Winter 2009

The winter has been spent supporting individual teachers with a variety of technology issues.  I also ran a workshop on “MAC Basics” which had a small, but appreciative audience.  I have continued sharing my praise of Thatquiz.org as the best testing site available.  It’s an extremely powerful tool for the classroom.  My students have been enjoying using Garage Band and composing original pieces to share.  I’m looking forward to becoming more skilled witih Google Earth and collaborating with my librarian to create a fifth grade hands-on application.

Printing issues seem to reappear.  Our Mac Lab needed to have new printers entered after the computers stopped talking to our current printer.

December ’08

December was a short month because of the holiday, and I ended up spending lots of time with our new mobile lab. My class regularly spent time on Raz-Kids and my favorite testing site, www.thatquiz.org. I’ve become quite devoted to using the mobile lab to help make my large class smaller. At reading time, students would work with the computers in shifts while I conducted small group literature discussions. Outside of school time, I’ve been playing with Kidspiration and plan to introduce this application to the class in January. In addition, I created and utilized my first google form for a class vote on special activities. It worked well, and I could easily identify the student who voted four times…

October/November

The past two months have been full of individual teacher support for a variety of applications and the updating our mobile labB.  Numerous computers had to be re-imaged and a problem with word had to be resolved. I also diagnosed a problem with our use of the Teacher’s Digital Toolbox- we were having trouble uploading files to our web sites. I discovered that the newest browser on Firefox was not supported by the older program.
The highlight of this fall would have to be the role out of our RFP9 equipment which included a new MacBook lab dedicated to the fifth grade. This allowed our OSX labB to go to the fourth grade and permitted the distribution of our old OS9 machines to several different classrooms for use of Raz-Kids and other software programs. The new Mac Lab is wonderful, but it has included a few hurdles. Our first difficulty was that the airport designed for the lab is not working. IT is still working on reconfiguring it. Meantime, I found an “old airport” which I’m using to provide wireless service for the cart. The computers can not be logged on if they are not connected to the server. The new computers also needed to have their bookmarks “modified”. Apple provided a few too many one click links on the bookmark bar. I established a new homepage for all 20 computers, created a direct link for Raz-Kids, and created a log-in page for ED Games. I was also able to get a grant from Ithaca College to purchase 26 headphones for classroom use. All the students in my room are actively using Raz-Kids, and I’m finding it a valuable resource.

Back to School – September 2008

During September I have supported numerous teachers with their technological needs, including setting up two teachers with EDM games, diagnosing equipment problems, and answering questions about the Digital Toolbox. I worked with my librarian to set up our computer lab and equip all computers with an easy log-in for EDM games. I also ran a workshop at the end of the month to support teacher’s website development and had seven teachers show up for the whole afternoon with a few others dropping by for part of the time. Meantime, I have navigated my class of 25 students through my integrated narrative writing “About Me” iMovie project. Students first wrote essays about five things that were very important to them. They brought in the objects to school and photographed with them with digital cameras or brought photos to school. Some photos were sent in via flash drives. Then after practicing reading their essays, students were videotaped presenting to the class. At this point, students were introduced to iMovie HD through a class demo and given instructions on using the program. We’ve spent five hour long sessions in the lab in order for most students to complete their movies. The class has been very motivated during all aspects of this project. We will celebrate with an Ithaca iMovie premiere in October.

I am also working with my reading teacher to use Garage Band to record all students’ oral reading. We are using the benchmark books from Reading A to Z to help us with this process. Hopefully, we’ll be able to repeat this process later in the year and have a record of each student’s growth in fluency.

April Tech News from South Hill

The biggest focus in April has been the development of our RF9 proposal. A small team of us spent a day composing our proposal based on input from small group discussions held during a previous staff meeting. We were fortunate to have our principal’s enthusiasm, expertise, and leadership in the development of our request.

I’ve worked with several teachers establishing RAZ-Kids or Teaching A-Z accounts and spent a bit of time exploring these sites. I’ve also worked with my own class repeating our i-Movie Poetry Project and revisiting my handouts and lesson plans. Students are very excited about another technology project.

February/March Tech News at South Hill

The last two months have zoomed by. Teacher requests have been sporadic, so most of my energy has been spent on learning new equipment and refamiliarizing myself with newer applications. I exchanged my Lumens D160 for the Lumens D600- a more sophisticated document camera. So far, I don’t think the price difference was worth it. For most classrooms, our smart red document camera does everything you’d want- for a bargain price! I spent a bunch of time reviewing Garage Band before introducing it to my fifth grade class. They were totally engaged by the program. I developed a “Help Sheet” which included screen shots which helped acquaint new users to the program. We’ve been enjoying sharing compositions in class. Later this spring, students will get to compose music as part of their i-movie poetry project.

I have also spent considerable time exploring new websites, and I’ve been very pleased with several of them. <Thatquiz.org> is a valuable site that allows you to create custom math tests and then test students on-line. The teacher site includes student performance data. My class loved taking the on-line tests. I have shared this site with my grade level colleagues. Another useful site has been <http://www.internet4classrooms.com/k12links.htm>. I have spent hours visiting links from this site and am impressed at how well it keeps up its links. I found a great website to go with our Simple Machines unit in addition to an assortment of interactive math games.

The final tech activity of March is my district workshop on VITAL- Video in Teaching and Learning. Although flyers were handed out to all third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers, enrollment is fairly low. VITAL includes valuable resources for supporting both the ELA and math curriculum- and the lessons are aligned with state standards. I’m planning to introduce the VITAL site, demonstrate how to download video, and share a few favorite lessons and tips.

The next task on the horizon is dealing with the RFR 9.

January Tech Adventures

This month I spent time working with teachers during two different workshops, assisting individuals on an as needed basis, and collaborating with Beth and Alice on a special tech release day. During the December break, I spent time familiarizing myself with our new Lumens’s Document Cameras, the DC 160. I spent several weeks using it in the classroom, then incorporated a brief introduction to the DC during a “Media Cart Refresher” workshop. During this workshop, I presented an overview of our media cart to four teachers to help familiarize them with its uses and operation. Some of the attending teachers had never used the cart before. I also offered a second “Digital Teacher’s Toolbox” workshop which five people attended. Two of the teachers were ready to activate their websites at the end of our session. Two of the teachers spent the time working on their active websites, and one teacher made significant progress toward the creation of a new site. On this past Wednesday, I spent the school day investigating our new white board and other school tech tools with Beth and Alice. We connected the white board to both my ibook and Alice’s Dell computer. We were able to work through a number of small obstacles through group problem solving. Andy joined us mid-morning and provided great insight. In the afternoon, we attempted to buy computer security cables to lock down our new DCs to the carts- but the ones that were available locally were around $30 a piece. I did some additional research at home and identified several less expensive options (including a$9 key lock cable) that we could purchase online instead. We also had time to set up the more sophisticated Lumens DC- (the DC600)- it has many features similar to the ELMO that we purchased last year. I will spend the next few weeks learning the particular features of this machine. I suspect that February will involve some one on one training the DC 160- especially after they are secured to the top of each media cart.

December ’07

This month we received our new technology equipment including multiple document cameras and an interactive white board.   I’m trying to spend some time getting familiar with the document camera in order to be able to assist others with it.  During a staff meeting, I also introduced a new typing program for our lab called “Type to Learn”.  Third grade has already begun using it with students.  During our intermediate staff meeting, I introduced VITAL resources to my colleagues.  VITAL stands for Video In Teaching and Learning and contains some great resources for teaching ELA and math standards for third through sixth grade.   I’ve already met with one teacher to go over some technical aspects of using the program such as video streaming and downloading.  Throughout the month, I’ve also assisted as needed with printers or general Mac questions.

November ’07

The highlight of this month was certainly attending the NYSCATE Conference in Rochester. There were lots of good workshops which got me excited about exploring some different areas of computer technology. David Jakes, in particular, had some great ideas about using Google earth and Google Maps which I plan to develop. Being exposed to new 21st century literacies was daunting- but now I’ve at least have a small understanding of flickr, box-net, skype, slideshare.net, and other new communications. I also enjoyed visiting the vendors and have some good information to share with my school.

Back at South Hill, I’ve continued supporting a new teacher with her i-mac and assisting others whenever needed. The level of tech requests was lower in November, probably due to report cards, parent/teacher conferences and Thanksgiving.

Sept/Oct Tech Stuff

During the last two months, I have assisted with technology during a couple of school wide and intermediate workshops, introduced new i-books to two teachers, assisted (successfully!) with printer hook-ups, mentored a new teacher with an i-movie project, co-taught a workshop on the teacher’s digital toolbox, assisted with EveryDay Math Games, and mentored a new teacher on basic computer functions.