Category: Classroom management

Computer technology isn’t as hard as it sounds, but it does require consistent use. You can’t learn a skill and stick it on a shelf for three months without it molding. Here’s how you do that: Read this blog. I cover the stuff you will use daily. It won’t get stale. Take my test. Try these eighteen:

Basics

• 7 Education Trends You Don’t Want to Miss
• 8 Education Tools That Are Going Away
• 11 Ways to be an Inquiry-based Teacher
• 12 Tips on Handling Hard-to-teach Classes
• How to be a Tech Teacher
• Mouse Skills
• My Classroom
• New Students? 7 Tips to Differentiate with Tech

Common Core Basics

• 11 Things I Love About Common Core
• Common Core Writing–Digital Quick Writes
• How to Prepare Students for PARCC Tests
• What are Common Core keyboarding standards?

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Google Apps Meets Common Core

by Michael J. Graham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Michael Graham’s Google Apps Meets Common Core (Corwin 2013) is exactly what I hoped it would be. As a teacher, there couldn’t be two bigger topics than ‘Google Apps for Education’ and ‘Common Core’. Juxtaposing the two instantly caught my attention. My only question was whether Graham would be up to the task.

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Teaching technology is not sharing a new subject, like Spanish or math. It’s exploring an education tool, knowing how to use computers, IPads, the internet, and other digital devices to serve learning goals. Sure, there are classes that teach MS Word and C++, but for most schools, technology is employed strategically and capably to achieve all colors of education.

Which gets me to the four subjects every teacher must teach, whether s/he’s a math teacher, science, literacy, or technology. In today’s education world, all of us teach–

• vocabulary
• keyboarding
• digital citizenship
• research

They used to be taught in isolation–Fridays at 8:20, we learn vocabulary–but not anymore. Now they must be blended into all subjects like ingredients in a cake, the result–college or career for the 21st-century student. Four subjects that must be taught–and thanks to technology, CAN be with ease. Let me explain.

Vocabulary

 Common Core requires that:

Students constantly build the transferable vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. This can be done effectively by spiraling like content in increasingly complex texts.

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Are you drowning in students, sure that the flood of bodies that enter your classroom daily will destroy your effectiveness? Does it depress you, make you second-guess your decision to effect change in the world as a teacher? Do you wonder how you’ll explain to parents–and get them to believe you–that you truly CAN teach thirty students and meet their needs (because you must convince them–of all education characteristics, parents equate class size to success)?

Take heart while I play Devil’s Advocate and offer evidence contrary to what seems by most to be intuitive common sense. I mean, how could splitting your finite amount of time among LESS students be anything but advantageous? Sure, there are many studies (US-based primarily) that support a direct correlation between class size and teacher ability to meet education goals, but consider how you–personally–learn. Sure, it occurs through teachers, but just as often by trial and error, peers, inquiry, student-centered activities, play, experiencing events, differentiated ways unlike others. Educators like John Holt believe “children [and by extension, you] learn most effectively by their own motivation and on their own terms”.

Is it possible the root of the education problem is other than class size? Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City (National Bureau of Economic Research) indicates that traditional success measures–including class size–do not correlate to school effectiveness. According to this study, what doesn’t matter is:

1. class size
2. per pupil expenditure
3. fraction of teachers with no certification
4. fraction of teachers with an advanced degree

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I’ve posted a few articles on the growing trend in education toward using tablets. I wanted to follow up with the experiences from efriend, Marc Fanaroff on his recent laptop rollout. Does this match your experiences?

The adoption of tablet technology in schools has not always come as positive news. As schools start to mature, moving from the innovator phase into early adopter stage, we are getting increasingly wise about the necessary steps to achieve successful classroom implementation. Having rolled out 40 tablets into our school, I thought I’d share my experience, to offer advice for a successful investment.

1)    The first step is to know from an instructional standpoint what your objectives for the investment are, and how you envisage using the resource. This could have implications for the required functionality of the hardware device. While many tablets are designed for consumer use rather than classroom use, in general, a tablet is a tablet.

2)    Step two in ensuring the technology is effective in the learning environment is to ensure it includes appropriate high quality learning content. The learning content offered on some tablet devices can often described as ‘edutainment’ rather than high quality curriculum aligned resources. The supplier of your chosen mobile device should be working with publishers to provide high quality, curriculum aligned content pre-installed on the tablet device. Research has indicated that the need to purchase, install and manage new apps is cited by many schools as a significant barrier to adoption. However, tablets should also be easily networkable to allow you to use your pre-existing or purchased content.

3)    The next step is also based on software, rather than hardware. I can’t recommend enough that you consider the classroom management tools available for the tablet device. Basic inclusive functionality such as being able to manage the content on the tablet and synchronize this via a simple button click, can save you a significant amount of time.  The truly mobile learning environment that tablet technology facilitates results in the students being spread over a wide area, hopefully engaged in the learning objective. However, the nature of mobile devices means that we can feels we have no control over each child, are unaware of what they are doing and unable to support their learning pathway. Classroom management tools that ensure we can ‘see’ from our PC a thumbnail image of each student’s display, so we can mirror the pupil’s device display onto a large screen or interactive whiteboard or freeze any one device,  puts us back in control. Other software tools are available to limit internet access to approved websites and support a personalized learning pathway for each child. Without these tools a tablet is just another piece of hardware.

4)    Another factor affecting the adoption of tablets in schools is the new buzz phrase ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD). The majority of schools currently show a willingness to consider this route of tablet adoption with parents covering the cost of the technology. Anyone considering this option must tread carefully. Important legal considerations, such as potential claims for indirect discrimination from students from low income backgrounds, data protection laws, the terms of your school’s software licensing and hidden costs such as repair and data roaming charges all have to be carefully considered. However a good inclusive management portal should mean that your learning content can be agnostic of brand; it can work seamlessly on iOs, or Android devices.

5)    An additional cost to factor in is protective covers. We invested in protective covers for the hardware and as a result, despite the children carrying the devices around the school, we haven’t experienced any damage to date.

6)    And finally, once you have your devices, don’t roll them out all at once. We spent the first few days using the devices, looking at all the free content on the LearnPad website and downloading what was right for each child’s specific needs. We then started to roll them out to just one trial class group, one activity, and one day at a time. This meant that we learned what worked with the students and in turn managed any problems that arose on a much smaller scale. Once we knew which problems would occur with one class we could ensure a smoother roll out for the next.

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For the 45 states who opted into Common Core, using technology in the classroom is no longer a choice–it’s required. Common Core’s Standards insist that for any student to be prepared for college and career requires they be digitally- and technologically savvy. From the English Language Arts Standards:

Technology differentiates for student learning styles by providing an alternative method of achieving conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and applying this knowledge to authentic circumstances.

…and from the Math Standards:

Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. These tools might include pencil and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a calculator, a spreadsheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical package, or dynamic geometry software. Proficient students are sufficiently familiar with tools appropriate for their grade or course to make sound decisions about when each of these tools might be helpful.

The standards themselves go into detail. Sprinkled throughout are constant allusions to the importance of using technology, its fundamental nature as the bedrock of education, and the necessity to weave it throughout the academic fabric, regardless the topic, skill, or requirement.

Here are thirteen reasons why this is a good idea. The first seven are directly from the Standards, the last six from classroom experience:

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I heard from several friends at a non-denominational school I’m close to that rules regarding prayer in the classroom have changed. Now, teachers may not have the morning prayer that has started their day for over twenty years. Times change and Admin decided that was no longer the direction the school was going. They continue to have organized fellowship–just not under the direction of an individual teacher, in his/her classroom.

Serendipity brought the following to my inbox. Thought I’d share:

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said:

‘Let me see if I’ve got this right.

‘You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

‘You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

‘You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.

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If you don’t have children, you may not have noticed the massive changes going on in how students learn. Where adults are struggling with adjusting to the onslaught of technology in their lives, hoping to slowly inch their way into its use, students have no such luxury. Every year, there are new iPads, apps, online grading systems, a teacher website they have to visit every day for homework. As a teacher for twenty five years (the last fifteen in technology), it has my head spinning.

But students don’t mind a wit. They’re ready, wondering what’s taking us so long to use the tools they can’t get enough of at home.

For every tool added, one that has been a mainstay of education for decades must disappear. Here are eight that you should wave goodbye to because within the next ten years, they’ll be gone:

Books

Do you remember when you used to have a textbook for every subject. When it was social studies time, you pulled the textbook out and followed along chapter-by-chapter, hoping to finish by the end of the year? Not anymore. Now, teachers use a variety of multimedia materials, rarely as mundane as a text with pictures. Now, history comes alive with primary source audio and video, simulations of events, and games that reinforce math and science.

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In 2010, ‘BYOD’ officially entered the national lexicon with this pronouncement in the National Education Technology Plan:

Only with 24/7 access to the Internet via devices and technology-based software and resources can we achieve the kind of engagement, student-centered learning, and assessment that can improve learning in the ways this plan proposes. In addition, these devices may be owned by the student or family, owned by the school, or some combination of the two.

BYOD–Bring Your Own Device–one of the cutting edge tools available to schools. Rather than investing in schoolwide iPads or laptops or Chromebooks, everyone brings their own digital device. Sure, the school must make available some devices for students who don’t own one, but that’s a fraction of the investment in funds, training, and technology normally required without a BYOD program. With students bringing their own favorite digital device, students get to use the device they’re already comfortable with, one that is easily transferred to home use (which encourages its use for homework and projects). Suddenly, lots of activities that weren’t possible before become a reality. Like:

• digital note-taking via Evernote
• sharing and collaborating via GAFE
• use of backchannel devices like Today’s Meet
• feedback via Twitter (for age-appropriate students) and/or blogs
• answer to questions that aren’t in the subject-provided material, something outside the scope of the curriculum but not the student curiosity

If you’re considering a BYOD program, here’s what you should think about:

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It’s 2014–an era of increased understanding, patience, creativity…

And technology.

Really? Wasn’t that last year’s educational buzzword? Why can’t that geeky stuff leave teachers alone? Education worked fine with blackboards and chalk and desks-all-lined-up-in-a-row. Now, students sit in circles, yell out questions, stare at iPads, do state reports on something called ‘Glogster.com’. Smartscreens, 1:1 computing and iPads have turned classes upside down. What else can change?

A lot, actually. Here are six trends you don’t want to miss. Embrace them and by next year, your students will be as excited to come to class as you are:

On Demand Teaching

Not only is the teacher leaving the front of the classroom, soon, they will be appearing virtually on a screen in your home. Thanks to programs like Google Hangout, if it snows, if a student is sick or out of town or on a field trip, everyone can still participate in class. All that’s required is a Google account (like students get with Google Apps for Education) and an internet connection (at the student home, a friend’s house, or even the library). This works nicely too if the teacher is away from the classroom for faculty training. They simply tape the class, collect required resources, and students log on during class time.

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