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?

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!

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?

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.

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

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.

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