Checkout Procedures.

A week before school started, I modified an old bookshelf and added some doors to it so I could have a place to store and charge the netbooks.  I labeled all the computers and lined out a space for each of them.  The charging cords were labeled by computer number and came in through some holes I drilled in the back of the shelf.  To be clear, we’re not a 1:1 school and each student does not have his own netbook - they use them when they come to my class.  I teach three different grades, so there are three users (plus a guest and an admin) on each computer.  My original plan was to have students check out their computers from the station at the back of the room when they came into class, then put them back onto the shelf at the end of class.  Even though I had each class broken down into groups for checkout, it ended up being too many bodies in one space grabbing at computers, which wasn’t a good situation.  After the first day of class, I created some satellite stations spread out around the room for students to put the netbooks during the day.  While my homeroom students are still responsible for checking them out/in from the charging station at the beginning and ending of each day, I don’t have to worry about students crowding up around the charging closet every period.  The six cell battery on the netbooks is about perfect for the amount of time we use them during the school day.

Getting everyone’s attention

Having a laptop in front of every student can cause distractions.  I thought that having students close their laptops when I was giving directions or going over something would work just fine to alleviate this problem, but shutting the lids forces the user to put in his password to get going again. This slows things down.   I could probably modify all the settings to fix this, but came up with a simpler solution.  Whenever I need everyone’s attention I do one of two things: 1. Have everyone turn their netbooks around so the screen faces away from them.  2. Have students put both hands in the air or keep their hands down and give me the Buddha pose.  Both have been working well in terms of getting everyone’s attention.

Working through bugs

Being open source, there have been some occasional problems with Ubuntu.  Once in a while the wireless won’t connect or the mousepad gets wonky on one of the computers.  This is usually resolved by restarting the computer, but if the problem persists I have one backup netbook and an old Titanium Powerbook (circa 2001) that works as a print server, but can also handle some lightweight internet tasks.  The problems have become fewer and fewer since I started stressing logout procedures.  Sometimes students closed their netbooks before completely logging out.  The wireless and mouse issues seemed to be caused by multiple users being logged in at one time (netbooks aren’t known for their computing power).

One other problem, unrelated to Ubuntu, are the batteries for the computers.  The batteries work fine, but they have little clips on the bottom that students occasionally knock out of place.  If they hit it just wrong the battery can nudge out of place and the computer shuts off.  Initially, I thought it was the operating system, but then a student noticed that he had undone the clip.  After realizing the real cause of the problem, I started telling the students to be more careful with the battery clips.  While I’ve still had a few students accidentally turn their computers off mid-lesson, most of them are more careful about it.

There are about a million other things that I’ve learned in the first couple weeks with the netbooks, but I’ll save them for later posts.  It’s been a lot of work, but its starting to pay dividends.  I look forward to sharing some more experiences and appreciate any feedback from others in 1:1 environments.

Edublogs, I think, is running Wordpress MU (MU is actually a fully integrated part of Wordpress now).  For certain installations of Wordpress MU, users have to load a special plugin (this link is probably outdated) or change some permissions on the admin end to allow embeds (thanks Jill L. for the tip).  Apparently, Edublogs figured they could get more pro users by turning it off.

The bottom line is that I finally caved and paid the $40 US for Edublogs pro.  I’ll try and get a grant to cover it later because I think I’ll set up student blogs on the platform.  While I thought about moving to another platform (for free), I had a lot of posts and felt invested in the edublog anyway.  It appears that a lot of other sites are looking for revenue in new ways too.  Glogster is advertising heavy for their Pro version and ClassTools.net is now offering an ad-less “Premium” membership.  I use these a lot with my students and really hope the free versions remain without too many things stripped from them.  It’s sad to see great tools moving to paid versions, but I understand the time that goes into creating and maintaining these sites.

Coming in the next 2 or three weeks, however, I’ve got a story from the creator of a site I cherish that has pledged to always remain free.  Stay tuned.

Is anyone else having this issue? I searched around, but couldn’t find anything referencing the same problem.  Iframes work fine on this Wordpress blog (see previous post), though I haven’t updated to the latest version yet. I’m a little worried that it may be the cause of this.

New Features

Crocodoc, luckily, provides a great alternative for schools without Google Docs.  If you’ve never used Crocodoc, it’s very simple - just upload any word, powerpoint, or pdf and share the link with whomever you want to collaborate.  When it first came out, the layout of it made things a little messy when too many users commented.  It also wasn’t as easy to share as it could have been.  I returned to the site in mid-July to find some significant improvements that makes it much more ‘multi-user’ friendly.  The comments have been re-structured so that they all fit into a sidebar (just like the new version of google docs).  You can also add drawings or annotations anywhere on a document.  Best of all you can embed any crocodoc as an editable document or a read-only document.

Educational Applications

For those without Google Docs, Crocodoc is an excellent alternative to emailing Word documents back and forth.  A student can upload a document and share the url with the teacher and/or anyone else with whom they need to collaborate.   It’s also a great way to share things with people who don’t have (or know nothing about) Google Docs.  The interface is very simple and self-explanatory.  I used it in my summer class to get comments on a student use policy that the previous year’s class had created.  See the document below and leave a comment on it if something strikes you. (you will need to click through to see it).

The first new trick comes from Diigo.  If you’ve never used it, Diigo allows you to bookmark, tag, highlight pieces of text, or annotate webpages.  All your highlights and annotations are stored on a single page or you can revisit the original page to review your highlights.  You can share all these highlights and annotations, set up groups, and/or get your whole class signed up with the education edition.  I’ve written about how I use it with students here and here.

Image from diigo.com

Earlier this summer (it wasn’t there in late May) Diigo added a feature that allows you to capture individual images or a specific area (screenshot) of a webpage, then draw or annotate on it.  It stores all these images in your account for access from anywhere.  I’ve found this feature to be extremely helpful when making tutorials for various things.  Before, I would manually take screenshots (Command+Shift+4 on a mac) and then add arrows and explanations to the images on a PowerPoint or Google Doc.    Now, I just click on the pictures, add an arrow or two, make my annotations, and I’m done. All the tools for this reside in your Firefox or Chrome toolbar.

Sample Tutorial (made with Diigo Screenshots)

In three weeks (3 hours each day), we work to accomplish three main goals:

1. Build a toolbox of tech applications and strategies to use in the classroom.

2. Implement the tools and strategies by teaching a lesson and adjusting to unforeseen complications.

3. Establish a PLN to continue learning and adjusting to an ever changing educational landscape.

Week 1

The first week of class is a very fast paced. We look at a lot of different apps (see the list), but I never show an app without an actual example of how it has been used in the

classroom by my students or in other schools.  One of the most important first week changes I made from last summer was introducing Delicious as part of the opening activity for the class.  Last year, I didn’t introduce Delicious until the third day and students were losing track of everything we covered.  This year, I had students tag themselves - literally (a get to know you activity), and that led into how to use Delicious.  It made a huge difference.  From there we moved into Google Docs and some common errors teachers (see student sample) make using technology. The highlight of the week was on Wednesday when I had some of my middle school students come in to show the graduate students how to use Prezi, Diigo, and Glogster (tools we use regularly in my room).  Near the end of the week I used blockposters.com to create a huge poster of a picture I made.  The theme of the poster was all about brickiness and contained Wordles of student ideas for brick uses and many of the sites/ideas that we covered during the week (see above).

Week 2

The second week of the class was all about teaching (the video below is a compilation of the students/teachers in the class made with the youtube video editor).  We started off the week with a work day and I had one of my local edutech friends Barb (@BarbInNebraska) join the class and provide some more help and ideas, particularly for those in the elementary track.

The rest of the week was run by the students, who created/taught a tech infused lesson, hosting their content on the class wiki.  During the lesson, the audience assumed the role of whatever grade level/class the teacher was teaching.  At some point, in each lesson, I threw a wrench in the works that the teacher had to adjust too (students on bad website, internet goes down, general unruliness, can’t figure it out).  It usually started small, but the ’students’ really grew into their roles and the teachers had to be on their toes.  I recorded each lesson and the students reflected on it and peer feedback submitted via google forms.  You can view them on my YouTube channel here.

Week 3

During the final week of class we covered a range of topics from student use contracts and copyright to establishing a Personal Learning Network.  We also got to play with some mobile devices (iPods) and discuss how they can by used in the classroom.  On the final Wednesday, I was very fortunate to have Kevin H Skype into our class to discuss his views on the role of technology in education.  Kevin is one of my favorite bloggers and does great work with web-comics and stop-motion movies.  It was a great conversation and helped to drive home the value of a PLN.  Earlier in the week I’d made a starter bundle of blogs for the class (I showed them how to add a subscription with Kevin’s blog) and the students were somewhat amazed at how easy it was to connect with other educators.  Last year, I didn’t bring in any outside speakers into the class and regretted it.  Bringing in the extra people added a lot to the class and I plan to continue it in the future.

Class ended this past Friday and I felt satisfied with the whole effort.  Students left the class with a stuffed toolbox and created a website (see list) where they can host all the new things they and their students create (student reflection sample).  They’ve also got a grant written that they can submit during the year to add some more tools to their classroom.  Finally, we all have a new group of colleagues to collaborate with in the future. It was a lot of fun.

Mr. Connelly did pretty much everything at our little school.  He arrived at 5:30 am daily and greeted the first arrivals by 6:15  so that their parents could make it to work on time.  In the winter he shoveled the snow on the front walk and in the spring he trimmed the bushes.  He supervised breakfast and lunch every day, drove the school van for field trips, and filled in for our after school tutoring program.  In addition to all his principal duties, he taught 5th grade math and served as a pseudo athletic director for all the extra-curricular activities at our school.  As part of recruitment, he does a home visit for every student that attends our school - no small task.  Mr. Connelly continues to do all these things and much more, but one thing he doesn’t do is technology.

While he’s a master two finger typist and gets around email all right, I don’t think he’d be able to say much of anything about Web 2.0.  To some in the edublogosphere this is practically a mortal sin.  “How could an effective administrator not embrace technology?,” they ask.  The answer to me is simple - technology has nothing to do with the effectiveness of an administrator.  Mr. Connelly was a great principal because of the relationships he built with our families and the atmosphere of excellence he fostered among the staff.  He gave us freedom to try new things and set school-wide goals that led to innovation.  Without those relationships and openness to new ideas, our school would be a very different place.  So next time you read someone lamenting the lack of tech-spertise among administration, keep in mind that a web-savvy, web 2.0 expert isn’t necessarily going to create a change for good - the relationships have to come first.

We’re a long ways from the Gulf here in Nebraska, but that didn’t stop us from experimenting with some ways to clean it up. After a little research, the students came up with a few solutions of their own and we worked on how we might apply them based on the supplies we had available. Armed with my 3 year old’s pool (4 ft. diameter), some sand, a small boat, some motor oil, and a cardboard recreation of the Deep Water Horizon we went the back parking lot and tested the students’ creation.

The students came up with five different (testable) solutions. One student used an old bike tire inner-tube as a boom to corral the oil into a specific area. Though he didn’t have a way to get rid of the oil once he’d collected it, the boom was pretty effective at rounding up the oil into one place. The next effort, requested by several students, was to burn it. I was about 98% sure this wouldn’t work in our experiment (a student later discovered that motor oil won’t ignite until it hits 200+ degrees Celsius), but we gave it a go anyway. The students were excited to play with matches, though I insisted on lighting them, just in case. While the burning solution fizzled quickly in our test, the next student’s solution did slightly better. He used some of the powdery stuff normally reserved for vomit incidents in the classroom. It appeared to clump up a few spots of oil, but the clumps quickly sank to the bottom, which made it a little impractical. Another student used a toy suction device, but it didn’t do much either. By far the most effective was an absorbent boom made of nylons with sponges stuffed inside. It absorbed a fairly significant amount of oil and was fairly easy to attach to our toy boat.

After finishing our experiment and rating the success of each strategy, we went back inside and discussed the large scale feasibility of the various solutions. Looking at a map of where the oil was and comparing it to the scale of our experiment helped the students see just how daunting a task cleaning up all the oil is. Nevertheless, they were energized and requested to try their experiments in a bigger pool. While we probably won’t be able to test their oil busting ideas on a larger scale, the students were excited by the potential for their solutions. It was an exciting and messy day, but an inspiring one none the less. Though none of their ideas were major breakthroughs, cleaning up all that oil needs some “bricky” ideas. Those ideas may come from places we least expect.

We recently finished our second week of summer school and the brick concept is one that I’ve used to shape the three week experience. While the official content areas I’m teaching (along with some excellent student teachers) are math and science, I like to refer to the courses as Advanced Problem Solving. Each day, I present the students with a unique problem. The students have been working on various computer programs, wiring dilemmas (electricity), and most recently - solar ovens. For the most part, I throw a bunch of supplies at the students (or student teachers :-), give some vague goals, and let them have at it. In the case of the solar ovens, I brought in some boxes, foil, and box of junk. The goal was simple - make it get as hot as possible.

For two and a half periods, the students researched designs, cut, folded, and taped their boxes into various configurations. In my box of junk, some students found old cds and mirrors, which they fastened to the boxes to help focus sunlight. Another student brought in the top of a doughnut box, that had a clear plastic cover to help trap heat. Another student used an old piece of broken, rigid plastic as his transparent heat container. Our first test was foiled by a huge row of clouds that blocked out the sun for most of the period. The second day, we took the boxes to the roof and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The results were mixed, but awesome. One of the boxes reached 230 degrees Fahrenheit, while another hit 180. A few of the others got up to 120-130 degrees and one box fell over. The next day, for fun, we took the solar ovens back to the roof with some hot dogs. While the wind messed up a few of the ovens, a couple students (one who’s oven had blown over the day before) cooked their hot dogs to edibility.

It was an example of what I’ve decided to refer to as “brickiness” - using something for an unintended purpose. Over the next several posts, I’ll try and highlight some more tales of brickiness. The java slideshow (not flash - it will work on ipods and probably feed readers) above is another example. It took me a little playing to make it work, but I’ll write more about it later. If you think the brick idea is cool - let me know.

Update: Apparently, my work around to make the slideshow work in feed readers didn’t take - click through to see or gander at the picture below.

After finishing up some equations work today, one of the student teachers told me about Math-Play.com.  One of the games (among many others) has the user solve equations of varying difficulty levels.  After completing a certain number, the user gets the opportunity to shoot a basket. It was very cool and a great extension for the lesson.  The students really enjoyed it and were challenging each other to get more correct.

Two Step Equation Game