THERE IS NOTHING WRONG HERE

I happen to download a podcast from Alan November’s Building Learning Communities 2007 conference. It was the keynote given by Dr. Yong Zhao, of the Univ. of Michigan. I had never heard of Dr. Zhao (in China is their sir name the first listed?) but I have listened to his podcast three times now and I have been taking notes so that I can blog more about what he has to say. Because he does have a Chinese accent the more you listen the more you understand.

When Alan intorduces Dr. Zhao he warns the audiance that their mind will be broken, and Dr, Zhao does have some mind bending ideas about technology, society and education.

I have been trying to transcribe the podcast, even if I only take down the key point it is tedious. So, trying to find a more techie way to do this I discover that Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I have installed, will transcribe an audio file. All I have to do is convert the iTunes file to an mp3 file. To do this I purchase on line a program that will do the trick.

I convert the iTunes podcast to an mp3 and have Dragon transcribe. It is an hour long podcast so this takes awhile. I come back to the computer after dinner and it is transcribing away, except that none of the text makes any sense. It is not even close to the podcast. So I guess I will have to go back to the manual transcription process, because I do want to get down in written form many of Dr. Zaho’s ideas.

So that I can say I am blogging every week I am posting. The end of the quarter always brings more work to do then time to do it. We have extra work to do this time and April, our boss, has given us an extra week. But, we still want to get the report card and quarterlies out as soon as possible. Melinda, Alison and I are still trying to figure out the best way to do this, maybe by the end of the school year we will have a better handle on it. I feel lucky to be working with two great teachers, and three great para-professionals.

The sign-up for the Web 2.0 online workshop is going great. There are 15 signed up in 4 days. If more than 20 sign-up may there is a way to run another session latter in the school year.

I have several blog posts in mind and hope to get to them this weekend. I have been re-reading The World is Flat, 3rd edition, and thinking a lot about where I was 3 years ago when I read the first version and where I am now.

I have been working this weekend to get ready for my turn to do the Web 2.0 online training. I am worried that the 7 session format will not be enough to get teachers started with some Web 2.0 applications. I have sent emails to EDC and DOE about following up with more support and more direct workshop on blogging, wikis, podcasting, etc.

Maybe just getting some teachers to read and write personal blogs will be a start. After a year of my own edtech journey I have come to think that reading and blogging for a couple of months would be a good idea. Edtech has been picking up steam over the last year and newbies would benefit from joining a Virtual Learning Network.

I think I will start by having “students” get a del.icio.us account and joining each others network. Then just read three bloggers and set up Bloglines or Google reader. They need two weeks to complete each assignment, one week is not enough to reflect and absorb all the new information being thrown at them.

I signed up for a class blog at 21classes.com and at classesblogmiester.com. I need to get the PREP program blogging and to have some familiarity with at least 2 blogging platforms before I try to teach.

My wiki is also being updated so that I can use it as a teaching tool with the ETLO class. I need to transfer the wiki class I made for the LPVEC wiki to my wiki so I can share it.

While reading several edtech journals I was struck by the images of students setting in rows behind computer monitors, while at the same time reading articles about how technology is changing education. When a school has desktop boxes and CRT’s there may not be a better choice when you are teaching computer applications. In my classroom there are 6 desktop with CRT’s, and my aid and I each have a computer. They are set against the wall and all networked. I struggle weekly to use the computers as just another tool, like a calculator or pencil, in delivery of the curriculum. There are not enough computers for every student so I have them work in teams.

The last project was using the scientific method, they had to determine which of three paper towels was the most absorbent. I created a classroom wiki with the directions, an outline, and a rubric. Each student had an account to access the wiki and they worked in teams of 3 or 4. These are special ed high school students in a vocational school and they had developed sense of learned helplessness over their years in the  special ed classrooms. I wanted them to begin to take charge of their own learning so other than the directions on the wiki I gave them very little direction. They had to email me or contact me though the discussion function of the wiki. During this time I was in New Mexico for a week and kept in touch through the wiki discussion.

For the first 2 days they just sat at the computers and waited for myself or the aid to help, we just went about our business. When the students would ask specific questions I would answer. They finally finished the project, I had to give them an extra week, and now I want to use some photos I took when they were doing the experiment to make a PowerPoint.

The school does have a computer lab, but I don’t believe the students could have had the same experience their. For one thing just scheduling time in the lab is always a problem. In the classroom I just make the time.  If students had laptops they would always have access to the curriculum, each other, and the world. A few students actually did work on the wiki at home, which is what I encouraged them all to do.

So I guess the computer lab is a first step to integrate technology into the curriculum and I hope it is not the last.

One more week of a 10 week online workshop until I am a certified Web 2.0 trainer. Five states, NY, MA, VA, MD, ME received grant money from AT&T to train 5 teachers in each state to become online trainers of Web 2.0 tools. The training was provided by Educational Development Center.

One aspect of the training that I enjoyed was the virtual meeting of other teachers involved with ed-tech. Many school school systems only have one technology teacher who is so busy they don’t have time to connect with others. I wish I had been able to do more online chatting, but the timing was off. It would have been fun to set up a Skype video cast and practice using some of Skype’s tools.

The training helped us get ready for using online tools for teaching, but there was no training of the use of Web 2.0 tools, it was assumed we were all proficient, which some were not. Even though I have been using web 2.0 for over a year I am continuing to learn. Working with a seasoned blogger would be a great learning experience. Maybe some of the experienced education bloggers could mentor other bloggers who are still learning the craft.

I just hope that school systems and the state DOE continues to support teachers after they complete the initial introduction workshop we will be teaching.

I went to the Christa McAuliffe Tech Conference yesterday for the first time. I usually go to the MassCUE tech conference, but I was in NM at the time. Will Richardson was the keynote and I have to admit I am a bit of a groupie. I don’t know where he gets the energy, traveling from workshop to conference must be tiring. With each workshop I have with Will I come away with a deeper connection with technology and education.

The ETLO workshops will be over soon and the real work of signing up and training other teachers will start. As I was communicating through the wiki with other members of the MA team I felt I was working on an island and wanted more personal connection with other edtech teachers. maybe we can get together this summer for a technology “camp” and emerse ourselves in tool and content. I feel like I am always wanting more time to sit and really work through ideas/connections/tools/curriculum so that it becomes second nature. That is the problem with the Edtech conferences, I get an hour with Will, he touches on a few basic concepts and I have a few notes with ideas, the next time I get real time to set with the ideas and tools may be a month later.

At least it is grist for the blog.

may all being find peace

Sandia Mts. from Rio Grande River

Visited my family in New Mexico two weeks ago (parents and 4 brothers). I was able to record my mom and dad as they told stories about growing up in the ‘20 and 30’s. New Mexico was still the wild west then. I hope to edit and then post some of their stories on this blog, they will enjoy it.

Albuquerque keeps growing and is becoming a mini-LA. Neither Nena or I want to move back there, we enjoy New England too much, give me a blizzard any day over a forest fire and drought.

I tried to contact the edtech teacher at my old high school, Manzano, but he never returned my call or email. They have a connection to a super computer at Los Alamos and it would be fun to see what they are doing with technology.

I successfully completed a Skype video connection with my classroom in MA from NM. The ease of setting up Skype and the webcam is scary. Now the hard part, how to use this technology in the curriculum. A place to start would be to connect classroom within the Collab.

As we work on curriculum development we can identify teachers who have a “best practice” lesson already developed. As we all know , especially in SPED, trying to be an expert in all the curriculum areas is impossible. With Web 2.0 tools we can teach to our strengths and share them with students not in our classroom.

I started this blog post a month ago so I want to finish it and start blogging regularly again. 

The days fly by when 43 high school students come and go through your classroom in a day. At the middle school the regular ed teachers would congratulate me on my ability to work with 8 difficult students. I have always admired teachers who can work with a 100 students a day.

I was able to get rid of the desks in my room and replace them with tables. What a radical idea. The desks were these large metal and plastic traps that gave the room a somber feeling. They were not inviting at all.

The most challenging aspect so far has been to try and meet the individual needs of all the students. Alison, Melinda and I re-shuffled the students into more homogeneous groups and that has made it a little easier. I also decided that most of the students need to develop their basic math skills before moving on. There is a basic math textbook in the classroom, but there are only 10, and it does not include enough repetition for real learning to take place. I have a math series that breaks down basic skills and has plenty of practice. Most of the class has moved through division and is now working on fractions, a few students are still learning their multiplication facts. Three students are “testing out” and moving onto algebra.

Keep moving forward.

Well today I start a new school year in a new classroom in a new school. After 14 years as a teacher in an alternative middle school program, I start work as a math/science/technology teacher in a vocational high school. The AMS classroom had 6-8 students, to whom I taught 5 subjects. The vocational school program has 43 students, but I will only have to teach 2 subjects. I am looking forward to introducing Web 2.0 tools to the vocational classroom and the shop classes. The students split their day between academics and vocational classes. The academic teachers want to work with the vocational teachers to support each other and the students.

I will also be teaching a series of workshops on wikis. The LPVEC wants to begin using more Web 2.0 tools to support the academic and vocational education of students. It will be interesting to see how many ways we can use wikis in the vocational programs.