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I have been playing around with the Senteo remotes from Smartboard and was wondering if anyone else has some unique ways of incorporating them into the classroom besides the typical review game type activity. Has anyone used them for assessment? How about as a questioning technique during a class mini lecture? The kids really like them but I do not want the novelty of them to be the only reason to use them. I would like them to become a valuable teaching tool.

Elizabeth,
I agree that we can't assume prior knowledge or the ability to transfer knowledge from one platform to another. What we need to do is to use the technology to get the students engaged and then follow-up with exercises that will help them to transfer the knowledge. Unfortunately, we still need to figure out what those exercises need to be. Please share whatever you come up with.

Bill,
I'll be interested to hear what your middle school comes up with regarding tech integration. I think a lot of schools are struggling with the same issues.

Here's a link to an award-winning blog posting on technology in education:
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/i...echnologically.html

Here's a sample quote:
"If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write. "

Your thoughts?!

I've been having some difficulties with videoconferencing with Skype and, while I have some ideas to test out, I'm also wondering what other videoconferencing tools people are using. In particular, is anyone out there using Wimba, and if so, what do you think?

From Freeport, ME - The MLTI program has put an application on our laptops that can be used to introduce our students to Web 2.0 experiences: NoteShare. Also, they have given all middle schools accounts with StudyWiz, an online collaborative community that is "private." I am working with NoteShare notebooks, shared both through our network and over the net (using IP addressing), to show students how to make Comments and how to use threaded discussions in collaboration. With another teacher, Shawn Favreau, I will be also exploring the Chat and Discussion boards built into StudyWiz. Shawn and I are both finding that we can not assume that students really understand how to take advantage of either asynchronous or synchronous digital communication. I have had to set strict guidelines for contributions - "fluff" comments are an instant response from most of the students in any class group. Flushing out meaning or value in another's post is NEW and it is HARD. Shawn is finding that some topics, such as those that touch upon personal values and experiences, can be more easily explored through the StudyWiz chat - which is to say, students express their own feelings and thoughts more freely that they would in a classroom discussion or roundtable. However, they are NOT responding meaningfully to each other. This, we agree, has to be modeled and taught. The advantages of NoteShare as a teaching environment are that it is (1) instantly updated by each contributor [unlike StudyWiz, which takes too long to refresh screens] (2) editable - I actually highlight some responses, project them, and we edit them as a group - I also use the editing tools to comment directly to student authors, just as I do when I respond to their writing pieces. My hope is that the modeling will result in students who can use the editing tools to enhance collaboration and collaborative decision making. They are, by the way, planning group digital presentations in response to a novel we are reading. Each group is comprised of 3-5 students from other core classes. No f2f allowed (although, interestingly, 2 of the 16 groups are sneaking this...).

We tend to believe that because our students are active online, in real time, they will quickly transfer their skills to classroom uses. Nope - we can't take this for granted any more than we can assume they can make movies because they are handy with a camcorder.

We're a private school, about 120 students (22 in the middle school program) so it's a bit different, but...
We no longer have what we called a "Director of Academic Technology," who was a resource person to faculty for use of technology, and we haven't had a technology course per se since the '90s. We have tried to integrate our ICT curriculum into the core subject areas, with varying degrees of success. Our middle school program is in the process of examining whether there are holes in the technology area of our curricula, and how better to coordinate tech teaching across the different areas.

My district is in the process of writing ICT curriculum and we are curious what other districts are doing. Do you have technology teachers or integrators? What is the ratio of teacher/integrator to schools or number of students? Is your ICT (Technology) curriculum a separate curriculum or is it integrated into the core subject areas. Those of you in NH, have you modified your curriculum to include the ICT ePortfolio requirements?

Thanks in advance for your response to these questions.

If you haven't already, you should check out Gary Ackerman's excellent blog on NELMS. The most recent posting is on the NELMS Technology Committee's work:
http://www.nelms.org/blog/index.php?blog=2...ore=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Among other things, it invites people to add comments giving their "ideas and suggestions for how NELMS can support your work with technology." Please stop by and add your voice!

For ning.com, you can choose a "private" setting which allows only selected people to view and join your social network. The password-protected blogs I use are run by a friend of mine named Keith Mack, who lives in northern California. I buy access through the LiteracyWorkshop.org website (a listserve which I moderate and which Keith hosts). He offers a number of other services to interested teachers, largely to help offset a portion of the cost of hosting us. Our Poetry Slam project is also run off Keith's equipment: http://www.literacyworkshop.org/poetryslam/poetryslam.htm

Bill,
I would love to learn more. Is it possible to limit access to the ning.com site. What blog sites do you use for your password-protected blogs?

Karen,
One way I could see us using web 2.0 tools at teaching aids would be to create a classroom-only social networking site (www.ning.com is a free site). This has discussion boards, blogs, home pages, tools for sharing videos and pictures, and more. By making it a classroom-only site, you have an opportunity to teach safe online behavior in a real life context.

Two other thoughts - I use password-protected blogs as an alternative to written "Readers Response Journals," and also use blogs in running an annual Online Poetry Slam involving my school and up to 13 other schools worldwide.

Gary,
I recently joined this discussion group and have just visited the link that you posted concerning Computers as MindTools. Very nicely done...worthwhile. Thanks.

I definitely agree that we need to educate the administrators and the parents. On the other hand we have an obligation to protect the children that we teach. How do we get our students actively using web2.0 tools and protect them at the same time?

From the vantage point of an MLTI (1-1 laptop) middle school in Maine, it is hard for me to divorce technology from instruction & learning. The grade 8 team here, my team, is probably the most technology-skilled in the school. We use our daily team times, as well as other times, to share skills and student use ideas. One thing that I have learned since coming here 4 years ago is that "location" of technology plays a large role in its use. For example, we have a wall of unused digital equipment in the library, 2 unused DVD recorders in the computer lab, and room full of rarely used (and high end) digital production equipment in the HS. I have gotten three grants to purchase support technology for the Team: the scanners, cameras, probes, and G5 Mac are used all of the time. In fact, keeping track of them has become a problem. These are accessible, and they are used mainly by the kids - training is not an issue because they train each other. Designing performance tasks is not difficult because we talk with each other and build off of each other's successes.

Side note: the team as a whole has gotten a boost of energy from the enrollment of two teachers in the National Board Certification Program. Because it has a profound tech element, and because it stresses methology as much as content, the preparation for the Certification has led to numerous discussions and lots of exploration of new things. I recommend it as a spark to any public school or private school with certified teachers.

Another side note: We are now beginning to use Backward Design curriculum planning, and I find that the availability of technology use as a choice flows right along with BD - because the focus is on the learning objectives, not upon the methodology. Unless, of course, the method is the learning objective, which is not unusual in my class. That objective might, for example, be mastery of note taking on index cards, or it might be mastery of note taking in NoteShare. The skills are different, and in the middle school they need to be taught discretely. Choice comes in other ways: topic, demonstration of learning, writing voice, etc. The technology is just a piece of a much larger picture.

That said, I do believe that we are not doing our job if we ignore Web 2.0 as a tech phonom. I have had to fight for the release of my very protected wiki from our Bess (and a 2nd filter!). I have lost the battle for a social networking site and for teacher access to application installation, to the NoteShare network server, and to an "open pipe" for video conferencing. There are times, I think, that top-down control of technology can (for valid reasons at times and with good intentions) inhibit the best integration. My solution? Educate the Administrators and the parents.

Teachers on each grade level team received portfolio technology training during scheduled weekly team meeting time. Additionally, students received portfolio training throughout the school year during computer classes. The portfolio is web based and very user friendly. During the first year, students were required to enter only one artifact for each discipline and content area teachers determined whether or not an artifact was portfolio worthy. Most students were able to meet the minimum requirements and the only problem area was math because of the nature of the artifacts produced. Math students use scanners to copy work into a web friendly format.

Bill,

I like your point as well. I know the Concord, NH school district has a group of teachers that are being given a lot of technology training. They are then supposed to go back to their respective schools and train the other teachers. They are referred to as technology coaches. I have heard that this program is being well accepted by the teachers in the district.

Michael,

I would like to learn more about how your school was able to get every discipline involved in entering student artifacts into portfolios. We are in the process of implementing portfolios, but all the work is being done by the tech ed teachers.

Sometimes technology integrates itself within a school. Our school recently adopted digital portfolio as an assessment tool for our students. Every discipline is involved in entering student artifacts into portfolios and teachers are actively using technology to work with students toward that end. As a by-product, teachers see what others are doing and this leads to collaboration. I agree that leadership with this starts at the top and there is a learning curve for all involved but once started it can take on a life of its own.

Over the summer I heard the phrase "pressure and support" to describe effective leadership in educational technology... the idea is that leaders must "force" the issue of using technology (while providing the technology and other resources necessary to ensure the stuff stays functional).

Seems to me like Bill is suggesting teachers who are effective users can be models and the leaders' job is to make sure those effective practices do not stay pockets, but become school wide.

-- GLA

I see your point, Karen. But I've also seen (and granted, I work in an independent school and so may not understand district life) teachers work wonders in schools where they may not always have the support they need and deserve. Or, alternatively, leadership is stable enough for long enough that the culture is built and then becomes permanent. So I think there is at least the possibility of hope.

The problem is that the culture needs to be built from the top down. Pockets of teachers doing wonderful things with technology are not enough to change an entire district and the culture really needs to be district wide for the students to benefit. The students that have those special teachers are the lucky ones, everyone else gets left behind.

Great point Bill... so we (teachers especially as we tend to stay at a school longer than students and leaders) have an important role to ensure the level of technology integration stays at a high level. Makes perfect sense.

So, this makes me think that the culture will assume the role of technology leader as the leaders change. The new leader comes in and decides to refocus instruction away from technology-based collaboration and the culture responds, "no way."

How cool would that be?!?

-- GLA

Gary, I have thought a while about your comment, and drawing on my own school's experience, I definitely agree with you. Since I've been at my school, tech fortunes have risen and fallen with each Head depending on their perspective. That said, I also suspect that over time, you can build a culture within a school that perpetuates creative and appropriate use of technology. My own school has had many tech ups and downs with different Heads, so I haven't seen this firsthand. But if one can build and maintain an ongoing school culture of, say, honesty and respect for others, why not a culture of using up-to-date technology equipment and practices to engage students in their learning?

I am becoming increasingly convinced it is the school leaders' responsibility to integrate technology. Sure teachers are the individuals who must do the work of designing and implementing the learning environments, but school leaders have the responsibility of (a) ensuring teachers have the technology stuff they need, (b) ensuring teachers are aware of the emerging capacity of the stuff, and (c) pressuring teachers to use technology to create engaging learning environments.

-- GLA

Wow! Gary, thank you for all of the information. I need some time to digest it all before I comment on it. In the meantime, I have some followup questions: How do we go about integrating technology into the educational system? Who should be responsible for implementation?

Edited by author 11-15-2007 07:08 PM
You are right on Bill!

Technology is no longer an "extra," a reward for those who finish their "real" work early or toy for those days before breaks.

Technology is no longer even a tool that we use for those special projects.

Technology is an essential part of accessing information, making sense of information, and communicating in the modern world. We had all better get used to the idea that IT is here and it is going to stay (in reality it is going to be replaced with even fancier IT... but you get the idea).

I think "technology integration" has been bandied about for the last decade (probably the term became widely used after the original NETS-S), and I think it has been around so long that it is becoming meaningless because so many have used to to describe such desperate activities.

David Jonassen captured it best in his concept of MindTools. Here is a link to a site I put together a few years ago for some teachers in a summer institute that explains my take on MindTools: http://www.taconic-learning.net/activities...ls/introduction.htm

Here is an image I adapted from Jonassen which gets to the essential aspects of technology integration: student control, generating ideas rather than simply presenting ideas, and active engagement.
<IMG SRC="http://www.taconic-learning.net/nelmstech/graph.jpg">

Jonassen, D. (2000). Computers as mindtools for schools: engaging critical thinking (2nd ed). Columbus, OH: Prentice-Hall.

Excellent question, Karen. To me, technology integration is a way of ensuring necessary technology skills get taught in context as a means to an educational end, rather than simply as an end in themselves.

Take care!

A new question for everybody - What is technology integration?

Welcome Gary!

I agree with you completely. The use of technology in the core classes should not be seen as the responsibility of the tech ed teacher. Each teacher needs to take responsibility for learning the technology and collaborating with other teachers to integrate this technology when it makes sense.

We had the "Owl Lady" at the school last week. She had 6 different species of owls that she brought to show the students as well as a slide show of pictures of the owls in their natural habitats. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to teach "How to search the web". I had students research information about owls the day before the presentation. We used a checklist to evaluate the qualtiy of the website and gathered facts about owls in general. We are now using Publisher to make brochures about the owls they saw. It helps reinforce the information learned and the students have a chance to use a software program they haven't used before.

I just realized, I did not really answer Matt's question...

We do offer a 9-week computer course for middle schoolers (they take it once as 7th grader and once as an 8th grader). I do introduce students to some of the software tools they have access to, but I am always frustrated when students say to me "hey, this would have been great when we were doing...."

I think part of my job as a technology leader in the building to to support teachers to understand what is available, part of teachers' job is to take the time to learn how to use what is available, and part of administrators' job is to pressure tachers to use what is available.

-- GLA

Greetings all...

Gary Ackerman, tech guy (teacher, network admin, etc.) at the West Rutland (VT) School putting in his 2 cents...

I find most students do not have much experience with creating academic documents with productivity suites, but that their collective experience with technology allows them to quickly develop the skill, once they are (a) given meaningful documents to create, and (b) are given some benchmarks or rubrics to follow.

Their lack of skill comes not from inexperience with technology, but inexperience with creating documents.

I wonder if a style guide would help... I can see it now, the West Rutland School Publication Manual... hey the American Psychological Association can do it, why can't we?

- -GLA

Hi!

I'm Bill Ivey, and I teach Humanities 7, ESL and Rock Band at an all-girls school, grades 7-12.

Matt, I find a wide range of technological skills among my students for the software programs you're asking about, but I also find that, these days, most all my students at least have a strong comfort level with technology. In Humanities, I take the opportunity to ensure they have at least basic skills in Word, PowerPoint, and blogs (used for Readers' Response Journals). I also work with them on doing efficient online searches, evaluating electronic sources, and the like. I'm a pretty strong believer in teaching tech skills in context of a specific course as much as possible, and also a strong believer that a kids are best served when teachers collaborate in support of them (as happens in Karen's school).

Take care,
Bill Ivey
Stoneleigh-Burnham School

Edited by author 10-26-2007 02:48 PM
Matt,

To answer your questions, I have also found that students who think they know how to use computers really only know how to download music, IM, chat and look for movies, etc. on the Internet. They have some basic Word skills and some have basic PowerPoint skills, but that is the extent of their knowledge.

Although we integrated tech ed with the grade level teams this year, I still teach a separate class that covers Word formatting, Internet safety and search skills, PowerPoint and Excel. These topics are also touched on, along with keyboarding in 6th grade Tech Ed classes and expanded upon in 8th grade Tech Ed classes. We try as much as possible to have the assignments used to teach these skills relate to work being done in core subject areas. The core area teachers have been very helpful in explaining their curriculum and offering ideas of ways to do this and are excited about the possibilities.

Edited by author 10-26-2007 02:41 PM
Welcome to the technology integration discussion. I am a 7th grade technology teacher in Plaistow NH and will be the facilitator for this discussion.

 The school I work at is in the process of integrating technology into the core subject areas as much as possible. We are finding that there is a lot if information out there, but not a lot of discussion about what works and what doesn't. The purpose of this discussion is to have a place to share our stories, ideas, and problems and to provide a resource for those of you who are having problems and need help.

 Please feel free to introduce new ideas and to contact me with any issues. I look forward to a meeting a lot of new people and sharing a lot of ideas.

 I was informed about this site and was intrigued by the technology integration post but was a little bummed nothing was started yet so I figured why not start something.
     I am a 7th grade science teacher who incorporates alot of technology into my classroom and have read many articles about how savy students are with technology these days. As I read those articles though and discuss with some of my colleagues we have come to the conclusion that students may be savy with certain programs they enjoy like IMing, myspace type pages, and some blogging, etc. but the majority of students do not really have a handle on how to effectievely use applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint in their everyday schoolwork.
     So with that being said, I have 2 questions:
     1. Are other teachers finding the same thing?
     2. Does your school have a class that students take to learn the use of these programs and do you find it valuable? Is it a seperate class or is it incorporated through the core subjects they take?

     I was informed about this site and was intrigued by the technology integration post but was a little bummed nothing was started yet so I figured why not start something.
     I am a 7th grade science teacher who incorporates alot of technology into my classroom and have read many articles about how savy students are with technology these days. As I read those articles though and discuss with some of my colleagues we have come to the conclusion that students may be savy with certain programs they enjoy like IMing, myspace type pages, and some blogging, etc. but the majority of students do not really have a handle on how to effectievely use applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint in their everyday schoolwork.
I was wondering if other teachers are finding ths