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.