Video Conferencing and Breaking Down our Classroom Walls

Applications like Skype, and instant messengers have made the world a smaller place. Global collaboration seems to be a goal, or an initiative, in almost every new report that I have read in the past five years. The district I currently work for in fact has taken on the task of writing their new three year tech. goals plan. Taking into consideration ISTE standards and the National Tech. Plan that was released in November of this year, global collaboration is a 21st century skill that every child should be engaged in. Therefore, it will probably make our list of goals as well, however, I am not seeing a lot of this in the classroom yet.

So what are the hurdles? What keeps teachers from expanding their walls, and reaching out to a larger audience? Is it a safety issue? Is it fear of the unknown?

In many conversations that I have had with teachers, it seems to be a combination of all of these things. Time is always a good argument too! There is never enough time, and after watching the Harry Potter weekend on the Family Channel network this past weekend, I only wish I had one of those time turners that Hermione uses to attend her double class sessions.

Learning new trends in technology does take time, but doesn't everything else we value in life? If learning our math facts takes time, but is still worth it, then isn't learning how to video conference and hold a real conversation face-to-face (albeit it is a virtual face-to-face meeting) equally as important?

In the real world, the students of today will need to know certain skills, have a foundation of background knowledge, and be able to problem solve. These aren't really different then what a good teacher faces every day today, but taking the time to share these with our students seems to be a big time consumer.

Setting up an account on Skype, or any other social network for that matter, can take a little bit of time, however, the time it takes will reap the benefits exponentially if it is done carefully. A Professional Learning Network is really only as good as it's contributors, and therefore a conference also relies heavily on it's counterparts. I mean, you can add friends, follow anyone you want, and certainly video chat with anyone you want. Heck, chatroulette.com gave us that perspective, but that wasn't exactly what we had in mind. Where then can you find a network of other classrooms, great teachers, students willing to learn about other cultures, and collaborative minds waiting to work on a project together?

I came across a tweet and a wonderful blog post about Skype Education by Richard Byrne that pointed me down the path that was exactly what I had been looking for all these years. My light at the end of the tunnel, my pack mule headed into the canyon of global collaboration, and a wonderful resource to connect with professionals and enthusiastic learners all over the world. The hard part is done. The time has just been cut immensely. There are no more hurdles, in fact we are in the home stretch now. It's just a manner of holding that carrot out in front of my colleagues and getting them to bite at the opportunity. Okay, so there still may be some hesitation, but I see great things in our future. Although, I always do, it's getting my peers to jump on board.

Blogging in the Elementary Classroom

A blog, or web log, is a great way to get students interested in writing. A blog is a published piece of writing that is added episodically to a web space. Students now have the ability to post anything and everything they want to the web, however, posting quality work is always encouraged.

As educators, we can enhance learning through blogs. Imagine that you assign your students to read a particular book and reflect on personal experiences that may have a connection to this book and post this to a blog. This assignment doesn’t seem very different then those of 20 - 25 years ago, however, the students’ audience has just grown exponentially! Instead of handing in a piece of paper, or their log book, to the teacher, their classmates, parents, community members, and virtually any reader in the world can read and comment on their reflection. Wouldn’t it be great if the author of the book himself responded to your students’ reflections? Well that can happen with blogs.

There is some fear when using anything on the Internet about student safety and predators just waiting for students to jump  online. Well, I’m not going to lie there is some truth to that, however, when taking the time to plan and create a quality blog site for students there is minimal fears involved. That being said, it is important to not close down the blog and make it too safe, as this will limit the global audience back down to just the classroom. A blog should really expand the walls of a classroom and include a larger audience and culture.

It is important to set a few guidelines with your students. I would recommend seeking out a few movies to start with, such as Blogs in Plain English, or Brainpop’s video on Blogs. Then it is a great idea to involve your students in the conversation of what types of things should be posted. You may also want to review your district’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), and publishing permissions. I often suggest only using initials with students or just first names. I also never include actual pictures of the students as the name appearing with the picture isn’t a great idea. You will also want to set the incoming comments to be managed and approved or denied, to make sure no inappropriate comments are posted to your students’ blogs.

Blogs could also be a great way for students to keep an electronic portfolio of their work throughout the year. Imagine publishing products such as illustrations, slideshows, Keynote presentations, and films like public service announcements or commercials to a blog and have the students reflect on their own work after they present their product. This not only adds higher order thinking to your projects, but publishes student work and reflections to a larger audience. Now relatives, friends, peers and just about anyone can view these wonderful digital products and comment on the student's work too.

Anyone can blog, and anyone can post any form of media these days. It's important to plan and think about what is being posted first. Rich content that showcases high quality work is worth sharing with the world. A few sentences about something that was done in class will probably only be read by a select audience. Take the time with your students to plan out what a classroom blog should look and feel like, and if each student should play an integral part in the blog too. It's often a good idea to include the students in the conversation about what is appropriate and high quality content to publish, and possibly  even form rubrics for this material and reflection. What will your class blog about?

Mr. Lawson's eNewsletter for November is all about blogging. Check it out here.

Flat Stanley Gets an Upgrade

Most people have heard of the book, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown, or at least have been part of the journey. Heck, now there is the Flat Stanley online project, and yes there is even an "app. for that". Fourth graders at Coastal Ridge Elementary School have been participating in a Flat Stanley project for quite some time now. The students trace themselves on giant pieces of paper and create their flat self. They then get into contact with family and friends world wide and send their flat self on a trip to discover life in a different area of our world. Family members, friends, and others send back these flat students with pictures, stories and postcards to help students understand the different cultures, people and trends in these areas.

Last year, the fourth grade team decided to upgrade their Flat Stanley project and add an Internet component to it. The students learned about the sport of geocaching with help from the tech. integrator, Eric Lawson. Geocaching is a treasure hunting game played all over the world using handheld GPS units instead of treasure maps. Small containers are hidden throughout the world by fellow geocachers, and a description and clues to the whereabouts are then posted online at www.geocaching.com. Most caches are hidden by the longitude and latitude coordinates of the container, but some can have more riddles, clues or even waypoints to find before getting to the treasure. By plugging in these coordinates, the GPS unit can get a geocacher pretty close to the hidden container. It's just up to the finder to then spot the container. There is a great introductory video about geocaching on the website for more information.

Snowboard Duck Travel Bug

Geocache containers often contain trinkets, or school supplies, that fellow geocachers will trade for when they find a cache. There are also travel bugs located in some caches, which aren't meant to be kept, but rather moved along to yet another geocache trying to fulfill its travel mission. The 4th graders at CRES thought it would be a great idea to create a class travel bug and track its movement across the globe like their Flat Stanley characters. Some classrooms have even created their own student web pages to share their travels and the new cultures, people, and spots they have visited. They are very excited to see where both, their flat selfs and classroom travel bugs, take them this year. To check out a few from last year visit Miss Switzer's Class web site.

Online Global Collaboration

ISTE shares in it's NETS-S and NETS-T standards that staff and students should learn the skills to collaborate online with different people across the globe. This offers global collaboration, but also gives a different perspective to a project. Even though the benefits for this project highly out weigh the setup time and preparation, it is a difficult concept for teachers to fully grasp in my district. It's certainly a shift in thinking by extending the classroom walls out to the globe. Some staff members are just not ready for this shift, and some are scared of the possible problems that may arise in creating and delivering a unit such as this one.

I recently jumped in to an online conference with my Personal Learning Network (PLN), the Seedlings, with the guest speaker, Cherrie MacInnes, a 3rd Grade teacher from Brewer, Maine. Her classroom project started as an online video conference between a few classrooms across Maine and turned out to be a national project. She made headlines when her class was able to Skype with classrooms from each of the 50 United States. Listening to her speak about the project, and the enthusiasm that the students had towards learning from their peers in different parts of the country, was outstanding! This is exactly why ISTE has encouraged online collaboration and video conferencing in their standards for students and staff. Personally, I don't know what I would do as a tech. integrator without my online PLN's and the ability to collaborate online with other tech. integrators across the state, country and world.

Online projects are becoming more and more popular with lead tech. savvy teachers and 21st century innovators. You just have to start with a quick Google search to see what I mean, but there are still those that are reluctant to put the time in to plan a collaborative online project. Project based learning with multimedia is not a new concept. It's been around since the early 90's, however, in the last 5 years the Internet has grown and allowed any user to become a publisher (Web 2.0). Ten years ago, when I first started teaching in my third grade classroom, I did not anticipate that students would have their own web presence, web pages, or post pictures, videos and podcasts for the whole world to view straight from their phones. For the most part, that was still up to the tech. staff to organize these files, or a web master to publish work in the classroom to a web resource. Kids are doing it on their own, and it is up to educators to instruct them and guide them to use these outlets for high quality educational purposes. We can either grab a hold of this and expand our classroom walls, or sit back and allow kids to play on their own. The latter scares me a bit though, as kids don't always know what the right decisions are when they are completely independent.

This past Sunday, I participated in a wonderful online collaborative project, One Day on Earth. If you haven't checked out the web site yet for One Day on Earth, it's worth the trip. There are trailers and explanations of the project, as well as video uploads to browse. The thought behind One Day on Earth, was to have cameras and people tell stories from every country on all 7 continents on one particular day, 10.10.10. These pictures, mobile uploads and high definition films will be mashed up and archived on the web site, and a select few will be combined to create a global documentary about our One Day on Earth on October 10th, 2010.

Living on the east coast here in southern Maine, I jumped at the chance to participate, and thought that filming the sunrise at the beach would be inspiring and calming. My video, Sunrise at Wells Beach, has been uploaded to Vimeo and YouTube as well as the One Day on Earth web site. I also took pictures with my iPhone and created an Animoto slideshow as well. As a classroom teacher, I would have loved to have had my students participate in this project. In addition to my film experience, I have met a lot of great educators, innovators, and filmers from all of the world. It was a truly amazing experience for me, and I hope that I can share my journey with this project and inspire others to jump on board with online collaborative projects as well.

iPhone Apps for Teachers

I'm still looking for that all-in-one app. for teachers that allows you to take attendance, the lunch count, email, collect observable behaviors, and can act as a planner and grade book. As far as I can tell, no such app. exists yet! If I knew a thing or two about programming, I would take on the challenge myself. The closest thing I have found is TeacherToolOne, which is a program designed in Germany. It has some great features and functions, but is not really intended for teachers in the primary and secondary schools. Don't get me wrong, it's a huge hit over seas, but it doesn't quite do the things elementary teachers need it to do in order to make it the top downloaded app. by teachers.

So this poses the question, with all of the great apps. out there for education, what are your top 10 apps. for teachers? I know which ones I use as a technology integration specialist, but I'm guessing most teachers wouldn't have the time or need for all of these apps. The iTunes store now has a special section for teachers called "Apps for School". You can get there by clicking on the app. store icon from your iPhone and then click on featured apps. Scroll to the bottom of this list and you can find "Apps for School".

There is a grading app. for earlier education as well, that's not that bad and for a price of $7.99 it's not too bad for a teacher's pocket either, however, if you already have a grading system in place, it won't sync these two programs. There are plenty of apps. to help students though with math and reading. Everything from audio books and interactive games from Dr. Seuss, to flash cards and quizzes to keep the brain stimulated. I'm guessing most teachers do not have iPod touches in their classrooms, and the thought of giving up their own iPhone for student use, isn't quite there yet due to the price tag on these handhelds.

Here are my top 10 apps. for elementary teachers:

1. First Class
I can make sure I never miss an email, and I can tell a student when a parent notifies me of changes to the pick-up or bus plan for the end of the day.

2. iTalk Lite
It's like having a pocket recorder ready when ever a situation arises to create a podcast. The program is free for the computer as well, and easily blue tooth syncs from one to the other.

3. iCamcorder
I love the Flip video cameras and digital cameras for field trips and classroom events that you want to capture, but I always forget to sign them out of the library or bring mine in from home. Having an app on the phone just makes it handy in case something worth capturing is happening right now.

4. Keynote Remote
I often use my SMART Board to introduce a lesson, however, I have learned this piece of technology works much better when the students are in front of it, and not myself. This 99 cent app. allows me to control the slideshow from any where in the classroom as I walk around and monitor the students' understanding.

5. Twitterific
The easiest way to consult, enhance, reflect, and collaborate with other professionals in a short amount of time. I'm blown away with how quickly I can get a response from other great teachers.

6. The Weather Channel
It may sound funny, but a big part of morning meeting and the routine is having a weather person. It's much easier to have a student look at this app. then having to login to a computer, or disrupt the morning message on the SMART Board to get the weather forecast for the day.

7. Brainpop
Earbuds and an iPhone are great if one child needs a quiet activity, or missed a Brainpop video from a previous lesson.

8. Pandora
My students often ask for soft music while they work on independent projects or writing. The iPhone speaker is just loud enough when the room is silent to be heard by all. It also has a plethora of styles to choose from and can open their eyes, and ears, to new songs from around the world.

9. Calendar
This one comes free with the iPhone, but I don't know what I did without it. I used to carry a small calendar with me to remind me of meetings, calling home, and quick lesson plan ideas, but the built in notification just adds so much more. The sync feature to iCal on the computer is quite handy as well.

10. Dictionary
It is so much easier to look up the meaning of a word with this app. then the standard Webster's hard cover. It also has voice pronunciations to help students read the word out loud.

What are your favorites?

Classroom Blogs

Today in the computer lab Mrs. Foster's Class, from Coastal Ridge Elementary School, will be learning about blogs and starting their very own student blogs. The blogs will be used to publish student writing and poetry, but could also be used as a way to communicate and reflect on other students' work. To practice we will start here.

What will you include in your very own blog? Click on the comment button below my blog entry. You can sign in as anonymous, but don't forget to include your first name or initials in your comment so I know who wrote it. Remember, it's never a good idea to use your full name. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Going Green

The shift in technology integration has proven to be very valuable to learning, but it has also been valuable to the Earth. I have observed many computer lab lessons in the past in which the students worked very hard on a product such as a picture, document, slide show, etc. Just before the class ended the teacher said, "Okay, time is just about up. Everyone stop what you are doing and click save and print." How much paper did we waste with these lessons? I can only imagine. Well, the number was ridiculous when we looked at our spending on color prints in one year in York. It was such a high price, that we have stopped color printing all together for the rest of the school year. This took place shortly after the winter holiday break. Of course, there were some arguments and frustrations, but this initiative has really inspired teachers to look towards new forms of multimedia products. It has forced many teachers to publish web sites, develop project based learning with multimedia and enter the world of Web 2.0.

Projects created in the lab are now appearing on web sites across the globe. Early elementary students are creating single slides for class slide shows using programs like Clicker Paint, Kidpix and Hyperstudio 5. They are blogging about their writing and books they have read in class. Second graders are creating biographies using Comic Life, Time Liner XE and Keynote. Third and fourth graders are using GPS in the classroom to learn about places on the Earth and even entering the world of geocaching to create virtual Flat Stanley travel bugs that are currently traveling all over the globe.

Of course our communication has changed too! The office no longer sends home folders full of packets and announcements. Instead every flyer, announcement or brochure is published to the school web site and email reminders are sent to parents across the district. Podcasts, online radio shows, and live broadcast news programs are recorded right here in our elementary school buildings, and published on our web sites for the entire local and global communities.

Our fourth graders have even researching renewable energies and created public service announcements using digital video cameras and iMovie. Last year students entered the Maine Recycles Commercial Contest, and submitted short PSAs to persuade community members to recycle. All of these videos can be seen on our "Going Green" web page.

This shift hasn't just happened in our computer labs, however. Recent field trips have been video taped or recorded as a podcast with student interviews and reflections too. The students also observed that we were throwing away too much trash in the lunch room as well. This observation, along with a great deal of research, promoted the soil production project at Coastal Ridge Elementary School. Each pod, or group of 4 classrooms, now have worm bins outside their doors. There are also a couple worm bins in the lunch room. These worm bins are used to break down biodegradable trash with the help of some hungry worms, and produces very fertile soil. Our hope is to build a greenhouse outside of the school this summer and plant vegetables to help make our school lunch program more sustainable.

Something as simple as cutting down on printing out projects has truly inspired a revolution here in York. The students have found new enthusiasm and a real world connection with many of these projects. There is also a great sense of pride not only in the finished products, but also in knowing they are helping their community. What types of "green" projects have you been working on in your schools?