Tech Tests

So, Monday morning, Gary asks if he isn't supposed to observe in my classroom today. Oops, forgot (so what's new?). No problem, this was going to be a fun day, helping students learn how to make multimedia books in My Own Bookshelf . Famous last words. MYOB has been loaded on the server, but individual computers in the lab won't open it. Why? No one is sure, but they are sure it won't be fixed before class. Two hours until class and I need a lesson plan for Gary.

How can I do something like original plan? Easy: we'll make multimedia books in PowerPoint, a software that is working on all the lab computers. It won't be quite as slick or have the ease of creating a digital library, but it will apply most of the same principles. After quickly typing up 6-step directions in Word for making a PowerPoint multimedia book in 15 mins. or less, I saved the document as HTML and uploaded to the web. In class, I opened the page, which had links to Google images and AltaVista media search engines.

I talked the students through the process, told them they needed to consider how multimedia might support learning of various kids, and then we moved to lab. I paired students on computers, so that they could help each other. Instant chaos. How do I use a Mac? Where is PowerPoint? Where do we save the program? And then students got to work.

They quickly got images and a movie or two. Some went beyond the assignment and inserted sound effects and backgrounds. Almost all ended up with a useable talking book for a beginning reader in 30-40 minutes. We didn't hit my 15-min. target, but I bet we could with a little experience, and students working in a PC environment instead of a Mac lab. We saved them to my USB key and will link to their syllabus, so they can download and use in future.

No idea what this organized chaos got on my evaluation, but the lesson worked well. I was engaged. Students were engaged. Some wonderful problem-solving was done. We figured out we could drag pictures from the internet into our desktop folders--much faster than Save As. We figured out we could keep the directions up, open a new page in the browser, and go back and forth as needed. We figured out that the process was easy enough that we might use it in our own classrooms.

My Tombstone

Apropos of nothing in particular, but on a recent drive back up the mountain, my epitaph came to me:

Stretched too thin,
But much too fat,
Stress and calories,
And that was that.

The tombstone image was found at http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2004/08/when_i_die.html.

On Grading and Problem-Solving

My youngest son recently raised a minor stir in his classroom. His teacher reminded the class, "Don't forget your required extra credit work is due this Friday." He then replied, "Isn't that an oxymoron?" Beyond being proud of my son's vocabulary and mature approach to questioning authority, I've been thinking about this grading nonsense.

The underlying reason for the teacher's requirement of extra credit is well-intentioned, some of her students won't pass without the extra points. But I was thinking about the problem-solving and subsequent solution. In talking it through with my wife, I came up with this analogy. Helping kids raise their grades with extra credit work is like curing a fever by dipping the thermometer in ice. The numbers change but not the underlying problem. If a child has low grades, there is a deeper issue than finding out how to plop more points in his/her basket. Maybe the child doesn't understand the work, or maybe the teaching is ineffective for the child's needs, or maybe there are peer issues impairing to learning, or maybe the work is simply to difficult... The grade goes up, the larger teaching/learning issues remain unaddressed.

It strikes me also that this is related to my greatest objection to the current way-beyond-high-to-the-point-of-absurdity stakes testing. So much of schools' efforts are focused on teaching to the tests that learning and love of learning are severely impaired. To sustain the metaphor, rather than treat the illness leading to the fever, we're teaching children how to hold the thermometer in their mouths in ways that the fever won't register.

Technology Insight

My middlest son was working on a PowerPoint presentation for his 7th grade social studies class. He was told to bring the presentation to school on a floppy disk (remember the media that the real world stopped using about 5 years ago, but that is still used in our local public schools and our campus labs?). In our home, we don't have any floppy disks nor do any of our three computers (2 laptops from campus and our ancient desktop) have floppy drives, so I asked my son to check whether a CD would work. When I asked if his teacher provided an answer, my son responded, "Dad, he types with two fingers!"

Rooted in Technology

I found this image at http://www.defendingthenet.com/FunStuff.htm. It's the way I occasionally feel about the quantity of professional and personal time I spend on computers. And despite all that time at the computer, I now have over 750 unanswered emails...

The Comfort of Blogs

I spent time visiting the RE 6575 blogs this evening, when I should be going to bed and getting a good night's rest since I'm driving to Morganton to teach for an hour tomorrow morning, driving back to Boone, and then teaching 4 hours in the afternoon. However...

I really wanted to see what everyone had been writing on. Each blog increasingly is taking on the character and personality of its blogger. I look forward to the quotes and illustrations at one site. I eagerly anticipate the reflections on implementation and classroom teaching issues. I revel in the individual successes. I know this group better as individual learners and thinkers than any previous class I have taught, because they've shared so freely in their blogs.

Tech Conveniences

I just used Microsoft Word and 'track changes' to respond to my undergraduates' lesson plans. By doing so I could write my comments significantly faster than with other "pencils" and I could write significantly more legibly. I went to Nicenet then, clicked on each students' email, attached the feedback and sent it. In Nicenet I then sent a single explanatory note to everyone simultaneously. The grades have been entered in Excel. I have a digital record of everything, so if any of this is lost, I can resend. Now I better back up the files...