Creating A Grassroots PLN at your School

Recently I have been providing some of my colleagues with web 2.0 resources for their classrooms. They ask, “this is great, where did you find it?” I casually say, “well in my free time (meaning all day) I am quite the avid twit.” A light laugh ensues.

In a new charter school that is struggling with performance standards and catching up students who have been left behind by urban public school systems, it is hard to thread technology into the conversation. However, in the next few weeks I am going to propose several new initiatives to our administration. These new initiatives will include the following items…

1. Creating a learning network within our building

This learning network will include several key ingredients. First, I plan to inspire my colleagues to obtain a twitter account. I really feel like twitter has become the stepping stone for jumping off into a world of endless resources and collaboration. Since joining twitter two years ago, I have met so many great minds and educators. They have all helped to provoke and motivate my thinking in ways that make teaching an exciting venture. Now, I am sure I will encounter the questions

“what value will this have in my classroom?”

“we have enough to do, I cannot add anything more to my plate”

“this will just distract from teaching, no?”

These are some of the questions that I expect and I am sure there will be more. My answers will flow something like this. Twitter is what you make of it. It is not required to teach and is certainly not a distraction from my own teaching. Our kids are behind because most of them received a 20^th century education that included copious amounts of “busy work”. Having a twitter account will allow you to find other teachers, principals and administrators who are encountering the same hurdles. You can begin by posing a question and segue into a discussion in which you are solving problems through twitter. At that’s it, twitter is simply a forum that allows us to engage in a rapid exchange of ideas. Twitter is what you make of it. It can be a distracter from lessons and work if you let it be, but for the most part, it is an integral part of my own teaching and has provided me with more insight into becoming a dynamic teacher than any other forum in my career.

There will always be those who are afraid of trying something new, however, if you want to start a PLN at your school, like I plan on, start with twitter. Show your colleagues the value of the rapid exchange of ideas and resources and they will never look back.

2. Wiki or Ning

Once you have your colleagues tweeting up a storm and delivering new teaching methods because of twitter, introduce them to a place where you can house all of your plans, units, ideas, calendars, meetings, etc. I am not partial to either of the aforementioned platforms, and have had great success with both in my experience.

I find a wiki space would work best for creating a forum to house lesson plans and school documents that parents, guardians and other teachers can access universally. I have used wikispaces with many of my classes and the kids find it easy and the parents adapt to the accessibility of information. The wikispace also allows everyone to be an active participant in taking ownership of the site.

However, if you simply want a forum to exchange ideas and resources links, then I feel a Ning would be best for you. A ning has less manipulability than a wiki and works best as a way for faculty, parents and administration to communicate and spread announcements rapidly in one place. In the Ning, you can also create groups for your departments. These groups can have remote PD’s through the chat forum and create and respond to discussion threads.

Again, both have their merits, but find out what you want your PLN forum to look like and choose which works best for you entire district.

3. Start organizing resources through Diigo

Diigo is the third part of the trifecta of creating a PLN within your school. I have really benefited from the Diigo groups that I have become a part of. I have found and promoted many blogs via Diigo and I cannot say enough about the ease of use. Diigo is a very easy to use site that allows users to bookmark a site, define the site and then categorically organize your sites. The web interface allows you to tag all of your websites you save and access them easily by each tag. You can also create groups and add friends to share in all of your bookmarks. When you add a colleague you both will be able to share and exchange bookmarks.

Creating a Diigo group is a great way to organize your department this fall. E-mail your department colleagues a link to a Diigo group. Tell them that you want to create an online resource library for links and blogs that fit your discipline. For those who say, “Now what? Something else to sign up for and receive junk mail” bribe them with candy. I usually go with Butterfinger, but also provide moist towelets, because no one wants a sticky keyboard!

Once you have them hooked, branch out and look into creating cross-curricular groups! Create a digital bridge with language arts and history; math and science. With Diigo, users have the ability to create wonderful learning communities and collaborate with each other. Building an online resource library should be on the “To Do” list of ever teacher this summer!

So that’s all. These three steps, along with standards and edu-tech curriculum examples, will serve as my platform for creating a PLN and a culture of education technology in my school.

I am tired of hearing my students complain that they do not get to use their laptops enough and I plan on changing that. Students need 21^st century skills to compete globally. These skills are just as essential as reading, writing and math. If we keep pushing it off, it will only fade into wasted resources within our schools. We cannot let this happen. And we need to lead by example. Get your PLN started and give all of your colleagues a high-five for trying something completely different!

Independent Reading 1.0

This was a discussion prompt that introduced my independent reading unit. We just finished a unit on the fundamental literary elements: plot structure, conflict, point of view, characterization, etc. Students will now be applying these skills to their independent reading. I’m sending them out into the literary seas in search of adventure and intrigue. NOTE: This lesson is very 1.0 but I will apply how one can make it a 2.0 activity.

The question: Why do we read fiction?

Eager hands abound!

Some of the responses:

“For Fun”

“To learn”

“To expand our imagination”

“To be taken somewhere”

“To learn about another place or culture”

Yes! It’s working; they understand the purpose of fiction!

I decide to challenge their thinking further.

The question: Those are all good answers, but why should we waste time reading books that are not true?

Students pause momentarily; I can see the critical thinking wheel spinning feverishly.

A HAND!

“We read fiction to travel somewhere we have never been and to experience something new. Like I have never been to China, but I can go there through the author’s perspective.”

I pick myself up since I just fell over from this brilliant response. This question ignites another burning mind.

“We read fiction, like to be taken, say to the past, when we wasn’t around and find out about different historical events through fiction.”

Eureka! I am loving these responses (save for the use of proper English).

This was my class today. I started with a simple question and challenged students with critical thinking. Mind you, these students are all below reading level and were anxious about reading a book outside of our required text. Maybe, it was the aesthetically appealing covers of many new books, or maybe it was the new found ownership they all half over their novel, but what ever the case, they were thinking critically before cracking the page and by god, THEY WERE ENGAGED!

This project is intended for 1.0 instruction. I am not utilizing any form of technology until I first get my kids to read. Their responses are all done…get ready…in a packet. I know, this term is a sacrilege and completely against everything iTeach stands for. However, in one of my previous posts I mentioned using goodreads.com and shelfari.com to foster summer reading. Both of these sites would serve as wonderful forums for housing your responses and tracking the progress of your students. Although these sites work well for the summer reading project, I would definitely transition my packet into a wikispace. This allows for students to post responses, collaborate in a discussion and track their progress. For my students, I would recommend having some form of tracking method that would reward efficient, not fast, readers.

Please let me know if you are doing independent reading through 1.0 or 2.0 methods. My colleagues in the 9^th grade are all setting the course in this independent reading project and so far we have had great success with our 1.0 project. I look forward to hearing about different independent reading projects and what your experience has been whether you are a packet or a PC.

Going Off The Grid

The last blog post I composed was August 20, 2009. That was the day I fell off the grid. I fell far; I fell fast. And soon I was trying to find my personal learning network and wondering where everyone went. The party was over and I was back at work, teaching, grading, designing, engaging and performing several other topical buzzwords used in current edu-speak. I was no longer mentioned in Tweets and my direct messages were simply tumbleweeds drifting by in the wind. My comments and blog readership began to fade and I was no longer engaging in a community that had given me so much and inspired me to transform the way I teach in the 21^st century.

Since I have last posted a lot has happened. William Safire passed away. He enjoyed buzzwords and was a columnist I looked forward to reading every Sunday in the Times. I grew half a beard a few times; thinking the exotic look of a beard would inspire me to write again. The Phillies lost the word series and all the while I was an inactive member of the personal learning network (PLN) I tried to promote so strongly in my previous posts.

I created the one comment a day project ning only to fall behind in my duties as chief executive commentator. I wrote the introduction to my book that I am attempting to write, only to stuff my edits in a drawer for that rainy day off that never came. I’ve continued to read blogs and visit TweetDeck occasionally to see what all my Tweeps are up to. It seems like they are having fun; it seems like they are really engaged in stimulating discussions about Web 2.0 in the classroom and redesigning 21^st curriculum to meet the needs of the 21^st century student.

So what happened? How does one fall off the grid so quickly?

I’m a teacher.

I teach, therefore my time is limited. My time is precious. I teach high school English by day and English composition by night at a local college. In between I browse hundreds of essays and paragraphs for run-ons, fragments and my all time favorite, dangling modifiers.

My free time is spent coming down from the day and relaxing with a cup of tea and some light harmonies. Going to bed at 9 pm seems practical, my DVR is overloaded and my Netflix canceled. I know! This is how I came to fall off the grid.

These are my challenges and this is where I came to fall off the grid.

So now what?

I’m using this blog post as my springboard back on to the grid. I want to tweet again! I want to get excited about 2.0 or maybe 3.0 learning. I want to revive the one comment a day project and make t-shirts! I want to write my book on web 2.0 curriculum and I want to collaborate with my Personal learning network! I want to transform my school into an environment where technology and education skip hand in hand down the hall. I want my students to read on level and I want to rediscover the power of my personal learning community!

This is me coming back to the party, head slightly down, but ready for acceptance back into the great collaborative environment of learners, educators and thinkers that became more than a tiny square icon, but inspiring voices in the world of education and beyond. I want to be there again, I want to collaborate and I want to plug back in to my Personal Learning Network.

25 Free Technology Tools for Teachers

Finding free technology tools and teaching aids is a great way for teachers to engage students in learning while keeping their class within budget. The Internet has tons of hi-tech resources for teachers of language arts, history, math, science, art, and music. Here are 25 tools and sites to explore before the beginning of the new school year:

Language Arts

Cast UDL Book Builder - The Cast UDL Book Builder makes it easier for teachers to build reading skills in students. The site provides tools to create, read, and share digital books.

Shmoop - Shmoop is a unique study guide site designed to help students appreciate and understand literature, history, and poetry. This site is a way for older students to hone and improve literary analysis and writing skills.

Academic Skill Builders - This site is loaded with free online video games for learning language arts, vocabulary, and mathematics. The goal of Academic Skill Builders is to make classroom learning as effective as possible.

TumbleBook Library - This reading site can be used with interactive whiteboards in the elementary classroom. TumbleBook resources include a collection of free animated books.

VisualWords - This online graphic dictionary is a great literary tool for building K-12 vocabulary and language comprehension. With VisualWords, students can see an illustration of how words relate to one another through "word webs."

History

DoHistory - DoHistory provides an interactive way for students to understand the skills and techniques needed for interpreting history. This site, which can be used on interactive whiteboards, is based on the 200 year old diary of Martha Ballard.

Race for the Superbomb - Complete with a teacher's guide, PBS' Race for the Superbomb takes an in-depth look into the creation and use of nuclear weapons. Throughout this virtual experience, teachers will find films, timelines, maps, and special features.

History Podcast Network - The History Podcast Network offers links to a wide variety of history-based podcasts. Teachers can use the site to find podcasts on the military, U.S. history, British history, periods in history, and much more.

History Classroom - The History Classroom from History.com offers a wide variety of interactive games, learning materials, and tools that teachers can use in the classroom to create a fun, engaging history experience. Resources include study guides, videos and speeches, and lesson plans.

Library of Congress - The Library of Congress offers media-rich tools and interactive opportunities that teachers can use in the exploration of history. This site also features activities, lesson plans, and themed resources.

Math and Science

The Blobz Guide To Electric Circuits - This interactive guide teaches groups of students about the intricate networks of circuits. The Blobz guide is a good interactive teaching aid for math and science classes.

Volcano Explorer - The Discovery Channel's Volcano Explorer can be used to teach students about volcanoes. With this interactive exploration, students will get an up-close look at this beautiful yet deadly force of nature.

OceanNow - This interactive expedition into the ocean is a wonderful teaching aid for exploring the science of nature. OceanNow allows you to view video, track maps, and get instant updates.

NumberNut - NumberNut is a free elementary math teaching aid. NumberNut covers everything from shapes and colors to ratios and money math.

Mathgrad - This site is a free mathematics podcast that teachers can use as part of their curriculum. Mathgrad offers practical mathematic information in terms that everyday people can understand.

Art and Music

Renaissance Connection - The Renaissance Connection can be used to teach students about Renaissance art history. This site connects students with the past through in-depth looks at artworks, innovations, and other visual learning tools.

Artopia - Artopia is a comprehensive art experience for middle school children. This site allows students to examine and learn about styles, principles, and processes in dance, media arts, music, painting, sculpture, and theatre. Teachers can also find a how to guide for incorporating Artopia into their classroom.

ArtsEdge - This interactive website provides teachers with tools and technology for exploring and understanding art. Throughout ArtsEdge, teachers will find resources for teaching, connecting, and exploring several different art forms.

Essentials of Music - This site for music teachers provides materials on eras of music, composers, and a glossary with examples. By using this excellent teaching aid, teachers can provide a vast amount of information on composers and eras through MP3 formatted examples.

ArtPad - ArtPad is a creative and mess-free way for students to express their creative side. Once students are done creating art, the works can be printed or emailed.

Miscellaneous

GeoEdu - GeoEdu is a free game and interactive atlas for learning worldwide geography. This software is designed for teaching children of all ages.

PlanetInAction.com - This site offers a 360 degree virtual tour of historical and geographical sites. PlanetInAction.com is an interactive alternative to images in books or slide shows.

BrainPop - BrainPop is a fun teaching aid for all subjects. This interactive site uses games and activities to engage students in subjects ranging from art to social studies.

ARKive - This site allows students to explore life on earth through videos, images, and facts. ARKive offers an extensive collection on thousands of species around the world.

The Periodic Table of Videos - The Periodic Table of Videos is a nice teaching aid for illustrating the periodic table. This site utilizes webcast for a visual demonstration of each element.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineCollege.org, an online college resource.

Your Technology Magna Carta

It is the first day of class, students arrive and technology is present. Your students salivate at the idea of using a laptop, a smart board and a digital camera. They become attentive and are leaning in on your every word, hoping the next sentence is, “You may now get your laptops!” Students rush the COW and in the matter of minutes there is a dropped laptop, a ‘Z’ key missing and an entire laptop has mysteriously gone off the grid.

WHAT…JUST…HAPPENED!

It’s easy, you allowed students to use technology without a technology magna carta. Along with your classroom management rules, that you designed somewhere in your student teaching practicum, the technology classroom rules are just as critical. Here are a few ideas that you can incorporate on the first day of class. Not the second day, or the day after you find broke laptops, but the FIRST DAY OF CLASS!

Laptops = Responsibility

When you give each student their laptop for the year, make sure they are all numbered. Before you allow any of your students to get their grimy paws on a computer, give them a number. As soon as you get your class lists, give each student a number that corresponds with a laptop. The first time you use the laptops take the entire class back to the COW (or where ever you house your computers) and explain to them the procedures for holding, walking with and what to do when they get to their desk. Also, explain that you MUST plug in your laptop when you put it back and if you are a neat freak like me, make sure they are all facing in the same direction. When your students return to their seats, call their names out one by one and allow them to go get their laptop. Monitor their retrieval and have students point out any flaws. Finally, remind students this routine must take place daily or laptop usage will be suspended or revoked. Also remind them that any damage to the computer will come back to them.

Smart Board is NOT a White Board

If you have a smart board mounted in your room or even if you have one stationed somewhere in your room, make sure you keep it clean! Keep all dry erase markers away from it and if you use a special stylus pointer, make sure you keep it in your desk or somewhere safe.

If you are going to be absent and your smart board will be in your room, make sure you have specific substitute plans. The worst experience I have had with this is a colleague in my department getting told that his sub wrote the entire days plan on the smart board. Even worse, the sub used a sharpie marker because she could not find a dry erase marker. It was an awful cleanup! From that day forward our technology czar gave every smart board user a sign to display when we were absent. The sign said:

THIS IS A SMART BOARD

IT IS VERY EXPENSIVE

DO NOT WRITE ON THIS BOARD

Cameras and Video Equipment

Time management! If you give students a camera to use for a project, make sure you include a column in the rubric that accounts for time. I have observed teachers using camera and video equipment for a lesson and just allowing students to run off with the equipment and take two to three weeks to shoot and edit a video. Ummm…no.

Have students sign out this equipment as well, monitor their time and enforce this rule! Don’t allow them to go over the time and make sure you keep consistent with this.

Acceptable Browsing

This rule should be primarily enforced by your network administrator, however, there are loopholes. Students are more technology advanced than most of us. When you say no facebook, no chatting and no non-academic browsing to a student, they think, “ha, I can get around this.” And they can! How? It’s called a proxy server. If this is an unfamiliar term to you, click the link and read. This proxy server allows students to access most sites that a schools network has blocked. I caught many students using facebook and various chat applications throughout the class. This needs to be a zero tolerance policy. Obviously you cannot see the screens for all of your students (until I patent the double sided laptop screen), but when you do catch them quickly minimizing a window containing facebook, enforce your policy and send them back to the 20^th century classroom. Give them a pencil and paper and require them to complete the same project with tools of days gone by.

These are four simple ways to protect your equipment and maintain an efficient working environment in your classroom. With great power, comes great responsibility. Make sure your students understand this power and respect the classroom tools.

Create An Online Resource Library; Enjoy A Butterfinger

In years past, we all used to browse through endless web pages, bookmark the ones we liked and then scroll down a long list trying to locate that “great site we found but cannot remember what it was about”. Sometimes, if we found a site that had a dancing hamster, we would bookmark and e-mail it to friends and relatives. In my district, there is always the one teacher who loves to send out a mass e-mail that is simply a link to a great site that he or she found. It is a kind thought, but working on a PC at school gives me reservations about clicking. What if I click and instead of a great new blog I get dancing hamster ninja porn and all of my districts computers are infected right before final grades are due!!!!
Wanna get away…

No, this is not an ad or link to an even cheaper Southwest Airlines flight, but a new way of organizing your web content. It’s simply called Diigo. Yes, another quirky web 2.0 tool name that will have all your colleagues asking, “Diigo, who? Diigo, what?” What is a good blog without a little Jay-Z humor!

Diigo is a very easy to use site that allows users to bookmark a site, define the site and then categorically organize your sites. The web interface allows you to tag all of your websites you save and access them easily by each tag. You can also create groups and add friends to share in all of your bookmarks. When you add a colleague you both will be able to share and exchange bookmarks.

Creating a Diigo group is a great way to organize your department this fall. Before you get into all the chaos of the school year, e-mail your department colleagues a link to a Diigo group. Tell them that this year you want to create an online resource library for links and blogs that fit your discipline. For those who say, “Now what? Something else to sign up for and receive junk mail” bribe them with candy. I usually go with Butterfinger, but also provide moist towelets, because no one wants a sticky keyboard!

Once you have them hooked, branch out and look into creating cross-curricular groups! Create a digital bridge with language arts and history; math and science. With Diigo, users have the ability to create wonderful learning communities and collaborate with each other. Building an online resource library should be on the “To Do” list of ever teacher this summer!

As always, I look forward to hearing your feedback and how you have created your online resource library. If you want to see one in action, feel free to join my Diigo group at http://groups.diigo.com/groups/the-one-comment-a-day-project. We are building an online resource library for web 2.0 blogs that focus on education. It is an extension of my last post, The One Comment A Day Project. Please join and expand the learning possibilities!

The One Comment A Day Project

After my last post on discovering your Personal Learner’s Network (PLN), I had a brief epiphany. This vision came in from simply adding a comment to a bloggers post that happens to reside in my PLN. I read the post, processed the information and responded constructively. Simple. Painless. Helpful.

At this point I thought, wouldn’t it be great if everyone in my PLN did this at least once a day. Yes, it would!

So here is my idea…

I’m calling it the “One Comment A Day Project”. This project will help promote educational collaboration throughout the blogosphere and promote and stimulate educational dialogue. All you have to do is pick one blog a day (you can obviously choose to read more) and leave a positive, insightful comment for the blogger. That’s it! One comment a day and you can change the blogging landscape and make a blogger smile.

Here is the process.

1. Read a blog

2. Post a comment that is insightful and constructive.

3. Tweet a link to the blog and your comment. Use the hash tag #OneComment

EXAMPLE: I just read a great piece on iTeach blog, check it out! #OneComment

4. Bookmark the blog and return to it another time.

It is just that easy! This Project will help create a positive forum for all who blog and comment. There are so many good educational blogs out there and I look forward to hearing your feedback and engaging in your comments!

The second phase of this project will be a featured blog a week project. This forum will review and promote one educational blog per week. It will also try and introduce new edu-blogs into the learning community. I will be setting up a Ning for this venture. The sole purpose of both ventures is to promote learning and create an engaging dialogue between so many great academic minds. The twitter hash tag for this will be #1Newblog

Please send me your thoughts, suggestions and feedback on both new ventures!I would also like to put together a small team to help with this venture due to the time consuming nature of the project. If you would like to help your fellow bloggers and be an integral part of this venture, please contact me at onecommentproject@gmail.com

I have also set up a separate twitter account for this second phase. It will be @1commentproject. Please follow it for blog updates and blog promotions. When we spread the word about great blogs, we all shine!

I would be looking for help with the following:

1. Finding new blogs

2. Posting Reviews of Blogs

3. Archiving a Blog roll on the Ning

4. Monitoring the Ning

I am very passionate about this project and am putting a lot of time and energy behind it. My belief is that we can all learn from each other and have endless technologies to help us collaborate! I really hope to see my PLN jump on board with me and help promote the edu-blogging community!

One Comment Project T-shirts, beach towels and pillow cases to follow!