I first heard of #leydenpride after meeting and then following @JasonMMarkey, the principal of East Leyden High School, at ISTE 2013 in San Antonio. Jason is a genuine instructional leader who encourages student voice and provides opportunities for student as well as teacher ownership of the school. Jason has really used twitter to encourage other educators in our pursuit of excellence. Jason was one of many of my PLN I asked for input this summer while planning for this school year. Jason was one of three administrators presented with the 2014 NASSP Digital Principal Award!
Leyden is one of many schools that has harnessed the power of social media for the good of students, parents and educators. Check out the #leydenpride hashtag to see what some students are tweeting and instagramming about their school.
This November, I visited Jason's school, East Leyden High School. The Leyden High School District 212 is a 1:1 chromebook district of two high schools with about 3500 students total. Leyden is in its second year of 1:1. Leyden High is an exciting district with many opportunities for students to learn outside of the normal classroom. I first visited the culinary classroom with a kitchen. Students were working with the teacher to prepare the catering for the East Leyden site visit the next day. Students have the opportunity to take the food and safety test necessary for certification in order to work in a restaurant.
The Culinary Classroom
A History Classroom
Next, I visited several classrooms where I saw students engaged in learning. I visited a Social Studies classroom where students used VideoNot.es to take notes on YouTube videos used in class. I was able to see the Hapara Teacher Dashboard being used in action to manage student engagement with technology. I visited a French classroom where the teacher doled out digital assignments, giving students the opportunity to hear, speak and write in the target language. I visited English classrooms where students were analyzing literature using a Google document. I visited a Math classroom where students were actively problem solving using a calculator, a chromebook and their minds. Every student was working at their own pace. Teachers and students have continuing discussions about the use of technology in instruction. Technology coaches and administrators support teachers in the transition of a digital classroom. Parents and students attend a brief orientation before the student receives a chromebook. Students also take a class on digital literacy within their first semester of receiving the chromebook. Every part of the 1:1 program is a learning experience for all who are stakeholders in the Leyden district.
@JasonMMarkey speaking with students during an assembly
One of the many takeaways I had from visiting East Leyden is student and teacher voice. Developing the 1:1 program took time. It was a gradual process of equipping each classroom with base-level technology, upgrading the network, training and continually supporting the teachers and, most importantly, continuing communication with those who are actively involved in instruction, whether students, teachers, administrators or parents. They all listen to each other. Listening is a big part of Leyden.
Melinda Sears is the Title I Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Tuscaloosa City Schools. Check out her website or connect with her via Twitter.
For me, as a former English Language Arts teacher, I did not have any trouble imagining the power of the Chromebooks for writing and editing in a collaborative classroom environment. But when I heard that the devices would be used in the math classrooms, I had no idea where to even start.
Our 8th grade math teacher here at the Magnet is excited to have the Chromebooks in her classroom but needed some help in finding apps, extensions, activities and the like that would enhance her sound instructional practices. Lucky for me, there is this thing called YouTube which houses Google Hangout recordings, made by tech-savvy educators from around the globe, who talk about and show their viewers all of the cool things they are doing with the Chromebooks.
Take, for instance, the vid I found below. Yes, it is 48 minutes long, but this one video contains a volume of helpful information for the middle school math teacher who has just been handed 30 Chromebooks. Do not bother with the first 3 minutes of the recording -- there are long introductions, technical difficulties, and sounds of babies or small children in the background audio at times -- or with the long stretch in the middle (see item 6). Skip straight to about 3:00 to start. Some highlights, in order of appearance:
1. (3:00-10:20) Google Draw for:
* math projects, posters, starter activities, collaborative assignments, student accountability using revision history tool, templates, graph paper
2. (10:21-11:20) Movenote (Movenote.com), Google app:
* These are "presentations with emotion"; recorded at students' desktops; saved and shared via email; examples and tutorials for Chromebook use of this app on movenote.com
3. (12:03) Daum equation editor, an extension available on Chrome web store
4. (15:00) Interesting discussion on problems and solutions of implementation of Chromebooks in math classroom
5. (17:54) Ideas for assessments of math concepts, such as triangle congruences. This is very cool. The author of fishing4tech.com discusses and shows his students' proofs of understanding on this website. Link: www.fishing4tech.com/triangle-congruences.html
6. (23:00-37:20) The participants discuss at length the problems and solutions of giving Chromebooks to teachers and students without training.
7. (37:20) Brief mention of Scoot and Doodle , a collaborative drawing tool to use with Google Hangout.
8. (40:20 - 43:40) Socrative for exit tickets. Participant refers to Mathy Cathy, a teacher with a blog and great ideas for math teachers. Follow her on Twitter: @mathycathy
9. (43:40) The Chrome extension, Lucid Chart, a tool to create the ubiquitous thinking maps and flowcharts we know and love.
Ideas for Chromebooks in the Middle School Math Classroom
Lavanda Wagenheim is the IB Coordinator for the Tuscaloosa Magnet School - Middle. Connect with her on Twitter, where her handle is @ELavanda.
When 8th-12th grade English teachers arrived to their classrooms this past August, they were greeted with a classroom set of shiny Chromebooks. The TCS Digital Conversion had begun! While teachers were excited about the prospect of being able to use the device EVERY SINGLE DAY, some still felt trepidation regarding how exactly the tools would be utilized. As my inbox began to flood with questions, I took a few minutes (heck, really a few days........) to mull over just how I could best help teachers. And here's what I came up with.....start with the standard.
Yep, it was that simple. After all, the Chromebook and the myriad of technology it brings really are just all instructional tools. Like a graphic organizer, or biopyramid, or reciprocal teaching cards, the Chromebook is an instructional tool. Thus, as I plan with teachers, we start with the standard and then we evaluate our tools....including Chromebooks.
So, for this post, I thought I would list two writing standards and then share how Google Docs could be used to teach the standards. The two standards I chose are under the anchor standards of Production and Distribution of Writing:
W.CCR.6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others
W.CCR.5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach
To me, Google Docs is like Microsoft Office on steroids. Users can create documents, presentations, insert images, add tables, and add links. But what makes Google Docs the ultimate collaboration tool is its sharing function. Once you've created a document, you just click "share" and then invite people to edit your document. What's impressive is that all edits of the document are saved and you can see who made the edits! There's also a chat function so that you may chat with your collaborators. If you can't collaborate in real time, you can also leave comments for your collaborators to look at when they open the document. How cool is that?!
Imagine the power of meeting the previously mentioned writing standards through Google Docs. No longer do your students have to swap papers and edit via red pen. They can now write, collaborate for peer edits, and provide feedback all through Google Docs.
If you would like to discuss using Google Docs in your classroom or for any planning help, please email me at sbogert@tusc.k12.al.us. I'd love to come visit you and your students!
Shannon Bogert is a secondary curriculum specialist with the Tuscaloosa City Schools. Email her at the address mentioned above or connect with her on Twitter (@shannonbogert1).
I’ve always been fond of 37signals’ products like Basecamp but also their always-fantastic writing. Their newest full-length book Remote is no exception, and has inspired some big changes in how I incorporate technology into my classroom.
My class is now paperless, a fact that has been incredibly well-received. Despite the enthusiasm, however, systemic obstacles remain for reliably sharing, communicating, and (eventually) collaborating on classroom projects. Given this, I decided to go back to the old school moment we all had when someone’s cursor first appeared in one of our Google Documents, which very few of my students had experienced before.
It might seem strange that I began this piece by talking about 37signals’ Remote, as the full suite of tools that would allow for the most effective remote work are not possible in our current system (not to mention I can never assume that my students have reliable Internet access at home.) By having multiple Drive-related tabs open on my own laptop, however, I can see which students need help but aren’t raising their hands, check whether students who are talking have been working on the project or need further direction, and even do effective classroom management all by typing in students’ documents as they write them.
If this sounds simple, it is. That’s why it works. A student gets out of his seat to show another student something on his document that has now distracted four others? I quickly fire off a message asking him to return to his seat, and it happens. No power struggle, no classroom theatrics, and no hurt feelings.
A student is more worried about formatting than the work itself, even though I continue to tell them that doesn’t matter? I go into their document and say that how the bullets look isn’t the problem; it’s what’s written next to them.
Teachers will recognize these as more “macro” answers than ones linked to things like teaching ACT Writing best practices, but that sort of fine-tuned writing instruction definitely occurs all the time in my pseudo-remote classroom. Rather than interrupt the entire classroom, however, those students who want specific help simply raise their hand, I give them a thumbs up, and go into their document to discuss whether they are on the right track.
If 37signals are correct that the modern office has become an interruption factory that will give way to more remote workers, and if we are attempting to prepare students for 21st century college and career readiness, then doesn’t it make sense to start trying right now?
Christopher Watson teaches 8th grade language arts at Eastwood Middle School. Connect with him on Twitter, where he goes by @schoolpivot, or check out his blog.
It is October, which (to me) is traditionally a month of burnout.
In three days, I have inventoried 1110 chromebooks by hand. Thankfully, there was a scanner and most of the barcodes were read by the scanner. And thankfully, I only had to inventory about 400 by myself. Over 700 of those chromebooks were inventoried in a tag-team effort with our elementary math specialist, Ruth.
She really is dear to me. Ruth will be retiring November 1. I have worked in the same department with her for over a year. She has been teaching longer than I have been alive. While scanning the chromebooks at two of our schools, we talked about life, education, and everything in between. She loves her grandkids. She is looking forward to retirement. She shared stories of when she first started teaching. We both enjoyed meeting the teachers and seeing the students during the inventory process. Being in the schools reminds us why we're doing what we're doing and why we love doing what we're doing.
Let me just tell you that 700 chromebooks plugged in carts with zip ties can wage war on your arms. Ruth and I both have scratches from inventorying the chromebooks. We put our blood, sweat and tears into those fixed assets. I am still applying Neosporin.
As educators, we lose blood, sweat and tears every day on the battlefield of education. It is a battle. Most everything in life is. Some days you advance. Some days you retreat. Many days you might not be able to tell where you stand. Yet you are still standing.
A talk I was listening to described having two methods of attack in strategic planning - an air war and a ground war. For me, twitter is my air war. I can send for help, ask questions, make funny comments, and encourage others via twitter. My ground war is waged by my network of colleagues and coworkers in my city, state and region. I view my role as encouraging other people in this battle as well as equipping them as I can.
For example, in a battle on Wednesday, I was able to discuss a tech problem with three colleagues in an office while simultaneously tweeting with three others in Texas, Idaho, and Pennsylvania for help. Together, via twitter and in person, we were able to solve the problem in ten minutes. That's what being connected means to me - having a network of like-minded people who will fight with me.
This month is Connected Educator Month. Being connected to me is about your allies in battle, whether on the air or on the ground. The end result of our battle is the betterment of learning. Don't ever lose sight of that.
So call in reinforcements. Request assistance. Celebrate victories. Bear those scars proudly. The scars reflect what we've been through, how we've grown and where we've been. And share the war stories. We want to hear them. We must share them. We grow from listening to them and talking through them.
In conclusion, I leave you with one of the four best motivational speeches before a great battle. Here's President Thomas J. Whitmore to fire you up for the battle at hand!
Melinda Sears is the Title I Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Tuscaloosa City Schools. Check out her website or connect with her via Twitter.
At this year's parent open house, lots of moms and dads asked me questions about supplies and notebook setup: Does my son need a 3-ring binder? How many inches? What tab labels should my daughter write on her dividers?
The truth is, once we're fully running with our Google accounts and have daily access to our Chromebooks, there might not be enough paper floating around in our classrooms to warrant much fuss about these issues. Instead, we can set up digital notebooks in Google Drive for organizing all (or almost all) of the work students do each day.
Why Google Drive?
Let's check out the SAMR model for the bigger picture of what we want to do with tech in our classrooms.
If we are to take advantage of what a digital transformation has to offer, then we must move beyond doing traditional work in a digital format. Additionally, we must offer a more substantial rationale for our tech choices than "It's more fun/engaging for the kids." The key word is transformation: What learning experiences can we offer our students that we could never pull off without the tech?
I am not suggesting here that everything we do must hit the Redefinition level. However, we should strive to keep the image above in mind and push ourselves to develop lessons that leverage technology to arm our students with the critical thinking and collaboration skills that members of an active, thoughtful citizenry need.
For that reason, Google Drive is the workhorse of my classroom. It allows my students to collaborate with one another asynchronously and in real-time, and it gives them a space for working efficiently with collaborators throughout the world, as well. Drive makes for easy and constant revision and iteration, and I can provide more timely, more human feedback via text and voice comments. Apps that hook into Drive offer opportunities for multimedia projects, remixes, and mash-ups, and housing their products in a digital space makes the jump to publication much more manageable.
But what about Edmodo?
When I decided to make the switch to housing most of my students' work in Drive, one of the biggest questions I wanted to answer for myself was "What does this offer that Edmodo doesn't?" The kids know Edmodo and tend to be proficient in using it. Widespread use throughout our school and system has made parents comfortable with it, as well. However, Edmodo doesn't offer much to support student collaboration, nor does it play well with other tools. So while I do use Edmodo still for quick notifications and occasional posting of resources, Drive tends to meet our current needs in ways that Edmodo does not.
How do you set it up?
For our general purposes, I start my students out with two folders:
a personal class folder they can edit, in which they create their assignments (in our class, we call it their writer's notebook) - each student shares this with me so that we can communicate about their work throughout the year
a view-only folder in which I'll place documents they need for their work - students have access to this folder but cannot make changes to documents in it
Step 1 is to make that view-only folder, which I create myself, naming it "[Class Name] Handouts" or some other informative label. Then I share it with students using the Can View setting. Students will be able to view all documents I place in this folder but will not be able to change or move them, making it an easy place to deliver electronic handouts.
See the video below created by the ed tech facilitator for Norfolk Public Schools to guide you through this process with both teacher and student views. The video also demonstrates how students can make a copy of a document if they do need to place it in their own folder and edit it (i.e.lab reports, templates, etc).
Step 2 requires the students to create the class folders that will house their work for the year. They make these, naming them using criteria I specify, then they share it with me at my email address, giving me Can Edit rights. Once they've completed this step, I'll have access to every document they place in the folder. I can drop in digitally as they work and offer feedback or assess a class's progress without lugging around stacks of notebooks.
Here's a video walk-through of Step 2 from the student perspective. Please note that, for consistency's sake, you may want to develop folder naming protocol at the school-, grade-, or team-level.
For those who are a little more comfortable with Google tools, there are ways to automate folder setup using Google templates and scripts. If you're interested in learning more, check out the instructions here.
Once your folders are up and running, you've got a powerful system for managing student work and a space in which students can collaborate with others both within your building and beyond. What ideas do you have for using shared folders in Google Drive? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Laren Hammonds is an 8th grade English teacher at Rock Quarry Middle School. She's @_clayr_ on Twitter and blogs about her classroom experiences at Game to Learn.
The machines issued in the TCS English and math 8-12 classes for the 2013-2014 school year are HP Pavilion 14 Chromebooks, most notable for their 14-inch screens.
Check out the short video below from SlashGear for a little tour of the Chromebook you'll be working with, which includes information on the available ports, battery life, and other features.
So what does this mean for our daily classroom use?
First up, the USB 2.0 ports allow you to access files for upload and use in web apps (think photos needed for presentations and photo-editing apps or Microsoft Office documents you might want to access via Google Drive). You can also use these ports for peripherals like USB headsets or mice.
The HDMI port is handy for video output and will allow you to display your work on a separate monitor, TV screen, or through some projectors. Most of our classroom projectors use VGA instead, though, so these aren't likely to work with them. The good news is that everything students and teachers might create and want to project will be stored in the cloud and easily accessible from any computer with an internet connection, so swapping out machines attached to a projector in class probably won't be necessary.
The 4-5 hour battery life means that on days of heavy use you may want to plan for a quick mid-day charge to keep your devices going until the last bell. Your mileage may vary when it comes to battery life, so gauge your usage in the first few days and weeks, and establish a plan that works best for you.
You'll also note that there's no option to hook up a Chromebook to a printer. There are work-arounds, but the best advice I've heard is this: "Don't print. Create, publish, share." The how of that will come in blog post form soon.
Do you have practical tips about the Chromebooks or observations to share? Post them in the comments below!
This post is Part 2 of an ongoing series intended to orient teachers to their new devices as part of the Tuscaloosa City Schools 1:1 digital conversion. You might also be interested in Part 1:
Laren Hammonds is an 8th grade English teacher at Rock Quarry Middle School. She's @_clayr_ on Twitter and blogs about her classroom experiences at Game to Learn.
Our system hosted our two-day best practices with technology conference this week. #TCStech Days were a place for brand new teachers, new to our system teachers, and seasoned teachers to collaborate and play with new tools. The focus of #TCStech Days is to enhance learning, not just use shiny and snazzy technology. We had three time slots of concurrent sessions in the morning and then two open work sessions in the afternoon. Here is the Google spreadsheet of our schedule.
On the first day of #TCStech Days, this inspiring tweet showed up in my feed.
That quote resonated in my mind. "Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching." What does it mean to never stop learning? To me, "never stop learning" means never stop asking for help, sharing successes, sharing failures, asking opinions, researching, brainstorming, or connecting with other educators. In a word, "never stop learning" means collaboration.
Collaboration is the heart and soul of a connected educator. Collaboration is why I love Twitter. Twitter is almost instantaneous professional development, tailored to your exact needs and in real time. Many educators have said they learn more from Twitter than any conference they have attended. Not only does Twitter provide PD, but Twitter is also a continuous, ongoing dialogue with other educators. Our system was looking at implementing Chromebooks, so I asked the Twitterverse who would know about Chromebooks. @web20classroom connected me with @kylepace, who then agreed to a Google Hangout with @chrisjenks and I to discuss Chromebooks. Chris and I were looking at learning management systems for our district, so I tweeted out this Google document and asked for feedback. Eight colleagues - some I know and some I do not - collaborated on the Google document. Through one tweet, I was able to connect with three other educators I have never met to answer my questions. Thank you @clonghb@mosspike and @davidtedu!
If I need a question answered, I tweet it. If I'm looking for a resource, I tweet it. If I have an awesome anything to share, I tweet it. If I need feedback, I tweet it. I tweet lots of things. I tweet because it is my main way to collaborate outside of whatever walls I may find myself in on a given day. I tweet because I don't know everything. I tweet because I need to perfect this craft of teaching with other people who have the same mindset I do - to never stop learning.
It may be the fact that I was raised by a Nationally Board Certified Library Media Specialist and twice Teacher of the Year, but I truly believe that as an educator, regardless of age or experience, we must collaborate or we will go extinct. My mother taught me that you can always learn something from someone, even if it is how not to do something. Twitter provides a place to share what we learn - the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The first part of collaboration is to share. If you are on Twitter, don't just browse or retweet. Join the conversation! Look at this Google spreadsheet of twitter chats you can join any day of the week. The second part of collaboration is to put to action what you have learned, to try something new or different regardless of the success it may yield. As teachers, we must continually learn so that we can provide the best process for our students to learn. A teacher cannot use the same lesson plan every year. Besides, that information needs to be refreshed and updated in times such as these. As teachers, we can never stop learning because that's what we expect from our students, right? So model it for them. Show them how to learn. Provide an environment for them to love learning. If we don't teach them how to do that, who will?
Melinda Sears is the Title I Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Tuscaloosa City Schools. Check out her website or connect with her via Twitter.
If you're a TCS math or English teacher in grades 8-12, you're likely coming back to school this year with a cart full of Chromebooks to use with your students. Check out the tips below for a bit of guidance on getting started and managing them for student use. Please note that this is not a post about transforming your instruction but rather a bit of practical advice for getting acquainted with your new devices. Future posts will discuss possibilities for classroom use and share specific ways TCS students and teachers are harnessing the power of Chromebooks and web tools to make meaningful shifts in learning.
First up, what's a Chromebook? It's not exactly a laptop. It's clearly not a tablet or desktop. Check out the video below for a brief overview.
So here's the gist: Google Chrome is a web browser, not unlike Firefox or Internet Explorer. A Chromebook uses the Chrome operating system. This means that everything you do on the Chromebook is web-based. You start out with a basic suite of tools like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, and other resources, and you can easily add other apps from the Chrome Web Store based on your needs and the needs of your students. Because everything is web-based, the work your students do is not tied to the device they work on or to the school network. It's stored in the cloud, so the kids can access their stuff from a variety of devices - at home, at school, anywhere - by simply logging in to their Google accounts.
Number and assign your Chromebooks. When you begin distributing the Chromebooks among your students, you'll want to make sure that there's some level of accountability in the event of any issues or damage. Some prefer to attach small labels; however, I find that fidgety fingers tend to make short work of these. Grab a sharpie, and write small numbers (1-30) in an inconspicuous spot on the outside of the Chromebooks. I recommend not writing the numbers on the inside of the devices because you don't want to have to open every Chromebook up each time you need to place it back in your cart. Speaking of the cart, once your machines are numbered, place corresponding numbers in each space in your cart to provide a designated space for each Chromebook's storage and charging. The final step, once you've got your rosters for the year, is to assign each student to a Chromebook. This will be the device they will use for each work session, so if you ever have questions or concerns about one, you know who to talk to. Keep your Chromebook assignment lists stored or posted somewhere for easy access throughout the year, and make sure that you distribute the devices to the students yourself at least the first several times they are in use to ensure that students get in the habit of getting the same assigned machine.
Secure your cart key. This is a very small piece of advice based on personal experience. If your cart has a keyed lock (and odds are it does), make sure that you pull the key out of the lock if you're moving the cart from room to room. Narrow doorways can be deadly for keys left in the cart locks; I've got two key fragments in my classroom to prove it. On a related note, when your cart is locked, keep the key somewhere secure. Though it may be handy to hang the key on the cart via a lanyard, this practice pretty much eliminates the effectiveness of locking the thing up.
Get your students logged in. Logging in to a Chromebook requires a Google account. If necessary, both teachers and students can log in using an existing Gmail address and password. However, current TCS students also have Google accounts through our system's Google Apps for Education. All they need to do is log in here, reset their passwords, and they're ready to start using Google Apps and the web. I suggest assigning one time (for example, all English 9 classes) for taking care of the initial login process to make this first step more efficient and to avoid overlap. Folks at the CO will be distributing student login info soon.
Assign student helpers. Pick a student or two per class to assist you in collecting and plugging back in the Chromebooks once they're returned. Having a few extra hands to facilitate the shuffle, along with beginning the process a minute or two before class ends, will help to reduce moments of frenzy between classes and ensure that the next class starts with a clean slate.
So that's it for now. One of the best things about Chromebooks is that setup is a breeze. What tips or questions do you have about getting Chromebooks student-ready? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Upcoming posts will recommend great apps to use, share instructional practices, and help to answer a very big question: what happens to these things when the network goes down? Stay tuned!
Laren Hammonds is an 8th grade English teacher at Rock Quarry Middle School. She's @_clayr_ on Twitter and blogs about her classroom experiences at Game to Learn.
