Masters of Disaster

Last year, I learned that most of my students had no idea what to do in a disaster! Soon after that conversation, I read an email written by a parent of a kindergarten-aged son who uses both a wheelchair and a voice-output device. His class was studying fire safety, and she was worried that he would feel unsafe and left out as the class practiced "stop drop and roll", but gave him no opportunity to truly participate. What to do???? How do we get this information out? I decided that the easiest way to do it would be to adapt and modify or add activities to the Masters of Disaster curriculum.
And so, all last summer for several hours a week, I took up table space at my local chapter and worked on creating activities. Overall, we spent about 25-30 hours at the chapter creating activities, with another large amount at home researching. We created activities that could be done on paper, and also a number of activities for IntelliTools' Classroom Suite. Toward the end of the summer, I asked a group of parents who had children using Classroom Suite to examine the activities for me. These parents deserve a special thanks for taking time to look through the activities, and suggest changes or improvements. In addition, thanks go to a teacher at my school who was kind enough to look over the paper-based activities for me and the staff at my local chapter who gave me space to work. The activities are targeted at students with significant disabilities at the middle and high school level, or regular education & students with special needs in grades K-4.
Unfortunately, around this time, I had some computer issues that resulted in an upgrade to Vista. This has meant the project was shelved in fall as we decided how to approach this problem, as well as the release of Classroom Suite 4. It was decided to post the completed activities and then to go forward using Classroom Suite 4.
You can find the IntelliTools Activities in the Exchange by searching for Masters of Disaster. You can get more information about the Masters of Disaster curriculum at the Red Cross website.

Year In Review

Another post that does not have a whole lot to do with technology, except to point out that this is a wonderful example of the power of photography to help us tell our stories.

Images of Hope and Help: The Year in Pictures

Bread All Around Us: Leavened Bread

Yesterday, my students made leavened bread. We were lucky enough to be able to use a bread machine that our Family & Consumer Science department has available. The teacher for that class has been very supportive of the efforts we make to teach the students cooking skills; she has had several of my students in class, and always works to make sure they understand everything.
As with our unleavened bread, we took pictures, and so have a movie of the process. I thought it was much easier to make the bread this time, but I have no doubt that is because of the bread machine. There was so much less mess to clean up!
I am hoping that the students remember the differences between the two types of bread on Monday, because we'll play "Best Guess" as our drill, and finish our sentences for the first bread podcast. With luck, we'll get it recorded too!

Google My Maps

One of the last of my projects for my graduate class is a group work on a Google Tool. Each group had to choose any Google Tool, explore how to use it, and then come up with ways to use it in the classroom. My group is rather diverse: myself, a special education teacher, a librarian at an inner city school, and a guitar/history teacher in Southern Maryland. Given our unique make-up, it was a little tough to find a tool we would all benefit from... And then, somebody posted a website that was created to explore the assigned challenge of telling the same story 50 different ways. The website included a story that used Google's My Maps. I was convinced this was it, and fortunately, the others in the group agreed! I've spent the last few days learning how to create my own maps. The first one is rather dull, being just a list of places that I've visited over the years; the only interesting bits there are the few sites I included articles on, or photographs. But, my second map is far more exciting (at least to me!), and shows pictures of my trip to Seattle. I used the hybrid settings on My Maps to create a tour of Seattle using the pictures I took, and some wikipedia articles. I was even able to find a YouTube video about the Pigs On Parade. I can just imagine how this could help my students see and learn about places in the United States, or other countries. It gives the hook to get their interest, but also teaches to their strengths by providing visual and kinesthetic opportunities. My only issues are that, as near as I can tell, the Map program doesn't work with assistive technology such as screen readers, and text-to-speech, and I didn't really see a way to add a caption to photos I embedded. It is also rather time consuming to pull all the media files and articles onto the map. I think that for some large units, its worth the effort. It would certainly be a good project for students to complete to show off what they've learned. Here is a quick video about how to make a Google My Map of your own:

Unleavened Bread

Yesterday, we played Best Guess and then made unleavened bread in class. The bread was supposed to come out as "crisps", but even though we flattened the bread out pretty well, it wound up more like pita bread, soft and kind of chewy. I thought it was okay with butter, but not all of the students enjoyed tasting it. I was again reminded that cooking requires that the students use all of their skills to make a finished product: we read the recipe, we did math when we measured, and set the timer on the oven, and we have already been talking about how different cultures make different kinds of bread. Last year, we had done some hands-on work with equivalent fractions, and 3 of the students were able to tell me what we could use if I lost the 1 cup measuring cup: we could use 3 of the 1/3, 2 of the 1/2, and 4 of the 1/4. They didn't necessarily SAY it that way, but they picked up the correct cup when given a choice, so I think that means they know it! One of the students was the official photographer, and followed instructions beautifully when told to just take pictures of hands, not faces or bodies. Since she did such a nice job, I was able to put together a very quick slide show. Enjoy!

Best Guess!

I am always looking for ways to encourage my students to guess. Guessing is a very hard thing for them to do, because they do not ever want to appear wrong. And yet, guessing is something that we always have to do, because there is no way to always be correct. To encourage this, and sneak a bit of science into our classroom, I made a "game" called "Best Guess!". It was really simple.
I used 2 sheets of inkjet magnets from Avery (see a this post for where to buy the sheets). On one sheet, I made 2x4 sized name tags for each student, along with the two choices for today's round. On another sheet, I made a question prompt (today's is: The bread we made is ___________________), and a cut-out star shape with "BEST GUESS!" written on it. The directions were printed on a sheet of card stock. The directions were pretty simple: choose one of the words and put it next to your name. If you're right at the end of the block, you get 2 extra tickets in our weekly drawing (which is how they earn money to buy rewards at our classroom store).
Today's drill tells the students to look on the back of the door to find the game.
We'll see how it goes...

Bake Sale!

I'm afraid this is another post that doesn't have a whole lot to do with technology, although I will post some picture recipes that I've made to use with my students. There is an explanation of the recipe format with the recipes as well as links to two very good cooking in the special education classroom resources. I have loads of cook books, including Emeril and Rachel Ray cooking with children books, Better Homes & Gardens, but the ones I've listed were specifically designed for special education.

I've always run a community service club of some type at the school where I teach. I have already shared my belief that volunteering in the community you live and work in is incredibly important, but I actually think it might be just a little more important for students who receive special education support. Often, students have low self-esteem, or problems with social skills. Volunteering is a good way to improve all of these skills, plus get some good experience for job applications, college essays, etc. But, beyond that, it gives the volunteer a sense of ownership and pride. The something to point to that makes the other things we do that aren't so fun possible. A sense of pride for these accomplishments can go a long way with students.

Anyway... I am one of 3 sponsors for the Key Club/Community Service club at my high school. We are having our first fund-raiser this year for the club on Wednesday. The club officers decided that Halloween was the perfect day to have a bake sale. I have always enjoyed cooking and baking, but I can't eat most baked good anymore, and so I don't bother. This gave me a chance to go a little wild...
3 pans of brownies: plain, white chocolate & mint, and white chocolate
12 pumpkin raisin/cherry/white chocolate muffins
12 plain date muffins
1.5 loaves of banana oatmeal cinnamon bread (I was a little shy on the batter for some reason, hence the "half a loaf".)
20 mini-star shaped Funfetti (the Pillsbury mix stuff) cakes

I hope it all sells so the Key Club students can attend the division conference in April, and the Red Cross Convention/Roll Call in March. I've never been to a Key Club conference, or the Red Cross Conventions, but I know the latter has a lot of networking opportunities for youth volunteers. For those that can't make it to the bake sale, here's a picture...

Expectations

I had to go over to the public library this afternoon to pick up our books for the Bread All Around Us project. I had worked with my school librarian to find the books, then to make my life easier, just did a reserve request at the library near where I live. I made it to the check-out desk with one minute to spare. The librarian found the books, and as she brought them over, she commented on the quantity. I explained that my class was studying different kinds of bread as part of our History/Geography unit this year, and that they were going to produce a podcast. Then, I shared I taught high school students with significant special needs, and so that was why the books were of a much lower reading level. In fact, many of the books were picture books. The librarian wondered if, maybe, I was expecting too much from my students. I told her that I didn't think so, and explained about the digital camera project (This Is My Life) from last year, and that the project was incredibly successful. More so than any of the staff that helped with the grant and project would have thought. I also told her about going to Microsoft.
So, are my expectations for my students too high? Maybe. But, they are living up to my expectations with the material they are producing. I see so much growth, and more independence in some of the students, particularly in using technology. I don't think my expectations are too high; what do others think?

Connecting Outside the Classroom

In a previous post, I shared that I was an active volunteer for Red Cross Disaster Services. I have always, in some way, involved my school & my students in that part of my life which takes place outside of school hours and the building. Last year, my students worked at the local chapter one day a week, mostly doing office tasks, but also getting involved with disaster services. All of my students formed a good working relationship with the staff at the chapter, especially with our disaster services staff member. The students that I have this year ask about the people at the chapter frequently. This has also led to more awareness of what is going on and how those events can change lives. So, it was really no surprise today when they asked me whether or not anybody from our chapter was in San Diego. One student asked me if I were going to go (even though he knows I won't go during the school year, he always asks!). After we talked about people we knew who were going out there with the Red Cross (only one from our local chapter, but there were several from other area chapters), we looked at the KPBS Google Map. We counted the number of shelters, and talked about how wildfires spread. We figured out about how far our classroom was from San Diego, and we talked about things that we can do to make a difference (that was our classroom theme last year; this year's theme seems to be "Sharing Who We Are", which also lends itself nicely to community involvement!).
We definitely did not get any work done on Bread All Around Us, even though my students made sure tell me that they knew the Red Cross was giving out bread... But, for today, my students were connected with the millions of other people who are looking at the fire coverage and they were able to get, understand and share information at a level that allowed them to comprehend what was happening. Amazing, truly...

Google Images to the Rescue

I think I may have mentioned that my class is learning about the foods of different cultures. Today, as we were taking notes, we reached the part about yeast making bread rise through leavening. At this point, I think I made the mistake of trying to help the students understand how bread rises by asking them if they knew about carbonation One of my students throws her hand in the air, and says, "Oh! Yes! I know that bread has carbonation because its on the back of the label!" It was extremely difficult to keep a straight face, and I'm afraid to admit that I didn't manage it very well. It took lots of explaining with pictures at Google images, plus shaking up some left over diet soda in a bottle before they understood that carbohydrates and carbonation were different! But, I know that every time I look at the nutrition label on food packages, I'll think "carbonation" instead of "carbohydrate"!
I've put a few of the supporting files for the first part of this project. In fact, the project now has a name thanks to one of my students: Bread All Around Us.

Changes

The other day, I asked one of my students if they had ever seen a cassette tape, because I was trying to explain about how magnets can erase data. She could not recall ever having seen one. And that had me thinking: We still had records when I was growing up, and 8-track tapes came out then. One of my favorite toys was called 2XL, which was a talking robot that used 8-track tapes for questions. You answered by punching a button on the body of the robot, and the tapes had little cards that went over the standard buttons. There were lots of choices, including an exercise tape!
But, even before I was in elementary school, we had cassette tapes.
In any case, today's Baby Blues Cartoon is very appropriate to this topic:

Podcasting Project

Podcasting and video are two elements of Web 2.0 that I haven't fully explored. With video, there are issues with student images and also equipment. I know that you can do video with a webcam (thanks to my email friends who reminded me of this!), and we can do video clips with our digital cameras. Of course, there is the old standby of digital still photographs in PhotoStory... And, I just learned today that you can take pictures that are in the Windows Photo Gallery (a Vista feature) and there is a "Make Movie" button on the screen. And so, I've decided to explore podcasting with my students.
My first step was to get the district policies, which also required assurance on my part that I knew how to use Audacity. My second step was to find a topic that might hook my students enough for them to get through the much more difficult pre-work and research before they get to put together the project. Since most of my students are teenage boys, and 3 of them are taking Gourmet Foods right now as an elective, I decided to have them explore food. My initial idea was exploring foods in different regions of the United States, but I'm worried that might be too broad. And then I remembered a wonderful project that the Family & Consumer Science teacher at a middle school I worked at did with the students (I helped my students with the project) on bread. Each culture, everywhere in the world has bread. Pita, white bread, matzoh, naan, pancakes, crackers, tortillas.
Now, I need to come up with how I want them to do the projects. As I looked at podcasting, I realized that the all of the poetry projects they completed could be considered 'screencasts' or 'videoblogs'. That really makes me want to come up with a way to have the students do this without the "picture" (screen, video etc). I'm just not sure how to make that happen.

Bookmarking

My students always have problems getting to a website that I want them to use for a class. We have tried using a variety of on-line sites and lists in Microsoft Word. Last year, I was introduced to a site called PortaPortal, which I liked because it was available at school (not blocked!) and because I could set up categories to put the bookmarks in. By using categories like this, my students can find "pictures" and look for the specific link, or "free time" and choose a game without my help. The only thing that would make it better is if the bookmarks had pictures! I've considered using del.icio.us as well, but I am worried it might be too complicated. Today, I discovered that I could export the PortaPortal links, by category, to a document which will then open in IE! I can now send my students to our global drive, and they can just find the link instead of having to retype it.
When I have, I think I'll add some Boardmaker pictures to ease the reading requirements, which then adds the pictures that I figured would make it better. You can look at the text list here
On other fronts, just about everybody has finished their Illustrated Poems, and I'm looking forward to introducing the next unit & project. The students surprised me today when I told them we'd be moving forward on Thursday by wanting to know NOW what the next project would be!

Independent Computer Use

Since the students that I work with have difficulties with organization, language and short-term memory, it is very difficult for them to use the computer independently.
One of my priorities in my classroom, and a wish that I have for all of my students is that they are able to work as independently as possible, and be successful as adults. Obviously, successful as a goal means different things for different people, but for most jobs computers & technology are important. If my students can learn some basic computer skills, including some of the creative skills like scanning items, using a digital camera, and PowerPoint, they are that much farther. It is even better if they are able to use the tools on their own without additional live support.
In my classroom, I often require that they ask a peer, and retry before they ask me or our teaching assistant (if there is one). To this end, I've created a set of Computer How To files that students can refer to in order to use the computer on their own.
There are how-to pages for logging on the school network, saving to a flash drive, printing a digital photograph, and posting to their blogs. Here is a link to the computer howto files on my wiki: Computer How To's

AAC Awareness Poems

A few days ago, Samuel Sennott posted a request to the QIAT listserv with an idea about creating "electronic" poems in PowerPoint, IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Clicker or another similar program. The idea was to choose a public domain poem available from Project Gutenberg or Google's Public Domain books, and illustrate it using pictures from Flickr's Creative Commons.
A truly intriguing idea, at least to me... so I signed up. I created two poems, both by Robert Louis Stevenson, and from his A Child's Garden of Verses. I grew up with a battered copy of that book covered in some kind of red fabric, so reading it again to choose poems was like visiting an old friend. Here are the two I made:




And, I discovered that I liked the idea so much, I wanted to try it with my students. For those that have been reading this, you'll know that we participated in the Salute to Seuss project from Jen Wagner, and created People Poems AKA 'To Think I Met Them On Park View Street'. This project seemed a perfect way to wrap up our unit on Poetry before moving forward... We did not use public domain poetry, instead we used classic Shel Silverstein (students chose: Sick, Eighteen Flavors, and Dancing Pants), and one Robert Frost (a rather ghoulish poem about a boy who gets his hand cut off). I've posted the student checklists and rubrics on my wiki here

Microsoft Forum, Scrapblog

Okay...

This looks like something that I was hunting for earlier this season (see the posts on 'All About Me' and videos from august). In any case, this was an assignment for one of my graduate classes. I think I may update it... It worked fairly well despite a steep learning curve.

Enjoy.

Microsoft Forum

I will come back and add some descriptions, but for now, here are pictures...
Microsoft Forum Pictures on Flickr

All of the pictures are now posted, and tagged in Flickr. If you don't want to look at individual pictures, feel free to look at the post after this and enjoy the scrapblog.

I'm still behind in actually posting details from the Forum, because I managed to get the cold that was being passed around... I might get to that this weekend.

To Think I Met Them On...

Well... we've posted the first short video for our Salute to Seuss project. These projects are tied to the book, "To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street", and became "To Think I Met Them On Park View Street". The students have, for the most part, done a quality job with these. I'm pretty impressed since this is the first time that we've gone through the whole process at all... Last year, I did a lot of the editing and putting things into PowerPoint for them, but this year, they're doing it. And not badly. I just wish we had more than 2 computers that could really run the projects. My old laptop is just so slow at this point that the student that is using that one gets frustrated and winds up just waiting for one of the desktops to be available.
Oh well, I can wish... its a practical wish since we're working on a grant for more hardware to do this kind of activity.

Integrating Web 2.0

We are starting the school year doing the Geography of the United States. One reason for this was to do some cross-themed programming with our English units for the Salute to Seuss project, but another reason was to give the students plenty of opportunity to explore what blogs were and how they were used.
We have a clustrmap on our classroom blog page, and we also have a huge US map hanging on our bulletin board. We're using Avery's 1/4" clear, removable dots to track people who visit our blog. We're not changing sizes or colors the way Clustrmaps does. At some point, we might add a world map to the bulletin board, but for now, I think the US Map is a good way to start.
This unit is also giving me the opportunity to help my students understand time differences, and learn a little about other places in the United States. We're starting with the West Coast, because of my trip to Redmond in about a week. As I mentioned in the last blog, I've left work for my students to do that relates to my trip. I've also promised to post pictures and details. I will actually post pictures and details here as well, although the classroom blog will have top priority for me.
In any case, if you're interested in looking at one of the activities the students will do while I'm gone, you can go over to my wiki and find this activity: Track A Flight.

The amazing power of web 2.0...

I had a revelation a few days ago when I was writing lessons plans for the substitutes who will be with my students when I go to the Microsoft Teacher Forum at the end of this month. The flash came when I realized that I could leave assignments for my students to do that connected with my absence from the classroom...
My students are aware and involved, because, after all, the project we submitted for the Forum was their work with the digital cameras last year!
The lesson plans that I left for the substitutes have the students answering 2 questions on each of the two days that they would have seen me: The Day 1 questions are:
What do you think Ms. Shepley will pack in her suitcase to take with her to Seattle?; How long do you think it will take Ms. Shepley to fly to Seattle? and Day 2: What 2 questions do you think Ms. Shepley should ask Microsoft while she is there?; Name 3 things that you have learned about Microsoft. The students will also be doing some other activities with our problem solving posters, some math, and working on memos and fax cover sheets.
It took a little explaining for them to understand about the time differences, but not as much as I thought it would. I might get an extra clock for the room and set it for Seattle time for them. We also had to talk about how I could access the Internet from where I would be, and be able to read what they wrote. In exchange for what they are posting, I'm going to try and post pictures of the events and some summaries about what we have done on our classroom blog page. This will be a first,

Low-Tech & Simple

I've always wanted a word-wall in my classroom for my students to refer to, in order to make them more independent. This way, they can check the word-wall for spelling before they ask me. The problem has always been organization, coordination, and space. I know that there are a few other special education teachers at my school who would also like vocabulary walls, but because they travel from room to room, they would need words for each room they were in OR a way to quickly pull down and hang up a set.
Enter: Magnet sheets! Woo hoo! I've been looking at these in Staples for years, and trying to find a way to use them for something. Staples, and other office supply stores, along with Borders, are my preferred shopping locations! I love colored pens, too. ;)
Anyway, I used my favorite label template in Microsoft Word. Using a 2x4 shipping label template, I can make 10 vocabulary magnets per sheet, and 50 per package. The package of magnet sheets was about $12 from Staples, but I did find it cheaper at some other on-line stores. I was able to use a nice font at about 36-40 point, and include a picture of the word to help with comprehension, and with the visual learners who remember pictures better than words. And, of course, you could make the magnet any size you want up to 8.5 x 11. It worked really well, and should be fairly portable. I'm thinking that teachers that move classrooms could store them in a coupon box or index card box sorted by letter (or topic). Hanging back up again could be part of a drill/bell-ringer activity for a lot of different concepts: alphabetizing, categorizing, synonym/antonym, etc. Here's a picture of the one in my classroom:

Off & Running

We're off and running as of last Friday! I went over rubrics with my students, and was pleased to realize that some of them remembered what they were from last year and could give examples. That kind of synthesis and application is usually really hard for my students, so to have them be able to associate the word 'rubric' with how I graded their scrapbooks and their end-of-year science projects was a good feeling.
We had a few technical difficulties: I was bitten by the "linked media file" in PowerPoint, but fortunately, I had a version of the file that I had printed to a PDF using Acrobat 8 Professional. I've been using Acrobat since version 5, and love the freedom it gives me in making materials for my students! Acrobat 8 allows you to embed media files, and so I was able to pull up that file and show the students the very short clip about rubrics I downloaded from unitedstreaming.
Our other technological issue was one of those ancient jokes that tech support people trade in their down time... "Didja hear the one about the teacher who couldn't get the computer speakers to work because they weren't plugged in??". I wish I were kidding. I had no idea that was the problem because the speakers were providing sound, albeit at a very, very low volume. I figured it was an issue with the line into the computer.
And of course, the tech issues had me running late through the lesson again. I did get it explained to the students, briefly, and had time to show two of them their Blogmeister accounts. We had two students log in and post very brief messages, but it was really a moment! At least for me.
After seeing that the log-in was a bit complicated for my students, I made a cue sheet for posting to the blog, just like several of the "computer how-tos" I've made. I posted a general one here.
I was also discovered a feature that makes all of the effort of blogging worth it: Blogmeister runs the student posts through the Flesch-Kincaid Readability test. It also gives a grade equivalence for student writing, which I think will be a valuable hook.
I shared the information with the Dean of our special education department at school, and she suggested I present the information as a mini-inservice at a staff meeting for our department. I'm not sure I really want to do that... I'm always worried I'm going to step on toes or have other teachers say that this is a stupid idea and not worth the time and effort.

Ride for the Red

This post does not have a whole lot to do with assistive or instructional technology, and is only attached to curriculum & education in the loosest of fashions. People who know me are aware that, outside of my classroom, my two biggest time sinks are being a disaster services volunteer for the American Red Cross, and swimming. And this particular post has to do with the Red Cross.

I volunteer with the Loudoun County chapter in Northern Virginia. I serve as one of 4 disaster team managers. We rotate on-call service every 3 months (my team works in April, August & December, for example). Each team serves for one month, give or take a few days. While we're on-call, the teams respond to local disasters in Loudoun County. The local responses are usually fires at single family homes, but we have also responded to apartment fires which effect multiple families, or water main breaks that make buildings unsafe to live in. All of this costs money.

On October 13, the Loudoun County chapter will be hosting the inaugural Ride For The Red. This will be one of the largest fund raisers for the chapter during this year. Please consider joining us, either as a rider or a volunteer for the event. All of the services that the Red Cross provides are only possible with help.

Project-Based Learning...

I've met with my the students in my classroom once now. I'll see them again tomorrow at the end of the day. During our first class, we had our first fire drill of the school year... and that was interesting because due to our new security system, we go out one door, but must come in at another. And all of the students that are in that one area go through that door. Tomorrow, we'll have our first pep rally and senior processional of the year; I have 3 seniors in my class.
In any case, we've gone through the Internet Safety lesson, and all of my students passed the quick quiz I gave them on the first try! I was so proud of them, because it was a lot of material to take in, and quickly because we were running out of time because of the fire drill. There was a very humorous discussion regarding the author of The Cat In The Hat. As most people know, the book was written by Dr. Seuss. As it turns out, our head principal also has a doctorate degree, and several students shouted out her name when I asked for the author of Cat.
We also went over the rules for handling the digital cameras, and the battery chargers are plugged in. I'm waiting on the surge protector and the power cord for the scanner to set up my old laptop as a workstation for them. All forms went home for signature, too... WE should be able to to hit the ground running tomorrow after we go over our rubrics. With luck, we'll be posting our first projects next Tuesday!

Replies to Comments

I am doing this because I really cannot find a place on Blogger that allows me to respond to comments. I know it is there somewhere, because I've seen other bloggers do it, but I sure can't find it!

Good evening, Regan!
Thank-you for the comment. I am not sure about any liabilities within Precision Teaching. I do have some concerns about using it at the high school level because I really think that students as this level should be doing more problem-solving & higher-order thinking skills. These are skills that are much in demand from businesses, and have been noted as being something that many students do not have when leaving school. You can look at the SCANS report to get more specific detail on how businesses look at education. If we are needing to teach these students fluency and direct instruction in this fashion, I worry that they aren't getting the skills they'll need for later.
My school did listen to that, and accepted my view, which I found incredibly refreshing. I will look to see if students who improve fluency also improve in their ability to synthesize knowledge. Have you seen that increase as well?

SueJ:
You're probably right. I am new at the professional blogger thing. I had my students due some blogging briefly last year, but it wasn't something that was a total success. We had bandwidth issues. I've changed the provider that we're using for blogging this year, and also provided each student in my functional academic class with their own. I'm looking forward to getting them on-line, and hope to do it tomorrow when I see them. I'd like to give them all a "homework" assignment to have them go to their blogs and log in to make a small "Hi, how are you" type post... But, quite a number of my students do not have access at home, and of those students, only one of them ever makes an attempt to go to the school library or community library and log-in.
We will have initial projects based around the Salute for Seuss project that we're participating in by sometime next week. I'm actually going to go make a post about that in a few minutes.

Interesting Conundrum

Well, call me confounded. Or at least stunned.
The only blog posts that are getting comments here are the ones where I've expressed my uncertainty about being the Precision Teacher at my school this year. I admit to being rather surprised by this yesterday afternoon when I first discovered it.
I wasn't surprised to note that all of the comments were heavily in support of the idea behind Precision Teaching, with lots of suggestions on how I could share data, find support, and use it with the students. And, of course, I can't be annoyed, even though I would really like to be... I should probably point out, however, that the program is being used to boost fluency in students who have not passed and are at risk for not passing our state tests. I will see about 18 students every 2 days (about 6 per 90 block period, for 3 periods). I will likely work with students in groups of 3. Once students have mastered a particular weak spot, they are dismissed and return to the class they were pulled from. At that point, I look for new students to enter the program. This particular format doesn't lend itself well to most of my passions, but particularly those that involve teaching writing using technology and project-based learning. It may well be that the program works well with project-based learning in other locations; I don't know that.
I was going to use this post to specifically answer the comments that were posted, but then decided that I would sound snooty if I did that, so I won't. But, I will ask that people not post comments professing their love for precision teaching. I noted that I respect the fact that the trainer who did our session finds Precision Teaching to be one of her passions; I would like to ask for that same respect.
Thank-you.

New School Year Update

I worked this morning with my supervising principal, and the Dean of our special education department to get my schedule straight. I will be doing the Precision Teaching gig half time (3 periods per cycle; 2 on one day, and 1 on another). I have one block of Functional Academics the last period of the day every other day.
That left 3 periods... Imagine my surprise when my principal said that he, our Dean, and head principal were thinking about having me create materials and work with other teachers to integrate technology within the special education department!! I will get to spend one block, every other day, doing that exact thing.
I think it was here a few days ago (or not, as I don't see it) that I said that I didn't know of any jobs that would let me work with students, give me time to create materials, and attend conferences. I am totally happy to settle for 2 out of 3 of those, especially since I will get to attend a conference this year!
I am already looking at ways to make this work... I had thought about working with our AT person on another grant opportunity, as well as submitting a continuation grant (This Is My Life: Kicked Up!) to the Loudoun Educational Foundation (LEF). LEF was the organization that provided the grant for our digital camera project (This Is My Life: Using Digital Media To Increase Literacy Skills) in the 2006-2007 school year. We haven't decided yet, but we're looking at either podcasting or video as the addition to the project this year.
I've also been talking about my own ideas for this year, and some of the other teachers were interested.
One of the goals for my school this year is to increase the use of data collection to determine outcomes for students. I think that we could make our lives a little easier for some types of data collection if we use Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis and photo sharing. The students could respond to various prompts in blogs, thus allowing us to collect running writing samples for the whole year. They could post materials created on their wiki, and demonstrate all kinds of skills this way, and with photo sharing. Teachers benefit, because they could literally look at student work ANYWHERE, and not have to lug home 80 folders full of writing.
We may also use a wiki and blog to communicate information about Key Club to members. I offered to give space over at my classroom blog, and also on the classroom wiki.
Lastly, but certainly not least, we have received all the information from Microsoft for the Innovative Teacher Forums. I just set up my personal space on the Forum, and linked back here, and to my professional wiki.

Bridging the Gap with Digital Media

I had posted at the beginning of this week about two of the in-service sessions that I was particularly looking forward to attending: Echoes and Reflections, and Reading in the Reel World, with John Golden. I was not disappointed with either session, and took away a whole lot of information and ideas on using digital media with my students!

In Reading in the Reel World, we were shown various techniques for having our students use documentaries as they would a textbook. We were shown specific things to help our students use the digital media appropriately, and to encourage critical thinking about media... Part of that process was a discussion on whether or not documentaries are always completely non-fiction, and how things are sometimes done to enhance the mood of the watcher, which may or may not necessarily have been how the event really happened. This is similar to teaching students to be wary about advertisements they see, or using material from the Internet as fact. The other piece that I found most useful was where Mr. Golden shared how he had his students make their own documentary about school. He had a student use a digital camera to take pictures in the classroom for a whole period, then dumped the pictures onto an accessible area on the school network. Students worked in PowerPoint, and added a music clip that fit their pictures. Each documentary was less than 3 minutes long, but the messages they conveyed were real. It was very interesting to see students using the same pictures as peers, but with completely different ideas and music, and therefore a completely different message.

The Echoes & Reflections session was also well worth attending, and we did receive complete copies of the curriculum for our use. I don't know how much of the lesson plans I'll be able to use, but I might be able to use some of the digital media clips and the photographs they provided us with. The curriculum includes a DVD of about 21 short clips that were done with the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California.

The message here, at least for me, is that using digital media helps our students learn about events, and then connect the events to things in their own lives. And that is truly comprehension: without that connection, there is no point in the information. I'm a lover of trivia, but that cannot be our goal in teaching. Our goal has to be that students will understand what we share with them. If we do not make that effort, we may find problems later on in our lives. Okay, enough doom & gloom...

Last Wednesday was the first day back for teachers in my district. Our students come back the Tuesday after Labor Day. I've been in this district for 3 years, and, call me strange, but I actually enjoy the way that my district structures the professional development. We spend several days in our school, and have 2 or 3 days where we have some sessions that we can choose from. This year, I have 2 sessions I'm particularly looking forward to: one is Connecting Generations, which explores (and hopefully gives us pieces of!) the new curriculum that deals with the Holocaust from USC Shoah Foundation, and the other is with John Golden, the author of 'Reading in the Reel World: Teaching Documentaries and other Nonfiction Texts. I'm excited about both of them because they reflect how I teach.
Last Saturday, I also attended the required training session for new Precision Teachers. I wish I were as excited about Precision Teaching as I am about the possibilities for the other two sessions.
The facilitator for our Precision Teaching training described it as an intervention that can be used to teach any kind of information. People who are familiar with the traditional ABA and TEACCH programs used with children with autism will recognize a lot of similarities in Precision Teaching. I won't insult anybody by saying the program is bad, and doesn't work: it does work, and works very well for some students. Our facilitator described Precision Teaching as one of her passions, and I respect that. How could I not, given that I often feel like I'm the odd one out in what I believe and in how I teach?
To continue this thought: I was surfing the web earlier this evening and looking at various materials, resources and comments for Precision Teaching. I found a lot of sites for worksheets and ways to make new worksheets, including a technology tool that I've used for years, and absolutely love: Schoolhouse Technologies worksheet generators. I've been using their products forever, and have participated in many beta testing sessions. You can even find a few of my word lists here.
But, there wasn't a whole lot in the list that excited me, and I was really worried by a few of the things I read, including a video I saw about various math education methods. There are always people who are more enthusiastic about things than others, so I need to remind myself to take some of what I saw with a grain of salt.
But, after I stopped looking at Precision Teaching materials, I went looking for something that was more, well, me. It didn't take me long to find what I was looking for in a blog attached to WOW2.0.
The very first blog I read discussed using a podcast from Business Week about the future of employment and jobs. It explained that students need to understand why we want them to learn and use something, and how it fits into the real world. It seemed to insist on problem solving as a method (something a few of the more evangelistic Precision Teaching sites decried as really, really bad). This, clearly, is one of my passions...
So, how do I meet the requirement for 50% of my job this year, which requires precision teaching, and still be a teacher that integrates technology, web 2.0, and creativity? I have to do 3 periods of precision teaching, which only leaves me 2 periods of other kinds of teaching. Suggestions are welcome...

Information About Me

As a part of one of my graduate classes from this past summer, I learned how to use various tools for multimedia presentations. Like many graduate classes, you're required to develop a project that proves you've learned the material (Lovers of standardized tests take note: requiring people to show you that they've learned something is a higher order thinking skill than just bubbling in a test sheet).
I decided to create a project for my students to do that was tied to our history and English units. We were going to do this at the beginning of the year, but then I remembered that I really wanted to sign my class up for Salute to Seuss from Jennifer Wagner. We did the Lucky Charms graphing last year, and I know that my students learned a whole lot about data collection and graphing from the project. I know it because they were able to use the skills from the project later, and talk about data collection via Lucky Charms in a logical fashion. So... we'll likely get to this second quarter, because we'll be doing a similar project for Seuss. And that might be a good thing, because we can do a group project for Seuss and have everybody learn what to do, then do this one.
I also want to point out that this didn't start as a video. It started in PowerPoint. I exported the slides using 'save as picture' (PPT 2003 and above), then dropped them in PhotoStory 3 (free software for XP from Microsoft). That was the easy part. The soundtrack was a lot harder and not entirely what I was looking for. I'll have to find a better way to retain the sounds in a PowerPoint or just remember to record the sounds directly into the slide show software.
Here's the video...


I'll put the supporting materials here: All About Me Materials
The checklist that is on the page is adapted from one created by Attainment Publications, and can be found the 'Building Life Skills Portfolios' book.

Enjoy!

Blogfolios, Take 2

I redid a bit of the blogfolio presentation and wanted to repost it. I am still not quite sure where the extra "clouds" are coming from on some of the pages, but at least the text shows up in all the right ones now.
I really would like some comments about the plausibility of this idea. I'd also love to hear about any tools that people think would be useful for this other than what I've already listed.

My first effort at making an entry for the blogfolio has been difficult, and not at all as easy as I thought it was. Creating the PowerPoint was dead easy. Recording the sound bites was easy. Attaching the sounds to the PowerPoint slide, also easy. The problem came when I tried to turn the PowerPoint with its slides into something that I could post in a blog! Its been a huge time sink (remember the other post I made today, where I said anybody who knows me could vouch for a few things? Another one of those things is that I'm a perfectionist; I just can't bear the thought of turning in a project that didn't come out the way I wanted!). Right now it looks like I'm going to have to burn it to a CD to turn in for my graduate class tomorrow night...
Magi

We're baaack... Part 2

Apparently, our overall "fun theme" for the year will be based on The Simpsons. When the show started, I definitely wasn't a fan. I can't say that I watch it glued to the TV now (actually, I don't think I watch much of anything glued to the TV screen!), but I do appreciate more of the humor. And, in my own personal form of 'preja vu' (deja vu that happens before you knew about it being deja vu), I named the blog that my students will use 'Doughnut Drive'. That's the name of the hallway where our classroom is... and on one side of our blog is a great picture of Homer Simpson trying to eat this huge doughnut! I just loved that!
Okay, so right about now you're waiting for me to tell you how all of this ties into web 2.0...
The videos, the homer simpson tie-in, are all available to people to use because of web 2.0! Schools have always shown "inspiring videos" during in-services. But, in the not-so-distant past, those videos were put together by people who were assigned this as a job. People who were usually in marketing or PR, maybe an AV department. An ordinary teacher, person, parent could not have done this just 5 years ago!
I love the amount of information that is out there and available. I like being able to go to Google and type in a few words and find all of this information. I love being able to go to the website for my University, and looking at the entire selection of journals that is available without ever leaving my futon and my cat. I've been attending Johns Hopkins in various forms (with some breaks) since 1999. My first master's degree is from Hopkins in transition planning & severe disabilities. With luck, I'll finish a second degree (Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study, another 30 credits) in curriculum design and assistive technology at the end of Fall semester. I've never set foot in the Eisenhower library on the Homewood campus. Not one time. I used to go to a closer community college library, but now I don't even have to do that. I just load up my VPN software, type in my password, and convince the library's computer that I am really in the library.
Lovely. Absolutely lovely. And now, I'm going to go fix a slideshow in Slide Share, and then finish & post the final project for my graduate class this semester.

We're baaack...

Today was the first day of school in my county for teachers. Anybody that knows me can probably vouch for several things: I absolutely cannot sit in a meeting and do nothing. At the very least, I have to take notes. And, that's what this entry really is: a description of my "notes" from our first day of in-service. These particular notes are mostly about how I saw the people who were providing our in-services using Web 2.0... and maybe not even knowing that they were using it!
In the morning, we watched the famous (infamous?) video, Shift Happens. I've seen it before: I think I first saw it during a graduate class last spring, and I know I saw it in another graduate class after that. I enjoyed seeing it again, but also seeing the reactions of other teachers that were in the auditorium with me.
For those that might not have seen it:


In the afternoon, we viewed the Ordinary People video. As with Shift Happens, I'd seen it before, and enjoyed seeing it again. This time, I remembered to write down the name of the song because its one of those songs you like to use for slide shows of your students doing cool stuff. I like the version we watched today better than the one I'm going to post here, but I cannot seem to find that version...

Innovative Teacher Forum

I have to start off this post with a bit of a brag... Just before the school year ended, a graduate instructor provided information on the Microsoft Innovative Teacher's program. It is a combined effort between Microsoft and various other agencies, including the 21st Century Thinking Skills folks. I talked to the assistive technology specialist that works with me in my classroom, and we decided to give it a whirl. The application was many, many hours of work between the end of school and the first part of July when we submitted. And then we waited... and waited... and waited... We were certain that we'd never be chosen, and listed all the reasons why. Our school district is too small, we'd focused heavily on students with multiple special needs and cognitive impairments, etc. I'm thrilled to say that we were wrong! We were one of the groups that

was selected to attend the forum the end of September in Seattle! I was so excited when I saw the email I could barely speak. The project we submitted was our digital camera project that we did with my class and the resultant video tours and "thank-you gifts" we gave to our community work-sites.

Assignment Sheets

These were nearly an act of desperation... the middle school I was at gave each student a planner. The planner was required in classes, but none of my students could write small enough, spell well enough, or scribe quickly enough to make use of them. I created one that was larger (and later, one that required the student only circle the type of assignment; I surveyed the other teachers to find out what common homework assignments were). But, the students wouldn't use them. Turns out that they were afraid of being laughed at because their assignment sheets were different. Fortunately, there was another teacher in the department who had an idea: she suggested that we "unbind" the original planners, and hole punch the new sheets, and then rebind them using the original covers. Success!! My students stopped throwing away the sheets, and at least a little more homework was being done.

You can find samples of the Assignment Sheets on my ITCFusion Wiki.

Computer How To's

At the beginning of the last school year, I set professional and personal goals for my classroom. We were required to do this by our principal, and really, its not a new idea. I think, though, that this is the first time I have really put thought into what I've included in those goals and tried to really model my instruction for these goals.
One of the goals was to increase the independence of my students in the use of technology. I know that my students benefit from using technology, but surely some of that benefit is diluted if I'm setting them up on the computer. One of the other goals that I had for last year (which is going to carry over this year, and I'll post about later) was to improve written communication in my students.
The result of this was a set of 'computer how-to' sheets that lived in bright yellow paper folders next to the computers in the classroom. We had some mild success with them; of course, my students with learning disabilities picked up on using the cues a lot faster than my students with other disabilities. I think that some of that success issue is that with many of my students, they are just not used to having to look at something to get help instead of sitting there with a confused look and waiting for me to notice. We'll be using the how-to sheets again this year...

You can see the various Computer How-To sheets here on the ITCFusion Wiki.

Its About Time

I have been telling myself that I should create a more personal blog for several months now. My students blogged for a bit last year, and I contributed a few entries to their efforts. And, toward the end of the year, I explored LiveJournal as part of a graduate class. In June, I signed up to blog with my students on David Warlick's site and added 3 blogs to the RSS feed on my Google homepage. Yet, I still put off creating my own blog.
Then, it happened. In the space of a few days, I had requests for various materials I had created or discussed on two different listservs. I've always just sent the materials to other people via email. That isn't a bad choice, but what if other people on the list also want the materials? Then I send email to more and more people. I reasoned with myself, and decided that if I (finally) created that blog I was thinking about, I could share things more easily.
But, really, that wasn't a good enough reason to create a whole blog. The final deciding point came when I talked to another teacher friend and asked her to look over a proposal for something I want to do with my students. She is willing to do it, but she isn't a special education teacher, and she doesn't use technology in her classroom the way I do. At which point the proverbial light bulb came on, and said, "Put it on the blog! Put it ALL on the blog!"....