a bit more.

When I first started using Keynote I was a bit overwhelmed with too much choice. I was confused on where to go, what to add and how much. I was reminded of my days when I started on PowerPoint and had too much going on – the emphasis was on the show and not the information. Over time, presentations became better, succinct and I was able to get creative. I still had one problem, both PowerPoint and Keynote are very linear – you start at point A and end at Point B. Creatively, while I had more options with Keynote, I was still restricted to a straight across format, I wanted something a little more free form.

Enter Prezi, Prezi. I liked how Prezi gave me a space, and I was allowed to create. I can upload my own pictures, video and create text however I like it. I can add shapes, I can adjust the orientation so presentation zooms in, out, up down or any direction I choose. This is great for my students as it can challenge their thinking, put the focus on the content and deliver in a manner that is not necessarily linear. At the same time, I can embed my presentations – fully interactive – on my class blog or via Twitter. I know I can do this, to a degree, with Slideshare on my PowerPoints or Keynotes, buy my students desire something much more highly interactive.

On a closing note, Prezi is not perfect. While they have a viewer app on iPad and iTouch, they viewer does not support certain image types like SWF or even certain video types. So, I just use my computer in those instances. Whatever your choice in presentation tool, keep it concise, make it fun, and doing use too many breaking glass sound effects.

A sample Prezi on Storytelling
Sample Prezi

My first Prezi, still some work to do, but a good start My first Prezi

iPad Day 3

On day three we had the unique opportunity to hear from Dan Meyer, a Math Teacher who is currently studying at Stanford University. We got our introduction to Dan through a TED Talks video he did about a year go, you can watch it here http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html. What was interesting is the way Dan looked at curriculum, that he was taking teaching and learning out of the text book and putting in real world applications so that students see value, make connections and have a much greater buy in/motivation to tackle the problems at hand.

After watching the TED video, Dan came on via a web cam and spoke to the group. I am going to high light a few of his points that I feel are very relevant to any curricular area. One of his discoveries had to do with Story Telling. From previous posts I have done as well as some of the podcasts I have shared, people love stories. Dan highlighted some popular films, like Star Wars, and broke them into three Acts:

Act I: you learn about your story, usually no words but you can guess what is going on from the imagery.

Act II: you gather tools and resources to help you accomplish a task.

Act III: resolution, you achieve your goal using the tools and resources provided to you.

The example that Dan used had to do with showing a water tank and asking the kids how long it would take to fill the tank. He would show a short clip of the tank filling, then pop the question. Next, he would ask the kids what they need to know in order to get the rate at which the tank will fill, then – as a class – they watched the entire video and timed out the exact rate of time it takes to fill the tank. This is highly counterintuitive to traditional teaching where you have the kids go over example after example – drill problems to no end – refer back to the examples for help, and check the back of the book for the answers. After the task is accomplished, Dan moves in to his skill practice.

I spent a lot of time this past year trying to teach my kids to think, to connect and to find value in the English curriculum I teach (I wrote a bit about it here https://soberandsaucy.wordpress.com/#!/entry/149). I discovered after a while that value the kids saw in what I taught was not really there, especially with my ESL and low performing students. I had some success, but not as much as I would have liked nor what I thought my students could accomplish if they applied themselves more.

I started utilizing technology in class, like showing kids how to use their cell phones for learning, shooting video and creating projects and intros to better catch student interest. It took a bit more time on my part in the beginning – I’ve shared a few in this blog, much more to come – but in the end I started to see greater student engagement. One example was a student generated service project is where I had the students research, evaluate and create a public service announcement for a specific cause. Embedded in that lesson were concepts behind persuasion and capturing student interest.

Two challenges I have for the next year are to blog, collaborate and share more. I’m excited to receive feedback, track down other educators that are sharing to and see what other teachers are doing in schools across the globe. After all, we do live in a society that allows for transparency and collaboration on a greater level than any we have seen in history. As an educator, I feel, that if I am not working towards professional improvement on daily, weekly and annual process, I am not modeling professional growth to my students and I am not giving value to the work I do.

For more on Dan – and there is a lot – you can check out his blog at http://blog.mrmeyer.com/