An Obsessed Technology Teacher's Blog

Bring Your Own Device Pilot – Day 1

rdaugherty — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:31:57 +0000

Well, we did it! We pulled together a Bring Your Own Device Pilot program for our 5th grade. It was easier than I expected to be and amazingly ALL of the students are participating! We sent home letters to the the students and the parents asking them to attend a meeting to discuss the pilot. We also sent home a contract for the students and parents to sign. On Wednesday when the parents came in, we only had 2 parents! The parents had so much faith in the program that they didn’t even come to the meeting ( Pilot Letter and Bring Your Own Device KR)! One of the parents at the meeting said, “It’s about time the school did this!”. The parents were ready for this and have been extremely supportive! I can’t even say that we have had any problems! In my estimation so far the pilot is going GREAT! All of the students today opted to stay in and work on their project rather than go to recess! I think for fifth-grade we can mark that as a success!

For this project the students will be creating a book trailer for the book Hatchet by Gary Paulson. The students have brought in a variety of devices – one laptop, many ipod, ipad, and itouches. No other types of devices – the apple devices really are preferred in my opinion.

I was worried about all of the students working in different software packages and with different resources and tools, but it has really not been a problem. The students have all helped each other with their devices and I have really been managing the process and checking in with the students. The students themselves are working hard and mostly staying focused – we have had a few music issues where the students get sidetracked by music on their device.

I will continue to blog about my experience with this pilot program, but so far I am very pleased!

Ipads in School

rdaugherty — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:19:00 +0000

My school is trying to decide if we are going to starting using IPADs in school and all I have to say is WHY NOT? I am so impressed with the learning that can be done using an IPAD I can’t wait to get one in the hands of all of my students! There are so many great apps and great ways to use the ipad.

Some of my favorite apps are spellingboard, puppet pals, math racer, ithoughts HD, noteshelf (I LOVE THIS APP), and read2Go.

Spell Board lets the teacher or parent or student input their spelling list and then practice the list using a practice session or a word search. The app will also give the student a spelling test! The best part is the teacher or parent use the app to see how much time has been spent studying!

Puppet Pals lets the students make puppet shows! My daughter makes a puppet show for every test she has to study for! You could also use puppet pals for an assessment on the learning that took place during a unit of study.

Math Racer lets students do speed drills of their math facts. The number of facts and the type of facts can be switched up every time the student plays the game.

ithoughts HD is a mindmapping app! I love this app! It has wonderful graphics and is super easy to use.

Noteshelf is by far my favorite app! It is a note taking app. The only draw back with noteshelf is it does not offer the ability to mark-up PDF’s (yet!). I use good reader to mark up my PDFs.

And last Read2Go is an app for the learning disabled. My son has dyslexia so I use this app to download books for him from bookshare.com

Independent Learning

rdaugherty — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:31:38 +0000

I was in third-grade this week for the first time. It was quite an experience for me to go from teaching 5th grade last year (and for the previous 4 years) to go to a 3rd grade room! I had a definite learning curve on how to teach the students! One thing I learned was that I threw too much technology at the students too soon!

We are studying a rock unit. The end goal of the unit is for the students to present to the class answering the following question, “How does the rock in my hand fit into my world?” I knew these students had limited computer time, so even when I was planning the unit I had pared down what we were going to do. The plan on Monday was to introduce the students to the unit and then set them free on a website I had created (located here) to gather information on the three types of rocks. I also was going to use the website Exploratree to have the students fill out a graphic organizer online. Well, the students had such a hard time figuring out how to research on the internet that the online graphic organizer completely overwhelmed them! I think my problem was two-fold. 1. I expected that the students could do more than they could on their own and 2. I did not model, step-by-step what I expected the students to do.

For my first problem, that I expected the student could more more than they could on their own, I think ultimately this comes to the fact that, in general, teachers spoon feed students. Meaning that the students, since they were in kindergarten, have been told exactly what they should learn and when. The students don’t have any stake in their learning, because it is all doing what they are told! The students didn’t know how to look at a question and tackle the question to find the answer. When I told the students to go to the websites and find information, they had no idea what to do! I quickly figured out that I needed to walk them through researching on websites, step-by-step. The students needed to understand that if they didn’t find what they were looking for on one website to try another! I spent the next class period we had together, methodically walking the students through how to research on a website and what to do if they don’t find the information they are looking for. It was interesting for the timing of this lesson because a 2nd grade teacher was telling my principal this week that she is struggling with teaching guided reading because the students in her class don’t know how to manage independent learning.

I think as we shift from the “sage on the stage” model of teaching and moving into more student focused learning this problem will disappear. As students aren’t directed in their every thought and action from a teacher, then the students will begin to branch out! I guess my biggest problem was that I didn’t even consider that students wouldn’t know how to direct their own learning, but just like everything it is a process! Maybe, if we never forced students to sit and listen to a teacher talk all day, and instead we put kids in groups where they could research and learn in a guided, self-directed way their exploration senses from preschool wouldn’t ever disappear and be replaced by a “you tell me what to do” attitude.

Bring Your Own Device in Elementary School

rdaugherty — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:13:23 +0000

My school is currently looking at rolling at a Bring Your Own Device program. We are in the phase of the process where we are discussing all of the pro’s and con’s and working out policies and procedures. We are having a philosophical debate about weather a BYOD program is appropriate in elementary school. My school is a k-12 private school so we have to look at a policy that will impact the entire school. I specifically work with the elementary school so I am trying to determine how this program will affect the younger student’s at our school.

I think fourth and fifth-grade would have no problem with a BYOD program at school. These students are using these technologies at home and are familiar with how they work. Third-grade is an interesting question, because I believe they are old enough to handle BYOD. I think any students younger than third-grade should have technology in the classroom and not a BYOD program. Younger students have enough trouble getting themselves and their homework to school in one piece, I do not think we should add to their stress by having them bring their own device to school as well.

One idea our school is looking at is off-setting the cost of text books for parents by allowing students to carry “digital” textbooks. That naturally begs the question – Do students need to have textbooks? I think that is an interesting question, because I do not think students need to have textbooks. I believe we have to prepare students for the world they are going to live in, which is one where all of their books are on the Ipad or their Kindle. However, some in our school believe that students need to have textbooks and believe that we are doing our student’s a disservice by not teaching them to properly handle textbooks. They believe that working with textbooks is a fundamental reading skill that young students need to have. I agree with this sentiment as well! I am having a hard time determining if that mentality is “old school” or just solid educational practice.

There have been a lot of fads in education that have proved to be harmful to students (whole language to name one!) and could reading from an electronic device be one of those fads? Could we do more damage to young children’s eyes by having them read off of electronic devices, rather than books? I think these are all very serious questions that need to be addressed and researched before schools allow elementary age students to Bring Their Own Device!

The Perfect Lesson

rdaugherty — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:17:55 +0000

I was in a first grade class this morning using the activboard to teach a lesson on related facts (I have attached the flipchart here ). As I was planning how to teach this lesson I realized that the perfect lessons do not include ALL technology, nor do they include ALL manipulatives. The perfect lesson would combine the two in perfect balance – and NOT have too many worksheets (that is a pet peeve of mine). I was teaching the students addition facts with sums through six. I used the activboard to model the lesson using dominoes, but then I gave the students dominoes so they could touch and feel the lesson. Then, we moved on to related facts. I taught the students related facts on the activboard using cubes and dominoes, but then I gave the students cubes so they could model related facts with the using the connecting cubes. The student’s LOVED this lesson. They left the class saying, “Mrs. Daugherty that was so much fun!”. I think it is so important for students to see and use technology in their lessons, but it is just as important for students to visualize what they are learning – especially in math. So next time you teach a lesson with the activboard, be sure to bring in some manipulatives for the students as well!

Finally Teaching!

rdaugherty — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:50:51 +0000

I won’t spend too much time with this blog lamenting about how my transition is going from teacher to ITS (Instructional Technology Specialist), but this week I am especially having a hard time with my decision. I MISS teaching! I miss using the technology that I am researching and helping my own students achieve successes through technology. I realize the bigger picture and that I am helping all the students but, it doesn’t feel the same to me. For the past couple of weeks I have been helping with a kindergarten classroom and I sure do love being with them – it just isn’t enough time each day. Today, I will teach my first ITS created lesson to a group of 4th graders.

The way that we have setup our model for the ITS at my school is the teacher’s will send me a lesson topic and I will create a lesson using technology to teach to her class. I will then go in to her class and teach, while the teacher is in the room so she or he can see all that the technology can do. Then, the teacher and I will plan a lesson together where she plans to use one of the technologies that I showed during my lesson. I will then come into her classroom and while she or he teaches the lesson and offer support if needed. The “I do it”, “We do it”, “You do it” model.

Since school started I have been busy helping teachers USE technology! It has been exciting to be around because the teachers are excited about technology because they know they have the support they need. Teachers are adding pictures and animotos to their websites, the teachers are setting up student blogs and using their activotes!

I am going to launch Twitter in a class this week! I got my ipad today which I will use to pilot the Twitter program at our school. Stay tuned for my post on the launch!

Twitter and the Classroom

rdaugherty — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:53:48 +0000

I was just reading a FABULOUS article entitled “Communications Checklist for 21st – Century School Leaders” and one the checklist items is “Are You Using Social Media to Communicate?”. If I take that answer on face value my first response would be YES! Our school has a Facebook page and we share pictures via Flickr. But, if you think about how we really communicate we aren’t really telling what we are doing minute by minute or even just every few hours, we are posting an exciting event that we want to celebrate. In order to effectively communicate with our parents and really bring them into the classroom via technology Twitter would be the way to go. Twitter allows us to communicate in real time to parents and include them in what we are doing. The beauty of a tweet is that it can only be 140 characters in length – so the teacher or administrator that is tweeting is not really pulling away from classroom time. Also, how cool would the kids think it was to say that they were tweeting in their classroom! I could completely see a classroom setup where one student might be in charge of tweets for the day! How much would parents love that model?

I am going to try to get this setup at my school and I will keep up with the progress on this blog. I would LOVE to know what is going on at my children’s school so that I could talk to them about it and I could be involved in their day when they are away from me. We know that part of being in the 21st century community is realizing that everything we do is in real time! Also, the more we can share the day with our parents, the more comfortable parents will be with us caring and teaching their little ones!

Teacher Training and Khan Academy

rdaugherty — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 11:25:50 +0000

We went back to school this week and we are all busy getting ready for our little ones to come next week. I spent some time this week training teachers on resources they can use in their classrooms including activboards and votes, Khan Academy, and Microsoft Outlook. When I was working with the principal to plan what we would train on during pre-planning week we really wanted to make the training valuable and use it in a way that they teachers would find the time valuable – we all know how hectic it is getting a classroom ready for students and there never seems to be enough time for working in the classroom! To that end I showed teachers a lot of fun things they could do with voting templates and agenda boards.

I also showed teachers how to use a website called Khan Academy. I love Khan Academy, it is an amazing website that will change the way teachers teach math! I used it in my classroom for the last nine weeks of school last year and my fifth-grade students went from 5th grade math all the way through middle school math in 9 weeks. Of course, not all of my students went that far, but the website is a self-paced math website that teaches math lessons and then gives practice for the students. The website also allows teachers to register their classes and see how the students are progressing and where they need help. Did I mention that it is a FREE website! I have my own children working through Khan Academy because it is such an amazing site! The teachers are going to use the site for enrichment and remediation this year as they get used to the site, but I am hoping that within the next year some of our teachers will “flip” their classrooms and the found describes in this youtube video.

Instructional Technology Specialist!

rdaugherty — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:30:31 +0000

I am about to embark on a brand new journey on my life as a Obsessed Technology Teacher! I have decided to revive this once tried blog again to chart my progress in my new role as an Instructional Technology Specialist (ITS)! I am moving from teaching children to teaching teachers and I must say I am a bit nervous about the experience! My school, King’s Ridge Christian School, is moving to be a technology leader and they are using the ITS position to take us there! I loved using technology in my own classroom so this should be a journey and experience to help teachers see the value of technology in the classroom. I am getting nervous about this new adventure and have been working this summer to this of ways that I could help teachers. I know how much teachers hate sitting through IT training sessions during pre-planning so I am trying to come up with ways to show teachers how to do things that will use in their classrooms right away. I decided first to make teachers a technology brochure – a guide where I have listed helpful instructions such as posting pictures to their websites, how to login to email from home, and how to create their online gradebooks. Additionally, I have added basic computer shortcuts, important phone numbers, and helpful websites for lesson planning. I also thought that during the IT training sessions we would get the the teachers activotes up and running and I would show them how to create agenda boards for their activboards. What other helpful tips would you appreciate during an IT training session?

Eyeplorer and Power Writes

rdaugherty — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:14:21 +0000

I found a website recently (I am sorry I can’t remember the address) that detailed a strategy for learning called Power Writing. I had never heard of this strategy before but it sounded so wonderful that I immediately started using it in my classroom. My students love it! The process is that you give the students a topic – for example this past week I gave my students the topic – The Civil War. The students had 15 seconds to think of everything they can about the Civil War. Then, they had 15 more seconds to narrow down the topic. Finally, I gave them one minute to write about all the connections they could think of to the Civil War. The goal, it seems, is to have a brain dump of all of the information the students know about the topic. The more the students power write on a topic, the more they are going to make new connections and cement their learning. I LOVE this! My students seem to have trouble remembering more and more information (I have a theory on that – I will expand upon in a later post!). The Power Write helps the students make and retain connections. I can see how effective this tool would be if it were used consistently, day-after-day on the same topic. I wish I could say I was consistent enough to remember to do it daily, but I get focused on trying to cover my material.

Last week after I showed my students how to power write the they wrote for the first time, they were still a little confused on if they have followed the process correctly. I used a wonderful tool called eyeplorer to show them what I was looking for!. I went to the eyeplore website and typed in Civil War and got the map above of the Civil War. The map shows all the possible connections of the Civil War. The students LOVED eyeplorer! So many of them asked me for the website so they could go home and experiment with the technology. I think eyeplorer has wonderful possibilities in the classroom and can really help students see and understand connections and relationships. We know that connections between material help facilitate learning – which is the whole point of what we do each day! If you have a fun way to use eyeplorer in the classroom please share!