Opening a closed system.

For the longest time, I have wanted to allow cameras in the classroom.   Now I know that student safety is of the utmost concern and I do not wish to broadcast an open signal to the world what is going on in my classroom.  I am going to put that aside for the time being for this post.  My rationale is this:  I want the parents to actually see what is going on in a classroom.  I have long thought it would be beneficial for parents and administrators to see what is going on in the classroom.  Many teachers close their doors and keep the larger world at bay.  What we need to do is open the doors and screens to allow parents to see what their children are doing in the classroom.  

Present use: I use pictures to take candid pictures of my children for parents in the classroom and I like to take pictures of them acting silly.  I will email or text the best pictures of my children to their parents. Some years I put together a slideshow at the end of the year for a year-end celebration.  I also use pictures and video for poor behavior choices.  I will take out my phone and record misbehaviors saying, “Keep rolling on the floor, I am sure that your Mother and Father would be proud of the way your acting.  They were of course the ones who taught you to act like this. Right?”  Frequently this corrects the behavior, quickly.

Optimist Potential: I am an optimist.  I try to see the positive in everything. This access for parents has so much potential.  Parents could see how their child is doing in the classroom and they could pop in and see what they are doing, if they are on task, working, behaving, or having fun learning.  Now, I allow parents to come in and help out in my room as volunteers. I am not as closed as some of my other teacher friends. Other potential lies with administrators.  Administrators need not come in for an observation, they could access the tech and see what is going on at any time.  They could access a class and post its culmination activity to the school Facebook page for all parents to see and share an excellent teacher’s work.

That being said.  Many people do not view the world as I do. They would see this as intrusion, and difficulties will arise.  Parents could nitpick instruction. Many are already too involved in the classroom.  They could get very judgmental about a teacher’s handling of a situation.  We all handle things differently, and many colleagues including myself have been yelled at by parents because of perceived mishandling of a classroom situation.  Or, Administrators could use this technology to enact a vendetta against a teacher with whom they  disagree. I am presently reading a book by Rosalyn Schnall called When Teachers Talk: Principal Abuse of Teachers -- The Untold Story. It is quite scary what some principals have done to their staff. An administrator walks a fine line using technology as a means of sharing information.  I have seen many pictures and videos of teachers taken without their knowledge and they are not shown in the most favorable light.

Steps toward this potential:  I guess that at present it is not quite feasible to do so.  But I believe that I am onto something here.  I have the kernel of an idea.  I guess that I should look back to people who are doing something well with this and follow or lurk for a while until this idea crystallizes.  There are some really interesting ideas that I would like to try to see if they are feasible.

The Issue of Professional Development

In a recent Google for Education article, “The new Training Center; professional development by and for educators,” the author speaks of an issue that I have been thinking about throughout the school year.  We adopt a lot of tech and then are not trained in it.The article states that the major stresses in the workplace, 71% of people indicate that this is a major stress area.  I can attest to this being a stress creator in my own teaching.  In fact, sadly it has become kind of a joke, in that we are sometimes not provided with the training we need to really access a particular technology.

My administration has been early adopters in a lot of valuable areas.  Their main thinking has always been to adopt technologies and practices that which benefits the students.  I cannot say that I have not agreed to the adoption of a technology without properly thinking about the ramifications of that adoption.

A couple of years ago, the Kindergarten and first grade teams in my school were given 3 ipads per classroom.  Everyone of the teachers agreed that this would be a good idea mainly since their children are exposed to this technology (and tablets in general) more so than desktop or laptop computers. Everyone was excited.  Few teachers disagreed with the adoption of this tech.  This has created several challenges over the course of the adoption.

All technology is fraught with adoption problems.  I find that accepting the position that there will be challenges, gives me the strength to handle the situation since I know that something will go wrong.  Problem solving skills: Isn’t this what I am to be teaching my students?

Implications for administrators:

1.     Providing professional development. It is our duty as administrators to think about the technology we purchase and then think to provide the staff with the opportunity to get some professional development. Along these lines this professional development need not take place in the summer and be provided for by the head of the technology department from our district but may come from another source.

2.     Giving teachers professional development points for taking online training classes.  We as administrators need to be willing to accept other sources of education in addition to district provided sources.  At the conclusion of the article, the author shared the link to the Google for Education Training Center g.co/edutrainingcenter

3.     Thinking about how these things will be used.  Prior to adoption, the administration really needs to think about how the technology will be applied to the classroom and be used by both teachers and children.  What benefit if any is provided to the children.  When we adopted the iPads, many applications were downloaded without thinking aside from the fact that they were free.  The children would play with them until the “free” time ended or were asked to pay for added features.  I find that this is a larger problem for apps aimed at children.

4.     Rationale about misgivings.  Typically, people struggle with change.  It is the duty of the administration to reflect upon the fact that these teachers may not be complainers, they may have valid points.  Many times when changes are mentioned in a faculty meeting the staff that is resistant to change will create a litany of reasons against adoption of that change. However, while these teachers may dislike change and create discord.  They may actually have valid reasons for their opinions. So a good administrator will take into account that they may be creating reasons, there may be some good reasons located within their opinions.  

5.     Prior use.  Perhaps it is time for administrators to take the lead in using the technology that they are about to employ within the school.  Our district recently adopted a new system of taking attendance, recording grades, and writing IEP’s.  A coworker and I were the first in the building trained ahead of the administration and the secretarial staff.   Maybe it is time for administration to take the lead in learning these technologies.

One final thought:  In looking over the resources included within the article, I feel as though when I have some time to work on this.  I may find that I may want to become a Google Certified Educator.  I mean I have been using their products for the past 8 years when I was first introduced to Gmail and Docs, I might as well go the whole route and actually get certified.  You know lead by example and all.  

Links:

Article:

http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-new-Training-Center-professional-development-by-and-for-educators.html

Training:

https://edutrainingcenter.withgoogle.com/

Access for Younger Children

One of the things that continually challenges me as a teacher of younger children, is the barriers to technology that they face.  This notion made me pause to reflect on my responsibility as a future administrator.

Barriers:

The main trouble that we face as teachers is access.  First, there are identifications and passwords.  Frequently, these are randomly assigned to the children as I sign them up for a website. For example, one identification for a child was Id:  “bonus96a” and the child’s password were akin to “squire15.”  These were really difficult for many of the children to remember.  Now, I have learned my lesson and have used both index cards with identifications and passwords printed upon them as well as large Popsicle sticks with this information written on them as well.  (My one friend lost her stick so many times that I made six additional sticks knowing that this would occur.) However, this takes a lot of time to time to provide this information to the children while several  children are needing help with merely logging onto the computer itself.  Typically I use about 5 main websites on which the children can learn at their own pace. This is can be very confusing for the children themselves let alone the teacher juggling their 25 student accounts and passwords.

The second major difficulty that teachers face is that younger children have little exposure to keyboarding.  I find that I am encouraging parents to work on this with their children at home as well. The more that they are exposed to this they will be able to find the letters that they are looking for.  I use Alpha Smarts in the classroom mainly to expose the children to finding the letters on the keyboard,  rather than it purpose of allowing children to type assignments.

On another note, the children are not as exposed to proper computer keyboards.  They are more exposed to virtual keyboards on tablet computers.  This provides only a minimal challenge for the children because they are able to adapt to the change, but it is a challenge nonetheless.

Applications as administrators:

These issues provide learning opportunities for administrators.  It is that we must provide both time and opportunity for teachers to expose our children to basic technology before the children are actually able to access the technology.  Typically in my building, we attend the computer lab once every week.  This is not usually enough exposure for the children to remember their identifications and passwords. So administrators must be aware that this takes time and may offer additional resources to their K-1 teachers in terms of frequency of access. 

In addition, administrators need to be aware that the future is access to password based technology and should  perhaps offer a technology access package when a child especially a Kindergarten student registers so that parents can take a proactive approach to their child's technological education and share this information with the prospective student.

Younger Student Blogging

Younger Student Blogging is something that I have been thinking about over the last few weeks. At the conclusion of this past academic year, I wanted to share with parents their children’s writing.  While I check it every day, (or most every day) they do not have an opportunity to see it until they see their child’s journal at the end of the year.  So I was thinking that I would like to have my children create their own blogs.

I know that there are many hurdles that I have to overcome. The first is parental permission and the children’s safety.  But I have been thinking about the skills that I would be able to reinforce in the course of this concept.   I would be providing the children with the keyboarding skills that they need for their education.  I could also provide them with the opportunity write on the computer.  This is something that the children love to do.  I would also be able to reinforce their mechanics skills.  Finally, it needn’t be something such as a typical finished product that the children have to do but rather a means for them to just practice writing. 

There are also additional benefits. The main one would be that parents are able to see their child’s work and progress in writing. Parents will also be able to see the progression of their child’s writing skills.  What a wonderful concept. 

While there are a lot of hurdle to this idea and I have not thought everything through.  I am certain that I have the kernel of an idea where children will be able to safely express themselves. 

Upon further reflection and research here is what I have found. I have found a couple of sites, of which there are many more for children to blog with.  Here are some examples that I have come up with. Kidsocialnetwork.com, clubpenguin.com, and kidblog.com seem to be the most promising.  http://kidblog.org/home/#why-kidblog  I think I may have hit the mark with Kidblog.  The clubpenguin is OK but it is a Disney property so I have my doubts with their strong marketing department. But at least, I know it will be safe for our children.  So, yet again, what this entry has done is created a little more homework for me to do.  C'est La Vie.

Experimenting with tech

Over the past few years, I have been interested in having my parents becoming a closer partner in helping their children grow as learners. I intend to encourage my co-workers to use videos to show their parents how to do things like our weekly assignment.  Far too frequently, I find myself saying on conference night, “I wish you had told me about this problem sooner,  I am sure that so other parents would benefit from your questions.”  If parents knew what they were supposed to do with their children, it would have saved a lot of time and more than likely a few arguments. Maybe a clip on how we approach word study in our classrooms would benefit a parent at home.  

Upon further thought, I thought how I could encourage my co-workers to do this as well. We, as teachers, spend a lot of time thinking about how to best serve our children.  Better teachers reflect on how they interact with the children under their care. So I am embarking on a techy field trip, this summer.  Through the course of my studies this term, I have been introduced to several new programs, technologies, and refinements of several of the things that I have been using for several years.  I intend to use, play, fool around, and reflect on the use of about 10 different kinds throughout this summer.  So over the course of the next few weeks. I expect to look over some techy stuff to experiment with.  

Initial Thoughts

 I thought about for the inaugural post of this blob would be to discuss what technology are we presently using in a typical classroom.  I will address the ones that we use and then discuss its utility therein.  

First, I am presently teaching in a first grade classroom, so the appropriateness of the technology is at the forefront of all my thoughts. We use the following: iPads, chromebooks, laptops, document image machine, smartboard.

My children’s use of iPads, laptops, and chromebooks are used for mainly accessing the web.  My children are limited to what they can access because I want to protect their safety. But the main ones that I have them work on are Raz-kids, firstinmath.com, and spelling city.  They are all accessed through a web portal called symbaloo.

There are a few that I do not use as much as I used to.  The smartboard is one such piece of technology.  The main reason is because it is very unreliable.  Frequently the software does not work so well.  Similarly, it continually needs to reconfigured and since I am typically busy teaching a small group lesson, I do not have time get up and readjust when I am trying to teach.  Similarly, due to recent changes in the chromebook software, they are not used as much as before. The children have to log in with their full email account  and not browse as a guest as they were able to before. Since I haven’t had the time to teach the children their email addresses and passwords, we were unable to use the chromebooks as much. (I will address the appropriateness of tech in a later post)

Then the following are the technology that I employ in daily teaching.  I use my iPad, iPhone, and the chromebooks.  I use a lot of apps throughout the day.  I use Remind, ClassDojo, Book Wizard, Dropbox, Teacherspayteachers, Pinterest, Evernote, Scannable, and many of the Google Suite of products,  weekly if not daily.  

There are several items that I truly love to use.  Many of these are based on cloud or web based storage.  I am notorious for losing those USB drives so once I discovered web based software, I have never looked back.