This week has been busy so far. I presented a training session on Using Twitter and Edmodo in the Classroom with Jason on Monday. The plan to have participants backchannel using Cover It Live failed, intially, when we couldn't get the chat, which Jason had embedded in our session wiki, to load. Jason made some quick adjustments, and we ended up using Today's Meet instead. This worked well, and led to some good discussions among participants, including the ever-present fear that students will post something innappropriate if given the opportunity to backchannel, especially anonymously. Later in the session, Cover It Live was working again, and many of our participants were happier with the way Cover It Live requires all comments posted in the chat to be approved by the moderator before they appear in the discussion. There is certainly a balance between convenience and control, between the freedoms of a site that allows students to post in real time vs. the security of a site with added control on the teacher's end.
Participants used the backchannel to discuss questions and respond to short video clips. We asked them to think about how many more students would be able to participate in a classroom discussion when everyone has the opportunity to backchannel as well as raise his or her hand to comment. Participation and engagement are greatly increased over traditional discussions where only one speaker at a time is able to contribute.
The teachers who participated in the training saw immediate use for backchanneling, and also seemed comfortable using Edmodo for classroom communication. Many created Edmodo accounts during the session. Jason gave an overview of Twitter as an educational network, showing his Twitter stream and the great collection of educators from across the country whose posts he is able to read and with whom he is able to collaborate.
The Academic Integration Coaches also visited two schools so far this week, Knapp on Monday and Nash on Tuesday. As we have been doing with every elementary school we've visted, we worked from the faculty lunch room during all lunch periods. The purpose of these visits is mainly to meet and make connections with the teachers, to set up future meetings, collaborations and co-teaching opportunities. Thanks to advance messages to the group telling them we would be in their schools, we were also able to answer some specific questions teachers brought to us.
The connections we've made with teachers in training sessions and during our school visits has been leading to constant requests for our help through emails and the help request on our website. As of today, we've logged 165 instances of tech integration work with teachers, and have worked with hundreds of teachers in our after-school training sessions.
In fact, if you are reading this blog, you might be interested in having one of us out to your classroom to work with you and your students to integrate technology into your lessons. What can we do for you?
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Scott Swindells
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hubpages - http://hubpages.com/
Audio Clipping - http://www.audioclipping.de/
Pandora - http://www.pandora.com/
Photobucket - http://photobucket.com/
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/
Tag Cloud - http://www.tagcloud.com/
Hyperlinkomatic - http://www.hyperlinkomatic.com/
Airset - http://www.airset.com/
Ning - http://www.ning.com/
Kinja - http://www.kinja.com/
Skype - http://www.skype.com/
Google Docs - http://docs.google.com/
IMeem - http://www.imeem.com/
Visual Thesaurus - http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
IStockPhoto - http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
Newsvine - http://www.newsvine.com/
Google Maps - http://maps.google.com/
Audio Clipping - http://www.audioclipping.de/
Pandora - http://www.pandora.com/
Photobucket - http://photobucket.com/
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/
Tag Cloud - http://www.tagcloud.com/
Hyperlinkomatic - http://www.hyperlinkomatic.com/
Airset - http://www.airset.com/
Ning - http://www.ning.com/
Kinja - http://www.kinja.com/
Skype - http://www.skype.com/
Google Docs - http://docs.google.com/
IMeem - http://www.imeem.com/
Visual Thesaurus - http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
IStockPhoto - http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
Newsvine - http://www.newsvine.com/
Google Maps - http://maps.google.com/
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Five Myths About Technology in Education ... and the Arguments Against Believing Them
After facilitating three training sessions this week, in which I was able to work with many colleagues I hadn’t met before, the number of teachers I have worked with on some form of tech integration is now at 634. Yes, as I've mentioned before in this blog, I do keep track with an ever-growing email distribution list for messages about AIC podcast, blogs, training sessions and links, which go to everyone who has been in a flex session with me over the past few years. I am now starting to worry that these messages may be in danger of crashing the network when I hit send. :)
There are so many teachers in this district, and so many who are enthusiastic about integration in their classes, that it is very clear to me that our small department needs to grow. I would love to see every teacher who wants the integration support be able to have it on short notice, and the only way to make this happen is to bring on more coaches!
In order to shift the focus in our district – which is happening – there are several educational myths I believe we need to continue to work hard to break down.
Here are five commonly held beliefs about educational technology that I’ve encountered this week, followed by excerpts from and links to articles and blogs that help disprove each as a myth:
1) There is no evidence to show that technology has a positive impact on learning
There IS! The findings of Project RED have shown that schools with 1:1 ratio of technology devices to students have increased attendance and decreased drop-out rates. Project RED surveyed principals and technology coordinators at 997 schools that are representative of U.S. education in terms of enrollment, geography, poverty-level and ethnicity. Here is an excerpt from K-12 Blueprint ‘s article, “Study Shows The Benefits of 1:1 and the Factors that Enhance Success,” Tech & Learning, NewBay Media, LLC Copyright © 2010.
An Investment Not an Expense
Two financial factors were identified by the Project RED team as off-setting the costs that many associate with 1:1 computing. Most dramatically, there is the cost-savings that comes from reducing dropout rates. As the Project RED summary puts it: "The huge economic cost of dropouts is well known. The difference in lifetime tax revenues between a dropout and a college graduate is approximately $200,000. If 25% of dropouts actually graduated from college, the increase in tax revenues would be $6.25 Billion per year per graduating class. Schools with a 1:1 student/computer ratio are cutting the dropout rate and reaping this broader benefit."
On another front, there are the cost-savings associated with reduced printing, copying and paper usage. According to Project RED, "It is estimated that high schools where every student has a computer and which use an LMS could cut copy budgets in half. On a national basis that would equate to savings of $400M a year for high schools alone."
Overall, the benefits offered by 1:1 and the savings that it can generate lead the researchers to suggest that such technology programs should be viewed as an "investment" not an "expense."
Read More Here.
2) Technology Takes too much time
Actually, social media and web 2.0 tools save time when used properly. Amanda Kenuam’s blog post titled “Spend Less Time Searching and More Time Learning” gives good examples.
Read More Here.
3) Social networking in schools is dangerous
The post "5 Ways to Teach Cyber Safety and Digital Responsibility" in the blog "Social Media in Education MYTHS" speakins to the contrary:
In fact, blocking social media in schools is dangerous. It leaves kids ill equipped to learn how to protect their digital footprint and safely navigate the social web.
Read More Here.
4) Newer teachers are more likely to use technology frequently for instruction than veteran teachers
The article “Educators, Technology and 21st Century Skills: Dispelling Five Myths” from The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University (2010), questions this myth:
Anyone who believes, for example, that technology use is the exclusive purview of newer teachers might want to reconsider. Teachers’ years of experience— and, presumably, their ages—seem to make little difference in their frequency of technology use to support learning. The distribution of teachers, segmented by their years of experience and frequency of technology use, is similar.
Read More Here.
The Same myth is also debunked in the eSchool News article, “Research Dispels Common Ed-Tech Myths.” Here’s an excerpt:
New teachers aren't more likely than veteran teachers to use technology
In a finding that might surprise some people, younger teachers who are newer to the profession were no more likely to use technology than teachers with 10 or more years of experience, the study found. “Newer teachers might very well use technology more in their personal lives, but when it comes to frequency of technology use in classrooms, they don’t seem to have any edge over veteran teachers,” the report notes.
Read More Here.
5) Sudents today are comfortable with technology, so teachers’ use of technology is less important to student learning
The Walden University article (2010) also goes a long way to debunking this myth:
In reality, teachers’ use of technology matters a great deal. Teachers who are frequent technology users report greater benefi ts to student learning, engagement and skills from the use of that technology than teachers who spend less time using technology to support learning. Frequent technology users place considerably more emphasis on developing students’ 21st century skills—specifi cally, skills in accountability, collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, ethics, global awareness, innovation, leadership, problem solving, productivity and self-direction. Frequent users also have more positive perceptions about technology’s effects on student learning of these skills—and on student behaviors associated with these skills.
Read More Here.
Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading some of the sources I shared that help dispel some of these common myths about education and technology.
There are many other myths that hold back progress in schools (i.e., “I need a SMART Board,” or “This stuff is great for the honors level, but won’t work with students at the level which I teach”), but we’ll have to save some of those topics for another Tuesday … with Swindy.
There are so many teachers in this district, and so many who are enthusiastic about integration in their classes, that it is very clear to me that our small department needs to grow. I would love to see every teacher who wants the integration support be able to have it on short notice, and the only way to make this happen is to bring on more coaches!
In order to shift the focus in our district – which is happening – there are several educational myths I believe we need to continue to work hard to break down.
Here are five commonly held beliefs about educational technology that I’ve encountered this week, followed by excerpts from and links to articles and blogs that help disprove each as a myth:
1) There is no evidence to show that technology has a positive impact on learning
There IS! The findings of Project RED have shown that schools with 1:1 ratio of technology devices to students have increased attendance and decreased drop-out rates. Project RED surveyed principals and technology coordinators at 997 schools that are representative of U.S. education in terms of enrollment, geography, poverty-level and ethnicity. Here is an excerpt from K-12 Blueprint ‘s article, “Study Shows The Benefits of 1:1 and the Factors that Enhance Success,” Tech & Learning, NewBay Media, LLC Copyright © 2010.
An Investment Not an Expense
Two financial factors were identified by the Project RED team as off-setting the costs that many associate with 1:1 computing. Most dramatically, there is the cost-savings that comes from reducing dropout rates. As the Project RED summary puts it: "The huge economic cost of dropouts is well known. The difference in lifetime tax revenues between a dropout and a college graduate is approximately $200,000. If 25% of dropouts actually graduated from college, the increase in tax revenues would be $6.25 Billion per year per graduating class. Schools with a 1:1 student/computer ratio are cutting the dropout rate and reaping this broader benefit."
On another front, there are the cost-savings associated with reduced printing, copying and paper usage. According to Project RED, "It is estimated that high schools where every student has a computer and which use an LMS could cut copy budgets in half. On a national basis that would equate to savings of $400M a year for high schools alone."
Overall, the benefits offered by 1:1 and the savings that it can generate lead the researchers to suggest that such technology programs should be viewed as an "investment" not an "expense."
Read More Here.
2) Technology Takes too much time
Actually, social media and web 2.0 tools save time when used properly. Amanda Kenuam’s blog post titled “Spend Less Time Searching and More Time Learning” gives good examples.
Read More Here.
3) Social networking in schools is dangerous
The post "5 Ways to Teach Cyber Safety and Digital Responsibility" in the blog "Social Media in Education MYTHS" speakins to the contrary:
In fact, blocking social media in schools is dangerous. It leaves kids ill equipped to learn how to protect their digital footprint and safely navigate the social web.
Read More Here.
4) Newer teachers are more likely to use technology frequently for instruction than veteran teachers
The article “Educators, Technology and 21st Century Skills: Dispelling Five Myths” from The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University (2010), questions this myth:
Anyone who believes, for example, that technology use is the exclusive purview of newer teachers might want to reconsider. Teachers’ years of experience— and, presumably, their ages—seem to make little difference in their frequency of technology use to support learning. The distribution of teachers, segmented by their years of experience and frequency of technology use, is similar.
Read More Here.
The Same myth is also debunked in the eSchool News article, “Research Dispels Common Ed-Tech Myths.” Here’s an excerpt:
New teachers aren't more likely than veteran teachers to use technology
In a finding that might surprise some people, younger teachers who are newer to the profession were no more likely to use technology than teachers with 10 or more years of experience, the study found. “Newer teachers might very well use technology more in their personal lives, but when it comes to frequency of technology use in classrooms, they don’t seem to have any edge over veteran teachers,” the report notes.
Read More Here.
5) Sudents today are comfortable with technology, so teachers’ use of technology is less important to student learning
The Walden University article (2010) also goes a long way to debunking this myth:
In reality, teachers’ use of technology matters a great deal. Teachers who are frequent technology users report greater benefi ts to student learning, engagement and skills from the use of that technology than teachers who spend less time using technology to support learning. Frequent technology users place considerably more emphasis on developing students’ 21st century skills—specifi cally, skills in accountability, collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, ethics, global awareness, innovation, leadership, problem solving, productivity and self-direction. Frequent users also have more positive perceptions about technology’s effects on student learning of these skills—and on student behaviors associated with these skills.
Read More Here.
Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading some of the sources I shared that help dispel some of these common myths about education and technology.
There are many other myths that hold back progress in schools (i.e., “I need a SMART Board,” or “This stuff is great for the honors level, but won’t work with students at the level which I teach”), but we’ll have to save some of those topics for another Tuesday … with Swindy.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Coaches and Staff Work Together for a Successful In-service Day
This week began with an in-service day, during which two of the Academic Integration Coaches were tapped to train district secretaries on Excel, and district security personnel on the transition to Office 2007.
The Excel training sessions were in the morning. We had worked carefully the week prior to this session to querey all the participants about what they wanted to learn, researched the answers to their specific questions, and created a wiki that covered in detail everything they asked us to cover prior to the session.
With one coach presenting and another floating around the room to assist and troubleshoot, we covered all the topics they requested, including mail merge, charts, graphs, tables, formulas, formatting, pivot tables, and much more. The original plan caleld for us to each teach half of the session to a group of 15, then have the participants switch rooms and learn the other half. Instead, we chose to have all the participants in one room while we took turns presenting our half of the training, enabling us not only to have each other as an assistant, as I mentioned, but also giving us the combined wealth of Excel knowlege of the entire group of participants. These are people who use Excel for their jobs in ways that are different than we presenters use it, so it was great to have a large pool of people to share their own tips, tricks and strategies. There were still some questions that came from the group during the training that we did not know off the top of our heads that could not be answered by anyone in the room, but we researched these after the session and sent answers, along with the link to our session wiki, to everyone as a follow-up the next day. I am very happy with the results of this session. Instead of just delivering training, we worked together with everyone in the group to make sure everyone's questions were answered. I would like to follow this training model again, but maybe also have the participants working on meaningful, job-related spreadsheets in addition to our simulated ones for their hands-on work.
Later in the day, we gave an overview of Word and Outlook to the security staff. The group was in good spirits and willing to learn, and we were able to deliver the content in a shorter time span that we had been allotted, providing the group with lots of time for hands-on "play" with the applications, allowing them to work on documents and projects that were meaningful to them.
There were some glitches with the tech. Laptops didn't always work, connectivity was slow at times, and we had to scramble for extra mice for people who could not use the ThinkPad trackpoint mouse, but the tech staff was swift and effective, and we were able to get everything working and have successful sessions. At times, we're all tempted to criticize the equipment when it doesn't work as quickly or effectively as we'd like, but I choose not to look at the glass as half empty when it comes to this stuff. In the end, we got everything to work effectively, and as I reflected on the day's events later, I found myself instead thinking of how fortunate we are to work in a district with so many computers, laptops, devices and other forms of technology at our fingertips. We all criticize at times when things don't go smoothly, but imagine the alternative of not having access to it at all. We are lucky to have what we have in this district, and along with a little creativity from the participants, presenters, and tech staff, it really enabled us to have an excellent day of learning ... powered by technology.
The Excel training sessions were in the morning. We had worked carefully the week prior to this session to querey all the participants about what they wanted to learn, researched the answers to their specific questions, and created a wiki that covered in detail everything they asked us to cover prior to the session.
With one coach presenting and another floating around the room to assist and troubleshoot, we covered all the topics they requested, including mail merge, charts, graphs, tables, formulas, formatting, pivot tables, and much more. The original plan caleld for us to each teach half of the session to a group of 15, then have the participants switch rooms and learn the other half. Instead, we chose to have all the participants in one room while we took turns presenting our half of the training, enabling us not only to have each other as an assistant, as I mentioned, but also giving us the combined wealth of Excel knowlege of the entire group of participants. These are people who use Excel for their jobs in ways that are different than we presenters use it, so it was great to have a large pool of people to share their own tips, tricks and strategies. There were still some questions that came from the group during the training that we did not know off the top of our heads that could not be answered by anyone in the room, but we researched these after the session and sent answers, along with the link to our session wiki, to everyone as a follow-up the next day. I am very happy with the results of this session. Instead of just delivering training, we worked together with everyone in the group to make sure everyone's questions were answered. I would like to follow this training model again, but maybe also have the participants working on meaningful, job-related spreadsheets in addition to our simulated ones for their hands-on work.
Later in the day, we gave an overview of Word and Outlook to the security staff. The group was in good spirits and willing to learn, and we were able to deliver the content in a shorter time span that we had been allotted, providing the group with lots of time for hands-on "play" with the applications, allowing them to work on documents and projects that were meaningful to them.
There were some glitches with the tech. Laptops didn't always work, connectivity was slow at times, and we had to scramble for extra mice for people who could not use the ThinkPad trackpoint mouse, but the tech staff was swift and effective, and we were able to get everything working and have successful sessions. At times, we're all tempted to criticize the equipment when it doesn't work as quickly or effectively as we'd like, but I choose not to look at the glass as half empty when it comes to this stuff. In the end, we got everything to work effectively, and as I reflected on the day's events later, I found myself instead thinking of how fortunate we are to work in a district with so many computers, laptops, devices and other forms of technology at our fingertips. We all criticize at times when things don't go smoothly, but imagine the alternative of not having access to it at all. We are lucky to have what we have in this district, and along with a little creativity from the participants, presenters, and tech staff, it really enabled us to have an excellent day of learning ... powered by technology.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
What's Working
I am taking a moment to celebrate our successes.
Today we helped our "100th customer," meaning the three Academic Integration Coaches, who keep a log of the people we work with to integrate technology in their classrooms, have now logged over 100 entries.
We helped plan and facilitate a technology-based in-service day for teachers in grades 4-6 on October 11, which opened a lot of new eyes to collaborative, web-based porgrams and increased our workload with lots of new requests to work with us. We've got a second in-service day coming up on November 8th, where we will be conducting several Microsoft Office training sessions throughout the day.
We also do after-school training sessions for teachers to earn flex credit while learning about integrating technology. We have offered more than 20 sessions since August, with three scheduled in the next two weeks. We are well beyond 100 participants in these sessions, and they are rating us highly. When teachers follow up on the effectiveness of our training sessions, they are consistently giving us a four or five, with five being the highest possible score.
To help me follow up with the participants in my training sessions, I keep a record of teachers I have trained. According to my distribution list, which filters out repeat names, I am approaching my 600th unique person since I began working with technology integration in 2008. In a district of around 1000 teachers, that is an accomplishment worth celebrating!
As teachers on special assignment in this difficult budget, our position will be reevaluated every year. We were told we will really need data to show that our impact is worth the district's investment, which is why we keep the log, write our blogs, write follow-up emails to participants in our training sessions, and conduct pre- and post-surveys of district faculty.
We want to do more than keep our positions. We want to expand. We know the value of having teachers who are prepared to put the best resources in their students' hands, and we would love to see our small Academic Integration department grow to include more teachers on assignment to assist even more classrooms with tech integration.
What's working so far is our help request system, where teachers complete a form on our website to reach us for help with problem solving, ideas, training on programs and applications, co-teaching, and other forms of integration. When this is combined with the 40+ flex training sessions we've planned for this year, follow-ups via e-mail and face-to-face interactions, and word-of-mouth, our first two months have been a success.
Moving forward, I'd like to see us build a collection of training documents that can be accessed online. We do this with our weekly podcast, Tech Tip of the Week, which are archived on our website. But we can do more in this area. I'm envisioning a searchable database of up-to-date training manuals and guides for using the forms of technology we are most frequently asked to help teachers and students utilize. I'd love some suggestions about how to improve in this area.
Thank you to everyone who has worked with us this year. We're incredibly busy, but willing to take on more. Contact an Academic Integration Coach today!
Today we helped our "100th customer," meaning the three Academic Integration Coaches, who keep a log of the people we work with to integrate technology in their classrooms, have now logged over 100 entries.
We helped plan and facilitate a technology-based in-service day for teachers in grades 4-6 on October 11, which opened a lot of new eyes to collaborative, web-based porgrams and increased our workload with lots of new requests to work with us. We've got a second in-service day coming up on November 8th, where we will be conducting several Microsoft Office training sessions throughout the day.
We also do after-school training sessions for teachers to earn flex credit while learning about integrating technology. We have offered more than 20 sessions since August, with three scheduled in the next two weeks. We are well beyond 100 participants in these sessions, and they are rating us highly. When teachers follow up on the effectiveness of our training sessions, they are consistently giving us a four or five, with five being the highest possible score.
To help me follow up with the participants in my training sessions, I keep a record of teachers I have trained. According to my distribution list, which filters out repeat names, I am approaching my 600th unique person since I began working with technology integration in 2008. In a district of around 1000 teachers, that is an accomplishment worth celebrating!
As teachers on special assignment in this difficult budget, our position will be reevaluated every year. We were told we will really need data to show that our impact is worth the district's investment, which is why we keep the log, write our blogs, write follow-up emails to participants in our training sessions, and conduct pre- and post-surveys of district faculty.
We want to do more than keep our positions. We want to expand. We know the value of having teachers who are prepared to put the best resources in their students' hands, and we would love to see our small Academic Integration department grow to include more teachers on assignment to assist even more classrooms with tech integration.
What's working so far is our help request system, where teachers complete a form on our website to reach us for help with problem solving, ideas, training on programs and applications, co-teaching, and other forms of integration. When this is combined with the 40+ flex training sessions we've planned for this year, follow-ups via e-mail and face-to-face interactions, and word-of-mouth, our first two months have been a success.
Moving forward, I'd like to see us build a collection of training documents that can be accessed online. We do this with our weekly podcast, Tech Tip of the Week, which are archived on our website. But we can do more in this area. I'm envisioning a searchable database of up-to-date training manuals and guides for using the forms of technology we are most frequently asked to help teachers and students utilize. I'd love some suggestions about how to improve in this area.
Thank you to everyone who has worked with us this year. We're incredibly busy, but willing to take on more. Contact an Academic Integration Coach today!
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