tech4fun

Oh my gosh - what a day it has been!!!

I have spent the last week viewing and listening to presentations of the K12 Online Conference 2007. I felt awed and amazed at the creativity and talent generated during this conference. I wondered frequently – how can I use Classroom 2.0 tools at my school?  I felt that surely there was something I could take away from this conference but when Monday came and I arrived at work I had not determined what that inspiration would be.

I had a lot on my mind. I needed to move 18 boxes from the secure closet to the library to have ready for ISMART to install 9 new computers. This was immediately followed by 25 minutes of bus duty and I must admit, the cold morning air felt refreshing after moving boxes.

I then scurried up to the lab to get ready for the first class of the day. There, I was greeted by a very unhappy teacher who told me that what I had suggested to her on Friday (as I was leaving the building for an all afternoon meeting) to troubleshoot her laptop had not worked and would I please submit a work order – she put her laptop down on my table with a loud thunk and left.

The phone was ringing – a teacher downstairs could not get her laptop to connect wireless. I said I could look at it in 45 minutes but that in the meanwhile she should try to connect to the network with an Ethernet cable….. ‘a what cable?…she asked…..I explain.

The first class arrived in the lab noisy and talkative from their weekend. The math website we were going to use was down – their teacher was most flustered. We ended up using another website.

The phone is ringing again – a teacher with a mobile lab has 2 laptops that won’t allow the students to login and when can I come downstairs to help her?

My wonderful TSSpec has arrived and he wants to continue the ACIS scanning he started on Friday but he has a few questions for me. As the class is leaving the lab the phone rings again – it’s the office. ISMART has arrived and is ready to install the new computers. I tell the office that all is ready for them and that I will be down in 10 minutes.  While my TSSpec and I are talking, the unhappy teacher, who had earlier left her laptop with me, returns and demands answers. We both tell her that we are troubleshooting her laptop and that we haven’t decided what the problem is. She marches out and I leave to go check on the new computer installation.

The ISMART rep is smiling – he said everything was organized and ready for him and that he should be finished in an hour. Now I’m smiling a little myself. I go and check on the teacher with the laptop that won’t connect wireless. She is using her Ethernet cable and all is well. I tell her I will check with her on Tuesday to troubleshoot her laptop. Next, I’m headed toward the classroom to check in on the teacher who is using a mobile lab. She thinks the two students initially typed in the incorrect username and password. She has moved those students to a classroom desktop computer and they were able to login. However, one of the laptops has no wireless connectivity so I take it with me back to the lab.

Two more classes, which are a half hour apart this morning, come to the lab. They are both second grade classes. I love this age group! They are learning how to login to the laptops and they love the math website we have planned for them today. I’m smiling some more.

I go and check on the computer installation and the ISMART rep said he is finished. He leaves me with 3 new Ethernet cables and a nice thank you for my preparation for his visit. I want to hug him but I resist! My TSSpec comes by and says he can work on the new computers after lunch.

Lunch! Where did the morning go? I return to the lab and I find it hard to relax and eat. My head is spinning – Classroom 2.0…where can I use this? What’s wrong with this teacher’s laptop? – it’s fine right now.  Why was that math website down?…note to self – check it later today for the class on Tuesday.

A teacher comes in. She needs help logging in to UConnect to change her health benefits. I want to tell her that I have posted the directions online twice in the past week for my staff but I resist because she seems very frustrated and so I spend the next 20 minutes with her and she is much more relaxed when she leaves.

This was my morning…Classroom 2.0….where are you?

It would seem that with all of the 21^st century technology available to us that copyright is not or should not be a big issue.  We all know how to:

N=Nature; what is the nature of the original publication and how am I altering it?

I-Impact; what will be the impact that my use has on the market value of the item?”

We were directed to the following website which contains a chart for us to use as a guideline:  Technology & Learning Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers.

A kindergarten teacher asked me recently about copying her very old 33rpm vinyl record collection in her classroom to CD’s. My research on the web indicated that there are numerous web sites for businesses that provide this service and that creating multiple CD copies of a vinyl record were yours for the asking.

I found two websites that I feel very comfortable in recommending to her because they do acknowledge copyright legalities. The information on copyright was copied directly from the websites.

http://www.memorysafedvd.com/services/audio.aspx

In order to comply with copyright regulations, we will ONLY accept a commercially produced album or tape for conversion, and you may purchase no more than one additional copy of the CD produced from your album or tape.

http://www.thickandmystic.com/cassettetocd.asp

LEGAL RESTRICTIONS
DO NOT USE THIS AS LEGAL ADVICE.
There are some simple copyright restrictions. The basic idea is, if you own the original tape or LP, you can convert it to CD, or, if the cassette contains non-copyrighted material (ie. personal recordings, family events, talent shows, etc.) you can convert it to CD.

Court decisions have made the copyright issues gray. The courts seem to agree that you as an individual can make a copy of a copyrighted item for private use. If you use the CD copy we produce for anything other than private use (ie. you try to sell it, you make digital copies and give them to your friends) you are in violation of copyright law. We will not be held responsible for customers who do not follow copyright restrictions. The courts are generally concerned with financial harm caused to the original artist or copyright holder. If the item is out of print (and we have to assume that anything you send to us is out of print, or why wouldn’t you just go buy the CD?) it is reasonable to assume that you are not causing financial harm to the copyright holder as it is not available for sale anyway.

You must own the original cassette or LP. We cannot convert an illegal copy of an LP, cassette, or CD. What does this mean? Please don’t send us the cassette copy you made of a record you borrowed from your sister, and don’t send us that bootlegged cassette you bought in the back alley. You get the idea.

rubric_oct-16-assignment-2.doc

Around 1998, while I was the Technology IA at my school, I learned of a technology grant (I believe it was from AOL) for K-12 schools that encouraged the applicants to think out of the box and write a proposal that would bring the use of technology to a segment of the school population that would most likely not be exposed to technology at home.

I jumped at the opportunity and enrolled the expertise of two of our ESOL teachers. Our ESOL population was mushrooming and I realized that my project idea had great potential.

A large percentage of our ESOL families were recent arrivals to this country. They had left everything behind in their Eastern Europe civil war torn country and had managed to arrive in the  U.S. with nothing but themselves. I felt they had a story to tell. Perhaps, if the saga of their individual paths to freedom could be shared through the use of technology, then these future citizens would be able to see a world of possibilities.

We set out to write a grant that asked for multimedia Apple computers for each ESOL classroom, multimedia software, printers, and a tape recorder for each ESOL student in grades 3 – 6 to take home.

The project would require the grade 3  - 6  ESOL students, with the guidance of their ESOL teacher, to create a list of approximately 10 – 20 questions to ask their adult family members. The focus of the questions would be the family’s decision to immigrate and to share stories about their lives before their arrival to the U.S. We wanted the students to do research about their native homeland, including photos, drawings, etc. We were going to create a database on the computer in which the students would enter information such as their country of origin, their ages, how many in their family, and their arrival city and date in the U.S. Their final project would be a display of their research to include the tape recorded answers from their family members.

While AOL was impressed with our idea we did not qualify to receive the grant because our school did not have a high enough number of students who received free or reduced price lunches.

Fast forward to the year 2007 and I think the idea behind the grant proposal still has merit. I would focus on the fifth and sixth grade ESOL students.  The students would create an oral or written history of their family to include digital photos of family members (borrowing the school cameras, if necessary), research (using online resources) about their native homeland, and introducing the students to Photo Story 3 or MovieMaker as an option to create their final project.

A best friend                                                                                                    

Fifteen years ago my youngest

brought home

a three week old kitten

left by the dumpster at work

my son named it Rimksy

after a Russian composer

the veterinarian said it’s

kitten milk she needs

for her to grow stronger

I nicknamed her

mighty mite

she burrowed into my heart

as her seven pounds of No Fear

brought home chipmunks and mice

and occasionally birds

she loved her garden and full moon nights

a chocolate Frosty from Wendy’s

and cheese from my snack

She hated thunderstorms

and loved the first snow

falling leaves were her prey

on cold nights she curled up

next to me for warmth

on hot summer days

she languished outside

in the shade of a long afternoon

Three weeks ago I learned

my mighty mite had

a tumor

on her tongue

there was nothing they could do

I held her last Wednesday

as she was put to sleep

Rimksy is at rest

but the memories

she left

will always be

mine to keep.

Is it instruction that includes the use of technology or is it technology that includes the use of instruction in some form? Does it need to take place in a classroom setting or does it occur in the school hallway when a teacher asks me for a quick three minute review on how to use Photo Story 3? Does instructional technology include the use of only computers or is it students using digital cameras to take pictures of geometric shapes that they find inside the school building and then downloading their photos into a slide show application on the computer? The slide shows can be uploaded to the school server for all of the grade levels to use. Does it occur when a classroom teacher feels comfortable connecting his/her laptop to the laptop projector and using a mobile lab cart with the students to visit web sites that illustrate how simple machines work?

A student’s family has put together a CD of photos that the family took on their vacation trip to an active volcano in Hawaii and the student brings the CD to school to share with the class. The teacher locates a website that shows active volcano sites throughout the world and displays it on the projector screen. The class creates a bar graph during math that illustrates which countries have the most active volcano sites. Is this instructional technology? Is it instructional technology taking place when I overhear two teachers talking and one is showing the other how to find their grade level Gateways in FCPS 24/7? 

I’d like to think that instructional technology is all of the above examples and many more. As the use of technology becomes increasingly common in our daily lives so to does its presence in the classroom.  It requires us to become interactive with its potential to teach curriculum with real time information.  Learning then becomes a shared experience as students contribute to the learning process with their assignments and projects that incorporate digital images, slide shows, videos, and so much more! 

This should be fun - my first blog! My younger brother created one that I truly enjoy….let’s do it!