Prepping the New School Year

This summer is almost over. With two weeks to the start of school, I'm beginning to reflect on last year's start and begin thinking about the changes I will have to make for the new year.

A Wiki Lesson Keeper
One of the best tools I started using for myself was Wikispaces. I decided to choose one program to focus on and tried my best to write up each KidPix lesson. I didn't do too bad. I just flipped through my lesson plan and see that I have about nine lessons between Kindergarten and third grade to finish up.

This year, I intend to do the same for Word and PowerPoint. Every year I do different projects. There is a core set of skills that I work on for each group and some projects the students enjoy so I do them each year.

The Biggest Changes
For me, the biggest changes will include learning how to integrate the new equipment into the curriculum. In my next post, I plan to write about all the open source software that I've installed on the new Windows tablet PCs. The students have to be independent with the tablets so they can become the teacher of their teachers. We'll have to work on the Open Office Writer program. I really haven't spent much time on it, but it should work fine as a Word substitute. If it doesn't, I'll purchase paper licenses for the tablets in the 2009-2010 school year. I want to learn to use the Promethean board to its potential. I know there will be a learning curve.

More, More, More
I have MediaBlender and Kidspiration installed in the lab. We barely scratched the surface of those programs. I used to have a lot of fun using HyperStudio with the fourth through eighth grade. When I could no longer install OS 9 on the new computers, I purchased MediaBlender. It really does not work smoothly on the older iMacs. I know there is a new version of HyperStudio, but I'm not going to spend funds with MediaBlender a fine replacement. Now that I have half of the room filled with the newer flat screen iMacs, I will be able to resurrect the multimedia work that I used to do. Kidspiration is a great program. I want to upgrade to the newer version and have to see how that will work out with the state funds - a job I have to work on next week.

Finally...
I have to plan out new bulletin boards. I know I'm going to concentrate on the ideas of Creative Commons and copyright. We did a fair bit of work on copyright, plagiarism, and fair use in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades last year. Maybe I'll have copyright on the right side bulletin board and copyleft on the left side bulletin board with "big C" and "little cc". That would still leave me with a huge strip bulletin board above the blackboards.

For those getting ready to head back to school - have a great year!

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Image Citation:
"Back to school." Avolore's photostream. 2006 Aug 2. 2008 Aug 18.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/66/204934333_7738d2e5a9.jpg?v=0

I <3 Computers and Math

One of my favorite things to see in my room is a student pick up a piece of chalk and leave a message like the image to the right behind.

My students and I worked very hard on many projects. Some were oldies but goodies that I do from year to year. Others were new and never tried before at my school. I'm getting ready to do a meme on professional development planned for the summer. Before I do, I wanted to reflect on this past year.

Math Class
I managed to get further in the chapters than last year. That's always a good thing. I had more students grasp the concept of multiplying and dividing fractions and mixed numbers, too.

This year, I pushed to do a few new bits on the technology integration side. I used David Warlick's fine Classblogmeister product to create a place of reflection for the students. We managed to use the site to contain research for decimal division and rounding.

• On the upside: Most of the students managed to make the posts from home or during recess in the computer lab.
• On the downside: We became involved in creating a movie about population density and I didn't assign any more questions for homework. As a result, there haven't been any posts to the blog in 2008.

We used Voicethread to capture images of items the students weighed on a digital scale. I created questions and had the students answer them as comments.

• On the upside: The project became a joint project with Shaun in New Brunswick, Canada. We ended up commenting on his student's Mental Math Voicethread and they commented on ours. We had a Skype call between the two classes, too. It was a first for my students and I.
• On the downside: A couple of students didn't get to weighing and photographing items. We had school canceled today due to heat when we were supposed to have a second Skype call. We end classes on Thursday and the other school is on a field day tomorrow, so it may not work out.

We created a movie using the iSight cameras built into our iMacs. The students needed more clarification on what population density was, why some numbers were so low, and why some numbers were so high. They made music in Garageband and voted via SurveyMonkey for the intro song and the closing credits song.

• On the upside: It became a nice computer class project. I'd estimate that it took about six 42-minute periods to create. It will be something they can look back on.
• On the downside: I'm not sure that all the students "get" population density, yet. Not all students returned permission slips, so I had to edit in some images and text to the presentation to replace the missing students. I made sure to save the movies as .mov files and my SMS Computer Podcasts page on Podomatic insists on changing them to .mp4. Right now I'm uploading to Teachertube to see what happens. I might end up uploading to Youtube as well.

For the second year in a row, I had the students create metric music songs to demonstrate what they knew about length, mass, and capacity in metric measures.

• On the upside: It is a great project around Christmas to keep the students focused on math. The quality was better than last year because I gave better directions. We had the blog to store all the songs.
• On the downside: It was better than last year, but there are still some knowledge gaps in metric measurement concepts.

I created some study casts with audio and a matching video set with slides at the beginning of the year to help students review for tests and quizzes.

• On the upside: I did it and a student or two looked at them.
• On the downside: I was not able to get all the students to see them. One father told his daughter it was because the files were .mp4 and not .mov or .mp3. I never took the time to fully figure it out. I would try again, though.

Computer Class
There is a world of reflection that I will do later in the week about computer class. With grades Kindergarten to eight to reflect on, I'll save it for a different post. I do love computers and math, myself!

Confessions of an Oversubscribed Reader

Sometimes too much of a good thing is a bad thing. This is where I stood this month with Google Reader. When I first started using a reader, it was a thing of beauty. I no longer had to remember to go check a blog's URL to see if there was anything new. I would sign on with my one-stop-shopping reader account and enjoy some good articles.

Then Came Twitter
At first, I had a great idea. When I would follow someone on Twitter, I would add their blog to my reader. My logic was: if I'm communicating with them on Twitter, shouldn't I be reading their deeper thoughts on their blog? This was all well and good when I had ten people following me on Twitter.

Too Much To Read
I've slowly built up to a little over 300 following/ followers. This is great because my network contains really interesting folks doing fantastic things with their students. My policy of putting all the blogs into my reader gave me a full time job that felt overwhelming, though. Between joining the 31 Day Comment Challenge and having too many posts to read, I found myself giving up. Instead of being able to pick and choose what I found interesting, I was ignoring the reader.

Fear of an Echo Chamber
If that wasn't enough, I started worrying that the only blogs I read belonged to those on Twitter. I went on a binge of looking for educators outside my network to read. I can't tell you how many subscriptions were in my reader, but it had to be near 400. Yikes!

Now Comes the Great Rebuild
I've left 25 blogs in my reader. I'm looking forward to a renewed interest in both my reading and commenting. The whole experience leaves me very curious. I wonder how many people really feel like they have a great mix of items in their reader that they can keep up with. What makes a satisfactory balance?

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Image Citation:
Lim, Kevin. "Dead Sea newspaper." inju's photostream. 2006 March 13. 2008 May 24.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/37/112082907_8c282f0761.jpg?v=0

Power Law Distribution ... What?

I'm at the half-way point of Clay Shirky's book, Here Comes Everybody. Several people have mentioned it over the last couple of months and I'm glad I picked it up. It's helped me understand what I've been observing over the last few months.

Big Idea Number One: Many-to-Many
As the number of people I connect with online grows, the dynamic changes. Mr. Shirky explains that each addition to my network grows cross connections faster than I realized. It's just like those "how many handshake" puzzler questions {and answer if you want it}. It's a many-to-many proposition. As much as I wanted to follow the blogs of everyone I follow in Twitter, I can't. It's become impossible. That's where my Google Reader friends shared items come in. Let me know if you want to share with me. I only have seven reciprocating within Google Reader right now.

Big Idea Number Two: Fame Happens
I happened upon Twitter back in July, but it took until mid October before I started communicating with others with the @ directed responses. In the book, he mentions that once you have an "audience" of 1,000 or more there is an imbalance in the number of messages that come in to you that you can respond to.

I have a little over 300 followers/ following. There are a core group of people that I talk to on a regular basis and collaborate with. I don't feel the need to limit the number of people I will accept into my protected account, but the dynamics have changed. I don't feel like I "know" everyone any more. I'm also amazed at some of the people I've conversed with as a relatively unknown person in the big Internet world. That said, some of my most recent connections have resulted in two terrific projects for my classes in math and computers.

Big Idea Number Three: Predictable Imbalances
Depending upon which venue I visit (blogs, nings, Twitter) there are names that come up more often than others in each arena. This represents something called the Power Law Distribution. In short, the top contributor to a medium/project/whatever will outproduce the second from top contributor in a major way. There can be no real such things a average, median, or mode.

I shouldn't feel like I don't contribute a lot, because I can't compare myself to others. There will always be people who blog more, comment more, and so on. I pretty much knew that already, but it stands out for me.

Big Idea Number Four: Make Big Things Happen
As Dennis Richards is showing, we can make big things happen by combining with other like minded individuals. Just as the Wikipedia has grown and become successful, we can all grow and become successful in a large objective if many people step up to the plate and do what they can. I'm really glad that I signed on with Dennis and the other individuals.

Big Idea Number Five: What is the "Tragedy of the Commons" Anyway?
It's been mentioned at least two or three times already in the book: "situations wherein individuals have an incentive to damage the collective good".

Have I felt overwhelmed at times by messages of "new this, new that, new the other thing" on Twitter. Sure. I guess the collective good is whatever people are willing to put up with. I get on Twitter, by my guess, about fifteen minutes a day. I no longer go back pages into the timeline. I will follow a conversation back to an individual, but there are so many posted this, bookmarked that messages that I can't filter them at all.

I don't feel that it is damaging my vision of the collective good, though. I still find something relevant to me almost every time I check in.

Back to the Book
I'm looking forward to sharing the new things I learn in the second half of the book. Thanks to anyone in my network who has mentioned this book. I'm finding it a worthy read.

Reflections on Two Blogs

I opened up my RSS reader this evening. My current method of reading is to start with the items that are shared with me by one of four people: Dean, Darren, Michael, or Paul. I actually have six people I share items with, but these are the four who seem to use the shared items option.

I found out about this option one day early in my use of Twitter. If you have someone on your GTalk account, you can add them as people who show up under “Friends shared items”. It’s great because they will certainly read some of the same blogs, but they will also have different tastes and that assists me in finding new-to-me blogs.

Tonight, Dean shared an article written by Graham Wegner in response to an article written by Doug Belshaw. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Doug speaks about feeling unhappy with the focus of newer people in the community having a focus that is more on making connections than expanding the pedagogy of technology in schools. He says:

One thing they [educators blogging] had in common, however, was a revolutionary message: that education must adapt to the 21st century or suffer the consequences. There were fantastic conversations to follow across these blogs.

He fears:

Those that were formerly in the classroom and relating the changing world and tools available to everyday educational experience are no longer in those positions; educators who have no desire to transform education are blogging. The edublogosphere has changed from being about ‘the conversation’ to being part of ‘the network’. It all smacks a little too much of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and, to be honest, viral marketing of Web 2.0 apps.

At the end of Graham’s post he writes:

But I think that Doug is still interested in that bigger conversation - the one that did dominate the edublogosphere a year or so back. Maybe it has evolved into new forums and that discussion will have more power over on a Ning like Classroom 2.0, although I see a lot of the classroom teacher connection stuff happening there too. But there’s a lot of conversation out there - one can choose to connect to the visionaries and push for meaningful change or extend one’s global staffroom to gain support, inspiration and resources in equal measure.

You should read both articles and all the comments to get the full take on the conversation. I was originally going to leave a comment on Graham’s blog, then I was going to leave on Doug’s, then I had too many thoughts to put in a comment, so here I am.

I enjoyed reading both takes on the changes these gentlemen are seeing in the educational blogsphere. You see, I started a blog several years ago when a group of students thought I should see what was going on outside the classroom. I didn't find the edublogosphere until a year ago, and didn't really feel comfortable "conversing" for several months. I have been seeking change in my own school for the last six years.

The reason I became a school computer teacher was that when I was in business I ran training projects. One huge project taught people how a containerized shipping company’s computer systems worked. This was back in the early 1990s. We were making multimedia productions when it was a massive effort to get sounds, images, and interaction working in a Windows environment. We created the original training for each computer system in English, then it was converted into eleven other languages. As I was working, it occurred to me that the best way to learn something is to teach someone else. Not revolutionary to most, but to me it was an important idea. The company moved out of state, I chose not to move, and ended up staying home with my boys for six years.

When I returned to the workforce, my son’s principal was looking for a computer teacher. I offered my services and was hired. I knew in advance that the teachers felt that they “couldn’t” use the computers in their rooms because they either didn’t work or didn’t have “good” software on them. I was really excited to find that Hyperstudio was owned by the school. It would fit the bill for a multimedia program that would allow students to create projects to teach other students.

When I arrived, I spent the first year going to every room, fixing every computer, purchasing software to give the teachers KidPix and/or Microsoft Office. I also got a second computer projector. There was one in the computer lab. There was a networked printer that was not connected, a file server that was being used as a desktop computer, and a couple of airports (wireless access points).

Here I am six years later. Things have changed for the better, but I’m still restless. K-8 all have access to the Internet, networked printers, useful software, and six laptops that can be brought into a class. Apple changed operating systems and as a result I really need to get everyone off of OS 9, but that takes time and money. I really want the Pre-K 3 and 4 classrooms to have Internet access too.

We have a great computer lab, but some teachers only see the students 42 minutes a day. I am seeing the pressures of that reality as I teach two sections of math per day. It really takes a lot of effort to get the projector to class, bring up the laptops, or take the class down to the lab. I’m lucky in that I can use my twice per week computer classes to conduct technology enriched math lessons.

Since connecting with the greater world over the last year, my classes have changed dramatically. You should take a look at the difference between the wiki from last year and the work from this year. For me those were big changes from standard computer class transitioning to what I'm learning in my newly connected environment.

I write in my blog about my adventures in the classroom. I read other blogs and I leave comments. It expands my thinking. I continue to try to encourage others at my school to use our technology. It’s hard to get the school to enter the 21st century when most of the equipment has been at the school longer than I have. This isn’t a complaint, either. I know that the equipment is immensely serviceable.

What I’m learning online is how to begin to encourage the staff to use our equipment. I want all our students to be ready to work in 2017 and beyond. When they leave the school this year, our eighth graders will have received an excellent computer education.

In the other blog article, it was said that people run through one tool after another on Twitter. This is true. It was also said that there are an awful lot of people just jumping on the bandwagon of the next tool rather than focusing on the why of the tool. That’s true too. In the long run, for me, I find projects to work on collaboratively with other teachers. I learn more about the people as a person. I find answers to questions in the middle of my day.

I use my blog to chart my course and reflect. I believe my students are getting more out of our work in computer class as they create podcasts to reflect on what we’re learning. I know why I use each tool. It's not the gee-whiz look at what we're doing. We do it to reinforce learning. I have one class learn from the other. They create information to share within the school and around the world. I see the force of global communcation in operation in my husband's work.

I’ve also had the opportunity to work with new teachers in a different situation. I know that I had an impact based on conversations I’ve had since the training sessions outside my school. But, for me, it takes reading blogs, commenting on blogs, writing blogs, participating when I can at Classroom20.com, and my ins and outs at Twitter. I can combine the best of all these things into my own unique presentations to teachers in and out of my building. All these wanderings help all the students in my school prepare for eventual jobs. I learn more and more everyday.

Everyone has their own story. I think that to change things in education, we need people working at all levels: in their own school, within a school system, within a region, and in turn globally. It takes all kinds of voices to make change happen.

Even over the last couple of months, I've noticed a change. Maybe all the public speaking engagements are bring more people to the table. What remains to be seen is whether people will continue to stick with these social networks over the long haul and continue to try to effect change at whatever level they are involved. For many people it may be a fad or lead to becoming a consultant and that’s ok too.

On Being a Newbie

My favorite things about being a newbie to the edublog circuit and communicating with teachers outside my county is challenging myself to become a better teacher all over again.

I have worked with computers since my second semester at college when I learned to program in BASIC on an Apple ][ computer. I always thought those brackets looked so cool.

I've always taught people how to use computers in some capacity or another. I was a "lab tech" person for a few years at my local community college. I helped teachers and students access the computer resources on our minicomputer - a Dec Vax 11/780 if I recall correctly. I helped people fix coding errors in COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, and even Assembly language (and I never took an Assembly language program - which is kind of funny).

A part-time teacher must have seen something in my skills because she asked if I wanted to apply for a job as a computer "teacher" in business. It was there that I learned to troubleshoot as a help desk person and teach computer classes to adults. I learned Word, Excel (which was a twist on VisiCalc), and how to create reports in a fourth generation language called Sperry Mapper. On it goes until I arrived as a grammar school computer teacher.

I guess the thing that I've been thinking about this past week or so is that I'm used to my accumulated knowledge and skill, but I'm so enjoying the challenge of what is amounting to "thinking differently".

Even though I brought a wealth of knowledge with me, I am behind in some of the skills of the read/ write web. I was listening to a "classic" episode of the EdTech Posse last night. They've been using Skype and creating podcasts since 2005! That was the year of my first blog. I can't tell you when exactly (Xanga is blocked at school).

I still need to learn how to look cool under pressure as a Skype call host. I still need to move beyond Kid Pix and Word in the lower elementary classes. I really enjoy my newbie status (I'm a big seven months into my current edublog). I'm so excited to see the difference in wikis March 2008 vs. March 2007 start date for wikis. I'm enjoying the ride.

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Image Citation:
Wendenig, Wolfgang. "Apple II." wolfgang.wendenig - wuschL's photostream. 2007 Oct 30. 2008 Mar 5.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2409/1802972953_470c94a45c.jpg?v=0

When I Grow Up

When I grow up, I want to have made a difference. I guess that’s how I’ve come to teaching. I’m sort of grown up now but have a quarter century, at least, until retirement.

I love what I’m doing and where I’m doing it. I don’t want or need a change. At the same time: I want to work under a great mentor and have so much more happen for my students, I want to stay the computer teacher, I want to become a classroom teacher, I want to teach teachers, I want to do what David Jakes does.

What I need to do is compress about thirty lifetimes into one.

I want to be a part of every conversation, I want to travel to conferences, I want snow days everyday to keep up-to-date with Google Reader, I want to attend online conferences.

What I need to do is raise two healthy, wonderful, caring, thinking boys and spend time with my husband who is tops in my book.

When I grow up, I will look back and smile because every step I take in life leads to a new and special thing. I just wonder where 2008 will take me in the long run…it will be unbelievable!

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Image Citation:
MacDonald, Grant. "quiet i'm thinking." jgrantmac's photostream. 2006 Nov 8. 2008 Feb 22.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/120/292262245_7c480610e1.jpg?v=0

I Learn, I Practice, I Grow

Over the weekend, I was keeping an eye on Educon in Philly and Twitter. One of the comments that came across Twitter keeps going through my mind. Someone was at a talk by Gary Stager. They wrote that they felt ashamed as a teacher as they listened to the presentation. I plan on listening to the session, so I admit I am writing this without having seen it. I will listen soon. The comment is weighing heavy on my mind.

I believe in the process of conversing, people forget that we are like our students. For the most part, the teachers who are blogging about education, technology, web 2.0 tools, and the like are learning and trying new projects in the classroom on an on-going basis.

I have been teaching computer class in the K-8 grade level for the last six years. I am no different than my students. I learn, I practice, I grow, and I learn some more. What I do is not always perfect. It is a work in progress.

There is no way to have an amazing, global, creative, collaborative classroom unless you take the first step. Those steps are creating excitement in my students. I had a seventh grader who was reading emails from a second grade project today. I have them hanging on the wall. He read it of his own accord and commented on how interesting it was to read about life in other countries. Writing classroom-to-classroom emails is something I’ve always wanted to do. I tried to get a local school to collaborate with me, but it never came to be. Now, with a shout from Tom in the UK, I have my second graders (and any other student in the school who chooses to read the printed letter) connecting with these other students.

I don’t believe edubloggers, as a group, are on soapboxes. I believe we are trying to take what exists and learn to apply it for the benefit of our students. I came a long way from my first attempts at wikis last year to what we are managing this year. We have been having intra-class collaboration in the sixth through eighth grade. They will take those skills and work on the 1001 Flat Tales project next month. I build the skill blocks one step at a time.

We’ve started working with other classrooms through a Classroombraids project and the fifth graders were so proud to show off their VoiceThreads at the open house this weekend.

I’ve even been able to get my Kindergarten class interacting with other children preparing for their 100th Day of School this year.

The students are learning to create podcasts and movies to reflect their learning, too. They have some very nice first attempts to show what they have learned. The eighth grade’s plagiarism podcasts were a first try. My sixth grade math class is working on creating a video about population density, and my seventh grade will be creating audio podcasts about web site evaluation.

It may have been an off-the-cuff comment that I read, but it’s been playing over and over in my head. I know where I was six years ago. I see where my work is today, and I know it will only continue to grow over time. I don’t see why there is a need to feel ashamed of our work. I am not ashamed of mine. I will continue to grow and modify in the same manner that I expect my students to grow. The shame would be mine if I saw the potential and chose not to act.

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Image Citation:
"educon_welcome_screen (SLurl)", teachandlearn's photostream. 2008 Jan 18. 2008 Jan 28.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2105/2202195295_54a03e9a6d.jpg?v=0

What I Learn From My Network

The sign above is courtsey of Clay's Beyond School blog entry. I've been thinking for days now how much my teaching is being enriched by so many wonderful people.

Yesterday, the principal's secretary had printing troubles. The principal asked me to come and fix things first period. She would watch the computer class once I got things rolling. It happened to be the class with her son. When she walked in, the class and I explained that they would be creating an image in KidPix to welcome kids from around the world to our class' Classroom Braids wiki project. I explained with the class that we would be learning about the similarities and differences of students in Georgia, Washington, Brazil, Maine, California, and Australia.

Today, she was asking me about a conference I'll be going to next week. She wanted to know more about the topics of Education 2.0 at the college down the street. I explained that one of the teachers I communicate with mentioned it and asked if I was going to be there. I didn't even know it was going on until I got a message on this blog a few days ago. The person happens to read Lisa's Lingo blog and found me. It ends up being Kevin Jarrett who presented the SecondLife: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds at the K12 Online Conference. I listened to Kevin's whole presentation and learned a lot there, too.

I come back to Twitter again and again because there is always something there that interests me. SusanT just started following me this past week, and I found a great little VoiceThread ABC book with requests for drawings from one of her tweets. I also followed a link from MariaK to her KinderKids blog. Two great examples for me to share with the primary teachers.

Last year, I explored iMovie with the eighth grade. They created video Public Service Announcements about what you can do on the Internet. I never put them online because I never got around to permission slips from the parents. It was a spontaneous project because iLife came with the new iMacs I got last year. This week, I saw a great example from the Coolcatteacher blog. I only looked at two on the main blog page, but what great examples to show my students this year in addition to the samples from my students last year.

I still can't wait to get to Dean Shareski's tutorial on using the green screen. I am certain that I'll explore that by next year, if not this year.

I used to figure out great projects to do with my students. I have no apologies for what I've taught my students over the last five years. That said, my sixth year at this school will surpass all others simply because of the shared knowledge that I now have thanks to everyone named and unnamed who contribute their shared knowledge with the world.

Writing Styles

I just finished reading Weblogg-ed > Pushing Writing Literacy and have several thoughts rolling around in my head.

I feel like I could use some training in how to use all these tools myself. I am very tech savvy, but am just learning the etiquette of blogs, social networks, twitter, WOW2 shows, and the list goes on. I think there is a literacy to it. It makes sense to teach it. Kids to fall into MySpace, Xanga, and other web sites. Perhaps when they grow up communication will not look like we even expect it to. We are obviously tied to the way we learned. As a forty something myself, I still have a hard time letting go of punctuation and capitals. Will they really be required in the future? I expect it to be that way. How much of what we "play" with will be part of jobs in the future. The best we can do is at least open the children to the need to present to a public audience. This while trying to pass standardized tests and report on a traditional report card.

I cross several boundaries as a teacher. This is due, in part, to the fact that I am a full time (K-8) computer teacher in a PK3-8 school. I teach two sections of sixth grade math at the same school. It's a long, busy, but rewarding week. I have a friend who is an eighth grade English teacher. I will be teaching a one evening workshop to teachers in an alternate route program.

As the computer teacher, I have the luxury of letting a project draw out to its logical conclusion. Last year, the first time I had the students create digital videos, we took a whole semester. I know the students took their time and created a project that they were proud of. My computer lab is not set up in a manner that gives a very finished project. I'd really need to set up screens to block the background so you don't see other projects being recorded. I'll also need better microphones that do not pick up the sounds of other recordings going on.

This project required the students to think about writing in a different manner. They had to get their point across in an infomercial style. They promoted Photobucket, podcasts, and other Internet themed ideas. I really enjoyed the final product and so did the students. This was completed with last year's eighth grade.

This year, I had the seventh and eighth graders create a wiki on copyright, fair use, and plagiarism. The three classes didn't do a great job of communicating through the wiki. They relied on me to tell them what was first, second, third on the project list. Next year, the current seventh graders and the sixth grade class will do another project. I haven't decided what it will be yet, but I will be able to build on the two seventh grade classes' shared experience. Hopefully I will be able to get them to lead the incoming sixth grade more.

This year's group also made some very small VoiceThreads and podcasts which will appear on the wiki in the next couple of weeks. The process is going very slowly since I am trying to send groups off to different sections of the school for a quiet place to record on laptops. The VoiceThreads are almost babyish since they are a drawing with a recorded sentence or two. The podcasts are a little meatier - running about 60 seconds with a bit of intro sound from GarageBand.

Next I want to show the kids a global audience for their work. They don't appreciate that their work can and will be seen and evaluated by people around the world. I'm going to ask the Twitter network for help in this regard.

As the math teacher, I am trying to introduce blogging following the example of Chris Harbeck and Darren Kruopatwa. I am amazed at their student's work. On my side, it is a slow start. It always goes much faster in my imagination. To this end, I am going to start teaching wikis and blogs to the current fifth graders in computer class so that the tools are ready for me as a math teacher at the beginning of the year.

As the friend of the English teacher, she is always consumed with passing the state test. I often send her little links to The Reflective Teacher's blog. My friend sees it as: wow, that person lives in a fantasy world. She has to bump the math teacher to get her students on a computer at the same time. All her students to have computers at home, though. She's still thinking inside the box.

On final reflection, I don't even know how to appropriately give this a link back to all the fine blogs I mentioned in this post. Does Technorati just pick it up based on the links in my blog? Do I post a comment to the other writers on their blogs. See, I need this type of literacy so that I can pass it on to my students. They will then be a more knowledgeable and able digital citizen.

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Image Citation:
Untitled.” tanjila’s Photostream. 3 Oct 2007. 25 Oct 2007 .