It's that time of year again, where everyone reflects on the past year and sets goals, or New Year's resolutions, to better themselves for the upcoming year. As a technology integration specialist, and a member of our district's 21st Century Team, my work this year has been focused on what I can do to help inspire, promote and assist other educators to dive into creating and administering enriching lessons that ask students to solve problems using 21st century skills.
I have to admit there has been a lot of talk about theory and planning for what we can do in the upcoming year, but ultimately our district team, like many others across our nation, have regurgitated 21st century skills to our peers, but have not really defined the purpose for implementing this important task on our teachers.
My biggest goal for this upcoming year, is to model 21st century skills by creating, collaborating, solving complex or open ended problems, and publishing these ideas and strategies to a global audience. Why? Well, because there has been enough talk in mind. It's time to actually put this plan into action. I may crash and burn, but at least I will have practiced what I preach. After all, there is a problem on the table here; How do we prepare our students of today for jobs and careers of the future? There is no set answer, so I will offer one or more solutions and allow my online profession learning network to comment and offer feedback. My hopes are to inspire others to take the lead with me, and jump head first into a new educational paradigm.
My final class for my master's degree is an introductory course on teaching online for grades K-12. Curriculum has always been a passion of mine, and the ability to infuse and embed technology to enhance the lesson has always been something I strongly valued. That's how I fell upon the job of an integration specialist for a school district focused on grades K-4. I also feel that project based learning, game based learning, and creativity can provide an education for our students better than any programmed curriculum or standardized testing that the local district, state or nation believe provides the best assessment of learning strategies and student comprehension.
In my latest eNewsletter, I reflect on the past year a bit, but look towards the future and offer some insight into my goals for the coming year, and what I believe will truly prepare our students for what may lie ahead for them in their own careers. Please feel free to comment and offer feedback. Where is your district headed towards infusing 21st century skills across the curriculum?
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Flat Stanley Project
As adults we have taken for granted receiving mail through the postal service as we have grown up with that form of communication, and probably do not really care if we receive it via a mailbox or in our email inbox any more. Well, unless it's a package. We all love getting packages in the mail. The kids, on the other hand, do not have much experience with writing and receiving actual tangible letters and packages in the mail any more, and their eyes just light up when something comes to the school addressed to them. It's like Christmas morning to them!
After opening their packages and sharing with the rest of their classmates all about their flat selves' visit to lands beyond our little community, they start converting everything to digital format. Photos are scanned in, brochures, posters and souvenirs are captured via a document camera or webcam. The students in Miss Switzer's class then compile all of their digital artifacts and create mini web pages using Apple's iWeb to share what they have learned through their 2D portrayal's travels. This is exactly what the students were presenting to our school board and community last night. The students did a fabulous job and their web pages, each individual unique, are on display for the whole world to see. This is a wonderful project, and everyone in Miss Switzer's class should feel very proud of their accomplishments!
Check out all of the students' web pages on Miss Switzer's Flat Stanley Project page.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Holiday Wish Lists
In my latest eNewsletter for December to the staff at both Village Elementary
School and Coastal Ridge Elementary School, I mentioned how "game
changers", like Apple's iPad 2, are revolutionizing how students are learning in
our elementary classrooms. You only have to look as far as the Auburn School
District in Auburn, Maine, which hosted an international conference during the Thanksgiving
week, to see how these technologies are enhancing education. The school
district allowed educators from all over the world to observe how tablets and
other technologies are being used in their elementary classrooms to inspire and
engage all students. Visitors were welcomed into classrooms and attended
conferences after school hours to learn first hand from teachers and students
how these technologies have changed the face of education in their district.
Online streams, blogs and Tweets were presented by educators and students
to members watching online as well. Students are learning through designated
applications that focus on particular skills or problem solving strategies, and
finding that Game-Based Learning is fun and engaging.
Game-Based Learning is not a new concept. The Everyday Math program really opened my eyes to this form of teaching style when the school district I used to work for adopted the program in 2002. Instead of rote math facts done over-and-over again to promote mastery, games were created and played to practice math facts and computations that were inspiring, engaging and exciting to the students. I learned first-hand as a third grade teacher that students were picking up on these skills much faster with game play then using more traditional methods of work sheets and practice papers. With the overly popular iOS devices in classrooms, iPads and iPods can be used to allow students to work on particular skills by playing games. Games also provide solid feedback to the child and a raw score to the educator, or parent, as another form of data of the students’ learning.
Game-Based Learning can take a bit of time to research which are the best apps for your child, but in the long-run can truly be the catalyst that engages all of your learners at your house and individualizes their educational path to meet their individual needs. As gift lists are being created for the holidays, and smart phones are being upgraded, remember that your child could benefit from educational Game-Based Learning at home too! I am hoping that the big guy will upgrade my iPhone this year, and in return I will transform my old iPhone 3G into an iPod for my little girl full of preschool and baby genius apps for the upcoming year. I can't wait to start family game night at my house with a balance of electronic and non-electronic games.
Eric Lawson has been teaching for 12 years. He has previously taught 3rd grade in Kennebunk before taking on the job of Technology Integration Specialist for the elementary schools here in York. He has been published in eSchool News, Tech&Learning Magazine and Learning and Leading with Technology Magazine for technology integrated projects and ideas. He is the author of the blog, "Computer Lab Without Walls", and offers extra curricular courses integrating technology through the York Parks and Recreation Department and Adult Education Programs.
Game-Based Learning is not a new concept. The Everyday Math program really opened my eyes to this form of teaching style when the school district I used to work for adopted the program in 2002. Instead of rote math facts done over-and-over again to promote mastery, games were created and played to practice math facts and computations that were inspiring, engaging and exciting to the students. I learned first-hand as a third grade teacher that students were picking up on these skills much faster with game play then using more traditional methods of work sheets and practice papers. With the overly popular iOS devices in classrooms, iPads and iPods can be used to allow students to work on particular skills by playing games. Games also provide solid feedback to the child and a raw score to the educator, or parent, as another form of data of the students’ learning.
Game-Based Learning can take a bit of time to research which are the best apps for your child, but in the long-run can truly be the catalyst that engages all of your learners at your house and individualizes their educational path to meet their individual needs. As gift lists are being created for the holidays, and smart phones are being upgraded, remember that your child could benefit from educational Game-Based Learning at home too! I am hoping that the big guy will upgrade my iPhone this year, and in return I will transform my old iPhone 3G into an iPod for my little girl full of preschool and baby genius apps for the upcoming year. I can't wait to start family game night at my house with a balance of electronic and non-electronic games.
Eric Lawson has been teaching for 12 years. He has previously taught 3rd grade in Kennebunk before taking on the job of Technology Integration Specialist for the elementary schools here in York. He has been published in eSchool News, Tech&Learning Magazine and Learning and Leading with Technology Magazine for technology integrated projects and ideas. He is the author of the blog, "Computer Lab Without Walls", and offers extra curricular courses integrating technology through the York Parks and Recreation Department and Adult Education Programs.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Game-Based Learning
In this edition of the December eNewsletter, I have included some great resources and links for bringing Game-Based Learning into the classroom. How is Game-Based Learning being used in your classroom or school?
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
A World Without Power
During the Halloween weekend, the east coast got pounded with it's first big Noreaster of the season. Living in Maine, I have grown accustom to the long winters, but starting in October is a bit ridiculous even for our standards. At my house we only lost power for about 27 hours, but many people around us and certainly in southern New Hampshire lost it for almost an entire week. It got me to thinking...
We truly have started to become completely dependent on technology and the ease of accessibility anywhere at any time. I was thinking to myself, that I really had to mail in my assignment on Saturday before the storm hit, because my town of Wells, Maine has become a ghost town now that the tourist and "leaf peepers" season is officially over. It would have taken me 30 minutes to drive to a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi.
We truly have started to become completely dependent on technology and the ease of accessibility anywhere at any time. I was thinking to myself, that I really had to mail in my assignment on Saturday before the storm hit, because my town of Wells, Maine has become a ghost town now that the tourist and "leaf peepers" season is officially over. It would have taken me 30 minutes to drive to a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi.
A colleague and I were discussing that the future of the military will probably no longer be investing so highly in explosives but rather in new technologies like Pulses and Pinches. These are like mini generators that when activated, will actually take out an area completely so that there is no power. The scene from "Ocean's 11" where they are ready to rob Andy Garcia's casino comes rushing back to my mind.
We were fortunate enough to have power back on at school on Monday when we returned, but it took 3.5 hours for the IT department to get our network and Internet connection back online. I truly felt useless at school in those hours and couldn't even access my calendar to see whom I needed to postpone our meeting with as it was locked up in our network.
eNewsletter November
In this month's edition of my eNewsletter, I dive a little deeper into the Apple iOS update and what it means in an educational setting.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
21st Century Team
The York School Department has established a 21st Century district team. This team is a compilation of different administrators, tech. integrators, and a variety of classroom teachers that span the entire K-12 perspective from all of the schools within our district. Members were asked to apply for the position in the spring of 2009 and the Superintendent of Schools, Director of Technology and Curriculum Coordinator met to establish the team and coordinate the first introductory meeting in the fall of 2010. In our first year, we really tried to establish what 21st century skills look like for York teachers, and every member was given an iPad by the district to play and learn more about how mobile technologies can promote problem solving and 21st century skills on the go. It took the entire year really to establish our mission. We met once a month during the school year, to understand our goals and to really identify what we wanted to do in order to help move education in York into the present and hope to look towards the future.
This has been a real frustration for many members, as things were discussed and sorted out, but rarely was a true decision made by the team at any given meeting. We all wanted to move forward, but were not sure that the group, as a whole, knew how or could agree on what it was that needed to be done in order to do that. Unlike other district teams that I have been on, within this district and in others, there was no real target to shoot for or goals/steps to check off as they were completed. We were treading in open water. There were certainly some resources that have helped pave the way, or shed a little light towards a distant end of a tunnel, but it was tough to take a step without knowing where we wanted to go in the first place. For this reason it has been a slow process.
This year's goals for the team are to create windows of how teachers and students within our district are already using 21st century skills in-and-out of the classroom. Hopefully with these examples published, other teachers, community members, administrators and school board members will understand what it is that we are looking for and trying to achieve. It's a good first step anyway. Another big goal for the team this year is to plan out a full day teacher inservice centered around 21st century skills. This presents an interesting issue and potential problem. In the past, this inservice day has been designed around technology as a whole, and in more recent years, technology as it integrates within everyone's curriculum. Inservice days are always met with mixed emotions by the staff. Time is always an issue in education and giving a teacher some time without students can truly be beneficial if the day is planned out correctly. In the past few years, teachers have not seen these inservice days as planned out to help them, but rather as one more thing on their plate that caused stress and anxiety. Technology integration, in my eyes, should not be counted as "one more thing" as in many cases it is already happening all over the place, but I do see how one can be concerned with a new set of skills that are needed in order to manipulate the technologies to fully engage students and bring about higher quality of work and thinking. I'm just afraid that a day labeled, "21st Century Skills", even though we are 11 years into the 21st century already, will be looked at as just one more thing to add to the overcrowded teachers' plates. So how do we create a day, centered around 21st century skills that will be met by teachers with excitement and a sense that it can be accomplished without adding too much? It's a daunting task for sure, and one that I fear may take a lot more meetings then we have time for. Do you have any ideas, or have you created something like that in your district?
The third and final goal for our group this year is to create a base line online professional development course for all educators within our district that clearly label how York would like to continue with 21st century skills, and provide opportunities to the learner to research, examine, play and reflect on web 2.0, mobile, and other technology tools that can enhance the teaching experience and therefore the learning of each and every student that walks through the doors within the York School Department. I've taken several online courses, as I am finishing up my masters degree in the Technology in Education program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, however, many of the classes are setup in modules in which we were asked to research how a task could be used in class, read examples of potential outcomes, create a product or task for our students to try out and then reflect on the outcomes. These are all good practices, but each tool that I have used was the focus of the task. Teaching technology tools are great, but in order to promote 21st century skills and also hopefully only have each staff member take the course once within their tenure here in York, we will need to make it more of a theory and methods course. Heck, the way technology changes and improves, by the time the teacher taking course learns how to Tweet, we may have a better way to communicate in a similar way. I'm reminded of how I felt when I heard the Flip camera was no longer going to be manufactured after spending 4 professional development days with staff showing them how to use the technology and import the footage into a video editing software program in order to publish their masterpieces to the web. Again this will be a difficult task. Has anyone out there created a baseline class for either tech. integration or 21st century for education staff?
This has been a real frustration for many members, as things were discussed and sorted out, but rarely was a true decision made by the team at any given meeting. We all wanted to move forward, but were not sure that the group, as a whole, knew how or could agree on what it was that needed to be done in order to do that. Unlike other district teams that I have been on, within this district and in others, there was no real target to shoot for or goals/steps to check off as they were completed. We were treading in open water. There were certainly some resources that have helped pave the way, or shed a little light towards a distant end of a tunnel, but it was tough to take a step without knowing where we wanted to go in the first place. For this reason it has been a slow process.
This year's goals for the team are to create windows of how teachers and students within our district are already using 21st century skills in-and-out of the classroom. Hopefully with these examples published, other teachers, community members, administrators and school board members will understand what it is that we are looking for and trying to achieve. It's a good first step anyway. Another big goal for the team this year is to plan out a full day teacher inservice centered around 21st century skills. This presents an interesting issue and potential problem. In the past, this inservice day has been designed around technology as a whole, and in more recent years, technology as it integrates within everyone's curriculum. Inservice days are always met with mixed emotions by the staff. Time is always an issue in education and giving a teacher some time without students can truly be beneficial if the day is planned out correctly. In the past few years, teachers have not seen these inservice days as planned out to help them, but rather as one more thing on their plate that caused stress and anxiety. Technology integration, in my eyes, should not be counted as "one more thing" as in many cases it is already happening all over the place, but I do see how one can be concerned with a new set of skills that are needed in order to manipulate the technologies to fully engage students and bring about higher quality of work and thinking. I'm just afraid that a day labeled, "21st Century Skills", even though we are 11 years into the 21st century already, will be looked at as just one more thing to add to the overcrowded teachers' plates. So how do we create a day, centered around 21st century skills that will be met by teachers with excitement and a sense that it can be accomplished without adding too much? It's a daunting task for sure, and one that I fear may take a lot more meetings then we have time for. Do you have any ideas, or have you created something like that in your district?
The third and final goal for our group this year is to create a base line online professional development course for all educators within our district that clearly label how York would like to continue with 21st century skills, and provide opportunities to the learner to research, examine, play and reflect on web 2.0, mobile, and other technology tools that can enhance the teaching experience and therefore the learning of each and every student that walks through the doors within the York School Department. I've taken several online courses, as I am finishing up my masters degree in the Technology in Education program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, however, many of the classes are setup in modules in which we were asked to research how a task could be used in class, read examples of potential outcomes, create a product or task for our students to try out and then reflect on the outcomes. These are all good practices, but each tool that I have used was the focus of the task. Teaching technology tools are great, but in order to promote 21st century skills and also hopefully only have each staff member take the course once within their tenure here in York, we will need to make it more of a theory and methods course. Heck, the way technology changes and improves, by the time the teacher taking course learns how to Tweet, we may have a better way to communicate in a similar way. I'm reminded of how I felt when I heard the Flip camera was no longer going to be manufactured after spending 4 professional development days with staff showing them how to use the technology and import the footage into a video editing software program in order to publish their masterpieces to the web. Again this will be a difficult task. Has anyone out there created a baseline class for either tech. integration or 21st century for education staff?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Our Latest Arrival
I'm sitting in the window seat of our hospital room looking out over the city of Portland as the clouds make way for the sun, while my wife and new arrival, Elsa Grace, are both napping. Of course I checked-in and uploaded a picture on Facebook already. It's times like these that I'm not only thankful for my life and loved ones around me, but the wonderful ways that technology can keep friends and family close together. I don't have to excuse myself from the room every time I want to talk to everyone on "our call list", I can just jump online with my iPhone and tell the world about our new bundle of joy. There is some debate amongst my generation and older, that much like the tag line, "video killed the radio star", the text message will kill human interaction and communication as well. This has been a subject I have been very frustrated with in the past as many people seem to abuse the technology and forget the biggest part, communication and human interaction. There are certainly times and places for these technologies and I have witnessed it first hand this week as I was able to update my Facebook and Twitter accounts to tell my friends and family world wide how my wife and baby are doing. I still had a short list of immediate family on the call list, and certainly gave time to express my true emotions over the phone and as they stop by our room to visit too though. I think that is the biggest and most important part of these new technologies. It has been a huge time savor and wonderful way to communicate in a speedy amount of time of our happy news, but I think it is always a good idea to have a balance too.
It's true about all technology and how we integrate it within our educational practice and within our lives. As a technology integration specialist, I am constantly finding ways and being asked to think creatively about how technology can be infused within a lesson, unit or activity. It's almost impossible for me to think of a lesson without some component of technology being used now, even if it is on the lower level of technology use, but I am always reflecting on the lesson and asking if the amount of technology used transformed or gave the lesson a higher quality or not. I would never use technology just to make sure it is in there, but only if it made the lesson better.
On this beautiful fall day in Maine I'm reminded why I live in this great state. Now I can't wait to get back home with my beautiful wife and baby to share our new life together! Everyone can see how proud and happy I am of this moment. Isn't technology a wonderful thing?
Monday, September 26, 2011
The Fall Preview
As many of you know, I create an eNewsletter each month for the staff members in my district. In this month's eNewsletter I take a real hard look at 21st Century Skills. Here is a snippet of my article. You can also click for the full eNewsletter for October.
No doubt the message is loud and clear by now. 21st century skills are more then just buzz words. It isn’t going to be going away any time soon. In fact, people have been talking about this for more then 12 years now. A shift in education is happening, although it may be slower then many people had hoped or anticipated.
Whether you have seen Sir Ken Robinson’s speech adapted by RSA Animate on his views for a need to shift the educational paradigm, or you have merely heard about it at faculty meetings, college courses, conferences, or even webinars, it has hopefully reached you at some point.
So what are 21st Century Skills? We hear about them all the time, but why haven’t they just been defined and presented as curriculum goals or state standards by now for goodness sake? Well, they aren’t the easiest to completely define. It’s like taking a look into the future, although we are currently more then a decade into the 21st century, these skills are defined as those needed by the students of today to be successful within the world of tomorrow. This can present a few problems. How can we predict today what life will be like in 10, 15 or even 20 years? True, some things will not have changed too drastically by then, but unless you live under a rock, you have realized that technology has played a huge part in our lives over the past 10 years and continually evolves making life easier and more manageable. I mean the iPad that I received last fall is already way outdated!
There are some great resources though for catching a glimpse into what 21st Century Skills look like and how they can be taught to our students of today. Web sites such as; The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has set up the framework towards skills needed to achieve success and be problem solvers for the world of tomorrow. Instead of set skills as we were used to in our educational experience, the skills are defined as ways to promote higher order thinking so that students can adapt to the ever changing ways of our world.
21st Century Skills aren’t all about the technology though. Technology will play a huge part in our shift in education, but it has been a huge part of our lives outside of school as well, so that makes sense. It’s true, technology will be used for many of the things we do, but it is just the tool, or conduit, towards the real learning. 21st Century Skills are more then just the latest technology trends. They are skills needed to be successful problem solvers and citizens of the future.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), defines these skills for students as; 1. Creativity and Innovation, 2. Communication and Collaboration, 3. Research and Information Fluency,4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, 5. Digital Citizenship, and 6. Technology Operations and Concepts.
The shift is already here, but we certainly need innovation leaders and risk takers to help educate students with this new shift in education. These people cannot be afraid to learn something new, even if that is from one of their own students. 21st Century leaders and educators must grasp this idea and promote real world thinking and problem solving. The world of tomorrow is closer then you may think!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
First Two Weeks of School
As we are half way through our second week of school I have reflected on how different the beginning of the school year feels from that of 5 or 6 years ago to me. Of course, 5 years ago I was teaching 3rd grade and had a very enthusiastic group of 20-8 and 9 year olds in my own classroom space, so it would naturally feel different since as a tech integrator I am not blessed with my own classroom and students. So besides the physical space, and responsibility for my "own" students, what are the big differences you ask? I guess now more then ever I feel that the first few weeks are used for feeling out students and staff. These two weeks have always been overwhelming for many teachers, but I have certainly seen an increased stress level and high anxiety issues within the past 5 years as well. State and national mandated testing, Routes to Intervention and finding better ways to "group" students based on ability levels yet keep a heterogeneous community within a classroom has become a constant struggle for the beginning of the year.
In our district, we test students using the NWEA and CPAA computer based test both in the fall and the spring.(The CPAA test is given 6 times per year. Two for each trimester.) It is therefore important, especially in the eyes of administrators within our district, to test early in the year so that teachers and students see the maximum growth throughout each year. Of course this makes our district "look good" when compared to that of other districts within our state.
As a classroom teacher I loved this type of testing as it only took up about an hour of our day, the tests were individualized for each and every student, and scores gave immediate feedback to both the students and teachers. I still appreciate this style of testing due to the speed of feedback and the data that can be collected quite quickly, but I have to question how much information is too much? Researchers and people that love to make decisions based upon data will tell you that there is no such thing. I would tend to agree with that philosophy in theory, however, when do students have a chance to learn without feeling like their performance is being collected in this data bank that will ultimately mold their future and "class rank"?
I remember loving going back to school in the elementary grades, but the approach was much different. Instead of testing, testing and more testing, we were given discovery time, and explorations. Of course the usual rules, expectations and books were "handed" out as well, but there was a real feel of community as we got to meet our new classmates and teachers through interactive lessons and discussions. The first few weeks were dedicated to community building and working as a team throughout the year. Again, this has not changed in theory within our district. In fact, one of our elementary schools holds the motto T.E.A.M.; Together Everyone Achieves More, and students remind students of this motto each and every morning after the pledge, but in reality there isn't time to build a true team in the first two weeks any more. Students are rushed to the lab for national standardized testing, then pulled out of the classroom for RtI or special education testing, and then rushed to the cafe to eat and outside for recess. By the time they are back into the classroom curriculum programs have already started in order to get through the material before the end of the year. It's no wonder anxiety levels are at an all time high, and teachers are too stressed to attend professional development courses in the fall.
So the first two weeks of school are coming to a close and I have assisted in setting up tests, troubleshot all kinds of technology malfunctions and issues, and met with teachers to discuss what would be the best tools to display a typical day within their classroom for open house and parent orientation since that is right around the corner. I have not spent a single minute planning professional development courses, creating a tech tip of the week video tutorial, or sitting down with a teacher for some one-to-one help to revamp their website. I'm not complaining, but I do feel at this rate we are going to have teachers burn out of our profession and students liking coming back to school in the fall less and less in the future. Maybe we need to take a step back for a second and allow the first few weeks of school to become a discovery and community building atmosphere again and hold off on all of the testing. Ultimately, we are trying to infuse the love of life long learning into each and every student that walks off the bus and into our school doors aren't we? I'm not sure I would have gotten to where I am today if I had been tested so much especially in those early weeks of school. What do you think?
Friday, August 19, 2011
Sandbox in the Lab Observation
Throughout the summer tech. integration camps that I have offered this year, I have allowed the students some free time to play around with what I had just taught them as well as given them some free time each week to "show me" something new. Naturally as you would expect, Internet free games, music, TV on the Internet and of course social networking has been the options of choice for the kids in my camps.
During the last week of camp, filming and editing our movie didn't always require all of the students at one time, so there were times when the students had free time at their computers. I have learned more about Club Penguin then I ever really cared to, but I have to admit I have learned a few things from the kids. From an entrepreneur's standpoint, I could easily open up an Internet cafe for kids called Club Penguin and make millions. These students would have spent all 4.5 hours of each day's camp playing these games and interacting on screen, as well as in person within the room with their classmates.
At first, this made me nervous knowing that too much of anything is not good, and I certainly did not want to create some video zombies either. It was funny though to watch the students interact with one another, combine efforts in virtual worlds by playing games, and even discussing moral issues with online environments and working to promote good netiquette while playing games within Club Penguin's social network. It took me a couple of days of observation to realize that they were really wrapped up in 21st century skills. They were collaborating, working face-to-face and virtually solving problems, and creating new games within the online space.
By the time these students enter the work force, we can only predict what their jobs will entail, but I have a feeling that many of the things that they learned during these free periods of time will prove to be very beneficial for becoming life long learners and problem solvers within the 21st century. Had this been a regular school lesson session, I doubt that many teachers, including myself, would have given them this much free time in order to observe this behavior. It makes me realize that we are too programmed sometimes when it comes to creating lessons for the computer lab.
Often I witness teachers in the computer lab that instruct students on basic skills within a program to ultimately present a research topic in a meaningful way. However, in most cases many of the presentations end up looking very similar, if not identical, due to the fact that in order to get through the lessons in the allotted time, teachers are forced to share a single step and then have students follow this step exactly on their own machines. Initial and basic skills probably have to be taught this way, or in a similar way through tutorials, videos or walk throughs, but does this really promote 21st century skills and problem solving strategies?
The answer, in my opinion, is not exactly. Open ended, service learning and project based learning with multimedia offer much more for the student, and require higher order thinking skills. These types of projects take up a lot of time, and require lots of planning which is probably why they are often ignored or skipped, but in my mind would be well worth the time and experience. If teachers have not experienced this before it can be very overwhelming, but I would urge you to at least try one of these projects with your class. It may seem to take way too long, and chances are the first time around will take an eternity, but I guarantee the outcomes will be well worth the time and efforts.
If you don't believe me, just give your students some "sandbox" time in the computer lab for your first class trip to the lab the next time and just quietly observe the students' behaviors and interests. It could be the most influential experience in getting to really know your students right off the bat. It certainly will tell you more then test scores within the cum folder.
During the last week of camp, filming and editing our movie didn't always require all of the students at one time, so there were times when the students had free time at their computers. I have learned more about Club Penguin then I ever really cared to, but I have to admit I have learned a few things from the kids. From an entrepreneur's standpoint, I could easily open up an Internet cafe for kids called Club Penguin and make millions. These students would have spent all 4.5 hours of each day's camp playing these games and interacting on screen, as well as in person within the room with their classmates.
At first, this made me nervous knowing that too much of anything is not good, and I certainly did not want to create some video zombies either. It was funny though to watch the students interact with one another, combine efforts in virtual worlds by playing games, and even discussing moral issues with online environments and working to promote good netiquette while playing games within Club Penguin's social network. It took me a couple of days of observation to realize that they were really wrapped up in 21st century skills. They were collaborating, working face-to-face and virtually solving problems, and creating new games within the online space.
By the time these students enter the work force, we can only predict what their jobs will entail, but I have a feeling that many of the things that they learned during these free periods of time will prove to be very beneficial for becoming life long learners and problem solvers within the 21st century. Had this been a regular school lesson session, I doubt that many teachers, including myself, would have given them this much free time in order to observe this behavior. It makes me realize that we are too programmed sometimes when it comes to creating lessons for the computer lab.
Often I witness teachers in the computer lab that instruct students on basic skills within a program to ultimately present a research topic in a meaningful way. However, in most cases many of the presentations end up looking very similar, if not identical, due to the fact that in order to get through the lessons in the allotted time, teachers are forced to share a single step and then have students follow this step exactly on their own machines. Initial and basic skills probably have to be taught this way, or in a similar way through tutorials, videos or walk throughs, but does this really promote 21st century skills and problem solving strategies?
The answer, in my opinion, is not exactly. Open ended, service learning and project based learning with multimedia offer much more for the student, and require higher order thinking skills. These types of projects take up a lot of time, and require lots of planning which is probably why they are often ignored or skipped, but in my mind would be well worth the time and experience. If teachers have not experienced this before it can be very overwhelming, but I would urge you to at least try one of these projects with your class. It may seem to take way too long, and chances are the first time around will take an eternity, but I guarantee the outcomes will be well worth the time and efforts.
If you don't believe me, just give your students some "sandbox" time in the computer lab for your first class trip to the lab the next time and just quietly observe the students' behaviors and interests. It could be the most influential experience in getting to really know your students right off the bat. It certainly will tell you more then test scores within the cum folder.
Lights, Camera, Action!
This is our last week of technology integration summer camp, and our theme this week is Movie Making. The kids have been busy making animations in GoAnimate4Schools.com and GoAnimate.com. I still have not found a good way to download the video so that I can include their animations on the DVD that they will take home. It appears that you can upload some of your animations to YouTube.com with a "Plus Account" which would enable you to download the video as well. However, a "Plus Account" is extra money each month and not the best option for students in a week long themed summer camp. I have embedded a few of the student animations below.
Our major project this week has been in creating a movie with everyone in the group included. Since we only have the week to create, film, edit, and publish the film itself, we often look for available scripts that other authors have already created. During the school year, I would certainly have the students rework something that they have written for an assignment, or during writer's workshop, for our script, but with such a short timeline "stealing" a script speeds up the process and helps to make the week more successful. This session we grabbed a script from Aaron Shepard's Reader's Theater page, and a picture book that he has written called, The Legend of Lightning Larry. Lightning Larry is a cowboy that rides into the town of Brimstone and changes the old west down forever. Instead of shooting bullets, Larry's gun shoots bolts of light that makes everyone a better person.
We spent the first two days reviewing the script, storyboarding our scenes, gathering costumes and putting up the set (green rolls of paper helped immensely), and practicing our lines. Day three was used to film the entire movie. The storyboards proved to be a huge help, since two of the scenes took place at the Cottonmouth Saloon, and with the help of these plans we were able to shoot the movie out of sequence, but ultimately saving a great deal of time. Marco Torres, the guru of student films, once referred to the importance of storyboards by saying, "It's much easier to take an eraser to a blueprint then it is to take an axe to a foundation." I couldn't agree more!
Thursday we spent the entire day in the computer lab editing our project in iMovie. I had visited 1880 Town in South Dakota a few summers ago on a trip across the northern part of the United States to visit as many national parks as I could, and we were able to use a lot of the pictures from this tourist attraction for our movie to replace the green screen backgrounds.
Friday we reviewed the movie for the last time and added the final touches to voice overs, sound and visual effects. It was time to burn our film to DVD and share it to YouTube for the whole world to see and comment on. Take a look at our student film, The Legend of Lightning Larry below. Keep in mind the students did everything on this project except for the script itself. We would love to hear your reactions and feedback, so please post your comments after viewing the movie.
Paul's Talking Burger and Soda Animation, "I Got an F on My Test"
GoAnimate.com: f by sharks182
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Timothy's Pirate Animation, "Oh God!"
GoAnimate.com: oh god by tfitzgerald
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Quenton's Animal Animation, "I'm Cool You're Not"
GoAnimate.com: Im cool you are not by qconvery
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Eric's Jungle Animation, "An Elephant that Doesn't Eat Peanuts"
GoAnimate.com: An Elephant that Doesn't Like Peanuts by lawsonlabs
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
The Legend of Lightning Larry story by Aaron Shepard
Our major project this week has been in creating a movie with everyone in the group included. Since we only have the week to create, film, edit, and publish the film itself, we often look for available scripts that other authors have already created. During the school year, I would certainly have the students rework something that they have written for an assignment, or during writer's workshop, for our script, but with such a short timeline "stealing" a script speeds up the process and helps to make the week more successful. This session we grabbed a script from Aaron Shepard's Reader's Theater page, and a picture book that he has written called, The Legend of Lightning Larry. Lightning Larry is a cowboy that rides into the town of Brimstone and changes the old west down forever. Instead of shooting bullets, Larry's gun shoots bolts of light that makes everyone a better person.
We spent the first two days reviewing the script, storyboarding our scenes, gathering costumes and putting up the set (green rolls of paper helped immensely), and practicing our lines. Day three was used to film the entire movie. The storyboards proved to be a huge help, since two of the scenes took place at the Cottonmouth Saloon, and with the help of these plans we were able to shoot the movie out of sequence, but ultimately saving a great deal of time. Marco Torres, the guru of student films, once referred to the importance of storyboards by saying, "It's much easier to take an eraser to a blueprint then it is to take an axe to a foundation." I couldn't agree more!
Thursday we spent the entire day in the computer lab editing our project in iMovie. I had visited 1880 Town in South Dakota a few summers ago on a trip across the northern part of the United States to visit as many national parks as I could, and we were able to use a lot of the pictures from this tourist attraction for our movie to replace the green screen backgrounds.
Friday we reviewed the movie for the last time and added the final touches to voice overs, sound and visual effects. It was time to burn our film to DVD and share it to YouTube for the whole world to see and comment on. Take a look at our student film, The Legend of Lightning Larry below. Keep in mind the students did everything on this project except for the script itself. We would love to hear your reactions and feedback, so please post your comments after viewing the movie.
Paul's Talking Burger and Soda Animation, "I Got an F on My Test"
GoAnimate.com: f by sharks182
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Timothy's Pirate Animation, "Oh God!"
GoAnimate.com: oh god by tfitzgerald
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Quenton's Animal Animation, "I'm Cool You're Not"
GoAnimate.com: Im cool you are not by qconvery
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Eric's Jungle Animation, "An Elephant that Doesn't Eat Peanuts"
GoAnimate.com: An Elephant that Doesn't Like Peanuts by lawsonlabs
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
The Legend of Lightning Larry story by Aaron Shepard
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
eMagination Week
This week is a blended learning camp with a number of different multimedia types. During eMagination week at tech. integration summer camp, we have been creating our own video games using Gamestarmechanic.com, creating cartoons with Goanimate4schools.com and publishing our own comic books using Comic Life. This is always a fun week for me to teach as many of the elements between these three projects are similar, yet there are enough differences that it doesn't seem boring to spend 4 hours in the lab creating and developing their masterpieces.
The students arrive at 8:00am and I usually take about 15 - 20 minutes covering a quick mini lesson for creating video games, gaining extra characters, and developing a "true story" within a video game. Gamestarmechanic makes this very easy and fun for the students. Most of the time I have to stop them to take a break outside as they probably would play all day long.
After about an hour's worth of work we take a short recess break outside to stretch our legs and play a few games and have some snack. After all, sitting in front of a computer screen for 4 straight hours, even with students from the digital revolution, is too much time!
After coming in from our break, I once again share a quick 15 - 20 minute mini-lesson on creating animations, adding voice overs, sound tracks, or creating complex actions between characters. Then the students get another hour to play with the program and discover what they can create. The best part about teaching this course is the "sandbox" time that the students explore with on their own. I get to walk around and observe how, and what, the students discover on their own, and answer unique questions that they have on a case-by-case basis. The best is when a student figures out something new and shares it with his/her classmates right there on the spot. That to me is the true meaning of learning, and why I love teaching these summer camps.
We take another short break outside and end with one more mini-lesson about using Comic Life, creating a Simpson character, layering using iWorks instant alpha, or finding ways to add backgrounds to our colorful comic books. The students then end with an hour to write, edit and publish their comics. Some export their comics to web pages, and others prefer to print them in color and take home a hard copy of their masterpiece.
The students arrive at 8:00am and I usually take about 15 - 20 minutes covering a quick mini lesson for creating video games, gaining extra characters, and developing a "true story" within a video game. Gamestarmechanic makes this very easy and fun for the students. Most of the time I have to stop them to take a break outside as they probably would play all day long.
After about an hour's worth of work we take a short recess break outside to stretch our legs and play a few games and have some snack. After all, sitting in front of a computer screen for 4 straight hours, even with students from the digital revolution, is too much time!
After coming in from our break, I once again share a quick 15 - 20 minute mini-lesson on creating animations, adding voice overs, sound tracks, or creating complex actions between characters. Then the students get another hour to play with the program and discover what they can create. The best part about teaching this course is the "sandbox" time that the students explore with on their own. I get to walk around and observe how, and what, the students discover on their own, and answer unique questions that they have on a case-by-case basis. The best is when a student figures out something new and shares it with his/her classmates right there on the spot. That to me is the true meaning of learning, and why I love teaching these summer camps.
We take another short break outside and end with one more mini-lesson about using Comic Life, creating a Simpson character, layering using iWorks instant alpha, or finding ways to add backgrounds to our colorful comic books. The students then end with an hour to write, edit and publish their comics. Some export their comics to web pages, and others prefer to print them in color and take home a hard copy of their masterpiece.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Student Web Pages
This week for tech. integration camp we have four very enthusiastic students that are entering 6th grade in the fall. They have never created their very own web page before, so they were excited to try new things and share some of the fun things that they have seen on the web.
I first introduced the students to Apple's iWeb program which makes creating and editing web pages a snap. Everything is drag and drop, and what you see is what you get. In other words, there is no html programming or java script editing to do. In fact, you can embed html snippets, interactive maps, videos from YouTube or even their own web cam to add to the web with a simple drag and drop from the widgets menu of iWeb's program.
The students started with pictures they found from the web that they liked or enjoyed. Eventually they learned about YouTube additions and each added a video to their web page as well. Many students brought in cameras, phones and even a Nintendo DS with pictures and stop-motion animation films loaded on them that they wanted to transfer onto their web pages.
I only met with these students for two hours a day during the week, so it was more of a discovery and play type of session, and I have to admit that not all of the items are what I would have allowed if I were teaching this lesson in a school classroom, but it was interesting to see what the students wanted to add to their web pages and the things they picked up so quickly while they "played around" with their web page designs and formats.
A couple of web 2.0 tools that the students found particularly interesting to add to their web pages were Fotobabble.com and Blabberize.com. Fotobabble allows the user to record an audio recording to any digital image that they upload to the web site. This is a great tool for younger elementary students that want to comment on a picture, but lack the speedy typing skills or spelling skills to really reflect their ideas or opinions on the photo. Blabberize is a little different. It's the JibJab of mashing photos and audio. In other words, you can create a "mouth" that moves similar to the characters on JibJab or SouthPark. In other words, the site allows you to create virtual paper puppets that move their mouth as you talk into your computers microphone.
I would certainly use iWeb, or Weebly.com if you do not own a Mac, for student created projects that could be presented in a web page format. This would be a great tool for students to present information that they found in researching a particular topic, helping out their community through a service learning project, or for a book review or talk. I have helped students create web pages in the past for their Flat Stanley projects as the pictures from the visitors, interactive maps, and even a few videos were easily represented in a web page format for everyone to see.
Here is the link to the four student created web pages if you want to take a look at the finished product; StudentPages
I first introduced the students to Apple's iWeb program which makes creating and editing web pages a snap. Everything is drag and drop, and what you see is what you get. In other words, there is no html programming or java script editing to do. In fact, you can embed html snippets, interactive maps, videos from YouTube or even their own web cam to add to the web with a simple drag and drop from the widgets menu of iWeb's program.
The students started with pictures they found from the web that they liked or enjoyed. Eventually they learned about YouTube additions and each added a video to their web page as well. Many students brought in cameras, phones and even a Nintendo DS with pictures and stop-motion animation films loaded on them that they wanted to transfer onto their web pages.
I only met with these students for two hours a day during the week, so it was more of a discovery and play type of session, and I have to admit that not all of the items are what I would have allowed if I were teaching this lesson in a school classroom, but it was interesting to see what the students wanted to add to their web pages and the things they picked up so quickly while they "played around" with their web page designs and formats.
A couple of web 2.0 tools that the students found particularly interesting to add to their web pages were Fotobabble.com and Blabberize.com. Fotobabble allows the user to record an audio recording to any digital image that they upload to the web site. This is a great tool for younger elementary students that want to comment on a picture, but lack the speedy typing skills or spelling skills to really reflect their ideas or opinions on the photo. Blabberize is a little different. It's the JibJab of mashing photos and audio. In other words, you can create a "mouth" that moves similar to the characters on JibJab or SouthPark. In other words, the site allows you to create virtual paper puppets that move their mouth as you talk into your computers microphone.
I would certainly use iWeb, or Weebly.com if you do not own a Mac, for student created projects that could be presented in a web page format. This would be a great tool for students to present information that they found in researching a particular topic, helping out their community through a service learning project, or for a book review or talk. I have helped students create web pages in the past for their Flat Stanley projects as the pictures from the visitors, interactive maps, and even a few videos were easily represented in a web page format for everyone to see.
Here is the link to the four student created web pages if you want to take a look at the finished product; StudentPages
Friday, July 29, 2011
Base Camp to Summit; Geocaching for Kids
This week our theme at summer tech. camp is geocaching for kids. It's an introductory course to GPS units, some orienteering, and overall good fun outdoors. Most importantly it's using technology to integrate some family fun activities and still get outside when the weather is gorgeous here in Maine. This week, I have 7 students ages 8-10 that love all things technology. Most of them use technology in the forms of cameras, video games, and iPods, but have never tried geocaching.
On Monday we explored how GPS units work by watching a short video on Brainpop and then going outside onto the school's playground to use the digital compass to locate 4 film canisters that I had hidden earlier that morning. We then came back to the lab to watch the tutorial video on geocaching.com to learn about the sport and how to get started. There is a cache hidden behind our school that a group of students and I setup a few years ago in our after school geocaching club called, "School House Rocks Box". It's a metal lunchbox that is hidden in the woods behind our school. It's perfect for an introduction since it's large enough to stow away small trinkets and prizes, and the path to it is very easy to manage as well. We also use this cache to start our Virtual Flat Stanley's on their treks around the world!
On Tuesday we had found that there was a cache about 3/4 of a mile down the road at our town's public library called, "Read, Read, Read". The students learned how to input the coordinates on this one into their GPS units and packed up for a short hike. They were pleased to see some good prizes in this cache to trade with, and couldn't wait to hide one themselves. When we arrived back to school we took a walk back out into the woods and marked areas with the GPS units of good hiding places for a new cache. We then played a geodash game.
Geodash
I have modified this game a little bit to help with learning about marking and finding, and also to get the kids to see both sides of this game. Each pair of students are given a GPS unit and a film canister. They must hide the film canister and then mark it with their GPS unit. I usually have two groups go to the front of the school building, and two groups go to the back so that they cannot see each other hide their "cache". We then meet back in a middle spot and exchange GPS units. Now each pair of students have a another group's GPS unit and must find the "cache" that they just hid. It's a little bit of geocaching and a race all thrown into one.
On Wednesday we had one more to find that was within walking distance of the school called, "Quack Quack". We saw a path behind the school that looked to go in the right direction, so we armed ourselves with lots of bug spray, marked our original spot in case we got lost out there, and headed off into the woods. There were a few overgrown portions of the path in which we got scraped by some pricker bushes at times, but we eventually made our way past the other elementary school and onto the road near where the cache was hidden. This was a much longer hike and it took us an hour and 40 minutes to complete the round trip trek.
Thursday the students were dropped off at the base of our local "Mountain" (it's more of a hill) Mount Agamenticus. There is a smaller cache called, "Kim's Eye View" that looks over a cliff not far from the access road that we found first, and then there is a multi-cache on the grounds of the park itself called, "Vernal Cache". I had introduced the concept of a multi-cache to the students on Monday, but they hadn't seen one yet. For this cache, the coordinates take you to the first waypoint. This waypoint is well hidden, but gives the final coordinates to the cache itself which is much further away. These can be a lot of fun especially if they are cleverly hidden and contain clues to find the next cache and not just the coordinates themselves. I have found a few in conservation areas that made you think and answer trivia questions with numbers in order to find the correct coordinates for the final cache. These are the ones I am most proud of when I sign the log at the cache site and respond online at geocaching.com to get credit for my find.
It was an absolutely beautiful day on Mount Agamenticus. The highs were only in the low 80's and the sun and hawks were out. The summit lodge was also open with all of the nature exhibits to let us look at while we were up there as well, and I asked parents to pick up their kids at the top so that they could see the exhibits as well. This is definitely one of my favorite camps to run, and something I wish we could work more into the school curriculum too!
TrailGuru Map of our Treks
Monday School House Rocks Box Trek
Tuesday Read, Read, Read Trek
Wednesday Quack Quack Trek
Thursday Kim's Eye View/Vernal Pool Multi on Mt. A. Trek
On Monday we explored how GPS units work by watching a short video on Brainpop and then going outside onto the school's playground to use the digital compass to locate 4 film canisters that I had hidden earlier that morning. We then came back to the lab to watch the tutorial video on geocaching.com to learn about the sport and how to get started. There is a cache hidden behind our school that a group of students and I setup a few years ago in our after school geocaching club called, "School House Rocks Box". It's a metal lunchbox that is hidden in the woods behind our school. It's perfect for an introduction since it's large enough to stow away small trinkets and prizes, and the path to it is very easy to manage as well. We also use this cache to start our Virtual Flat Stanley's on their treks around the world!
On Tuesday we had found that there was a cache about 3/4 of a mile down the road at our town's public library called, "Read, Read, Read". The students learned how to input the coordinates on this one into their GPS units and packed up for a short hike. They were pleased to see some good prizes in this cache to trade with, and couldn't wait to hide one themselves. When we arrived back to school we took a walk back out into the woods and marked areas with the GPS units of good hiding places for a new cache. We then played a geodash game.
Geodash
I have modified this game a little bit to help with learning about marking and finding, and also to get the kids to see both sides of this game. Each pair of students are given a GPS unit and a film canister. They must hide the film canister and then mark it with their GPS unit. I usually have two groups go to the front of the school building, and two groups go to the back so that they cannot see each other hide their "cache". We then meet back in a middle spot and exchange GPS units. Now each pair of students have a another group's GPS unit and must find the "cache" that they just hid. It's a little bit of geocaching and a race all thrown into one.
On Wednesday we had one more to find that was within walking distance of the school called, "Quack Quack". We saw a path behind the school that looked to go in the right direction, so we armed ourselves with lots of bug spray, marked our original spot in case we got lost out there, and headed off into the woods. There were a few overgrown portions of the path in which we got scraped by some pricker bushes at times, but we eventually made our way past the other elementary school and onto the road near where the cache was hidden. This was a much longer hike and it took us an hour and 40 minutes to complete the round trip trek.
Thursday the students were dropped off at the base of our local "Mountain" (it's more of a hill) Mount Agamenticus. There is a smaller cache called, "Kim's Eye View" that looks over a cliff not far from the access road that we found first, and then there is a multi-cache on the grounds of the park itself called, "Vernal Cache". I had introduced the concept of a multi-cache to the students on Monday, but they hadn't seen one yet. For this cache, the coordinates take you to the first waypoint. This waypoint is well hidden, but gives the final coordinates to the cache itself which is much further away. These can be a lot of fun especially if they are cleverly hidden and contain clues to find the next cache and not just the coordinates themselves. I have found a few in conservation areas that made you think and answer trivia questions with numbers in order to find the correct coordinates for the final cache. These are the ones I am most proud of when I sign the log at the cache site and respond online at geocaching.com to get credit for my find.
It was an absolutely beautiful day on Mount Agamenticus. The highs were only in the low 80's and the sun and hawks were out. The summit lodge was also open with all of the nature exhibits to let us look at while we were up there as well, and I asked parents to pick up their kids at the top so that they could see the exhibits as well. This is definitely one of my favorite camps to run, and something I wish we could work more into the school curriculum too!
TrailGuru Map of our Treks
Monday School House Rocks Box Trek
Tuesday Read, Read, Read Trek
Wednesday Quack Quack Trek
Thursday Kim's Eye View/Vernal Pool Multi on Mt. A. Trek
Thursday, July 21, 2011
It's a Bug's Life
For the third week of summer camp, I had four enthusiastic and full of energy 5 and 6 year olds. The theme for the week was, "It's a Bug's Life". This week we hunted around the school for insects, bugs of all types, and things that would look different to a bug since they are so small. We checked out the gardens, the flower beds, the playground, the back field and even went for a stroll into the woods one day. We found lots of different species of bugs and plants that would look very different to a bug. We then brought them back in our bug boxes and took a closer look at them under the ProScope Microscope attached to the computer. We recorded video of the live bugs and took pictures of the bugs that didn't move very much. We used these pictures to create a digital audio riddle book using the close up images for the riddles and a regular sized picture for the answers to the riddles. The students really enjoyed collected bugs and going out on our scavenger hunts, but they also enjoyed created the book in Keynote and burning it to a disk so that their whole family could enjoy what they had found. I have published the audio book to YouTube, and you can preview it below as well.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Movie Making Camp
It always impresses me how a group of students can work together and collaborate on a storyboard, script, filming sequence and editing decisions. This week at summer Movie Making Camp we had 8 students that ranged in age from 8 - 13. Now most of the time students at these age levels don't even want to be associated with one another, well except for the 8 year old that wants to "play with his older friends all the time." I admit there were certainly some very silent times outside planning, and in the lab where the students went to their respective corner staring into the glare of their single monitor with headphones on. However, without even being pushed into it, since after all it's only summer camp, they came together to film, edit and produce a collaborative movie.
Hollywood won't be knocking on our doors any time soon, but we certainly learned a lot about the capabilities of iMovie '11 and how to use green screen and picture-in-a-picture techniques. It also taught us to better plan and to think about costumes when using these techniques in the future. Both boys in one scene wore blue outfits and we really wanted to use a blue screen to make the art work come to life since the green screen was used for the backdrop. We had to problem solve and used picture-in-a-picture as a special effect instead. Not as polished as our 12 year old chief editor Abbi would say, but it will do for the time we have here. She was right! It will have to do for the time we had this one week to plan, film and produce our movie, The Legend of Slappy Hooper an American Tall Tale by Aaron Shepard.
Hollywood won't be knocking on our doors any time soon, but we certainly learned a lot about the capabilities of iMovie '11 and how to use green screen and picture-in-a-picture techniques. It also taught us to better plan and to think about costumes when using these techniques in the future. Both boys in one scene wore blue outfits and we really wanted to use a blue screen to make the art work come to life since the green screen was used for the backdrop. We had to problem solve and used picture-in-a-picture as a special effect instead. Not as polished as our 12 year old chief editor Abbi would say, but it will do for the time we have here. She was right! It will have to do for the time we had this one week to plan, film and produce our movie, The Legend of Slappy Hooper an American Tall Tale by Aaron Shepard.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Comic Books and Movie Making
Our second week of summer tech. camps is about to kick off. I'm really excited about this one as I get to work with the elementary PE teacher, my long time friend since high school. This week's theme is Comic Books and Movie Making. I love this combination, not because I want the kids to make a movie about comic book heroes as the rest of Hollywood is doing these days, but because it gets students to focus on the planning of making movies and good digital story telling strategies. We use a lot of different technologies to plan, create, edit and publish these Comic Books and Movies. This week's camp runs Mon. - Fri. from 8:00am - 2:30pm. We have a great group of 8 kids that are eager to learn about how to create movie magic and glossy comic book pages. The combination is perfect! Marco Torres once said, "It is much easier to take an eraser to a blueprint, then it is to take a pick ax to a foundation." In other words, planning is the key building block to a successful project. I use comic books to teach about storyboarding with making movies and digital storytelling.
The students will first learn how to use Comic Life and all of it's features to create their very own Comic Book. Illustrations can come from anywhere. They can be drawn in an illustration program such as Kidpix, Tuxpaint, Clicker Paint, etc. or even free hand drawn and scanned in. Other students may decide to use Photobooth to create comic like drawings of themselves or toys that they bring in to tell their comic stories. We will learn the differences between speech bubbles and transition text to tell the story in a comic book. This is just foreshadowing to our storyboarding techniques that we will use to create our class movie as well.
For movie making, I usually start with a video that I created with the tech. ed. at my old district called, How to Make a Movie. This teaches the basic steps to digital storytelling for elementary students in a humorous way. (For more information and resources on digital storytelling view our team taught web page on digital storytelling from our ACTEM presentation in Augusta, Maine in October 2010.)
I have used Brainpop's videos as well to help illustrate the steps in movie making, especially when talking about at the professional level. The students and I then scour the Internet for a story to use, as creating one itself could take weeks by itself. If I were to teach this project within the classroom, I would certainly prefer the students to develop a story they had written in language arts and create a digital story out of it, but as I only have 5 shortened days with them it is much better to rely on other resources. For this reason, I have found that Aaron Shepard's Reader's Theater web page works great for creating elementary movies. In fact, last summer we used his story, "The Boy Who Wanted the Willies" to create our summer movie and it worked out great. (See video below)
After our initial group processing and planning, we often use Kidspiration for the brainstorming, Comic Life or a storyboard template that Pages '11 offers to create the scenes in order on the walls of the lab, we discuss which roles each student wants. The students work on creating lists for their costumes, props and immediately start reading the script to memorize their lines. Each day, I teach a a mini course on filming, green screen techniques and movie magic. I find that by doing this, and explaining how other movies were made, it allows the students to become the real problem solvers when it comes to filming their own movie.
For example, last year we needed a scene in which a student walks up to the gates of a castle. Immediately the students said we could use the green screen. Then one student said, "Well I actually have a toy castle at home that works. Couldn't we film it with stop-motion animation to make it look like the drawbridge really works?" That just got the discussion rolling. From there we filmed the castle against a green screen and after 6 attempts we came out with the finished product in which a student walks towards the castle against the black of night as the draw bridge slowly lowers. (I have added all the steps on how the students did this in the previously mentioned digital storytelling link from above if you are curious how the students solved this problem.)
Aha moments like this, and true problem solving is what I miss the most about teaching in my own classroom, but as long as I can still offer enriching programs during the summer months and after school during the year, I will be happy.
We then edit the entire film using iMovie '11 with advanced tools checked in the preferences menu to use picture-in-a-picture and green screen techniques. (I purchased my green screen, a green cloth, on eBay for $2). After all of the voice overs, music, sound effects and video effects have been added, we burn a DVD copy that the students can create the cover art for so that they can bring it home and share with their family and friends. I also show them the process of uploading the video to a Web 2.0 resource such as Vimeo.com or YouTube.com so that family and friends far away, as well as the rest of the world, can view their finished product. They truly feel like movie stars when the whole thing is finished!
The students will first learn how to use Comic Life and all of it's features to create their very own Comic Book. Illustrations can come from anywhere. They can be drawn in an illustration program such as Kidpix, Tuxpaint, Clicker Paint, etc. or even free hand drawn and scanned in. Other students may decide to use Photobooth to create comic like drawings of themselves or toys that they bring in to tell their comic stories. We will learn the differences between speech bubbles and transition text to tell the story in a comic book. This is just foreshadowing to our storyboarding techniques that we will use to create our class movie as well.
For movie making, I usually start with a video that I created with the tech. ed. at my old district called, How to Make a Movie. This teaches the basic steps to digital storytelling for elementary students in a humorous way. (For more information and resources on digital storytelling view our team taught web page on digital storytelling from our ACTEM presentation in Augusta, Maine in October 2010.)
I have used Brainpop's videos as well to help illustrate the steps in movie making, especially when talking about at the professional level. The students and I then scour the Internet for a story to use, as creating one itself could take weeks by itself. If I were to teach this project within the classroom, I would certainly prefer the students to develop a story they had written in language arts and create a digital story out of it, but as I only have 5 shortened days with them it is much better to rely on other resources. For this reason, I have found that Aaron Shepard's Reader's Theater web page works great for creating elementary movies. In fact, last summer we used his story, "The Boy Who Wanted the Willies" to create our summer movie and it worked out great. (See video below)
After our initial group processing and planning, we often use Kidspiration for the brainstorming, Comic Life or a storyboard template that Pages '11 offers to create the scenes in order on the walls of the lab, we discuss which roles each student wants. The students work on creating lists for their costumes, props and immediately start reading the script to memorize their lines. Each day, I teach a a mini course on filming, green screen techniques and movie magic. I find that by doing this, and explaining how other movies were made, it allows the students to become the real problem solvers when it comes to filming their own movie.
For example, last year we needed a scene in which a student walks up to the gates of a castle. Immediately the students said we could use the green screen. Then one student said, "Well I actually have a toy castle at home that works. Couldn't we film it with stop-motion animation to make it look like the drawbridge really works?" That just got the discussion rolling. From there we filmed the castle against a green screen and after 6 attempts we came out with the finished product in which a student walks towards the castle against the black of night as the draw bridge slowly lowers. (I have added all the steps on how the students did this in the previously mentioned digital storytelling link from above if you are curious how the students solved this problem.)
Aha moments like this, and true problem solving is what I miss the most about teaching in my own classroom, but as long as I can still offer enriching programs during the summer months and after school during the year, I will be happy.
We then edit the entire film using iMovie '11 with advanced tools checked in the preferences menu to use picture-in-a-picture and green screen techniques. (I purchased my green screen, a green cloth, on eBay for $2). After all of the voice overs, music, sound effects and video effects have been added, we burn a DVD copy that the students can create the cover art for so that they can bring it home and share with their family and friends. I also show them the process of uploading the video to a Web 2.0 resource such as Vimeo.com or YouTube.com so that family and friends far away, as well as the rest of the world, can view their finished product. They truly feel like movie stars when the whole thing is finished!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Life Long Learners Don't Take the Summer Off
Today I started my 8 week summer work schedule. I rolled into school around 7:45am today to pick up 4 GPS units and a couple of laptops before heading over to the playground to see four eager students awaiting the start of camp. It seems like I just left school for the year as the students and staff celebrated the last day of school only a week ago, but in the blink of an eye the classroom shifted to a more relaxed setting and the students came in with all the enthusiasm in the world to enter a new learning environment ready to absorb as much as possible. I couldn't be happier!
I myself will admit that I may have bit off more then I can chew this summer, but with a baby on the way having a little extra cash flow is a good idea, and besides the thing I miss most about not having my own classroom anymore is in getting to know the students better. So here I am primed and ready for four hours with four students each morning designing and creating animations, cartoons and comics for the week as well as getting outdoors to stretch the legs using GPS units to play games closely related to geocaching. (In the afternoon this summer I will be helping the IT staff move everything over to our new servers in preparation for our district Wide Area Network. In the late afternoon and evenings I will be tutoring adults with iPads, laptops and other types of technology needs.)
Of course, as things would have it, I walked into the lab with the students shortly after a quick outdoor geocaching warm-up activity and the Internet was down due to switching servers and problems early on. Time to punt! I had the students login locally to our network iMacs in our computer lab and we used the programs Comic Life, Photobooth, and Hyperstudio 5 to create comics, cartoons and animated stories. The four boys were fantastic and loved the programs. These creative minds not only explored the programs on their own, but quickly became collaborators with one another's stories and animations adding an extra voice over or sound effect for each other.
At the end of morning we watched all four stories and gave feedback to one another. This is the step that I often see skipped in lessons in elementary school, especially when using a lot of technology or teaching within the lab. I understand why this happens, time or an overwhelming feeling to finish the project make it nearly impossible to get everything in, but after seeing what I saw today, and have seen many times over, the observation, critical evaluation and reflection sessions are some of the best teachable moments out there. Plus, this gives students a chance to learn while doing. Too often we evaluate when it's too late to make changes. Do students really learn this way? Not really in my eyes. They see this as a grade given by the teacher, but not as something to improve on since they were not given the chance to fail at something and respond with a solution to the problem.
These mini evaluation sessions, both self-reflection and peer reflection, yields some of the best quality of work in my observations over my 11 years as an elementary educator. This is the basis and quality evidence shown in many case studies for student portfolios and student-led conferences. I know that I will once again push to have more chances for students to share, collaborate and reflect on one another's work. I will also surely push for ePortfolios this year and look for teachers to pilot some of these projects.
I myself will admit that I may have bit off more then I can chew this summer, but with a baby on the way having a little extra cash flow is a good idea, and besides the thing I miss most about not having my own classroom anymore is in getting to know the students better. So here I am primed and ready for four hours with four students each morning designing and creating animations, cartoons and comics for the week as well as getting outdoors to stretch the legs using GPS units to play games closely related to geocaching. (In the afternoon this summer I will be helping the IT staff move everything over to our new servers in preparation for our district Wide Area Network. In the late afternoon and evenings I will be tutoring adults with iPads, laptops and other types of technology needs.)
Of course, as things would have it, I walked into the lab with the students shortly after a quick outdoor geocaching warm-up activity and the Internet was down due to switching servers and problems early on. Time to punt! I had the students login locally to our network iMacs in our computer lab and we used the programs Comic Life, Photobooth, and Hyperstudio 5 to create comics, cartoons and animated stories. The four boys were fantastic and loved the programs. These creative minds not only explored the programs on their own, but quickly became collaborators with one another's stories and animations adding an extra voice over or sound effect for each other.
At the end of morning we watched all four stories and gave feedback to one another. This is the step that I often see skipped in lessons in elementary school, especially when using a lot of technology or teaching within the lab. I understand why this happens, time or an overwhelming feeling to finish the project make it nearly impossible to get everything in, but after seeing what I saw today, and have seen many times over, the observation, critical evaluation and reflection sessions are some of the best teachable moments out there. Plus, this gives students a chance to learn while doing. Too often we evaluate when it's too late to make changes. Do students really learn this way? Not really in my eyes. They see this as a grade given by the teacher, but not as something to improve on since they were not given the chance to fail at something and respond with a solution to the problem.
These mini evaluation sessions, both self-reflection and peer reflection, yields some of the best quality of work in my observations over my 11 years as an elementary educator. This is the basis and quality evidence shown in many case studies for student portfolios and student-led conferences. I know that I will once again push to have more chances for students to share, collaborate and reflect on one another's work. I will also surely push for ePortfolios this year and look for teachers to pilot some of these projects.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Enrichment Day at VES
For one afternoon students at Village Elementary School (grades K - 2) chose special mini-courses that interested them outside of the regular curriculum. We were encouraged by our Horizon's teacher (pc for Gifted and Talented these days) to teach something out of the box and something that the students wouldn't normally expect you to do. The male PE teacher, a good friend of mine since high school, and I have a love for good food and cooking. Certainly something the students wouldn't expect from the two of us. Nor do most of the staff for that matter, so we chose to teach a course on French cooking. Using the Disney movie Ratatouille, and the cookbook by Thomas Keller inspired by the movie, we created a French cheese fondue for the students. Armed with plastic knives and skewers, the students watched part of the movie, and created one of the best cheese fondues I have ever tasted before. It's truly great to see students outside of the regular environment of school. We setup our fondue stations in the teacher's lounge, and the students were very excited to learn a new skill.
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
eNewsletter June
The summer edition of the eNewsletter for teachers is out. In this month's issue, I focus on backing up your files. This is especially essential for educators in Maine as they must turn in their MLTI laptop to be reimaged by their IT department this summer. There are tips and tricks for backing up your files locally to your school's server or your own pen/external hard drive, as well as backing up your files to the cloud. There are many more tips for backing up things like bookmarks in Safari and Firefox, your iMovie files, iWeb domain file, and even your Sticky notes on the Tech Tip of the Week web site as well.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
New Blog/Resource
The iDevices, or "Game Changers", as they have been called has inspired me to create a web page dedicated to implementing these devices into the classroom to enhance lessons and instruction in our schools. The district that I work in has seen these changes first hand with a few pilot programs this year using the iPads. Next year's budget will increase these pilots as we plan to purchase another 15 tablets. As these mobile devices take over our world, and we all know the kids will learn on them faster than we can catch up, it is important to develop a PLN of professions with tried and true practices for these devices and apps. For this reason, I have started a blog/resource page called iDevices in Our Schools. I'm hoping that this resource will grow as my own PLN helps to contribute ideas, resources, videos, and reflections on how they are using these types of technologies within their own classrooms. Any input would be great!
Friday, April 29, 2011
eNewsletter May
The latest edition of the eNewsletter is out. In the May edition of the eNewsletter I have included some great new links and resources for project based learning with multimedia and creating exciting new lessons to get your students excited, inspired and motivated down this home stretch of the school year. I have also included some great articles on technology integration that you can use your classroom. Please do not hesitate to ask for help too. Cheers!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Enrichment Day
Each year, our Horizon's teacher (our new PC term for Gifted and Talented), organizes a fun filled afternoon of mini-enrichment courses for the kids in our elementary schools to choose from. Teachers, middle school and high school students, and community members come into our school and offer their expertise and lead a group of elementary students for an hour and a half in their interest areas. This year we had courses that ranged from cooking dog biscuits for your favorite four legged friend, to playing the drums and guitar, to hiking techniques and science experiments at home. There were gardeners, fly fish tiers, golfers, and scrap bookers too. The students got to pick their top 5 choices and were divided into their respective groups for the afternoon.
I can't say enough about events like this one. To see children in a different setting other than in class is truly a special occasion and one that should be shared by all teaching staff all over the world. As a technology integrator, I miss the opportunities that I had had as a classroom teacher to connect with students on a one-to-one level and discuss their social lives as well as just their educational career within the confines of the classroom walls. I miss heading out to the ballpark to watch a student clobber a fastball into the outfield, or play their favorite concerto at their piano recital. A day like enrichment day, although it's only an hour and a half long, offers a quick insight into the true character of each and every child.
There were 20 kids that came out to learn about a golf swing with myself and our school custodian that moonlights at a local golf and ski sports shop. We taught them the basic grip and mechanics of the golf swing, and even let them use the back playground as a driving range. The students then divided up into groups and played a short 9-hole course that I had set up around the back field and even kept score on score cards that were designed in the computer lab. (We had to tie math into the event some how!)
All of the students loved the activity. Some were disappointed, and even frustrated at times, over their lack of confidence and ability to strike the ball with mastery, but that is the actual point of the day. Students that excel in the classroom didn't always master the activity for enrichment day and learned a hard lesson that sometimes extra practice is required to master a skill. Other students, and in my class in particular, that do not always excel in the classroom realized they could succeed in something new and unrelated to typical school activities and found a new love for a hobby that they hadn't tried before.
Learning can come from any where and every where! As educators we need to realize this and strive to think outside of the box and teach from all different angles in order to reach each and every child. I sure learned a lot from the enrichment day and I didn't even get a chance to attend a course. I can only imagine what the rest of the group learned in their choices.
I can't say enough about events like this one. To see children in a different setting other than in class is truly a special occasion and one that should be shared by all teaching staff all over the world. As a technology integrator, I miss the opportunities that I had had as a classroom teacher to connect with students on a one-to-one level and discuss their social lives as well as just their educational career within the confines of the classroom walls. I miss heading out to the ballpark to watch a student clobber a fastball into the outfield, or play their favorite concerto at their piano recital. A day like enrichment day, although it's only an hour and a half long, offers a quick insight into the true character of each and every child.
There were 20 kids that came out to learn about a golf swing with myself and our school custodian that moonlights at a local golf and ski sports shop. We taught them the basic grip and mechanics of the golf swing, and even let them use the back playground as a driving range. The students then divided up into groups and played a short 9-hole course that I had set up around the back field and even kept score on score cards that were designed in the computer lab. (We had to tie math into the event some how!)
All of the students loved the activity. Some were disappointed, and even frustrated at times, over their lack of confidence and ability to strike the ball with mastery, but that is the actual point of the day. Students that excel in the classroom didn't always master the activity for enrichment day and learned a hard lesson that sometimes extra practice is required to master a skill. Other students, and in my class in particular, that do not always excel in the classroom realized they could succeed in something new and unrelated to typical school activities and found a new love for a hobby that they hadn't tried before.
Learning can come from any where and every where! As educators we need to realize this and strive to think outside of the box and teach from all different angles in order to reach each and every child. I sure learned a lot from the enrichment day and I didn't even get a chance to attend a course. I can only imagine what the rest of the group learned in their choices.
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches as AT in the Classroom
This is my first published article in Tech&Learning Magazine.
iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches as AT in the Classroom
iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches as AT in the Classroom
April eNewsletter
In this month's eNewsletter, I offer some advice on building your very own Professional Learning Network (PLN). Much like PLCs, a PLN allows you to create, collaborated and gain feedback any time and any where. Instead of meeting with your department, team, or grade level locally, a global education team is formed online so that you can enhance your lessons, projects and units. I have also attached some great articles on creating lessons and builiding PLN's with technology. Below are some great links to help you get started as well.
- Twitter Commands Blog
- http://cantondog.com/128/top-7-twitter-commands-everyone-should-know/
- How Web-based Tools Change Teaching and Learning
- Free ebook at http://newbay.ebookhost.net/dle/hpintel/3/index.php
- Classroom Video: Tools and Strategies to Engage Students in Learning
- Free ebook at http://newbay.ebookhost.net/tl/sony/1/index.php
- Web 2.0 Tools Website
- http://sdst.libguides.com/newtools
- Privately Share Videos for Portfolios
- http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/03/3-ways-to-privately-share-videos.html
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Cloud Computing
The latest edition of the eNewsletter is out. In this month, cloud computing is the hot topic. What are the pros and cons of creating, publishing, and backing up to web accounts?
Thursday, January 27, 2011
eNewsletter February
In the latest edition of the eNewsletter, I have included National Education Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S), Teachers (NETS-T) and Administrators (NETS-A) to discuss the importance of these standards in moving our district forward with technology integration. Included are some great resources and web links to sites that offer projects, lessons and ideas to integrate technology and promote 21st century skills and future problem solvers.
Friday, January 7, 2011
iPads, iTouches, and iPhones as AT
Introduction
The recent release of Apple’s iPad has opened up some great new ideas and creative paths for teachers looking for assistive technologies (AT) for their classroom. Tactile learners, and digital natives alike, love the opportunity to use these handheld devices to learn about core curriculum standards within the classroom. “iPod touch and iPhone use a high-resolution Multi-Touch screen, ideal for those who have difficulty using a traditional keyboard and mouse.” (http://www.apple.com/education/special-education/) The iTunes app. store has even showcased a special tab for special education apps. available as AT for students with learning disabilities. The app store often offers these same apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone. These tablets and handheld devices can be used in many different ways, and even offer communication tools for students with autism.
Applications (apps)
Applications for handheld devices are becoming more and more popular in education. Many teachers are starting to use these apps. on handheld devices to promote reading fluency and comprehension, communication skills, and other core curriculum concepts. There are so many apps to choose from, it sometimes gets overwhelming when searching for one that best fits the lesson or the individual learner. I have a few recommendations for apps that can be used as AT within the classroom on all three devices.
TapToTalk is a free app. that uses symbols to help students form sentences. Students with verbal issues, or who cannot speak at all, can use this app. to communicate with their teacher and peers. The free gallery offers phrases about feelings and every day statements such as, “I feel happy” or, “I need to go to the bathroom.” Additional galleries for forming sentences can be downloaded from the company’s website as well including manipulating symbols or pictures to reflect the student’s, individual teacher’s or daily routines. This has been a great feature for one of our students with autism in fifth grade. He used to use a Vantage Vanguard touch box and is very familiar with touching symbols to form sentences. Having the ability to import pictures of his teachers and peers in his class has been a huge advantage in his communications, as he used to have to type in the names of these people before with his touch box.
A more robust program for communicating for students with autism is Proloquo2Go. This app. costs $189.99, however, compared to the cost of paying for software and equipment such as a text-to-speech touch box, the money could be well worth it. The application uses SymbolStix Symbols to help students communicate. Sentences are formed and the tablet or handheld device will read the text out loud. “Proloquo2Go has been helping individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), cerebral palsy, down syndrome, developmental disabilities, ALS, traumatic brain injury, aphasia, apraxia, and more.” (http://www.proloquo2go.com/About/article/ipad)
Text-to-speech, and speech-to-text apps. are also available on the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone. Dragon Dictation is a tool used to dictate speech and format the spoken word into text. Students who have trouble with gross and/or fine motor skills can use this app. to communicate effectively in text, without having to write or type. These text notes can then be easily shared via Facebook, Twitter and email. The copy/paste feature allows the user to transform the text into any other application they may need to add to as well. Personally, I have only used this a few times with students, but I have found that this app is a wonderful alternative to texting. I can speak into the iPhone using this app and convert it to a text message faster then typing on the smaller keyboard.
Text-to-speech options are available for many apps. including iBooks. A student can pick out a book from the shelf and simply hold their finger on a word, and the word will be read out loud to the student. A dictionary feature also allows students to look up the meaning of the word, and they may also wish to add a note to review later that bookmarks the word on the page. Audio options are available for all of these features. I worked with a second grader who was struggling with reading, and the text-to-speech feature and dictionary option helped him?? get through the struggles of not understanding a sentence enough to comprehend the key elements of the story. Two months into the school year, this same student was leaving sticky notes for the teacher within the application connecting the story to personal experiences. Clearly this student had grown leaps and bounds due to this technology.
There are many apps. from the iTunes store geared towards English Language Learners (ELL) as well. Apps. are available for translation between languages, and ELL students can benefit from apps. that offer language building skills and promote reading and speaking fluency as well. I have seen an emerging English reader use iTalk Lite, a free voice recorder app. in a first grade classroom. The student read into the microphone on the teacher’s iPhone to record his voice. A synchronization program, also free from the developer’s website, allowed the teacher to grab a copy of the recording onto the laptop as well. A CD was burned for the student to take home, after his best recorded reading, to listen to and practice with fluency. This is also a great way for the student to showcase their successes, or model inflection and fluency to future struggling students. This opens up all kinds of opportunities for teachers to create audio directions, alternative text books, and fluency practice lessons for students that require it.
Apple’s iPhone 3GS now comes standard with accessible navigation software to help people with disabilities experience everything it has to offer. “The iPods and iPhone also feature spoken menu technology that blind and low-vision students can use to easily find a song or playlist.” Apple is truly making an effort to allow everyone to fully access all of these handheld devices’ features. “With iPod touch and iPhone, students can easily activate Mono Audio and access useful applications developed especially to enhance these media players for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.” (http://www.apple.com/education/special-education/)
Conclusion
Our school district has placed 20 iPod Touches and 15 iPads into next year’s budget as a way to pilot some programs within our school and develop strong AT programs. These devices can definitely provide learning for everyone, but are certainly great resources when it comes to assistive technologies.
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