Technology Integration

This morning we spent about 3o minutes working on a math manipulative site. The students were engaged, and seemed to enjoy the experience.  For the last half hour, I sent them all to a site for a basic circuit construction kit.           http://phet.colorado.edu/new/simulations/sims.php?sim=Circuit_Construction_Kit_ACDC     We made simple circuits using the light bulb, a knife switch, a battery and wires.  Then it got interesting.  We added an ammeter in line, a second light bulb, a third, and watched what happened to the ampere reading.  There were only a few fires or short circuits.  The students were again engaged, and I think did really, really well. Oh, by the way, these are first graders!!

Teachers will sometimes say, “But that’s one more thing on our plates.” when reacting to administration’s expectations that they “use” technology.  I just had a conversation with a high school teacher who told me that when there’s a focus on technology, that creates a black hole, negatively affects budgets, time, contracts (positions, negotiations) and that people are then pulled in different directions.       I don’t think it has to be that way. More later.

No, this isn’t an ad for a presidential candidate. It’s a summary of reactions from our curriculum meeting this afternoon.  We met to discuss how keyboarding was going to be included in the curriculum….and the technology coordinator and I decided to take that as a diving board into the pool of what we are going to be able to do next year with new equipment just arrived along with what we are already doing with our software.  He presented several Keynote projects completed by 4th graders on their bird projects just finished last month.  I spoke about the substitution of a computer for a typewriter and that we needed to do more.  With  the mimeo and the document camera and our comments about our direction with technology, we decided to focus keyboarding on grades 3 and 4 with minor focus on those needing a brush up in grade 5 as noted by the teacher.  We also agreed that it was important to circulate around the room to note posture and the use of home row.  I felt that the meeting was good in that after next year, the 5th graders will be able to do much, much more in developing their technology skills.

We all go down the same hole for the cheese. Just like those lab rats, if the cheese is moved, there’s confusion and frustration. Just moving a pile of papers from the kitchen counter to another location causes serious brow furrowing in my household. Let’s face it, it’s easier to do tasks repetitively rather than recreating a process, even ones that are flawed. Especially teachers who have little time for invention, dusting off last year’s lesson plans and ditto masters (remember those??) was a piece of cake compared to developing something new all over again.The greatest challenge for technology integrationsts is to enlist a teacher’s help in moving his/her cheese. So how can this happen? Teachers have to want to move it. They need to know why they should change, even if that change is slight.

This week a fifth grade teacher brought in the entire fifth grade, one group of 20 or so at a time, as they were typing their research papers. I was amazed at the four and five page papers they had written complete with bibliography. But what surprised me more was the way the computer was used as a typewriter.  No on line picture hunts. What I could determine, no on line searching, no use of Kidspriation to organize thoughts. Just the typewriter function of the computer.   This is a good example of substitution. Now the challenge is to move the cheese in a way that the teacher will be comfortable with the change. More on that later.

For much of this year, I’ve seen two or three students come into the 5-8 lab with their aide. The students would go to BrainPop, and the time seemed well spent.  After we received “Neighborhood Map Machine,” I trotted out to show them the new software and for the next few weeks the students would go right to their maps as soon as they logged in. Then, a few more students began to ask, “can we come into the lab?” instead of milling about in the holding pen (cafeteria) between bus arrivals and home room bell. I would then see seven or eight students in the lab, mostly all 5th graders. After a week of this, the lab is now full with 25 to 28 students, again mostly fifth graders, on line with MiniClip, Reckless Drivin’, or some other Internet game. Girls seem to search out photos of Hannah Montana for their desktops, and one guy is fascinated with John Deer logging equipment such as skidders and feller bunchers (his dad owns several). Out of the total group, maybe two or three are finishing up their reports.  Nearly all are fifth graders.   I don’t allow any point and shoot games or fighting games, even if it’s Obama and Hillary with boxing gloves :) Some teachers might not want to be flooded with students the first thing in the morning, but I think this is a wonderful opportunity (1) to get to know them at the beginning of their middle school experience and (2) to shepherd their use of technology.  I can say, try this at inventionatplay or look at this circuit program with an interactive physics applet.The questions that I get often surround some technical issue, and I then have the opportunity to teach them how to use the browser history or recent search functions. We had a late start to using this space due to new construction this year with this “program”, but next year I would expect to see students in the lab as soon as the end of August.

This year we decided to offer one hour mini workshops on a variety of technology topics including operating system management, software use in the classroom/lab, and browser use and management.We offered these each Wednesday and Thursday when teachers weren’t stressed about conferences or grades being due or impending vacations.  We planned one hour from 3:15 to 4:15 for each sesson. Many of the sessions were informally driven by the questions the participants asked…..there were four to six participants most often.             One management tool we used was google docs.  Our TC created a spreadsheet for sign ups and attendance for each session. Some sessions were repeats, some singletons.  Our administrative secretary also has permissions to view the document.  I would add the names of those who signed up to the attended list, and the secretary would print out and deliver to their snail mail box a paper certificate of attendance; this would be used for recertification credits.  technology-inservice-opportunities_3.pdf       One afternoon, I spent an hour with six elementary teachers going over the basics of Canvastic, and how it might be used in their lessons.  The next day, I appeared in the elementary lab to see if any assistance was needed, expecting to have to come up with something quickly……and one of my “students” from the previous afternoon was there, her laptop plugged into the projector, telling me that she was going to have her students learn about Canvastic, and I wasn’t really needed.  I was amazed, and stuck around anyway to see how things went…..they did great.     This shows us how technology inservice can directly impact instruction, and one more thing….   It’s a good thing for technologists when they work themselves out of a job!

Very often, school districts set aside a day for technology. During that day, teachers rotate around a schedule of various offerings. The next year, the admin team decides to offer a second day, and so on. That’s one day per year, folks.  Well, after all, time for such professional development within the school calendar and the teacher union contract is pretty tough to carve out, right? So be glad for those days. Well, I’m not too happy about that one day administrative blessing for technology integration for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a day.  We didn’t learn how to write in a day….or do math….we spent day after day practicing the craft, until we understood it, until we became proficient at it.  Using technology in our classrooms is no different.  Second, during that day teachers are given just a sample of what can be done, and then teachers can quickly find a place to hide from technology if there is any complication or glitch…they get into their anti technology bunkers, as Jim Moulton often says. And third, technology needs to be an ongoing process. Administrators need to encourage, to lead by example, those teachers who are the reluctant adopters of that skill which has become so important to our nation’s children and its future.That’s the old way. Set aside a day, and then check it off the list. Maybe do it again unless there’s something else that will catch interest. For the new ways, see my post “Technology Workshops: The way it’s supposed to be    

      While working with Jim Moulton (jrmoulton.googlepages.com) last week, we witnessed the effectiveness of teacher web pages in the elementary lab while working with 4th graders on a biography unit.  Earlier in the day we took the teacher’s list of famous folks, and each taking a few names, found one appropriate site for the students.Jim added the pages to his page at http://jrmoulton.googlepages.com/grade4research Next, I added the web spring to the docks of all 4th graders so all they’d have to do is to click on the icon to go to his page after they logged in. When we got to the lab, all students had to do was to click the mouse and find the name of their person, clicking on that to go to the web site that we had found for them. This was a pretty quick way of focusing student attention on the topic without their having to hunt throughout the web to find information. What was clear to us was what would happen had we NOT done this.  Six or seven students who did not normally come with this group happened to attend this day. None of their subjects were listed on Jim’s page.  We had to sit down with each one of them, search the web for appropriate content, and then have them bookmark the site. This took some extra time and could have been avoided had the information be on the web page at the start of the lesson. I tried to compare what happened with a teacher who had photocopied hand outs for 20 students and realized that the machine had miscounted after getting back to the classroom with her students. What do you tell the students who are left out? Come back later? Wait until I can send someone to the office for extra copies? Work with someone else? Copy it by hand? This experience underscores the point that Jim has been saying to me this spring, “In 2008, every teacher needs a web page.”  see Jim Moulton’s post at  http://www.edutopia.org/classroom-web-page