Normally if my phone goes off at 1:30 AM it is because someone has died or needs a ride home. Fortunately for me this was not the case. I opened my eyes just long enough to peer at my iPhone and see that I had gotten a reply from a project owner on Skype in the Classroom that I had signed up for earlier that day.
The other teacher a world away responded very positively to me and was excited to do a cultural exchange between my class and his located on the other side of the planet in Japan.
This is not the first time I'll be using skype in the classroom but it is by far the farthest away my class has traveled. When I told my period four class today that we would be doing this (actually I let them read the email) they were very excited and curious about how we would do this and what we would say.
I explained to them that we would be making a video about their experience as a student in our high school and asking students in Japan about their experiences. I asked for student volunteers to help organize this project and several leaped at the opportunity. Also, I spoke with a few students after class about helping out with the tech side of things.
Needless to say I'm very excited about this opportunity to learn about another culture and put some of our new classroom toys into action (iPads, iMovie, etc). What makes it most exciting is how eager the students were do this even though they knew if was not for points.
By the end of the period we had even more ideas for what we could do with the other class. Check back to see how it all turns out!
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Struggling to Stay 1:1
If you're teaching anywhere in a district like mine your district has been touched by the not so invisible hand of budget cuts. That can mean many different things depending on what you teach, grade level, or where you teach. We could debate until we're blue in the face as to why this is happening, but it would change very little. Art supplies get cut for the art dept, calculators don't get replaced, gym class will be played with flat basketballs everyone has to take a bite of this sandwich I understand.
One thing everyone gets no matter what you teach is bigger class sizes. People retired and they were not replaced leaving you with an excess of students. For me this means in a class that four out of the seven classes that I teach are no longer one to one. What is a 1:1 teacher to do? Give up? Get out the worksheets and vocab lists? Those are loser answers, necessity is the mother of all invention. Here are some of the things I've done to deal with the situation. Any other input would be appreciated.
Bring in some of your old personal laptops/desktops:
I only have one old laptop, so I brought it in. Students cannot save to their network drive, but as I told them "You're a big boy/girl, you should have a dropbox account and a google apps account." Students are not really limited as to what they can do on a non-school machine due to the cloud.
Personal Devices:
This is bound to be the most controversial option for some people (esp. if you are in administration). Should a student ever use a personal device in my room for educational purposes I would simply make sure that they could create content (slideshows, movies, documents etc) but save the uploading for later so they are not on the school network.
Differentiate:
Some students either do not want to or do not have the ability to produce work and demonstrate knowledge in a 21st century classroom, but obviously can still demonstrate mastery of a subject. Let them do it however they want! Lets face it, some students are more comfortable answering questions at the end of the chapter on a piece of paper. However, (and this is where I used to struggle) make sure to assess them in that manner rather than PBL.
I don't have all of the answers but these are just some of the things I've done. As I said before, any help would be appreciated. Maybe somewhere in the not to distant future I will no longer have to create a post like this, but until then...improvise.
One thing everyone gets no matter what you teach is bigger class sizes. People retired and they were not replaced leaving you with an excess of students. For me this means in a class that four out of the seven classes that I teach are no longer one to one. What is a 1:1 teacher to do? Give up? Get out the worksheets and vocab lists? Those are loser answers, necessity is the mother of all invention. Here are some of the things I've done to deal with the situation. Any other input would be appreciated.
Bring in some of your old personal laptops/desktops:
I only have one old laptop, so I brought it in. Students cannot save to their network drive, but as I told them "You're a big boy/girl, you should have a dropbox account and a google apps account." Students are not really limited as to what they can do on a non-school machine due to the cloud.
Personal Devices:
This is bound to be the most controversial option for some people (esp. if you are in administration). Should a student ever use a personal device in my room for educational purposes I would simply make sure that they could create content (slideshows, movies, documents etc) but save the uploading for later so they are not on the school network.
Differentiate:
Some students either do not want to or do not have the ability to produce work and demonstrate knowledge in a 21st century classroom, but obviously can still demonstrate mastery of a subject. Let them do it however they want! Lets face it, some students are more comfortable answering questions at the end of the chapter on a piece of paper. However, (and this is where I used to struggle) make sure to assess them in that manner rather than PBL.
I don't have all of the answers but these are just some of the things I've done. As I said before, any help would be appreciated. Maybe somewhere in the not to distant future I will no longer have to create a post like this, but until then...improvise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)