Chromebook Institute Presentation

Will Google Docs Kill the Paper/Pencil Star?

What did you learn?

4-H interview judging, it can mean many things to different kids and adults. Lots of hard work and sometimes last-minute changes with an occasional family disagreement thrown in for good measure. For those of you reading this that are not familiar, interview judging is when adults volunteer their time to judge a 4-H exhibitor's book work portion of their project and of course assign them a score. I have volunteered my time for over 10 years. I love interacting with the kids and learning more about and from them.

This year was different for me though. After a conversation with a friend about a different topic, I realized that we are doing some things wrong. One thing he said was that he was never very competitive because "My approach was to learn something. What could I take away from today that I can use in the real world?" Yeah. How can this help me in the real world? What a concept.

Parents, students and teachers have become so obsessed with the with scores that we have forgotten about the learning. A letter grade, a ribbon, an award shouldn't matter. The learning should matter.

At the end of judging, a grading period or the fair, instead of asking our kids, "What did you get?", we should ask, "What did you learn?"

Treat Your Students Like LeBron James

No I don't think that you should stop all media coverage of everything else for two weeks to give your students a lot of attention. That would be cool, but I am talking about the way the fans of Northeast Ohio have treated him. We should treat our students the same way.

We have all heard about the jersey burning and how upset fans were four years ago. Who would have thought that those same fans would be so forgiving? Do we forgive our students like that? I hope so.

Now my analogy has to stop at the rooting against James part. I admit that even I rooted against him at times. I am not suggesting that educators would ever do that.

What I am talking about is second chances. We need to make sure that our students are given second chances to perform academically and second chances in regards to behavior. We shouldn't judge our students by their behavior or one score on an assignment.

In LeBron's statement, he showed a lot of maturity. We forget that we watch our students mature every day. We should be patient to let that maturity develop. James' maturity may also have been helped by the fact that time heals all wounds.

Let's be honest, a lot of the forgiveness comes out of the fact that we think he will bring a championship to Ohio. James has already shown that he can succeed at the highest level. As educators, we need to give our students second, third, fourth, fifth or however many chances they need to succeed. Who knows, they may lead us to championships as well.

photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/3404618770/">Keith Allison</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

So, I got my student's OAA scores

So I got my student's OAA scores in an email yesterday. At first, I was really happy. I was excited. The numbers were pretty high, higher than last year.

But, as I combed over the numbers, I started to feel different. I felt disappointed. Because the numbers weren't 100%, some kids didn't pass. So, did I fail them?

Then another feeling came over me. Disgust. I started looking at the student's names and matching them with numbers.

I get the need for measurement and accountability. I do. But, I felt like I was reducing my kids to a number. A number that may not correlate with actual learning that took place.

In this constant search for data and measurement are we turning humans into numbers?

I don't know the answer to this. I don't want to just add to the pile of comments and blogs and articles and tweets about how standardized tests are destructive. I just want to share with you how I feel about this whole thing.

Schoology vs. Google Drive #smackdown

I love Google. I love Google Drive. I love the fact everything is free. I love the collaboration. I love having students use Drive.

We are a GAFE school so our kids do use it, but we also have the LMS Schoology. It took some time for me to warn up to it, but I have realized is awesomeness as well.

I'll do this smack down style.

What I Love: Drive is awesome for collaboration. I have students share with me when they start a document or presentation. I can chat, comment or edit while they are writing, not after. Feedback is awesome. It's like we are creating the essay/project together.
Schoology allows me to keep everything in one place. It's very organized. I love that I can create rubrics and the students see them right away. I love that I can align the rubrics to CCSS.

What I Don't Love: Drive is really hard to keep organized. I have to use the search feature all the time. I make folders, but things get lost in the folders. OK not lost, misplaced. Grading is a pain. Rubrics have to be shared and it's hard to include them in the assignment.
Schoology is an LMS. So that means that student's work is not accessible to them after the course is over. Schoology has had some blips with syncing with Drive. It hasn't always worked the best. There are so many options with assignments that it gets confusing sometimes. Visible, published, available, ungraded, sometimes I'm not sure what to do with all of the options

Solution: Use both. Schoology allows students and teachers to connect their Drive account to Schoology. Students can create something in Drive and upload it to Schoology. Best of both worlds!

I'm sorry #ohedchat

I want to be honest with my #ohedchat community. I have failed you recently. We started this crazy thing a little over a year ago. I'm an amazed with the progress we have made. But I have made some mistakes.

Mistake 1. Selfishness - in my ambition to make this thing happen, I have selfishly thought that I could do it all. Make the surveys, moderate the chats, make schedules, and I couldn't.

Mistake 2. I refused help - somewhere along the line, multiple people probably offered to help me along the way and for some reason I said "Nope, I got it." I'm not sure why but again I thought I could do it all.

Mistake 3. I procrastinated - I waited to post the topic until late or asked a moderator to cover at the last minute.

Bottom line is that I don't want the chat to suffer because of my mistakes. We need to keep this going and continue the positive conversation. This started out as a grassroots movement and it needs to stay that way.

If you are interested in setting up a moderator rotation or helping out any other way, please let me know. Also let me know if you have any other suggestions to keep this thing going. I didn't start this community, and I don't want my mistakes to end it. Thanks.

Music and Orpheus

Here are my 7th graders comparing modern music to the Greek myth of Orpheus. #learningandfun

Superheroes

Here is a short video of my Sixth Graders using Superhero artifacts to compare and contrast to Gilgamesh. Just another example of #learningandfun.

Learning #AND Fun

I have always had students tell me that they enjoy my class. I even have parents tell me how much their kids enjoy class. I know my students learn as well. I always try to tell jokes and frequently make fun of myself. Most of the time my jokes are so lame that they laugh at how lame they are rather than the punchline. But are my students having fun?

I started thinking about this while I attended OETC and OETCx. While listening to a good friend's FREd talk (Forging Real Education) I really thought about my approach. My kids laugh and say they have fun, but are they learning while they are having fun, and vice versa?

Armed with this new question, I decided to plan something that was both; learning AND fun.

My 6th graders are currently reading The Cay by Theodore Taylor. The main character loses his vision and must trust a complete stranger while they are both stranded on an island. I had started a discussion with then about what it would be like to be blind. Then I realized that they could actually experience blindness.

A couple QR codes and a few blindfolds later, they were laughing and bumping into each other. They were using technology, discussing the book, learning what it is like to be blind, AND having fun.

I'm not writing this to tell you how great this activity was or that I am an awesome teacher that plans great lessons like this all the time. I am writing this to show you that no matter how you feel about your teaching, you can always get better. To quote Ryan McLane, "I'm not trying to change the world. I'm just trying to get kids to hate school less."

It's a great message that we all can learn from. Now, how are we going to learn AND have fun next week?

I'm going to OETC, be jealous

I finally got the confirmation that my district will be sending me to the Ohio Educational Technology Conference. I have wanted to go for a while now because of all the great things that I have heard about it. Not only did my district agree to send me, but they are sending me for two days!

I am really looking forward to the conference for the opportunity to learn new ways to integrate technology in my classroom. I am also looking forward to the tweetup and meetup opportunities. I have interacted online with quite a few people in the state and I am looking forward to the opportunity to meet them face to face.Plus they have an app.

 I am also looking forward to OETCx. An alternative conference might be just what the doctor ordered on the second day of the conference.

Also, I will be allowed to tweet on a Monday and Tuesday during the day, I don't really get the chance to do that any other time. I know, I'm a nerd.

So be jealous people, I'm going to OETC.