always learning

Once again, this school year is shaping up to be my busiest yet! (Seriously, how is it even possible to be any busier?)

In addition to moving into a slightly new role and continuing to teach courses for our SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy, I’m also very excited to be involved in a number of EARCOS weekend workshops around the Asia region.

All of these workshops are open for registration now and we would absolutely love to have participants from schools all over the region (and beyond!). We’re just starting to promote them (with the exception of the Flat Classroom Workshop) so please spread the word around your school!

The Flat Classroom Workshop at Hong Kong International School: September 16 – 19, 2009
Workshop Leaders: Julie Lindsay and Kim Cofino

The Flat Classroom Workshop is a 2.5 day strand of the 21 Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong. The aim of the workshop is to bring together geographically dispersed teachers and students with a view to learning about Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools in a flattened learning environment while working on a project theme that can be transplanted back into their home school. The selected theme will inspire unity and action as well as fostering continued connections after the event in Hong Kong.

It is envisaged this will improve global understanding and cement friendships for ongoing collaborations. It is also envisaged that this will provide an opportunity for students and teachers together to “create the future” of education by employing best-practice use of emerging technologies, including mobile computing. Through exploration of a global or social issue and developing an “action” plan to work globally to overcome this, participants, both local and virtual, will model “flat classroom” modes of learning.

Garage Band for Beginners at the International School Bangkok: November 14 – 15, 2009
Workshop Leaders: Vincent Bullen and Kim Cofino

This hands-on workshop is geared toward teachers who have little or no experience working with Garage Band and will be ideal for elementary classroom teachers and music specialists. We will highlight classroom projects and upon completion you will walk away with the skills and knowledge necessary to integrate Garage Band with your class.

Garage Band is a powerful and user-friendly software program that allows you to create soundtracks, accompaniments, podcasts, and much more. During this course you will learn how to

• create musical projects (even if you don’t play an instrument),
• involve and inspire your students creativity,
• create podcasts,
• add effects,
• how to export and share your projects.

Create the Future: Become a 21st Century Learner at Beijing (BISS) International School: January 16 – 17, 2010
Workshop Leaders: Julie Lindsay and Kim Cofino

Embrace Web 2.0, 1:1 and online learning in conjunction with multimedia for your classroom through this project-based workshop. A hands-on approach is emphasized with opportunities for learners at all levels to explore, discuss and model 21st Century pedagogy using digital tools. Break out sessions will include personal learning network and digital portfolio development, digital citizenship best practice and Web 2.0 toolbox. Participants will also work in teams on “flat classroom” objectives including Web 2.0 skill building, global collaboration and project management. This workshop is designed to open doors to new modes of teaching and learning and focus on the learner (teacher an student) as communicator, collaborator and creator.

TechTrain 2010: Beginners Learning Technology Together at the International School Bangkok: January 30 – 31, 2010
Workshop Leaders: Tara Ethridge, Kim Cofino, Chrissy Hellyer, Dennis Harter

TechTrain 2010 is an EARCOS weekend workshop hosted at the Interantional School Bangkok, Thailand on January 30 – 31, 2010. The goal is to bring together beginning technology users to help build their understanding of digital tools and how they can be used to enhance the learning experience in the classroom. We are hoping a workshop at the beginning level will appeal to those teachers that want to get started using technology in their classroom, but don’t really know where to start. We want to make sure that the weekend is focused on actually producing something that can be used in the classroom on Monday, and that most of the sessions are hands on, allowing teachers to actually use these digital tools with support.

Last week Jeff and I presented one of the final keynotes, entitled Moving A Community Forward, for the 2009 Webheads in Action Online Convergence. Not only was it a blast doing the presentation with Jeff, but it turned out to be a great reflection on what we’ve accomplished at ISB this year and what some of our next steps could be for the 2009-10 school year.

The goal of our presentation was to address the needs of the various stakeholders in a typical school community when attempting to effect change.

We covered 4 groups: Parents, Teachers, Students and Admin. As we looked at each group, we shared strategies we’ve been using here at ISB (both successful and unsuccessful) and also brainstormed some new initiatives we are thinking about for the next school year.

Although you can watch the whole presentation here (and below), I thought it would be worthwhile to post some of our key points here on the blog just in case you don’t want to watch the entire, hour-long, session. Hopefully this overview of what’s worked for us will also be helpful for others!

Moving a Community Forward Presentation Notes:

Parent Community:

Over the last two years, we’ve been working on building a strong home-school partnership around 21st century learning. We are making a concerted effort to involve more and more parents in both formal and informal events to support the exciting changes their children are experiencing in the classroom.

Parent Technology Coffee Mornings

We started with our Parent Technology Coffee Mornings early last school year. These are monthly meetings open to all elementary school parents, facilitated by me, Jeff and Tara. We usually show an engaging, short video about changes in society (I’ll put up a list of all the videos we’ve shown this year soon) and then spend about an hour discussing the impact on education. We have a group of dedicated parents who show up every month and we post the most interesting points of our discussion (along with a link to the video) on our Connect 2.0 blog.

Although these started out very informally last year, we’ve had requests to share the topics in advance and have started promoting the monthly sessions well in advance to encourage more parents to attend. We’ve already outlined all of our sessions for next year and have shared an overview with our parent community.

Inside.ISB Communication Portal

More and more of our teachers are choosing to share classroom events via a blog (instead of a Friday newsletter), and in order to make that communication as streamlined as possible, we’ve created a parent communication portal using WordPress MultiUser (WPMU). All of our teacher blogs can now be found on Inside.ISB for easy parent access.

Parent Trainings

Over this past school year, we’ve implemented PantherNet (our Moodle), PowerSchool, My.ISB (Elgg), and Inside.ISB. In order to help parents cope with the influx of digital environments that their students are regularly involved in, we’ve started running more formal parent trainings.

So far these have been scheduled during the school day with parents signing up in advance, but we’re hoping to also offer some in the evenings next school year. Considering that our school is in the suburbs, we’re also thinking of offering some sessions downtown so that parents don’t have to wrestle with Bangkok traffic in the evening.

Next Steps: Advisory Committee

During our Main Library External Audit visit by Doug Johnson and Ann Krembs, they recommended that we develop a Technology Advisory Committee comprised of several members of our ISB21 team, teachers, parents, students and administrators in order to ensure that all stakeholders have a say in the decision making process. There is no way we can truly meet the needs of our entire community without involving them at the ground level.

Student Community:

We’ve been working hard for the last few years to ensure that our students have the opportunity to interact with their peers both within school and around the world in a variety of authentic and engaging ways.

Developing a Global Audience

At almost every grade level (PK-12), our students are involved in projects that connect them with the wider world. Although both Jeff and I work at the elementary level, innovative teachers at all grade levels are incorporating global projects into their classroom curriculum.

Student Authored Blogs

Beginning with fifth grade, all students at ISB will be part of our student-blogging portal through Inside.ISB. With our new grade 5 Digital Literacy unit of study, blogging will become an integral part of our language arts curriculum. We’re hoping to use these student blogs as learning portfolios that can be continued from one grade to the next, as well as a forum to share, reflect, and communicate with a global audience.

YouTube Channel & Facebook Alumni Group

In order to take advantage of two of the most popular social media platforms, we have created both a YouTube channel and collaborated with the creators of the FB Alumni group.

Next Steps: Student Tech Team

Along with our parent community, we are looking to involve students more directly in our decision making process. We would also love to develop a student tech team to help support the entire school community in their technology needs.

Teacher Community:

LAN Parties

Earlier this year, Chrissy and I started hosting Local Area Network parties around the K12Online08 presentations. We held several of these sessions in various teacher’s homes throughout the city, watching one or two presentations each time, along with hosting a special guest via Skype for each session. At each session we had about 10 – 12 ISB teachers excited to learn something new about technology.

Early Adopter Group & Elgg Network

After seeing the sucess of the LAN parties, we decided to create an Early Adopter Group for our super “techie” teachers at ISB. We wanted to provide a place for those teachers to collaborate and communicate across divisions (somewhat difficult at a school as big as ISB), and offer them the support they need to continue to innovate and assist their colleagues in each division. As part of this team, we created an Elgg group to encourage the networked learning to continue beyond school hours.

Regular PD

As part of our professional development opportunities for all teachers at ISB, we offer informal tech support sessions 2 – 3 days a week, after school. We’ve tried a number of formats, from discussion-based Wired Wednesday, to walk-in/walk-out Personal Tech Support, and are always willing to adapt to the needs of our teachers. We have also worked hard to ensure that each of our grade level teams (in the elementary) includes a member of the ISB21 team.

Faculty Meetings

We’ve been extremely lucky to facilitate 2 ES faculty meetings this school year. One of our main goals at each meeting was to highlight and showcase the fantastic work of our amazing ES teachers. Both meetings featured a structured rotation, including Speed Geeking, for teachers to experience a sneak peak into some of the exciting projects our teachers and students are working on. Although these meetings are short (around an hour), they’ve been a great way to promote success and to spread new ideas throughout the faculty in a viral way.

SUNY Course

In another amazing stroke of luck, we have been able to offer a 15-credit, 5-course Certificate in Educational Technology and Information Literacy (CoETaIL) to our faculty as part of a longer (30-credit) Master’s degree through SUNY Buffalo. We have over 40 teachers involved in the certificate program, including 4 teachers newly recruited to ISB in January. Considering the extensive time commitment, we are so proud to have such a large percentage of our faculty dedicated to learning together.

Next Steps: IETPs for Teachers

In order to build on the groundswell that we have started in the last few years, and to formalize the changes we’re implementing, our next step is to develop Individual Educational Technology Plans for our teachers. We will start with all of our new teachers, as well as a group of volunteers (as part of the final course in our CoETaIL program) in the next school year.

Admin Community:

Present at Leadership Team (LT) Meetings

Over the past two years, we have been invited to present formally at the ISB Leadership Team meetings. These presentations are our change to share our learning and recommendations with the higher school administration.

Continued Conversations

Outside of formal meeting times, we make an effort to continue the process of relationship building through casual and frequent conversation with our school leaders.

Sharing Resources

We regularly share blog posts, articles, websites, videos, and a whole host of resources with our admin team. Often these items prompt further discussion in meetings or casual conversation. The goal is always to keep learning.

Present to School Board

As a result of our successful LT meeting presentations, we were asked to present to the school board this year, which ended up in a decision to modify our school vision to reflect our ISB21 philosophy.

Next Steps: Tie Parent Community to Admin Community

In order to continue moving forward we know that we will need more than just teacher voices promoting change. We would like to work closely with our parent community to enlist their help in pushing our school community forward. It is the voices of the parents that most often and most successfully bring about change in schools.

Final Thoughts

Of course, not everything we’ve done has gone perfectly, or according to plan. We are always revising, re-thinking, and reflecting as the year progresses. These are just a few of our favorite initiatives in order to give us something to think about as we begin to plan for the 2009-10 school year.

What has worked well in your school in your efforts to move your community forward?

Full Presentation:

Moving a Community Forward by jutecht on Flickr

It’s that time of year again. The time when all fifth graders start worrying about moving up to sixth grade. The transition from top of the elementary school to bottom of the middle school is not an easy one to make, as I so clearly remember.

So, as part of our CoETaIL course 2, Chrissy, Diane and I have developed a fun, quick and simple project to help ease the transition to middle school for our grade fives. Last year Diane and I did a very similar project with her ESL students and it was a huge hit!

One important facet of the project is to realize that all fifth graders around the world are going through the same challenges, so, as one aspect of the project, we have created a very simple VoiceThread (and wiki) and would love to have other students contribute and share their concerns:

We would absolutely love it if you and your students would be willing to share their thoughts about moving on to sixth grade with us! If you’re interested, please add your info here or leave a comment on this post and we’ll contact you directly.

There are a few things I particularly love about this project

• The emphasis on natural conversation, which is really difficult for grade 5 students when working from a script and recording themselves (as you can hear when listening to our excellent, but very scripted grade 5 podcasts).
• The focus on bringing in our students’ individual cultures and personal experiences by asking them to reflect on a specific inspirational saying in their first language. I have this vision of the conversation our students are having with their parents when they ask them about inspirational sayings and how this can help them deal with the challenges they might face in life.
• The looks on the students faces when they realize kids all around the world have the same concerns as they do, that we’re all the same in so many ways.

Just in case you’re interested, here’s our UbD unit planner for grade 5 core classroom and ESL pull-out:

Established Goals

ESL specific

• Extend oral language through conversation
• Build confidence with oral language, especially in a conversational format

Grade 5

• Retain natural fluency during presentations and/or recording
• Build confidence to engage in spontaneous dialogue based on focused topics

Both

• Develop and uncover strategies to cope with life changes, through the lens of transitioning to sixth grade

Enduring Understandings

• Conversational language is crucial to efficient and clear communication
• Conversational dialogue requires all participants to be responsive
• We all have cultural teachings to draw upon when facing difficult situations

Essential Questions

• Why is conversational language important to communication?
• How can we improve our conversational language?
• How can the words of wise people help us discover changes we can make within ourselves?

GRASPS Task

Goal: You will produce a podcast that showcases strategies, teachings, inspirational sayings and experiences to help fifth grade students succeed in sixth grade around the world.

Role: You will work in teams to research, author, record and broadcast your podcast

Audience: Students moving on around the world though iTunes, class blog, and the internet.

Situation: You are moving on to sixth grade and need a variety of strategies, teachings, inspirational sayings and experiences that will help you succeed.

Product Performance: Your podcast will be posted on the class blog and on iTunes. A successful podcast will include:

• Strong, clear speaking voice
• Modulated voice with emotion and emphasis
• Teachings or inspirational sayings that can directly provide guidance for students transitioning to sixth grade
• 3 strategies linked to an experience that sixth graders will have designed to help fifth graders succeed
• A written script with proper grammar
• Engaging language, intro & outro, and audio enhancements.

Extension:

• Video podcast
• Adding still images to the podcast
• Personal podcast

Six Facets of Understanding

Explain: After completing a self-assessment of your oral language (through GB recording), explain which areas you, personally, need to improve upon, why and how you will you have improved.

Interpret: Share an inspirational saying via the class blog (in translation if not in English) and describe a personal experience when this saying was beneficial. Sayings could include personal images, or audio recordings.

Apply: Collaborate with partner classes around the world to produce a VoiceThread describing the challenges and opportunities of moving on, as well as find commonalities among all students.

Perspective: Listen to a “real” podcast or book about a life change (anything that can be found and is appropriate). Discuss as a class, or in partners, how the broadcaster or author coped with the change using strategies, inspirational sayings or teachings.

Self-Knowledge: Personal Action Plan: Begin with a personal reflection of a similar experience to determine your successful coping strategies, develop an action plan to put those strategies, along with the new ones learned during this unit, into practice next year.

Empathize: In partners, role-play the first day of school – one person is the teacher, one is the student. Reflect on the experience with your partner.

Final Thoughts

We would love for you to join us in this project! Please feel free to leave a comment here or add your school to the wiki. We’ll be working on the VoiceThread during the last week of May, but please feel free to add your comments whenever you’re ready!

Last week Tara, Jeff and I had our second opportunity of the year to organize and facilitate an elementary faculty meeting. We absolutely love having this dedicated time with our colleagues to help build a deeper understanding of 21st century literacy at ISB and to share practical examples of authentic use of technology here in our elementary classrooms.

As always, our goal was to continue building a collaborative community, to develop connections among faculty at different grade levels, and to allow teachers to have time to network and share ideas. Thanks to @FrznGuru (Rebecca), we had a great way to structure that experience: SpeedGeeking!

Basically, SpeedGeeking is just like Speed Dating – a way to quickly introduce people to a wide variety of new ideas in a short amount of time. Since we have a large faculty – over 70 teachers – we knew this would have to be a very organized and structured experience, otherwise it would drift into chaos.

We decided to have 12 four-minute SpeedGeeking sessions split into 2 groups (one group has six sessions, the other group has the other six sessions). This way, we could make the most of our limited time, enable as many teachers to share their successful experiences as possible, keep the group sizes limited, and ensure that not every teacher saw the exact same sessions (so they are encouraged to keep talking about what they saw after the meeting).

We also made sure that we organized the SpeedGeeking groups in advance, so they could move from table to table together and were mixed between two different grade levels. This way we had half of one grade level viewing one set of SpeedGeeking sessions and the other half viewing the other set (to encourage further conversation). We were careful to match up the sessions on each side so that each group had a session on podcasting, portfolios, VoiceThread, SmartBoards, and 2 sessions on our ETC wrap-up.

As usual, we posted our agenda online (and e-mailed the link the day before) so that teachers could know what to expect before arriving, and so that all of the work that was shared in the sessions could be accessed at any point before or after the meeting (if available online).

In order to create a positive environment, we started the meeting off with this quote:

Unfortunately, we actually lost power due to a major storm right before the meeting so we weren’t able to project the image. Thankfully, everyone had their laptops, so they could follow along with us via the agenda.

Next we transitioned into our SpeedGeeking experience. We had two large rectangles made up of 6 tables each on either side of the room. Each table was numbered and had a specific group of teachers (linked on the agenda) selected to start there. Once one 4-minute SpeedGeeking session was finished, the group of teachers seated together at their first table moved together to the next numbered table in line.

Here’s what each SpeedGeeking session was about:

Circle One:
1. Chrissy: ePortfolios using VoiceThread
2. Siri: SmartBoards
3. EARCOS: Diane
4. EARCOS: Peach
5. Susi: Class Wiki
6. Robin & Ali: Robin’s Class Blog,Ali’s Class Blog, (planning document, Podcasting Power)

Circle Two:
1. Brian: SmartFolios
2. EARCOS: Mary
3. Vince: GarageBand
4. Rebecca: Sprouting Seeds VoiceThread
5. James: Class Wiki
6. EARCOS: Jim

We used Jeff’s iPhone timer to clock each session and had a cute cow-bell sound to signify the end of each session (found on Free Sound, my new favorite place for Creative Commons licensed sounds). Thankfully my laptop was fully charged and Jeff had his laptop-powered speakers so we basically did the whole 30 minute SpeedGeeking session in the dark!

Once we finished SpeedGeeking, we asked teachers to discuss at their tables anything that sparked their interest for about 3 minutes, and then had tables share back to the larger group (if they wanted to).

The buzz in the room was amazing! Teachers were visibly excited and energized by the discussion and it was obvious that everyone found at least one thing that sparked their interest in the 30-minute session.

Finally, we wanted to end on a light-hearted note, and thankfully the power came back on just in time, so we watched the video Everything is Amazing, Nobody’s Happy (sorry, embedding is disabled, you’ll have to click on the link to watch). Of course, the video was a hit.

When we ended the meeting, I was encouraged to see just how many teachers stayed afterward discussing the ideas they had heard, asked us for assistance in trying something new, or just stopped by to say how successful the meeting had been.

This is the second time we’ve organized a sharing meeting like this for our faculty, and although both have gone well, this one was the better by far! Here’s why I liked it:

• Because we had so many groups, we were able to highlight so many teachers – we made sure to have some specialists present, as well as some teachers who had never worked with technology in their classroom before this year.
• We enabled teachers to interact with others outside of their grade level. It’s amazing how rarely teachers get the opportunity to just talk with teachers outside of their team.
• We focused on the positive, on the commonalities among our colleagues, on the successes that we all have in our classrooms every day. Sure, we can all be doing things better, but that doesn’t mean that amazing things aren’t happening already.
• We empowered others who are not normally highlighted and we helped build networks and infrastructure for supporting teachers who may need assistance.
• We laughed, a lot, together. How often can you say that about a faculty meeting?

And, what I loved the most about this meeting is that I never, ever could have organized it by myself. It was the power of the team: Jeff, Tara and Kim, that made this meeting so successful. Without Tara, we could have forgotten how important it is to make people feel comfortable, supported and appreciated. Without Jeff, we could have forgotten about the fun and the levity and the big picture. Without me, it might not have been quite so organized and smooth. Man, I love my team!

How have you helped share successes in your school? What should we do for our next faculty meeting (assuming we’ll be asked to organize another one in the future)?

Teaching is Not Rocket Science by shareski

After having the pleasure of teaching the first course in our 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy, I’m now participating in the second course as a student. I’m really interested (and excited) to see what this course looks like from the “other side of the room.” I think it will give me a better understanding of what participants are looking for, and will hopefully open my eyes to improved teaching and learning strategies for adults.

It’s been around two years since I’ve taken a graduate course, and my last one was taught by two of my absolutely favorite instructors, Bill and Ochan Powell, so it will be very interesting to see how our style compares to classes I remember being so beneficial and productive (and by “our,” I mean all of the CoETaIL teachers, since we planned the 5-course certificate program together).

This second course is led by Jeff and Chad and focuses on issues and problems in 21st century learning (digital citizenship, digital footprints, safety, privacy, etc). In retrospect, it’s actually perfect that we have this course second, because these were the issues that were really coming to the forefront of our discussions at the end of the first course. It will be good to spend an entire 6 weeks discussing the challenges we all face with technology and learning.

Each week, course participants are asked to write one blog post about our essential question of the week. Since I’m late (as usual) with this post, it’s been fantastic to read some of the other participants’ thoughts on the topic and I’ve shared quite a few within Google Reader. This week’s prompt is:

When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

This quote from Seth Godin, perfectly and Zen-tastically represented here by Michael Marlatt, sums up my thoughts about digital footprints in general:

As Silvia stated in her presentation (about backchannel chats in the classroom), having a digital footprint is a good thing! You are in charge of your presence on the web – it’s up to you to make it what you want it to be. Presenting yourself as yourself, sharing your thoughts, developing deeper understandings about your professional learning, is what your digital footprint should (and can) be about. Learning and professionalism online is now viewed with the mindset of: you are what you share.

Your digital profile should be a representation of who you are, with the knowledge that you are responsible for that representation. If you choose to use rude language, post angry or consistently negative statements, continually share information that is a little too personal (I consider “too personal” to be anything I wouldn’t tell my employer), your digital footprint will represent that side of you.

It’s certainly worth your energy to think about the way you represent yourself – because your next employer will most likely start with a quick Google search to determine who you are… I know I want those search results to be something I expect, value, and would like to share with a larger audience (and specifically prospective employers).

All of our students must have the opportunity to truly understand this new digital landscape. The stories of students getting rejected from university due to their Facebook profiles, or people losing their jobs due to quick and thoughtless tweets are scary, sure, but do students really understand how this will directly impact their lives? I know at least one teacher in the international school circuit that was fired for posting inappropriate material on one of their web sites. I know I don’t want that to be me!

So, have you decided? Who do you want your “digital me” to be?

Once again, I must admit that I feel quite lucky to be working at the elementary level. As much as I enjoy working with middle school students and teachers, I am realizing more and more that elementary is the place to instill good habits with technology.

Students are much more open to advice and suggestions from their teachers, parents are much more involved in their child’s schooling, and the elementary classroom is usually the place where students are learning to learn with these new tools for the first time. This is the time to instill safe habits.

By middle and high school, it may be too late. Students have already formed their opinions, habits are already in place, and they definitely are a lot less interested in discussing their online life with their teachers (and parents) than they would be in elementary school.

With that in mind, it’s equally important that elementary teachers are comfortable and confident discussing these kinds of issues with their students. We’ve recently had an epidemic of inappropriate (student-produced) material (nothing too serious, but also nothing we can condone at the school) being housed on the server accounts of elementary students.

When my principal asked what we can do about this, my first piece of advice was to have our students physically sign our Elementary School Acceptable Use Policy (if they don’t sign it, there’s no guarantee that they – or their parents – have even seen it) along with an in-depth discussion about appropriate online behavior in every classroom in our elementary school at the beginning of the school year.

To actually do this, we need every teacher to understand the implications of the AUP and to feel comfortable enough discussing it with their class. This is no small task.

Hosting appropriate files on the school’s server is an excellent, somewhat safer, learning experience for students to truly understand the impact of their digital footprint. If they are creating and saving inappropriate material on their school account, what are they doing online? And who’s watching them there?

When do you begin talking with students about their digital footprint?

The Age of Candid Camera image courtesy of Michael Marlatt
Silvia Tolisano image courtesy of Teaching Sagittarian (but I believe, taken by me!)

Three of our wonderful grade 5 classrooms (Chrissy, Robin and Ali) have been collaborating all year on a Reader’s and Writer’s workshop project with 4 other schools around the world.

We initially made the connection because we were looking for a meaningful, year-long, collaboration based on our curricular focus for the year (Reader’s Workshop). Luckily, we were able to find four schools using the same curriculum structure to teach reading and writing.

We started the year (and the project) by sharing student writing and reading and commenting on each other’s blog posts. However, one of our major goals for the project was to develop a weekly, entirely student-produced, podcast focused on reading strategies called Students Teaching Students.

Considering none of us here at ISB have ever done a regular podcast with students, we knew it might take a while to get it off the ground, but we wanted to make sure it was meaningful, appropriate, and authentic use of the technology to enhance our curricular goals.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve finally gotten the podcasting part of the project off the ground. It was surprisingly easy!

Here’s what we did to get started:

Chrissy, Robin, Ali and I spent some time brainstorming the steps that students would need to go through to produce a thoughtful podcast on a weekly basis – and how to make it practical within our laptop cart teaching environment.

We decided that we would use our student book club groups for the current Historical Fiction unit as the podcasting groups. Each week one group would produce a podcast during Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop time. To help ensure they are able to produce their podcast independently, we provided a checklist of steps.

Once we had the process organized, we introduced the idea to the students over two lessons.

During the first lesson we listened to a sample podcast (I chose a language-learning podcast so that students would be able to focus on the introduction and the features of the podcast instead of the content).

As we listened, students were asked to think about the different features of the podcast. They then brainstormed in teams what makes a good podcast. We came up with this list:

• Exciting, catchy, but short, musical introduction.
• Music is quiet while speaking.
• Clear introduction of each speaker, all guests, the “big idea” of the podcast, this episode number & title, and the topic of this episode.
• The speaker uses enthusiasm and excitement in their loud, clear voice.
• Use first names only.
• The show should sound like a conversation between podcasters.
• Keep it interesting for the listener.
• Stay focused (when writing your script & when recording).
• Everyone in the group needs to have a speaking part in the script.

Once we had an idea of what a good podcast sounds like, we talked about the quality of the intro and outro music. Students were given the challenge of creating their own intro and outro music for the entire class’ podcast based on the criteria we brainstormed:

• catchy
• calm – not distracting
• not too loud
• fades out at the end
• fast-ish to get listeners excited
• include a catch phrase (optional)
• relate to our topic – gives a feeling for our topic
• less than 30 seconds (including any catch phrases)

They spent about 30 minutes using Garage Band (which they had previously learned about in music class thanks to another fantastic teacher, Vince) creating either an intro or an outro (in small teams or individually). At the end of the lesson, we voted on which songs would be used for the entire class.

Once we had our music for our class podcast, we were ready to practice creating a podcast to learn how the different tools work and to go through the process of brainstorming an idea, writing a script, producing a podcast, and exporting the file into proper format.

We spent an entire language arts block (1.5 hours) going through the process, following the checklist. Here’s how we broke it down:

15 minutes to brainstorm an idea for the podcast. All groups had to create a podcast for students learning how to be a better reader using the different Reader’s Workshop Strategies they had learned that week. Once they chose a strategy, they had to be able to explain it and share how it helped them read their current book.

45 minutes to write a script following this basic outline which we brainstormed and agreed upon at the beginning of the lesson:

• Welcome to Room 229’s Historical Fiction Podcast Series
• Episode Title: This is Episode 1
• This episode is brought to you by:
• Introduction of podcast (what is this podcast about for first time listeners)
• Introduction of cast (speakers)
• Introduce the book (or series of books) you’re reading
• Introduce the Reader’s Strategy that you’re going to be talking about
• Describe the strategy
• Explain how you used the strategy to help you read this book
• Share examples
• Closing
• Looking forward to learning with you next week

20 minutes to record their podcast (no editing due to time constraints).

At the end of the lesson, we listened to all the trial podcasts to share constructive feedback for each group.

I was very impressed with the quality of podcasts that the students were able to produce in such a short time frame, especially for their very first experience!

Since this trial run, student podcasts have been produced in small groups, one group per week, during the Reader’s Workshop time. We even decided to create our own channel on iTunes to share our podcasts with our global partners (and anyone else who’s interested in Reader’s Workshop strategies)!

Overall, this was a surprisingly easy project to put into place. I’m always a little intimidated and nervous when I try something new, but this ended up being even easier than I expected. Garage Band is so easy to use, the students were so excited to share their learning, the book groups were such a natural fit for creating podcasts, and uploading the files to a podcasting host (G-cast) and then creating the iTunes channel were a breeze!

Although we’ve only really just gotten started, I can already see how powerful this process will be for our students. Since I’m a newbie at podcasting, what else should we be doing?

Apparently I am embarking on a very modest consulting career.

Last year, Julie Lindsay invited me to spend 2 days at her school, Qatar Academy, working with the Primary School teachers on 21st century learning. Amazingly, that visit went so well that she invited me back again this year, this time to work with the Senior School (middle and high school) teachers on the same topic. I was truly flattered to be asked back and have really enjoyed the experience.

I never would have expected when I started teaching that anyone would invite me to their school to work with their teachers, but now that I’ve had the chance, I know I would like to continue building these skills.

One of the things I really enjoy about these visits is the opportunity to really consolidate my thinking. Every time I make a presentation I take the time to really clarify what I need to say, what background needs to be covered for it to make sense, and why it’s important to teaching and learning. This time around a few topics from the three presentations I gave jumped to the surface:

Using technology in the classroom is a mindset, not a skill-set.

This is something I’ve been saying for a long time, but I feel like it’s becoming more and more important as technology continues to change more and more rapidly. The feeling of being overwhelmed by new information, of not being able to catch up, of needing to know more than your students, can end up leading teachers down a path of avoidance instead of adoption. Focusing on the attitudes and mindset of a teacher who successfully uses technology in the classroom helps make the shift more approachable.

Teachers who use technology in the classroom are: flexible, willing to take risks and try new things, not afraid of failing, able to learn from their students, adaptable, and comfortable with the fact that they are not the smartest person in the room. Cultivating this kind of mindset is the first step to understanding how to use technology successfully in the classroom.

Unfortunately, this is also a paradigm shift for many teachers. What do you mean I’m not the smartest person in the room? Isn’t that why I’m the teacher and they’re the student? Which brings me to the next key point:

It’s not about the technology, it’s about the pedagogy.

It’s so easy to focus on the tools. Teachers are very comfortable being shown the power of a new tool and figuring out how they can make it work for their teaching style. It seems like the “how to” is what most teachers like to hear, see and test first. Unfortunately, it’s just too easy to make the tools fit the old paradigm. If we’re not talking about pedagogy, if we’re not talking about changing the classroom environment, if we’re not talking about students learning how to learn, there’s really no point to talking about the tools.

In the end we all want our students to be successful, but there are certain pedagogical approaches that will help them become independent learners, who can survive and thrive in the constantly changing, media rich, content saturated world we live in. Classrooms that are project based, inquiry driven, and student centered not only help us reach our goals as teachers, but they also very naturally lend themselves to successful technology integration. If a teacher is using the same worksheets s/he has used for 10 years, or teaching one individual lesson one day after the next, or leads an activity-based classroom, it’s going to be awfully hard to authentically embed technology into that environment. No matter how easy and quick it might be to look at the tools first, we have to start with the pedagogy and the “why.”

We need to learn with technology the way students live with technology.

In the end, this is about making school relevant. We may not like the changes in our society, we may not appreciate the constant media bombardment of our children that ends up in something like this (which, personally I find rather horrifying), but the reality is, this is our world. We made it this way. Now we have to find ways to ensure that our children learn how to live in this world, how to stay safe, how to lead balanced lives, how to use all of these many tools at their disposal for appropriate and authentic purposes. We can’t do that by ignoring technology. We also can’t do that by making those tools fit our preferred style of learning. We have to tap into the energy our students bring to class to find ways to learn with technology the way students live with technology.

This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It’s about finding ways to authentically use the appropriate, relevant and pedagogically sound tools to enhance the learning experience for our students. It doesn’t mean all the time, but it does mean in different ways that we might be used to. I love Marc Prensky’s statement about doing new things in new ways. This is what we’re looking for. No need to retro-fit a new tool to an old project. How can we get to our curricular goals in a new way, in a way that engages our students? As Chrissy likes to say: we’re still going to the same place, we just might need to drive a different vehicle.

Conversation Starter

In the end, these visits are about starting conversations, promoting new thinking and questioning just about everything. Everything is not going to be resolved in a two- or three- or even ten-day visit. All we can hope to accomplish is to get people talking, to stir up the pot a bit, to snap some out of their comfort zones and to promote the work of others, to bring in relevant information from the “outside world” and to kick start the change process.

The absolute best thing about my visit this time around was having the chance to talk to some of the Primary School teachers I worked with last year. Every single one of them said to me: “You changed me.” Wow. I’ve never, ever had anyone say that to me before. To be able to come in for a short visit, share some new ideas, help inspire and empower people, and then to hear about your success from those very people only a year later. Yes, that is definitely something I would like to do more often.

Now, this is not to say that everything went perfectly during both visits. There are challenges, problems, disagreements and, to be honest, a little bit of anger and fear, all to be expected. But in the end it’s those conversations that get things started. And, as we all know, there’s always room to grow. A few things I want to think about well in advance next time around are:

• What has been the school’s history with technology (or any other) initiates?
• What is the general feeling of the staff? Are there members who are supportive? Those who will challenge anything?
• What success can we share from the school itself? How can we promote success internally?
• Where are the administrators? How visible will they be during the visit?
• What are the practical issues specifically relevant to the school, student body, parent population and culture?
• What is the culture of the school in general?

As usual, everything is a learning experience. Anyone have any other advice about consulting?

Over the last two months I have been privileged to teach the first graduate-level course in ISB’s new 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy along with Jeff Utecht. It has been an excellent experience and I am truly flattered to have been asked by the school to lead such an important program in our professional development offerings.

Building Our Network

Amazingly, we have 50 current ISB teachers in the course and 5 newly hired ISB teachers participating virtually! Considering we have a staff of about 200 teachers, this is a very impressive number of faculty to be spending their weekends and evenings learning together about the impact that technology can have in the classroom. It’s a little intimidating to be leading such a large group (thank goodness there are two of us) but it’s so inspiring to see so many of our teachers so committed to their own professional development, willing to try new things, to have challenging conversations and to reflect on their practice. I am truly fortunate to be working at this school with these teachers.

Expert Voices

One of the most fantastic things about this course has been our guest speakers. On our first full-day face-to-face session we spent an hour with Clarence Fisher and another hour with Chris Betcher. Both speakers were just the perfect way to introduce the class to this new model of learning. Clarence’s practical examples of how his students learn with technology at the middle school was exactly what teachers had been asking for. Chris’ engaging hands-on presentation about truth and bias far exceeded anything I would have done with our teachers.

Yesterday, for our final full day face-to-face session, we had a  presentation from the authors of one of the books we’re using: Reinventing Project Based Learning, Suzie Boss & Jane Krauss, as well as an eye-opening presentation from Julie Lindsay. Suzie and Jane were the absolute perfect example of the power of the network. Who would have thought we’d be talking to the authors of our textbook in class? And Julie’s presentation really helped our teachers understand how important globally collaborative projects are for teaching our students critical life skills.

In retrospect, I’m also really pleased to see that we have an a very nice balance of men and women sharing their expertise with the class. All too often we only see male speakers leading the way, this was a great way to model (at least gender) equality in our learning.

Always Learning

Considering that this is my first time teaching a graduate-level course, I’m not sure I knew exactly what to expect. Sure, I’ve taken quite a few in my day and even completed a similar certificate (of Educational Leadership) through the same university at ISKL while I was living in Malaysia. But being a teacher is definitely a very different experience than being a student. I’m so thankful to have had the experience and I know I have learned so much in the process.

Finding Conversations

For starters, it may sound basic, but planning this course and each individual lesson was a pretty much exactly like planning for my classes. I’m not sure I really thought about that before we started so I don’t think I really got the hang of it until our second face-to-face lesson (and after getting lots of feedback at the first session). Providing time for teachers to talk to one another, to digest what they’re reading and thinking about, to bounce ideas off each other, and to question and collaborate is so important. Breaking the class into small groups, specifically asking teachers to “turn and talk” like I do in the classroom, and rotating those groups or setting up jigsaws were by far the most popular ways to spend our face-to-face time according to our anonymous feedback surveys. Seems obvious now, but I don’t know that we initially planned to organize the class that way.

Finding Community

Given that the class is so big, we really do need to think about how to break up into smaller groups. It’s hard to discuss anything in a group of 55 and we all know teachers who know each other tend to flock together, unintentionally creating clusters of teachers who already know each other instead of getting to know new people (especially in a school as big as ours). A few teachers provided feedback in our last session yesterday with some good ideas to think about for the next course. I really like John’s idea of having groups of teachers contribute to a group blog (instead of each teacher authoring their own blog) – thus giving teachers less peer-reading to get through every week and also building in small communities of learners among this larger group. Although I feel strongly about the experience of building your own digital footprint and understanding this new medium of communication through practice, a group blog would be an easier entry into the world of blogging.

Finding Voice

It’s been so interesting to see how many of our teachers are reluctant bloggers. I totally understand that feeling. I can remember starting this blog and being panicked about other people possibly reading what I write. Fortunately for me, I didn’t actually know anyone at the time that had a blog that other people read. So I never really thought anyone would ever read mine. I knew they could, but it didn’t feel really real to me. I had plenty of time to find my voice here in this writing space without an audience, but our teachers can see the comments on this blog, Jeff’s and Chrissy’s – so they know people are reading. I wonder if this added another layer of pressure to the initial fear of publishing your thoughts to the world?

Finding Balance

Another conversation that comes up time and time again with both teachers and parents is the idea of balance. It’s something we all struggle with, but I think those of us that are already immersed in the web 2.0 world can forget how overwhelming everything was at first. We know we need to find balance, we know we need to use technology when it’s relevant, appropriate and authentic for our learning purpose. But sometimes we’re so zealous in our sales pitch of just how great things are, we forget to mention some of the drawbacks. Finding your own individual comfort level with technology is a process. There is no miracle one-size-fits-all answer, but we each need to learn what the right balance is for us. And we need to pass on that ability to our students.

Finding Communication

As we say to the parents that attend our Monthly Technology Coffee Mornings, finding balance and learning when and why and how to use technology appropriately is about conversations. Open and honest discussions between teachers and students, teachers and teachers, and parents are their children are the only way to find out exactly what will work for each individual. Sometimes adults are afraid to open the door to these kinds of conversations because they worry that their children will notice how much they don’t know, but that doesn’t matter. It’s life experience that teaches us how to find balance in our lives – not our skill level with technology.

Professor Cofino?

It has been such a pleasure to work with such a diverse group of teachers (and just to teach adults in general). The amazing life experiences we had in the room brought such an exciting dimension to our disucssions, their blog posts, and their completed work. Just listening to these various conversations and seeing the depth of thought and connections being made helped me realize that I would really love to do more of this level of teaching. It’s a different challenge than classroom teaching, with different rewards, and so far, I love it!

Back in November and December I worked with a small group of grade 5 students on the Flat Classroom Project. Our group acted as a Sounding Board for the project participants, and after finishing their part of the process, were very interested in actually speaking to some of the students whose work they had peer reviewed. Thanks to the wonderful Anne Mirtschin in Australia, within days of our request to find a class to Skype with, we were chatting about the project with a few of her high school students.

In order to get ourselves prepared for the call, we determined a list of questions in advance and wrote them on the board, along with the name of the person who would ask the question (and then answer the following question from our Skypers in Australia). We set up the room so that everyone could see the Smart Board, and so that our friends in Australia could see all of us. We left one seat open at the very front of the room, in the perfect position to plop down right in front of the webcam, so that each student can walk up, one at a time, to ask and answer questions.

We spent about an hour online with Anne’s class, learning a little more about how her students created their final projects and what it was like to collaborate globally on such a challenging project. They did an excellent job answering all of our questions and they also shared a few interesting facts about life in Australia (there was some eating of Marmite on camera for proof). Next time around I think we’ll have to prep a little hands-on demo for life in Thailand as well!

After the chat, the grade 5’s shared their thoughts about being able to connect with other students around the world via Skype:

• I enjoyed meeting new students because it’s fun to connect with other people from around the world
• I liked learning about another culture from a person in that country
• I liked learning about the process of how they worked with other students around the world – we could do that too!
• It was fun to be able to talk to them “in person” and to tell them that we enjoyed the project and to see if they enjoyed it too. I like to talk with other people better than writing.
• I liked Skyping with other students, not from our class, because then you get different opinions and you get to interact with different students.
• I learned a bit about Australia
• I learned how a Skype connection works, and to be a little patient because it has to travel very far!
• I learned that the FC students worked with more people than I thought they did
• I learned that they didn’t know that much about Thailand – so it was helpful for them to talk to us too!
• I learned about their school – they have very small classes.

This is just one of the many Skype experiences these students are fortunate to have in their regular classes. Last week I was able to watch Chrissy’s class participate in Silvia’s Around the World With 80 Schools project as they Skyped with a very small school in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Our students came in a little early and the class in Canada came back after school to get to know each other. Watching their mouths drop in surprise when they find out our school has 7 fifth grade classes and they only have 11 sixth graders and that our lowest temperature is around 15 degrees C, while there’s is -50 degrees F, was priceless.

Such a simple tool, with such a powerful impact!

Even though a Skype experience certainly can’t beat a real-life visit to Australia or Canada, our students certainly have a more in-depth, personalized understanding of their peers around the world than they would have without Skype. Making these personal connections is such an easy way to give students a more global perspective – and it’s free! What are you waiting for? Get Skyping!

When I arrived at ISB last year, one of the first major projects I started with two of our wonderful grade 5 teachers was student blogging (um, and did I mention that we started blogging at the same time as participating in Chris Craft’s Life ‘Round Here digital storytelling project?). I had come from a middle school position where every student in the school (grades six – eight) had their own individual student blog and was ready to continue that experience here.

What I didn’t know was that none of the teachers or students really had any experience blogging prior to my arrival (oops!). So, while they (both the teachers and the students) were absolutely fantastic at going with the flow and experimenting, I realized quite quickly that individual student blogs may not be the appropriate “first step” into the world of web 2.0 – especially at the elementary level.

So, over the course of last year I started to figure out an easier, more approachable, entry into participatory writing and reading online. I started with a grade 3 class, whose teacher, Betsy, was so flexible and ready to learn with me that we had so much fun getting this started with her students.

One of the major features of this smoother entry into blogging was having just one class blog that all students can contribute to. Instead of setting up each student with their own blog, they can all have their own username and password (which they love) to author individual posts on one class blog. Being able to leverage one free G-mail account to create individual accounts for each student was a huge step forward for us as well – taking away the need for student e-mail is definitely a huge stress-reliever (for both the teacher and the parents). Finally, adding a global component and pre-organized authentic audience really helped make our student writing purposeful.

After that much more successful, and far less stressful, experience with Betsy’s class, I knew it wouldn’t be long before another teacher wanted to try something similar. And, just as I expected, my amazingly collaborative colleague, Sonja, approached me at the very beginning of this year to start a reading and writing project with her grade 4 students.

We started off much the same as last year’s grade 3 class, with one important difference: we focused on the importance of quality commenting before we gave the students their usernames and passwords for the class blog. We spent several lessons exploring our blogging buddies blogs, learning how to write an appropriate and fair comment, and building our understanding of blogging as conversation.

Interestingly, as soon as this class got started with their collaborative blog, more and more teachers have been asking me to help them set up a blog with their class. Just this week, I helped another fourth grade teacher, Kristen, set up her class blog and was amazed at how quickly her students were able to pick up the basics. At this point, I’ve got the introduction to blogging organized into five lessons (slightly revamped from last year’s version):

Lesson One:

For our first lesson we spent some time examining other quality blogs, looking mostly at Anne Davis’ excellent Blogging: It’s Elementary WebQuest (just for the blog links, mostly). Each table group had a chance to look at one of the blogs listed on the process page and followed a Visible Thinking routine called: See, Think, Wonder. Each time we had a focused discussion at the table groups (starting with the question: What do you see?) we came back to the full-class and shared our observations, thoughts and wonderings. This was a great way to help students understand the basics of a blog and the concept of blogging as writing.

At the end of this first lesson we developed a list of things we know about blogs:

• Blogging is free
• People can leave comments on a blog post
• People can see other people’s comments on a blog post
• If you are the author of a blog, you can edit or delete anything on the blog as long as you have the correct username and password
• A lot of blogs have things in common: pictures, comments, links, dates, archives, calendar, videos, opinions, recent posts, author’s name, conversations
• A blog is like a website EXCEPT that blogs invite conversation, opinions and ideas while websites usually just tell their ideas without any feedback
• Even though many blogs have the same features, they have different information
• Authors put links on their blog because they think their readers will like them
• Blogging is like a conversation with other people – some people you might know, some people you might not know
• Bloggers want their reader’s opinions
• Everyone in the world can see our blog
• Blogging is reading and writing

Lesson Two:

For our second and third lessons, we watched two public service announcements from the US. We start with a PSA called the Bulletin Board to focus on online safety:

We watch the video all the way through once, then have a “turn and talk” moment to see what we understand about the video after the first viewing. Next we watch the video very slowly, stopping at every event to check for understanding. Again we have a “turn and talk” moment for students to share their revised understanding. Finally, we watch the video all the way through and share what we’ve learned. We start creating a class list of questions we can ask ourselves before we post and things to remember about staying safe online, which will be finished after watching the second video during lesson 3.

Lesson 3:

This lesson focuses on responsible behavior and discussion is prompted by the PSA called The Talent Show:

We follow the same procedure as the second lesson, watching once all the way through, then stopping to ensure understanding and finishing with a full run through. At the end of this lesson, we complete our class list of questions to ask ourselves before we post anything online. Here is what grade 4 developed:

• How will this affect my reputation (what people think of me)?
• What will my friends or family think about me after they read (or see) this post?
• Could someone find me (in real life) based on this information?
• Who is going to look at this, and how are they going to interpret my words?
• Is this inappropriate, immature or bullying?
• Could I hurt someone else’s feelings with this post?
• Would I say this to the person’s face?
• What could be the consequences of this post?
• What will I cause by writing this post? Be culturally sensitive.
• Would I want someone to say this to me?
• Do I have a good reason/purpose to do this?
• Is this something I want everyone to see?

We also make a quick list of safety and responsibility tips to help us remember to follow the blogging guidelines outlined in our permission slip. Here is what grade 4 came up with:

• Only post things that you would want everyone (in school, at home, in other countries) to know
• Think about the future – what will people think a few days, weeks, months from now, if they read your post;
• Don’t share personal information like: last name, mom’s maiden name, address, telephone number, password, birthdate, username, passport information, license plate number, picture of your face, full name of yourself or your friends
• Choose a complicated password for others, but easy for you to remember
• Think before you post
• Use only your first or an avatar (made up name that represents you)
• Don’t talk to strangers. Get a parent or an older brother or sister to help you.
• Only say nice things about other people.
• Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
• If you think you will regret it, don’t post it
• If you wouldn’t say it to a person’s face, do not post it online
• Use appropriate language and good grammar and spelling
• Think about your readers feelings (embarrassing) when you post online
• Be culturally sensitive
• Only post things that you can verify are true (no gossiping)

Lesson 4:

We usually model the process of writing a good comment, and then create a comment as a piece of shared writing with the class. After this process we develop our own list of quality comment characteristics. Here is what one grade 4 class came up with:

• Constructive, but not hurtful
• Think about the author and their purpose for their post before leaving a comment
• Comments are always related to the content of the post
• Personal connections to what the author wrote
• Answer a question, or add meaningful information to the content topic
• Follows the writing process – it’s like a mini piece of writing.
• Use a comment sandwich: start with a positive, add  constructive feedback, then finish with a positive.
• Make your comment sandwich thick and tasty! Lots of meaningful, meaty thoughts that relate directly the content of the post to keep the blogger satisfied!

I love the idea of creating a comment sandwich – having the visual for the students has been extremely powerful, and focusing on commenting as part of the writing process has improved their commenting considerably (not as many “good job” posts as we had last year).

Lesson 5:

Once students are comfortable with the process of leaving meaningful comments, and have returned their parental permission slip, we introduce them to the actual process of writing blog posts. The basics of logging in, creating a new post, putting your post in the category for your name, and submitting for review. Usually we have the first post be a short introduction to the student.

I love the fact that having a category for each student makes it appear as if each student has their own blog (by listing the name categories in the sidebar) and that no posts will be published until the teacher can approve them after moderation. Such an easy and safe way to begin blogging!

That’s it! That’s how we’re starting to set up class blogs in grades 4 and 5 at ISB. So far we have 6 different classes set up:

• Merrellzone, grade 4
• 220 Thinkers, grade 4
• Room 202’s Blog, grade 5
• Room 227’s Blog, grade 5
• Room 229’s Blog, grade 5
• Denby Espanol, grade 5 Spanish

I’m sure this is just the beginning! Most of these classes have already decided that if and when students are ready, they will be given the option to have their own individual blog.

Our next steps:

One thing that we still need to work out is how to embed the practice of blogging into the daily routine. We work with laptop carts – four per grade level, 12 laptops per cart – so teachers do not have 1:1 access and often have to schedule specific time with the carts. The organization and pre-planning necessary to naturally and easily use the tools can be cumbersome and frustrating for some teachers. Right now we’re thinking about using a rotational strategy – allowing small groups to use the laptops each day for regular reading and writing online.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to introduce blogging to elementary students? Or how to make rotational blogging and commenting practical and realistic for our teachers?

Mac Youngin by shapeshift
Playing on the Computer by fd