Chromebook: 8 months later

I can see definite uses for the Chromebook that I was given to test.  I haven't posted many accessibility issues because, for my students with reading disabilities or Deafness or autism, we have not had many.

The few we have had included:

• An inability to configure a visual alert for the student who is Deaf, which meant she had to keep her eyes on the screen and couldn't also watch her interpreter.  She was happy to use the Chromebook to practice math and science skills in advance of the state testing, however, and felt that it helped.

• Problems with plugins that allowed read out loud that was more appropriate for my students (as I said in my first post, I did not think my students would like Chromevox, and I was correct; they felt it was overkill since they didn't need it to read the entire screen, only the text).

•  Problems with loading MS Word and PowerPoint files so that students could use the Chromebook to view items that were too far away or to use it as a read aloud for a classroom test.

However, the biggest issue we have with the Chromebook is that for this school year, we have not been allowed to add it to the school network.  Our district is having problems with bandwidth, and has limited teachers to one personally owned device  this year.  And, without Internet access, the device is very, very limited.

In fact, without Internet access the Chromebook is really no more than an AlphaSmart; one without even word prediction because all of the apps for the device require Internet access.  So, we're using it for students to take notes.  The students save their notes to a flash drive by doing a "PDF Print".

I did have a concern that the device appears to not back the notes up when I bring the Chromebook home.  I need to explore this more thoroughly, before I say anything, as I suspect this is my user error. 

I suppose the thing that I will never forget from us using the Chromebook these last few months was when a student used curse words to name a file.  Another student found it and was very upset that a peer had broken the rules.  And, because the device wasn't online, I couldn't delete the file.  I had to take it home, sync it, and then delete.  Fantastic.  But, I work with teenagers, so of course this kind of thing happens.

Coming Up Next: A New Year

I've dived into the deep end this year... Somebody should remind me to look next time! This year will probably be hectic, and interesting. I'm not sure yet if interesting is a good thing or a bad thing, but give me a few weeks and I'll see if I can't figure it out.

I have two new roles this year at my school: autism resource & team-taught history. My school has had some success integrating the principals of Universal Design into science classes, and so now they would like to try history. Its not exactly a secret that I have a laptop welded to my back while at school, but I wasn't aware anybody knew about my secret passion for non-fiction documentary-style books and movies, especially 20th Century history. Or that I worked at a Renaissance Faire, and minored in history in college. Guess I need to hide that weakness a little better...
The autism resource is also really not a surprise: I worked as an autism teacher for an extended school year program when I started teaching, have always had at least one student in my classes who had an autism spectrum disability, and spent 3 years working at place known for their work with kids with autism.

School opens for students on Tuesday, and so I've been creating materials for Basic Skills this weekend, and trying to help the general education teachers I'm teaming with adapt materials for history. The students who have had me for Basic Skills before know that I like to do projects... This has not changed. Our first project will have them invent a product, research a real version of the product using Wikipedia. Side note: Do NOT twit at me about using Wikipedia in school; if we don't show the students how to use it properly, how will they ever learn? Just like we need to teach students about advertising, we need to teach how to use other media resources! The last part will have them create a commercial for their product. Originally, I was going to have them make a commercial of themselves, but decided to do the group thing. And, while I have access to a video camera, I'm not sure if doing that first thing in the school year is a good idea... Thanks to the UD Tech Toolkit I found a cool site called Animoto. There is a version of Animoto for schools to use, but I created this in about 5 minutes using the regular site. Very, very cool. So, I may use this for their commercials. It is a lot more structured, and much easier to use than actually creating a video themselves.

Politics Aside...

So, it should come as no surprise that I (and probably every other teacher in the world!) did something with the election today in class. I found a chart at Microsoft Office on-line. Then I went looking for a good map that showed the results. We resized everything so it fit, and using our interactive white board, students filled in the chart with information from the map. Technology issues aside (I somehow turned on Microsoft ActivMark in our Board software, so the pen wouldn't work... I felt like an idiot!), the activity went quite well. The students were involved through the whole thing, and showed a great knowledge of the geography of the United States. The chart has the full name of the state, but the CNN map only had the postal abbreviations. The class handled it with nary a stumble!

Some information about the activity:
We have also discovered that the activity works best in Microsoft Excel 2002 and higher. Earlier versions of Excel seem to get stuck on the chart, and won't load. Last note: If you can see alternate text that says, "Group Box ###", just ignore it. It doesn't go away when you remove the alternate text for a web browser, and deleting the text messes up the macros. And, if you're looking at this well after the election, be aware that the CNN map link may not work...

Just in time for a new year...

I really thought I had broken the pattern last year. You see, since 1997 (my second full year of teaching), there have been major disasters every 2 years that have impacted the attendance area of my school in some fashion. I don't remember what happened in 1997, but here's a list from 1999 forward: Hurricane Floyd, 9/11, Hurricane Isabel, and ending with Hurricane Katrina. And so, last August I started biting my nails. I was wondering if I would be teaching during the day, and doing Red Cross work in the evenings as I have done for most of these events. I waited... I just knew something was going to happen... And nothing did. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I went to the Innovative Teacher conference in Seattle, and came back. Still nothing. Woo hoo! The pattern was broken.

And then Gustav showed up. With his friend Hanna. I guess they think that since we didn't have anything last summer, we need a double dose this year.

School opens on Tuesday. Gustav is scheduled to arrive on Monday. Fortunately, I think I'm prepared for the first day.

I am also hoping and praying that Gustav gets bored and decides that New Orleans and that whole area isn't worth visiting. I hope the residents there have been evacuated safely... I've heard from one set of friends, who are safe and outside the area. One last wish, and then back to planning for the start of school: If you've been evacuated from the area, and not been able to reach family & loved ones, please make sure you register with Red Cross Safe & Well so your family and friends can find you.

National Youth Institute---Day 1

Today was packed. We all managed to get up and out of the Marriott by 9:00. And, that means that we were late getting to our activities at the Arch, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We left our luggage at the hotel, and our shuttle driver from last night brought it to us at the airport when we were finished.

After we made it to the Metro, we found out that they were only running one track due to construction, and so it took us about 45 minutes to get downtown. We enjoyed the scenery in the park on our walk over to the Arch. I have to admit here that I am totally scared of heights, and really didn't want to go up... But, I figured I probably couldn't let the students go up by themselves, and so I went. After clinging to the side of the arch near the windows for about 5 minutes, I did manage to look out one or two windows before going back down.
When we left the Arch, it was really hot & humid, so we opted for a cab back to the airport and caught the shuttle to the conference hotel. The first order of business after check-in? Taking a shower!!
Then we went over to the conference center, and made it just in time for the opening session and dinner. The students went to a workshop called Spark the Wave, and the advisers went to a reception. We met back up for the swap meet, ice cream social, and one of St. Louis' infamous thunderstorms. The conference center sprung a leak, and had about 53 gallons of water in the front lobby!
Pictures from the Arch
NYI---Friday 5/30/08

Iron Chef meets High School

Last week, not only did my school host a version of American Idol, complete with versions of Simon & Paula, but we engaged in a little Iron Chef action too. Each year the school hosts an award ceremony near Spring. It is a little different from many award ceremonies, in that teachers nominate 1 or 2 students, and then the students have the opportunity to nominate one teacher that has changed their life. Students can nominate a teacher from any grade, and school. If the school is part of our system, the teacher gets an email invitation. If not, the school makes reasonable effort to find the teacher. The evening also includes a multicultural dinner. Each grade brings a dish, having been assigned the type; IE, 9th grade brings a vegetable dish, while the 11th grade nominees bring an entree.
Each year, the students I teach make 1 dish, and a dessert. This year, we took pictures, and of course, made a movie!

RCT 3

Two of my students have started working on RCT 3 parks with me, and one student is using RCT 2 on his own. The parks in RCT 3 are working very well, although I am controlling the mouse in order to reduce the possibilities of information overload. As I said, the hardest part is getting the paths laid correctly. One student has made it all the way to the Tycoon level challenge in Vanilla Fields (the starter park), and another has made it to that section in the Splash-Water Park expansion. I asked the one student do to Splash because his research is on Sea World. We've also had some trouble connecting the slides to the pool complexes, but I don't know why. I think it might be the terrain being uneven. We'll keep working at it.
I will post some screen shots of the parks in a week or so; I neglected to bring the CD home with me this weekend, so I can't run the game.

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!

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.

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.

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...

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!