Category: Classroom management

Education is changing. Teachers no longer primly lecture from the front of the class. Students don’t fervently copy the instructors words down, read  text, and memorize material for a test.

And the classroom itself has changed.

If these reforms have your head spinning, hold on to your sensibilities because lots more are coming. You thought Smartscreens at the front of the class linked to a computer, students storing schoolwork in the cloud rather than a personal file folder, homework submitted electronically, parents signing up to volunteer on something called ‘Sign up Genius’ was cutting edge? By the time your new born baby enters kindergarten, here’s what they’ll find at their school house:

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Are you applying to be a tech teacher–wondering whether you know enough or have what it takes? Is it making your stomach churn and your head throb?

I understand–I went through that when I applied. I’ve learned a lot since then and I want to share some tips that will help you with what could be a life-changing conversation.

Before I get into the tips, I want you to remember: Your students will know less than you. You’ll start the year with tech training that provides students with tools for learning, that integrates into the school curriculum. If you are learning these the day before so you can teach them–you will know more. Your adult brain will absorb, sort, problem-solve, connect the dots, develop relationships much faster than the students who sit in your classroom. There are so many tech tools out there, many (many) teachers stay just a step ahead of their students, relying on their ability to see patterns based on the transfer of knowledge from prior learning. Every year after the first, you’ll adapt to what students know–go faster or slower. You will learn along with the students.

Here’s what you do for the interview:

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What no teacher ever says: “I had no problem using technology in my classroom.” Even if YOU understand the plethora of digital tools, that often isn’t true for parents, other teachers, your Admin. Which becomes a challenge.

Ask a Tech Teacher contributor Sara Stringer addresses some of the biggest problems even geeky teachers face when trying to build a technology-infused classroom:

Computers are more a part of education than ever before, be it classroom teachers using computer technology to get through to their students, or students attending classes entirely online. Computer technology has become the future of education, and yet there are still challenges that make technology less effective than it could be.

Technological Threats

With increased computer use also comes increased threats. Students and teachers who use public networks to access school resources are at greater risk from several different computer threats. While schools can make sure their internet security is up to date, individuals who connect with their personal devices can still end up loading infected files to the network.

One solution is to require that all outside machines meet certain specifications, such as having an up to date virus or internet security program installed. Even Macs are becoming more vulnerable to viruses and malware, and those users should install internet security or an antivirus for Mac that will send warnings if the machines are compromised.

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There have been a number of stories about the failure of tablet technology in schools. 3^rd grade teacher Michele Rice at Prairie Elementary School in Haysville, Kansas has found a way to markedly improve student achievement in lessons using tablet technology. She offers a step by step approach to ensuring an efficient and effective implementation of the technology.

How’s that relate to testing? Read on…

If you told a child they were about to be given a ‘test’ to try to raise achievement, you could normally expect their enthusiasm to be almost non-existent. However, 3^rd grade teacher Michele Rice at Prairie Elementary School in Haysville, Kansas has found a way to markedly improve student achievement in lessons which leaves children enjoying what they are learning, often without knowing they are taking a test at all.

Michele explains how she has used tablet technology to achieve such notable improvements.

“At Prairie Elementary School, we set high standards, based on our mission to equip learners with 21st century skills to achieve excellence in a continually-changing world. In these times of change, students need to learn in a way that will stimulate them and prepare them for the world they are going to live and work in.

“While it can seem incredible that a piece of hardware can really impact learning, the results are astonishing. When any learning activity is delivered on our tablets, attention, drive and results all improve. When I deliver a test from time to time to assess each student’s comprehension and level of development, they see it as another fun task!

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Molly:

I really enjoyed your article on students blogging.  It seems like a great way to get them writing willingly since they love to be online.  I was wondering, what are some of the problems you have run into and how did you solve them?  What pitfalls can teachers watch out for long-term?

Three big–not necessarily ‘problems’ as much as issues to address:

Digital rights and responsibilities

You don’t want to roll out blogging in your classroom without a sturdy program educating students on digital citizenship–privacy, profiles, footprints, safety, fair use/copyrights. I have lots of information on those topics on my blog. Another good resource is Common Sense Media.

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An efriend and former NYC teacher, Steve Koss taught in China (winner of a top spot on the annual PISA best-education-in-the-world) for part of his career and was not surprised China came out with some of the best test scores in the world. He shared his experience while teaching there. Compare what he saw to what we have here in America keeping in mind that we languish somewhere below middle on that international PISA test.

• Every classroom was a bare, cinder-block-walled enclosure, no heat in the winter, no cooling in the early summer, virtually nothing decorating the walls. Students spent their entire school day in the same room – teachers came to them.
• Every classroom held 48 – 50 students, lined up in traditional, ramrod-straight rows. Textbooks and workbooks for students’ full set of the day’s classes were piled on and under their desks – no one had a locker.
• Teachers lectured from a dais at the front of the room. Students sat quietly at their desks and listened, took notes, occasionally recited in unison or responded, standing, to a direct question from the teacher. Questions from students were a rarity.
• Many, if not most, lectures were straight from students’ texts, sometimes nothing more than
• teachers simply reading from the textbook.
• Teachers appeared at students’ classrooms just before lessons began, departing back to their subject area offices immediately upon finishing their lessons. Casual student-teacher interaction was minimal at best. Teachers spent much of their office time (they only taught two class periods per day) playing video games and reading the daily newspaper.
• Copying of assignments was rampant – and tolerated. As, all too often, was cheating on exams. Scores counted more than how they were achieved.
• I saw no evidence of what in the U.S. we would call “student projects.” Classroom activity appeared to be the same lecture and recitation style every day.
• Students were actively discouraged from asking questions. I was told on more than one occasion that students’ parents could actually be called into the school so that a teacher could complain that the child was disrupting lessons because he/she was asking too many questions.
• Schools had no clubs or activities and minimal if any organized sports teams. One school where I worked claimed to have two or three interscholastic sports teams, but only for boys.
• Students typically took seven or eight classes each semester, leaving no time for activities even outside of school.
• Never once among the hundreds of students I saw and taught did I see a student with a physical handicap or a visible learning disability. I don’t know where those students were, or if they were even still permitted to attend school by high school age, but if so, there was no inclusion.
• Physical education consisted mostly of lining students up in straight rows and performing low-impact calisthenics and movement.
• The last semester of senior year is dedicated nearly exclusively to preparation for the gaokou, the national, three-day-long, college entrance examination.
• Schools were evaluated, and principals and teachers rewarded, according to their students’ standardized exam results.
• Teachers earn extra income from tutoring. They are allowed to accept money from their own students (or gifts from those students’ parents), a sure-fire disincentive to effective teaching in the classroom setting.
• There was no parent involvement in the schools whatsoever. Parents visited a school for only one of two reasons: to be roundly chastised for their child’s behavior/performance, or to present a gift for extra tutoring services rendered.

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App use is taking over classrooms, but what as teachers really want are authentic, educational apps that promote higher order skills like critical thinking and problem solving.

Here’s my list, culled from my students and my PLN. Bookmark this page  because this is where I update throughout the year. Then, you’ll always be current (for example, it used to have just 107 apps).

If you have an app you use in your classroom, please add it to comments at the bottom. I’ll update as soon as possible.

If you’re the developer of a great educational app, please contact me. I’ll review it. If it meets Ask a Tech Teacher standards (high quality, ease of use, no/low advertising, quality educational value), I’ll list it. More details here.

Animation

• Puppet Pals HD (free)–Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time
• Toontastic–empowers kids to draw, animate, and share their cartoons through imaginative play.

Audio

• Audio Memos Free – The Voice Recorder (free with ads or $0.99 without ads)
• DropVox
• iTalk Recorder (free with ads or $1.99 for premium)
• QuickVoice Recorder (free)
• Sock Puppet–record movement and voice–changes voices to funny ones
• Sonic Pics–voice-over slideshow of pictures
• Talking Tom Cat–repeats what students say
• Voice Thread–Talk, type, and draw right on the screen.

Backchannel

• Socrative

Bloom’s Taxonomy    

• Bloom’s Taxonomy for iPads–highly relevant apps that do the job
• iPad apps categorized with Bloom’s Taxonomy–Kathy Schrock

Brainstorming

• Lino–share notes and photos

Classroom Management

• ClassDojo–class behavior
• Edmodo

Classroom Resources

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If your state adopted Common Core, 75% of you will administer yearly assessments online. If students haven’t used online tools or software for classwork, this can be a daunting task. Having computer devices as optional education tools is a massive difference from requiring students to use them for grded assessments. This can be intimidating for both students and teachers.

The tood news: It doesn’t take as much time and practice as you might think to prepare. What it does require is a techie mindset, the acceptance that technology is part of the daily economic landscape, that it be integrated into assignments, practice, modeling, homework, assessments, projects, portfolios, grading rubrics, expectations.

There are ways to get students in shape that won’t take much out of your already-packed day.

Here are twenty-two strategies to use next year that will make your teaching life easier, bump up your effectiveness with students, save time complying with Common Core standards, and prepare students effectively for next Spring. As you’re in your grade-level teams, planning lessons for next year, include these. They will add spice to your classes, build flexible learning paths, , and contribute to sustainable, transformation learning. Once you start using tech in the classroom as a tool (not a separate activity), you will find students self-selecting it when given a choice, coming up with their own ways to make tech today’s adaptive answer:

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If you’ve been swearing all year to get students online using some of those amazing digital tools. I have some ideas for you. These eight projects will be so much fun, they will eagerly welcome the new school year, hoping you have more for them to learn.

The trick with so many of these online sites is: Let students explore. Don’t rush them. Don’t teach them every twist and turn. Don’t expect perfection. Expect inquiry and enthusiasm and self-paced discovery. Let them solve problems as they create.

Here are eight ideas for amazing end-of-year projects that leave students thinking school is ending too soon:

End-of-year Multimedia Summative

Students take pictures of each other holding up favorite projects or working on tech skills–humorously, of course. Use these pictures in an Animoto movie to share light-hearted details of their Year in Tech. Open it with a magazine cover of student (created in Big Huge Labs). Accessorize with music, transitions, and text bubbles. Save to class network and load onto the school set of iPads. Students can play these movies on the last day of class as they celebrate the end of school. If you don’t have iPads, gather students in comfortable seating, play a student video as they reflect on another successful year of Tech.

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At a certain point in a student’s education journey, they start having a lot of school work that needs to be:

1. saved for future use
2. accessed from home and school
3. shared with multiple students for collaborations
4. submitted to teacher for grading
5. returned from teacher digitally with comments and grade
6. collected and displayed in all types of file formats–Word, Google, Photoshop, pdf
7. organized to find data easily
8. linked to other pieces of work or online sites

For example, a student can create a project at school, access it at home and link key words to websites found by a classmate that supports the project discussion.

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