Instructional Technologist

The end of August was an incredibly relaxing time after a very busy 2008-2009 school year followed by 6 weeks at Summer School for the Performing Arts. We spent a few weeks on Lake Ossipee in Freedom, New Hampshire resting, reading and enjoying our lazy summer days. A few days home to check in at the school and catch up on a some home details and then we were off to the Atlantic coast in Seabrook, NH.

It is hard to vacation so close to the opening of school. More than once I’d pull out my iPhone to make a note on my Toodledo list. So much in my head. Had all of technology arrived and was it in place? Would everything go smoothly on day one and how much running around the building would I have to do? How will I work with staff to learn all of the new and exciting tools?

And then I’d shift right back into vacation mode… chasing shadows on the beach, jumping waves with my daughters ages 3 and 16, relaxing, reading and checking my school email (just had to keep in touch…).

On a walk the third day we came across a piece of driftwood. It was rather small and shapes like a chunky pencil. Thus it became the “magic sand pencil” and a very unusual learning tool. WIth the magic sand pencil practiced the ABC’s, identified shapes, traced hands and feet, and created mazes around the beach. I decided to take a break.

In the distance I observed my 3 year old busying herself with the “magic sand pencil”. She was working diligently; very focused and very involved in her project. She called me down to show me her product – a hopscotch. My 3 year old used her tool to draw several squares (yes they all had 4 sides), organized in somewhat of a pattern with her very best numbers in them. I was amazed!

It was the realization the a simple piece of driftwood, now a “magic sand pencil”, became a wonderful teaching and learning tool. It was how we/she used the tool, not the tool itself that created memorable learning experiences. This is exactly how I wish teachers would view educational technology. It’s not the tool, it’s what you do with it!

You can show students how to manipulate formulas in Excel but they will learn more with meaningful data that they can be interpreted into significant new learning. An iMovie for the sake of iMovie is meaningless; but a 3 minute documentary on a a recent protect and its relevance in history is a powerful learning experience.

Technology is a tool for teaching and learning. How will you use it?

Over the past month I’ve been providing professional development for teachers participating in a project called Wired Teachers/Wired Students. This grant funded by the Westford Education Foundation and the Westford Public Schools educates teachers in the use of Web 2.0 tools in curriculum areas. They have completed 6 hours of professional development and now are planning Web 2.0 projects with their classes.

I am always seeking new and exciting web-based learning opprtunities for our students. Looking beyond YouTube and pbs.org for academic resources takes time. Today I thought I’d explore lectures and available resources on iTunes U available for free in the iTunes store. I found a lecture speech by Michelle Rhee from Duke’s Sanford Institute. Not exactly a student resource (however it would make quite the discussion in a current affairs class) but a thought provoking professional development experience for me. It was well worth the very long download and the time to listen to her speech and the question and answer. Her speech dealt mostly with the problems, reform and reaction of the Washington, DC community. At one point Michelle stops and states:

We have lots and lots of teachers in our system who do heroic things every single day.  They are amazing people who go above and beyond the call of duty. The problem in our public schools is that we don’t actually recognize and reward those people. That we don’t tell the that they are doing a good job.

The best part of my job as an Instructional Technology Specialist is the opportunity  to work with such “amazing” teachers at Westford Academy and in WPS. The grant participants in particular are willing to take a risk and the time to try something new, to foster learning in a new and challenging way. They will share their thoughts on a blog, document their lessons on a wiki, and share their experiences with colleagues.

I write this to “recognize and reward those people”. Their effort and willingness to improve what they already do so well is note-worthy. I am their colleague but the recognition has to start somewhere. Ans so I am startig here. Thank you – you’re doing a great job!

Here is a Common Craft video about wikis.

Wow – 400 Freshmen right before lunch on a Friday with a full moon! My presentation was titled “Technology Tips”. By the time they all settled in and quieted down, I had about 19 minutes to get it all in. My objectives were clear; be positive, encouraging and offer some advice for Internet smarts. The class of 2012 is a tech savvy group – I praised them for their great skills.

First I showed them the school website, directing them to easy ways to contact their teachers and find information. Then I talked about home/school compatiblility issues. I moved onto G-mail (yes, they should have an account and a sensible email address for academic purposes) and online collaboration with Google docs; this class will benefit from the ease of use.

Then I talked about their “digital footprint”. As I presented the idea of their online identity, Facebook profiles began to appear on the screen. They wiggled and giggled and then realized that I had seen these online. “Yes”, I told them, “I was on Facebook and I searched for Westford Academy Class of 2012.” I did not to say much more. “Be smart and think before you click”. I must say they were mostly respectable and appropriate images.

I suggested that they ‘google’ themselves and then announced that right then and there I would google my own daughter. They gasped and a buzz hummed throughout as I put in her name – all was good – they saw how easy it was for me to learn what my daughter had been up to online. As they left the Dean listned as they continued to process the presentation.

One student sought me out at an event later that evening. She enjoyed the presentation and noted that it was so unlike any others where “they tell you don’t do this and don’t do that. Nobody listens. But seeing those pictures on the big screen really made the point. ”

No scare tactics. No threats. Positive and encouraging. Starting the dialogue.

The Class of 2012 will shine as they continue to teach us what they can do with the technology available to them! Are we ready?

Many thanks to the many blogs I have read advising positive dialogue.

Today I had a couple of my “techie” students helping me update a lab. While waiting for some downloads I asked them to think about a utility that would help in moving documents from the desktop into a folder. I then showed them Automator, a Macintosh scripting tool. They mumbled and started toying (research) and then threw some ideas back and forth (collaborate). I walked away for about five minutes; when I returned they said,” OK we think we’ve got it” (create). They ran it for me, played a little more as it didn’t run too smoothly first time around and then ran the application again (present). It worked! They then shared the new learning with my colleague who asked if they could do something similar in the next lab (network).

Later I saw one of the students and thanked him again for helping. He replied, “Thank you for letting me learn something.” Inspiration – facilitated learning.

Thank you to Wesley Fryer for blogging on this great 5 minute presentation by Chris Lehman. It was a high energy presentation that discusses 21st century learning.

A favorite statement is that we should be teaching our students to “research, collaborate, create, present, and network” Another, comment on the role of the teacher is that there is “one thing left to teach: wisdom” is greatly appreciated. Another 5 minutes of Inspiration.

Andy Carvin recently posted on learning.now about a law that will mandate Online Safety curriculum schools. We’d like to think that we are doing enough but we may have to so even more. I am especially interested in having parents actively involved in the online safety education of students. A conversation about use (I am particularly interested parents of pre-teens and teens) of the Internet and social media sites would be beneficial.

Two leading education technology associations, ISTE and CoSN, came out with a joint statement praising the move. “ISTE and CoSN have advocated for this approach for many years and we are pleased that Congress has now ratified our position. Education, not mandatory blocking and filtering, is the best way to protect and prepare America’s students.”

I had a discussion with my sixteen year-old daughter about this. She wondered if my objective was to make the parents “smarter” about the Internet I don;t think that would ever happen; I can’t keep up with her and often learn of new Internet tools from her. The idea is to create awareness; start conversations between parents and teens about what they are up to online. They may be home at 10 pm, but do you know where they are on the Internet?

Over the summer, we have replaced many very old WIndows computers with new Dual Boot iMacs. The opportunities to integrate Web 2.0 technology into classroom instruction are phenomenal! However bandwidth needed support 70+ streaming learning spaces is not available at this time.

Planning ahead and downloading a video in advance from YouTube, Google, Yahoo etc. during “non-peak” hours is a good practice. A video on the hard drive is 90% guaranteed to run smoothly (be sure you have the right player) and saves the bandwidth.

I’ve been searching for easy utilities for teachers to download Youtube videos at low usage times to later present to their classes. KeepVid is a great utility. I used the video.mp4 – High Quality download and it was incredibly easy. 23 minutes to download a 1.5 hour video and save it to the hard drive. KeepVId can be used on both Mac and PC’s.

It seems that a summer vacation got in the way of blogging. Well, at least the writing. I have been reading several blogs over the past 8 weeks. Will Richardson, Wesley Fryer, Andres Torris and Liz Davis have been streaming onto my reader offering new ideas and perspectives. Can I be a better blogger? My goal is to write weekly… any thoughts on how to discipline myself to write?

In addition to sharing information with teachers in my school, I am hoping that this blog will help to build my online technology integration Personal Learning Network. With an ever growing student and teacher population at Westford Academy and the ever changing web, it is hard to keep up. Web 2.0 seems to offer a solution. Here’s a quick video of Will Richardson discussing PLN.

My PLN will take a while to build. I am using Google Reader to organize Blogs with RSS feeds. Hopefully, it will be a helpful tool when we start back to school in August.

Slideshare is a utility to share PowerPoint presentations. I uploaded my “Effective PowerPoint Presentations” slide show and embedded it here on my blog. (All done in less than 1/2 hour). I wonder if we are spoiled with full screen and I am somewhat concerned about the smaller screen size of the online utilities. Do you think readers will adjust?

| View | Upload your own

This is a great tool for collecting all of those PowerPoint presentations for classes. A teacher could set up a wiki, assign access and ask students to post there PowerPoint presentations. This saves the issues of compatibility, absent group members, flash drives that fail and email that won’t open to download.

My PowerPoint is very basic. This utility will also allow you to narrate a PowerPoint presentations to post and embed.