Spring Tech Me Up

     I attended the Region X/XI Texas Computer Educators Association conference this weekend and came back with a new attitude. Actually, I went there with a bit of a spring in my step due to some small (but not minor) changes in our district as of late. For some time now I have been up to my knees in Web 2.0 and many of the highways and bi-ways of the internet. But I have been unable to use many (most) of these apps in the cloud with my elementary students due to filters. However, in the past few weeks our district is giving new filters a try and letting us open up areas of the world previously hidden to us on campus. Teachers can use YouTube now!  Ring the bells!

     Don't get me wrong. I am very much a proponent of internet safety for my students. But there is a difference in teaching the proper use of technology and playing ostrich. We are not doing our students any service by saying, "Sorry, don't go there...no, not while at school...I know you go there at home, but not here." Some of my peers and I were quite shocked recently when we asked our 5th graders how many had personal e-mail accounts of their own. We expected maybe 40-50 percent. Easily 85-90 percent raised their hands with no hesitation. The students are already there. We are only playing catch up right now. But we can catch up. First and foremost: more in-depth lessons on appropriate use of the web.  I'd rather work with the children and guide them instead of having them learn about tech on a street corner the way I did.

     At the conference I shadowed Randy Rodgers, a teacher from Birdville ISD  who I had met in previous years. I went to all of the sessions he led and was not disappointed. He has a huge amount of ideas, connections, and experience. Even better- he's willing to share. His blog, The Moss-Free Stone, will give me many hours of reading pleasure as I mine it for quirky uses of tech.

     I also attended a session on ipads. I have a second generation pad on order and can't wait until it comes. In the session I learned about a number of apps I can use not only for myself but also in the classroom with my students. The instructor was using it under a document camera and I had wondered if that would work should I need to demonstrate something. I am pleased to say it did, although video/movement still has that doc cam drag.

     I am a baby with apple products (in spite of my iphone) so I was happy to get a heads  up on the device. I had heard about the issues with apple and flash products but didn't know there were work-arounds such as Skyfire and Cloud Browse (app store) to let you see flash sites on the pads and phones.  Maybe I need a vacation day when the new pad arrives so I can become proficient? Shhhhh, don't tell my boss.

     I also learned about LiveBinders, yet another take on the cloud work/storage genre. It was very interesting and may have fewer limitations than Skydrive, which I just started using with my students.  I love the concept in general ("Seeing Sense in the Clouds" February, 2011) and this is one of the main reasons I wanted e-mail for my class. I will be doing more research on LiveBinders over the summer and may move the kiddos into the format this fall.

     We wrapped up the day with prizes and I snagged an itunes gift card and USB hand massager. Score! As usual, a good time was had by all.

And They Said it Wouldn't Last...

    It has been twenty-seven years since my father walked me down the aisle to stand beside the man I was to marry. It's been twenty-seven years since we loaded two separate lives into one small yellow car and left for Texas. I look at my wedding photos and think, "Dang I was skinny."

Wait, of course I mean, "Oh, how young and in love we look." Because we do.

     It's been twenty-eight plus years since he walked into my Basic and Fortran computer class at Middle Tennessee State University, sat on the front row, turned to scope out the room, and promptly relocated to sit next to me and another boy on the back row. He leaned over and informed me he was quite fond of  my legs and hoped I planned to wear skirts often. Strangely, he is surprised to this day that line did not work and I did not fall swooning into his arms. I thought he was a jerk.

     We didn't exchange another word until the end of the semester when I was attempting to debug a program by using a shoe on the side of the computer (technology is great...when it works). I guess I was making a bit of noise and he leaned over from the adjacent carrel and offered to help. I said, "Thanks, Dan" (I thought his name was Dan for the first 8 months I knew him), and realized there was more to this jerk than arrogance if he would offer assistance to a damsel in distress.

     We met again the next semester in Horror and Gothic Literature (yes, I had a very stressful, depth-filled college schedule), and went on our first date right around spring break. It was to Stone's River Battlefield. We were searching for the cold spot where civil war ghosts were supposed to walk. How could I not fall head over heels in love?

     A year later came the romantic proposal, "How long will it take you to get ready for a wedding and move to Dallas?" He gave me a month. I chose March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, thinking that for the rest of his life he could go into any Irish Pub in the world and get a countdown to his wedding anniversary. He has never forgotten when it is.

     Here we are, twenty-seven years later. We've been richer and poorer, we've been better and worse, we've been sicker and healthier. I have loved him, I have honored him, but rarely obeyed him. I had that one removed from the vows. I knew he wouldn't notice until it was too late. We've raised kids, dogs, cats, rabbits, and the occasional rodent. We've been back to other colleges to further our educations. (It was too hard to find a job in Horror Lit.) We're to the age where we have stopped shredding the AARP letters and started reading them. We looked so young and in love back then. In our eyes we still do.

     Happy Anniversary Doug. You are still the love of my life.

P.S. I guess that darn line about my legs actually did work after all.

Here a Tech, There a Tech...

 A fellow teacher asked me this week what a classroom looked liked when it's fully integrated with technology. Then, before I could answer, she said, "Like yours - aren't your students on the computer all day?" That question brought me to a stop for a moment. Is that what people think is really happening in my classroom?

     I love technology. Both for the fun it brings to my life and also for the doors it can open into areas of the world which I will never see any other way. Not coincidentally, I also love reading. And it is by comparing tech to reading that some teachers might see what makes a tech-integrated classroom.

     Reading gets a lot of attention in schools and rightly so. Without it adults are the openers of the doors for children, but the ultimate goal is for the students to seek out and open their own passages. Reading enables the mastery of all other subjects, including math.

     Teachers have many ways of teaching reading. Immersion, whole-language, phonics, sight words; and all are necessary because all people do not learn to their personal BEST in all the same manner. Much time is spent in the early grades making sure to reach each and every student, trying all tips and tricks in teachers' goody bags. The learning of reading goes on for many years, and sometimes never stops, as the acquisition of vocabulary is a never ending pursuit.

     Now look at technology. It's a quirky little thing. It too can be used to promote reading skills in students. But it needs the partnership of reading to be used at its best. As reading abilities soar, so can technology use. Just like in reading, there are some things which need to be studied in isolation: sounds, letters, blends, etc… compare to: keyboarding, "click," menus, etc…  A few basics in reading and technology and students have the world at their fingertips.

     But are books used every minute of every day in a classroom? Of course not. Children are found all over the school coloring, cutting, moving around, using manipulatives, and discussing. And when books are used, it is always the same book? The same genre? The same topic? It's the same with technology, just substitute "tech" for "reading" in the paragraphs above.

     In my class we have a techie's dream. We are 1-1, have an interactive whiteboard, projector, CPS units, doc cam, cameras, software, and apps. I'm sure there are a few things we could use, but we're pretty much covered. Believe it or not, there are pieces of tech we don't use every day. I know, a real shocker. And to make things more horrifying, we don't even use tech AT ALL some days. Why? Because sometimes we don't NEED to.

     Despite accumulating massive amounts of tech in the class there are still some subjects which need a different method of teaching to best be mastered by the students. Shoving tech into a lesson just to say you used tech in the lesson is inappropriate. Tech should be used in order to best help the students learn, help them demonstrate mastery, and (in a distant third place) help present material to them. If it ain't broke, don't fix it with tech. You could actually hinder learning by making lessons too complex. Put the complexity into the content, not the format.

     Technology is very engaging to all of our students and I know that most, if not all, job choices for them will involve tech to some end. Using no technology at all would be a true disservice to our children. You cannot justify never using tech just because that's the way you've always done it anymore than you can justify tossing in technology where it is not relevant. So, don't break the teaching, enhance it. Things do change and disruption happens.
     I will continue using technology in my lessons to bring in relevance, heighten engagement, foster an ease for learning, and bring a sense of pride into finished products. I will also allow my students to make some of the choices on their learning by themselves, including adding or omitting the use of technology tools where that use is not an integral part of their understanding. My students will learn how to be fluent and flexible with the tools of learning. That my friends, is what a classroom looks like when it is integrated with technology.

     Oh yeah, we'll also have a lot of fun.