Example of 1:1 laptop school

I ended my trip to Memphis this morning with a tour of Lusanne Collegiate School, a K-12 independent school that has a 1:1 laptop program in Grades 5 thru 12. Each student has their own personal laptop that is used throughout the school day and at home for academic purposes.

We were able to see a high school science class where students used computer probeware to collect the air pressure during a science experiment. Other examples I saw included using Audacity for students to record themselves speaking Spanish for an exam grade, and students examining web-based artifacts for their Social Studies to deepen their understanding.

Next July, Lusanne will be hosting their annual Laptop Institute showcasing ways to integrate technology in K-12 classrooms. Information is here.

Planning District-Wide Technology Professional Development

At the Mid-south Technology Conference, Brenda McCombs, Clif Mims, the AL Brown High School Science Dept. shared our story of the IMPACT technology grant in Kannapolis City Schools.

Planning District-Wide Technology Professional Development

Audio Boo

I was asked to do a brief interview with my friend and colleague Dr. Clif Mims. We used Audioboo an app on the iPhone 3GS that will audio record and instantaneously post it online.

Enjoy the interview…

Technology and Literacy- great resources!

I dropped by Day 4 of a workshop for teachers on Digital Literacies taught by my colleague Dr. Bruce Taylor here at UNC Charlotte. His graduate students have facilitated 4 half-day sessions about integrating digital technologies into literacy instruction.

Here is the wiki with resources (PPT slides, videos, links). Enjoy!!

Twitter for Teacher Professional Development

Here is a google docs spreadsheet sharing ideas about how teachers use twitter for professional development.

Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)- why bother?

As we spent time in class this week unpacking the North Carolina standards in light of the revised Blooms taxonomy I was left with the question- “why do we care about students’ higher-level thinking skills?” I’m sure my students had the same question.

The last few years, articles, policy documents and experts (e.g., ISTE Standards, 21st Century Skills, and  Metiri Group) have talked about the need to prepare K-12 students to have 21st century skills. In some cases that means preparing our teachers and students to work in environments that don’t currently exist. Whether its virtual worlds, online classrooms, or face-to-face classrooms in which every student has a hand-held computing device, there is no doubt that in the next 2 decades, access to technology and the potential for schools will continue to shift for the better.

In that spirit, if we end up teaching students only content with no process or HOTS, then our students will eventually become the kings of weekday night trivia at the local pub, but expendable in the work force. Whether teachers are situated in a technology-rich environment or a rural school in Mbita, Kenya, teachers must stretch their students by designing complex activities, asking the how and why questions, and developing students’ reasoning skills. Sure, resources- curriculum, technology and other materials- matter, but it’s amazing what can happen even without those resources with a teacher willing to challenge their students and students with an elastic mentality, willing to be stretched.

Revised Blooms’: A technology-based hierarchy

Back in February, Mike Fisher posted on his blog a technology-based hierarchy for the revised Bloom’s taxonomy.

There was some discussion about the application (or misapplication) of Blooms with this hierarchy. Here was my response that I posted also on Mike’s blog.

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Blooms, former and revised, are used as a framework for cognitive levels of tasks- test questions, performance-based tasks, etc.

What is interesting is not the misapplication, probably not an accurate term in my opinion, but more so a morphing of Bloom’s. What this hierarchy that Mike has created now seems to pigeon hole specific technologies in various levels of cognitive difficulty.

Last week when I was talking to my undergraduate preservice teachers about the Revised Bloom’s and technology one point that they kept coming back to was a technology (alone) does not constitute a higher level or lower level task. Blogs can be used (and are commonly used by K-12 students) for lower level knowledge, just as YouTube could be used as a springboard for a higher level task or a lower level task as Mike has characterized it.

I think that Mike’s hierarchy helps push the conversation forward– how do we utilize these high-leverage technologies (wikis, blogs, multimedia creation tools) and ensure that students are engaging in high quality tasks that develop their higher-order thinking skills?

Andrew Church provided us with some ideas on this in 2007 that help me think about how I prepare future and current teachers to use these technologies themselves or with their students.

PDS Presentation: Technology Integration to enhance school collaboration

Oliver Dreon and Nanette Dietrich from Millersvile University provided a showcase of technology integration tools that could be used to foster collaboration and communication among PDS stakeholders- mainly K-12 faculty, teacher candidates and university faculty. Among the tools they showed:

Google Forms

Wikis- Wikispaces

Blogs- WordPress

Ning- social networks for specific topics

As more and more communication and collaboration tools permeate the world of education, I find it mission critical for people to identify tools that meet their specific needs and focus on a few. Especially with K-12 teachers and teacher candidates, I am finding it more and more difficult to keep them squared away on which tools are best suited for specific types of communication and collaboration.

This presentation was definitely useful for the PDS conference, as many teachers attended and were able to check out some of the tools that are commonly used in university settings and consider how they could be adapted to meet their own professional needs.

Technology Integration Showcase: Kindergarten

By Heather Cline
Kindergarten Teacher, D.J. Montague Elementary School, Williamsburg, VA

In the Virginia Social Studies standards, my Kindergarten students need to learn basic map and globe skills related to positioning and location. I used children’s literature and Google Earth to give students experiences with maps. As a class we read “Me on the Map” by Joan Sweeney and Annette Cable and spent time talking about maps and our location using Google Earth. From there, students used a classroom map that our media specialist had made and students had to use the map to find “hidden treasures” around the room.

All in all, the students were so amazed at the Google earth site. We found our school and then I showed them my house. A bunch of the kids kept asking me to repeat the name of the site so they could go home and look up their house! It was a perfect match to the book “Me on the Map.” As for the next part with the classroom map and using a legend, that went well too. There were treats all over the room, but they could only have the one that was in the spot marked on their map. They helped each other find the right spots.

The pre-service educational technology course: A 2 semester experience

My elementary education program here at UNC Charlotte is in the midst of completing their revisioning of our courses and course sequences. In a retreat on Friday we discussed the feasibility of taking our 3 credit educational technology course and making it into a 2 semester experience. The first semester at the beginning of their program would be an overview of technologies, Web 2.0 tools and instructional design concepts. The second semester would be a 1-credit seminar one year later, the semester prior to full-time student teaching. Students would use this seminar to explore how to effectively use technologies in the classroom that they will be in for full-time student teaching.

A few rationales for this:
1) the stand-alone ed tech course at the beginning of programs tends to be inherently disconnected from field experiences and student teaching
2) the ed tech course needs follow up in methods courses and field placement. Due to academic freedom of professors, methods courses will probably never incorporate the effective uses of technology
3) students need classroom-based experiences that involve seeing what technologies are available, what their students’ needs are, and how technology can facilitate meeting students’ academic needs.

I’m very excited about this movement…if you have thoughts or experiences, please share them!