6th Grade Update- September in Review

6th graders started their year in technology organizing their network folders on our school server for storing electronic schoolwork such as PowerPoint presentations and Word documents as well as getting acquainted with their brand new BB&N GMail accounts.  Earlier this week students set up blogger accounts for both history and language arts blogs.

Please ask your child to tell you about SmartMoves, a "body puzzles for the mind" program I am trying out with the students this year for transitioning into the classroom and improving focus.  "SmartMoves is an award-winning cognitive fitness program that combines music and movement to transform the classroom and change the way students learn."  (http://shop.fablevisionlearning.com/smartmoves/learnmore/overview/fa/shop.detail/productid/2564/)  

4th Grade Update- September in Review

4th graders started their year in technology learning about their new computer accounts and accompanying network folders for storing electronic schoolwork such as Word documents.  During the month of September we also began the touch-typing curriculum which includes homework twice per week.

Please ask your child to tell you about SmartMoves, a "body puzzles for the mind" program I am trying out with my students this year for transitioning into the classroom and improving focus.  "SmartMoves is an award-winning cognitive fitness program that combines music and movement to transform the classroom and change the way students learn."  (http://shop.fablevisionlearning.com/smartmoves/learnmore/overview/fa/shop.detail/productid/2564/)  

5th Grade Math Students Pilot "The Lure of the Labyrinth"

This year, fifth graders in my math group piloted "The Lure of the Labyrinth," an interactive website at http://labyrinth.thinkport.org/www/. The site is designed to provide practice with essential math skills for students in the middle grades. The premise of the game is simple: after students have created a cartoon character for themselves, complete with monster costume and pet, they are informed, through a sequence of comic strips, that their pet has just been kidnapped by monsters. Their mission is to rescue their pet -- by traversing a labyrinth of rooms, each of which contains a puzzle centered around a particular math skill. One unique characteristic of the site is that the instructor, in the process of creating an account, sets up an educator account, which gives them access to data revealing how much each student has played, which puzzles they have mastered, and how far they have advanced into the Labyrinth. It is therefore possible to monitor, assign, and assess learning through the website.


Perhaps the greatest strength of the game, however, is that the practice, though it targets important fourth and fifth grade math skills, is not drill-based. Each puzzle presents an interesting problem that requires creative thinking to solve. For example, students use the notion of common multiples to select portions for monsters' lunch trays in the cafeteria, or solve algebraic equations in many variables as they pore over hieroglyphs in an underground cave. So, while they are never asked, "What is the least common multiple of 25 and 5?", they have a rich experience that leaves them with a greater depth of understanding of that question's underlying meaning. The result is a meaningful exploration of central skills... that's a lot more fun than worksheets!


-Ellie Cowen
5th and 6th Grade Math

Peer-to-Peer Networking

As the school year winds quickly down it was truly a pleasure to hear some of our "launch grant" recipients reports to their colleagues at recent faculty meetings. At the upper school meeting we heard from three of this year's participants. Paul Ruhlmann spoke about his work with creating videos of common woodworking techniques, Rosario Sanchez-Gomez spoke about her development of SmartBoard instructional lessons, and Leah Cataldo spoke about her comparison of Google Sites and Haiku Learning Management software. This peer-to-peer sharing was one of the highlights of my year. Perhaps it is the fact that their experience resonates with colleagues, or perhaps it is the result of the active collaboration which these grants foster, but whatever the case, it is clear that peer-to-peer sharing is an extremely valuable part of our professional development efforts. We had similar results from the recent google apps training, in which several teachers at each campus were involved in delivering training to their peers on this new collaborative platform. The future of technology at BB&N is bright because we continue to build on the experience and expertise of our faculty.

KNBC revamped MS Clubs and Organization webpage

KNBC, Knights Broadcasting Club, a student media club, meets weekly during the school day. Projects from the 2010-2011 school year included Cambridge's contribution to the collaborative documentary project, Mapping Main Street (http://www.mappingmainstreet.org/) and an exploration of new media including Meez, Flipbook, iMovie, ComicLife, GarageBand, iPhoto; in the second half of the year, students put their skills into practice as they developed and ran several seminars on BBN Arts Day in March and produced a variety of short films for the final assembly in June.

In addition to building on these initiatives, members of KNBC 2011-2012 worked on a few longer term projects including photoshop and original short animated films. KNBC meets during study hall on Tuesdays, with the occasional off-campus field trip to locations such as the WGBH studios, Museum of Science and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA).

KNBC's latest project was revamping the Middle School Cubs and Organization page. Students worked in groups using a variety of media to create content for KNBC, Chorus, Science, Community Service, The Spark, Jazz Band, Affinity Lunch, Chamber, D-Squared, Literary Group and BB&N Players. In addition they created this fun video to capture their work.

Enjoy!

US 2012 Launch Grant Recipients Reflecting on Haiku

For me the Haiku platform has been a great choice for all my class websites. It is very user friendly for both me and my students. I am not a lover of textbooks and Haiku allows me to have all my documents, videos, links, and audios organized under one umbrella. It is also great to be able to use the Discussion tab as a blog and the Wikisites for class projects. I also ask students to turn in a lot of his assignments in the Dropbox. As we work on a possible Spanish Department Exchange Program for next year, I can see that having a website for the trip will be very useful. I am now taking an online course about creating your own online class and it uses the Haiku platform as well, so it has been very easy for me to start working on all my assignments and see it from the perspective of a student.

- Dr. Rosario Sánchez Gómez

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Haiku was a useful platform for each of my courses as a central (and green) location for readings, syllabi, assignments, and language arts exercises. It was also a terrific tool when school was unexpectedly cancelled, everyone had done a key reading, and we all wanted to keep momentum going with an online discussion before school resumed. (In that event I'd just add a new page named for the reading, post some questions, and let the kids take the discussion from there.)

By far the best aspect of Haiku, though, was the way it allowed students to communicate in my senior writing workshop, True Stories and the Personal Essay. I designed an easily navigable Feedback Forum where every student had his own page. There five student writers each week would post their work for peer review and commentary before the live writing workshop during long block. This kind of at-home connecting made in-person discussions so much more thoughtful and efficient, and it got the students talking exponentially more to each other rather than through me. Haiku also allowed me to post timely polls that were useful to me for course redesign (e.g. What was the most enjoyable reading in this unit?) and to the students for contest submissions (e.g. Which of Carly's six essays would you rate the best?). We even used Haiku for brainstorming. One week the theme of the essay assignment was "pettiness," and the students had fun gearing up for it by consulting a class-constructed Haiku list of "Hateful Things."

I had an equally awesome time revising and augmenting my wiki (http://speechwritingpublicspeaking.wikispaces.com/) for my senior Speechwriting and Public Speaking elective. On that site I have built a master page I covet and often direct the kids to called "Worthwhile Links," with professional examples of contemporary and historic speeches from live political events and arts ceremonies and commencement addresses to standout film clips and TED talks and Ignite presentations I've encountered over the years. I also made a page for each of the nine speech genres assigned (Storytelling Speeches, Call to Action Speeches, Speeches to Inform, Tributes, etc.), and on each genre page I embedded YouTube widgets featuring the seniors delivering that kind of original work live, on a Speech Day we'd held during the weekly long blocks. Using the wiki, peers would revisit the speech (and speakers would self-evaluate) before clicking over to comment on a Haiku Feedback Forum set up much the same way as the True Stories Feedback Forum worked. For the speechwriting elective, though, I ran Haiku polls that tended to follow up on the speech content (e.g. How many of you have cooked with kale since Alicia's speech?). For some reason my Haiku page for the Speechwriting class appears to have vaporized, though, so unless you can help me solve that mystery (?help!), you won't be getting a screenshot of that.

-Allison Kornet

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Remember the days of dial up internet? 

Here's a pretty cool infographic comparing the internet of today to when it was first invented. Take a trip down memory lane! 

The Internet of Yesterday vs. Today

MEMSET at BB&N

Next Wednesday, May 9th, at 5pm, BB&N will host the next MEMSET meeting.  MEMSET is a group of Massachusetts Elementary and Middle School Educational Technologists who meet every couple of months to discuss technology in schools.

If you are free and would like to join in our discussion, please contact your campus ATS to let them know that you would like to attend the event.  In addition, you are more than welcome to join us when we meet at other schools in our area.

At this month's meeting we will discuss curriculum and benchmarks, such as the ISTE NETS and the Massachusetts standards.  After dinner several teachers will present on a variety of topics including the BeeBot, LEGO WeDO and Scratch, SAM animation, iPad apps in science and art, Internet Safety, a science "electric quilt" using e-textiles, voicethread, Museumbox, and bitstrips.

New Tech Help Request System

The BB&N tech department is pleased to unveil our new help request system this week. It is a system which puts each tech request into a database that allows us to have better accountability, communication, and history of all the requests that we handle. The beauty of it from the customer's point of view [this means you] is that all you need to do is send us an email at "tech help" or help@bbns.org and it will flow right into the system and create a new "ticket" for us to address. Any email responses to a particular ticket will get added to its history in the database. When we add a note to a ticket, you will get an automatic email with the info. On the back-end of the database we triage the requests, set priority levels, and get reminded if a ticket lingers too long without action. You can see the history and status of all your tickets by logging into the system at https://helpdesk.bbns.org when you are at school. This is the new system that is replacing the FirstClass technology conferences.

6th Grade Glogster and QR Code project

Glogster is a tool that allows your students to make interactive online posters by mixing images, text, music and video.

This year the 6th grade French and Spanish students are using Glogster to complete their MFA ACTion (Arts, Culture, and Technology) projects. All students visit the MFA, and in art class they choose a painter and a painting for a master study.  In French and Spanish classes the students research their painters and paintings to create interactive online posters. Using Glogster, students are able to embed video clips and insert images of their artists and their paintings as well as audio clips of music from the artists' time periods.  Lastly, students can use Glogster to record their own voices in their target languages.  Each glog results its own unique URL.  During technology class, students will turn their URLs into QR codes, and on Sunday, May 13th, the student paintings will be hung on the MFA walls along with the QR codes linking the students' physical artwork to their interactive glogster posters, accessible online via iPads and smartphones.

Below are a few examples of student projects:

Frank Weston Benson

Salvador Dali

John Singer Sargent

If you are interested in learning more about Glogster in the classroom, check out Glogopedia to see sample projects to get ideas on how Glogster could be useful to your students.

For more information on QR codes in the classroom, please see:

Edutopia- Using QR Codes in the Classroom

Edutopia- 12 Ideas for Teaching with QR Codes

The Thinking Stick

Personal Learning Networks (part 2)

Following up on my post about PLN tools from last month, I wrote a long description about "making the most of personal learning networks" for my presentation on this topic at the 2012 NAIS conference that took place in Seattle at the end of February. The NAIS conference attendees are primarily school leaders, so I framed the discussion for this audience, describing what PLNs are, why they are important, and how to grow one's own.

 I encouraged participants to take the following steps to start, and to grow, their networks:

1. Get on a list-serv.
2. Start blogging.
3. Try using twitter.
4. Use Google Docs.
5. Start using social bookmarking.

The full post has a lot more info on each of these, as well as the description and rationale.

Leading Change in Changing Times

This past Saturday Megan, Svetlana and I attended the EdTechTeacher Winter Conference at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge. The focus of the conference was "Leading Change in Changing Times" and the sessions attempted to answer the following questions:
Why change?
How change? What systems need to be in place?
Did we change? What are the impacts of technology investments we've made?

The tone of the keynote address and the morning sessions I attended was, as one presenter stated, that "learning is not in the computer" and that our focus should be on "educating for the unknown. We should be teaching with the goal of developing wisdom, knowledge, critical thinking - the higher-order skills which students will need."

The presenters I heard outlined different educational frameworks designed to meet these goals. Chris Dede, the keynote speaker from Harvard University, talked about Blended Contextualized Learning Environments and showed us an example called EcoMUVE, a biology unit that uses technology to meet those goals. Martha Stone Wiske, also from Harvard, talked about TfU (Teaching for Understanding) and her co-presenter, Katherine Gaudet, showed us how TfU had transformed the educational experience for students at Friends Academy and for the teachers. The final presenter I saw in the morning sessions was Annamaria Shrimpf, from Winchester Public Schools, and she outlined LOTI (Levels of Teaching Innovation) and she talked about a rubric for assessing teachers and lessons that would help students achieve. There were four parts to the rubric: Higher Order Thinking, Engaged Learning, Authenticity, and Technology.

While the frameworks each presenter outlined were different the themes that stuck with me were constant:
1. Our focus as teachers should be on providing an environment where students are engaged, actively learning and developing higher-order thinking skills
2. All participants (teachers, students, parents, administrators) need a common language to describe the learning process and the goals and the everyday language used in the classrooms, whether there is a particular framework adopted or the school develops its own language.
3. Technology can make achieving these goals possible. It is not required in every lesson, but technology has an important role in the classroom/school.
4. Achieving these goals requires all participants to put into action the words "lifelong learner", to learn and to work together.

Geocaching- fun for the whole family

As I mentioned in my previous post about Twitter, I am currently taking my last class towards my masters in Technology in Education at Lesley University.  One of our assignments recently involved tagging and geotagging.  We explored social bookmarking through Diigo and geotagging through Flickr.  For extra credit, we encouraged to go geocaching.  I had heard of geocaching before, but I had yet to try it.  The basic idea behind geocaching is that someone has hidden something, and your main clue to finding it is its GPS coordinates.

I started my geocaching journey by exploring the site http://www.geocaching.com/.  People who have hidden items all over the world post their listing(s) on this site.  I began by entering my zip code so I could find a cache hidden near BB&N or my house.  I found the perfect geocache to try to located- located in Davis Square on my way home from work, and, even more importantly, it was labeled as "easy."  I don't want to give away too much information in case someone else wants to try to find it, but I will say that it took a good 20 minutes to locate the cache, as it was so much smaller than I had anticipated.  Another thing about geocaching is that you're supposed to take something from the cache and leave something behind, as well as sign the log.  The problem was that the cache was so small that nothing I had brought with me would fit inside it.  I ended up taking a guitar pick and leaving a mini pterodactyl from a barrel full of dinosaurs (think "barrel full of monkeys," just not monkeys.)  Inside the cache was a bunch of small things including some Chinese money and a plastic fish with a GPS locator inside it, also known as a travel bug.  I have read articles about schools who placed travel bugs in geocaches so they can track their coordinates as they travel from cache to cache, making their way across the US, and even ending up in a dogsled race in Alaska!

If geocaching sounds interesting to you, give it a try.  And if you find the cache on Brattle, please let me know, because I can't find it!  And if you think geocaching sounds like a blast, check out letterboxing too!

Connecting to a "Personal Learning Network"

Are you connected? Do you have a network of colleagues that you can easily turn to with questions and to improve your professional practice? One of the things I most appreciate about the internet is that it allows me to personally connect with various individuals or groups of educators locally, nationally, and even internationally. My top digital tools that enable this communication include the following:

1. email list-servs or google groups
2. diigo
3. twitter
4. google docs
5. ning networks
6. facebook groups and linked-in
7. skype or google video chat
8. blogs
9. RSS feeds

Here is a brief description of each tool, it's collaborative power, and ways to try them out...

1. Do you belong to an email list-serv or a google group? If not, there is undoubtedly one in existence for your area of interest. NAIS has lists for many administrators; AP has lists for each subject, and various organizations have other lists for subject area teachers. If you're not on a list-serve or google group for some topic, I'd encourage you to try this out. It is a great way to dip your toe into PLNs. Here are a few links to some list-servs.

2. Diigo is an amazing social bookmarking tool. The more I use it, the more I like it. Read why here and see these instructions if you're interested in setting up an account.

3. Twitter is like a constant stream of interesting little tidbits from people you follow. You can dip your toe in whenever the mood strikes, or jump in and swim every day. Here is a page on how to start twittering if you are interested.

4. Google docs is another thing like diigo that just keeps growing on me. My latest favorite is the use of shared "collections." A collection is like a folder, but the cool thing is you can "share" a folder with another group of people and then [here's the really cool part], any additional google docs that you add to that folder are also shared to all the people who have access to that folder.

5. If you haven't checked out the Independent School Educators ning network, please do. It's another easy way to connect to colleagues at other schools and join in discussions or ask questions.

6. I rarely do professional networking on facebook but recently found a group which is fun to be part of. Linked-in has also impressed recently with it's weekly email of "trending" news topics. This is a nice example of the power of the crowd. When thousands (or millions?) of people are sharing  a link to something, it tends to be interesting. My favorite article from the past weeks is Culture Trumps Strategy. By the way, if you're wondering how I was able to find this website again several weeks later it's because I'd bookmarked in my diigo account (see #2 above).

7. Video chat is reaching mainstream adoption. I predict that before long we will have an easy way to send "video email" that may help with the well-known problem that email has no tone and can so easily be misinterpreted. There have already been companies in this space (most notably "seesmic") that never caught on, but I wouldn't be surprised to see google or facebook come out with some nifty video-messaging feature in the next few years. Meanwhile we'll have to work with synchronous video chat.

8. Blogs (like this one) continue to be a valuable tool in diving deeper into keeping up with colleagues' more in-depth thinking. With a 3 year old running around at home I don't have nearly enough time to read blogs, but continue to enjoy it on those rare occasions when it's possible.

9. RSS tools are a great way of letting content come to you. Google Reader is a great one. On it, you "subscribe" to feeds that interest you. Two other cool RSS readers I like are Scoop-it and Pulse [on the iPad.] Scoop-it is kind of a cool magazine-style format on the computer that allows you to either "curate" your own topics or read the curations of others [example]. Pulse is for reading feeds on the iPad.

So how do you connect to your Personal Learning Network?

KNBC - web page design

The Middle School KNBC club is redesigning the official MS Clubs and Organizations page. Students are creating individual content pages for the Middle School Chorus, Jazz, D-Squared, Community Service, Spark, Affinity Lunch and Science Club. Joseph Clifford, Director of Communications, talked to the kids about the web page design and gave us some tips and tricks for the new webpage.

We are building a new Cool Media resource site - it's a collection of all kinds of interesting media tools. If you have recently discovered a new tool, please let me know - I'd be happy to add it to our growing collection.

And please stay tuned for the launch of the new clubs and organizations page coming SOON before the spring break.

Twitter

I did it. This month I jumped on the twitter bandwagon. And I am thrilled with the experience thus far!

In the past, I had only used twitter at educational technology conferences as a supplement to a keynote speaker. As I took notes on the speech, I would leave my twitter page open so I could see what all of the attendees were tweeting about the speech to the rest of the room and those who were unable to attend. I copied important quotations and links from the twitter page into my notes. I found it incredibly useful for furthering my understanding. For those who are not familiar, twitter is “an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets".” (Wikipedia)

On the path to pursue my Masters of Technology in Education, I am currently taking an online course titled “Web 2.0 for Education,” and for this course, I couldn’t just take the back seat and read other people’s tweets. I had to create my own twitter account and tweet myself. The results have been surprisingly great. I am now following many leaders in the educational technology world, so every day I come across great articles and resources to share with colleagues. I even participated in a twitter chat called #ATchat, where I contributed to a live conversation with other educators on the topic of UDL implementation in the classroom. I can’t possibly follow the hundreds and thousands of great websites and blogs out there on the Internet, but following other technology specialists on twitter, I get constant updates on important articles, blog postings, software, websites, etc.

As I type this blog post I can go to twitter and search for the hash tag #FETC to see what is happening at the annual Florida Educational Technology Conference since I am unable to attend. Even though I am not there right now, I know that Michael Wesch is talking about empathy, and one of the attendees just shared the following link: 50 Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom.

I think the best way for educators to use twitter is to network with other educators for their own professional development. It’s a great way for teachers to connect with other, as our collective intelligence is that much stronger, and to stay current in their field. If you are interested in educational technology, follow me! Join twitter today! @meganhaddadi

Reflecting on Professional Development

What did you think of our speaker on executive function last week? I've posted my thoughts here, and would love to hear yours!

I also want to send a shout-out to our ATSs who were at a conference last week and used Google docs to take notes. The cool thing about it was the ability to share the notes collaboratively. I was stuck back in the office but felt like I had a picture into what was being discussed at this conference. This method of storing notes means that multiple people can access the notes, and they create a record of the professional development, with the possibility of returning to them at a later date or building upon them. It often seems like our schools have limited follow-through from people attending conferences, so this use of Google docs is a nice example of trying to get more impact from these professional development experiences.

A rationale for instructional web presence

Recently I've wanted to articulate why teachers should have a web presence. please see my recent blog post about this on ISEnet.

Using Technology in the Classroom - the Mobile Experience

Making class a little more fun can be easy with technology. To further expand, "making class easier" can seem a lot like making class harder for the teacher. Now with access to everything from "Angry Birds" to Educational Apps on iPad, to blogs and webcomics on the internet, classes have become inundated with technology to try. In some ways it may seem more difficult to pick through the tangle. If we look at something more specific, say the iPad, then we see it has been geared toward education, but has it been geared toward teaching? Perhaps it is, but not necessarily the way of teaching as experienced previously.
In a recent conversation, the need to adapt teaching styles to new technology arose. One of the participants in the discussion noted that it was good to instigate integration of technology into the classroom, but without understanding how to utilize the technology in new ways it would be useless. Nobody likes to be told they are "behind the times", as seen in the post in the "Bright Ideas" blog titled 17 Signs your classroom is behind the times, but as life gets more and more mobile, noted in the article over at eSchool News, there is an increasing need to familiarize with the mobile technology available not only in life, but also in the classroom (which is purported as the preparation for life).
As a demonstration of the more common way to teach, in a recent article posted at iLearn Technology blog, the author mentions using webcomics to enliven a class*. The webcomic they refer to is "Brown Sharpie" (a mathmatics webcomic**). By using iPad applications and webcomics, the teacher integrated technology into the classroom in a manner similar to the old way where maybe a clipping would be brought in and discussed. Furthermore, the judging of resources for research are eased with Apps from the app list mentioned by Apps in Education in an article on iPad Apps used to research projects.

In a more modern approach, the student is given the power wherein they must utilize the search and collate functions important to life outside the classroom. In an article by Michele O'Dell, two approaches to the iPad in conjunction with curriculum are approached. The Apps in Education blog also has a comprehensive list of strategies posted recently as Mobile Learning and Tablets in Education RoundUp!. If each student has access to an iPad, then learning how to individualize the learning experience through projects like creating an eBook on the iPad might be considered.

Whatever the method of integrating technology into the classroom, hopefully this post assisted in pointing out some resources to assist the process.

*Although these are educational comics, it is always recommended that one checks that the specific comic of the day is up to standard for the age group the viewing thereof is geared toward.

**[In this mathematical and science vein, some other fun math comics are "Spiked Math" (although it is for a slightly more college-aged readership at times), "Peebles Lab" (Apologies to English grammarians for there is no apostrophe - it is a science based comic), "xkcd" (the golden standard of stick-figure geek comics), and "(x, why?)" (a math comic - tends toward puns). Some of the fun of using webcomics is not only in the connection, but also in updating how one interacts with technology. Some of the webcomics (Brown Sharpie) also include apps.]

iPad review

For the last year, I used an iPad as part of my work at school. In the end, I actually think it is the iPad 2, and any future upgraded versions, that will actually be able to be of use in the classroom.

The most significant issue with the use of the original iPad in the classroom is its inability to mirror the display, a problem that it should be of note that Apple has fixed with the iPad 2. This lack of mirroring meant that that many of the interesting educational apps that were produced for the iPad over the past few years were far less useful than they would have been had I been able to actually to use them in class by projecting them through the SmartBoard. The ability to mirror on the newer generations of the iPad will greatly expand the usefulness of the device in the classroom.

The other issue of note with the iPad is its lack of Adobe Flash capabilities. An increasing number of publishers are making much less expensive electronic versions of their textbooks, but some of those textbooks require flash. Steve Jobs has said on more than one occasion that he has no plan to ever put Flash on the iPad, so there will continue to be both websites and textbooks that cannot be used on the device

A clear benefit of the iPad is the ability for both teachers and students to greatly reduce the number of textbooks needing to be carried on a daily basis. I was able to put all of my textbooks, as well as supplementary texts, onto my iPad through the purchase of eBooks from publishers and/or the Kindle or iBook apps. The only exception was my US History textbook that necessitated the use of Flash [see aforementioned Flash issue]. Some publishers are also making a free copy of an electronic textbook available with each purchase of the paper text. One could also certainly argue that it is a lot harder to ever forget your book for class if all of your books are just one device that you have to grab.

A drawback to use the use of eBooks, however, is the inability to make margin notes; most of the books allowed for highlighting, but not writing in the text. Additionally, there are sometimes differences in pagination between electronic and paper texts, and so if both versions are being used in classroom, page numbers to use as reference points may not match.

The feature of the iPad that I found the most useful was the ability to save handwritten notes. I greatly prefer to handwrite my notes to typing them, and using the Evernote application, I was able to take notes in meetings that would be automatically saved and dated for easy access later. For students [or adults!] struggling with organization, note-taking applications could be of great use.

The iPad is fun, nearly effortless to transport, and makes both carrying and organizing notes and textbooks easy. An interesting idea for the future might be to have an entire classroom pilot the use of the iPad to fully test its usefulness as an educational device. For me, the iPad certainly saved me time, money and effort in a myriad of ways, but I cannot quite support Apple’s early claims that it is the educational wave of the future.

By Nia Hays

Exercise your brain this summer with AGoogleADay

Every day Google posts AGoogleADay- a daily puzzle for you to solve using your creativity and search skills using Google search, images, calculator, maps, etc. The problems usually involve 2-4 steps and can be solved within minutes. There is no right way to solve them, but there is always only 1 correct answer. Take a few minutes and exercise your brain this summer, or use the puzzles as fun, quick challenges in your classroom next fall.

Why not try one today? A Google A Day keeps the summer boredom away...

Google has also created "Deja Google," a wormhole-inspired time machine that searches the Internet as it existed before the puzzle was posted online. This way, your search for the answer won't result in anyone else's blog post containing their answer or how they discovered it, spoiling all your fun.

-Megan

P.S. Thanks to Svetlana for finding this fun game to keep us entertained!

Beginning to Understand Technology

While it is fantastic to innovate the classroom via technology with new gadgets, sometimes it is also good to re-establish roots and understanding of all the technology already available.

In this vein of thought, the Diigo Education Group focused on the article: Technology 101 by ProfHacker, a website under the purview of The Chronicle of Higher Education. First, they mention ThatCamp (link here: http://chnm2011.thatcamp.org/about/). This is an "unconference" which is held every year at the Center for History and New Media from 2008 through to the present. The topic of this year's conference contained a theme of "back to basics".

This return to understanding the basics of technology includes such gems as Google's Teach Parents Tech Form (one can only send 12 videos at a time; however, the videos are available on the site) and focus on the importance of building a foundation to facilitate utilizing technology with greater ease. The ability to use technology is important not only for the ability to actually use one's phone, but it is important for teachers in order to better integrate technology with the classroom.

Items that some people take for granted, such as copy/paste may seem too "beginner" for some, but it is important to know. Are there keyboard commands to do copy and paste? (The answer is "yes".) What about passwords? Is your password secure? (If the password is a sequential string of numbers like "12345678" probably not.) A password is important because even if your security software that protects all internet interactions is top-notch, if your lock is the equivalent of a piece of yarn then it negates the security. Can you search the internet? (If the only bookmarks in the browser are links that a friend sent, the answer is probably "no".) How do you turn off that annoying spell check? (The alternative question is how to turn it back on after one too many homophones slip by.) How do I know a link goes to the same place the face of it tells me? (Hint: hover your mouse over the link, but do not click! You can read the address of the place it is attempting to send you.)

Hopefully, the link to Technology 101 article (posted again here for your convenience: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/technology-101-the-basics-no-one-tells-you/33844?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en ) will help answer these questions and help give a solid foundation in the basics to all who read it.

6th graders create Internet Safety games for 4th graders

Over the course of the past year our 6th graders have been discussing Internet Safety topics including private identity information, chatting online, copyright law, email etiquette, cyberbullying, and digital footprints. They recently shared some of their knowledge with our current 4th graders through movies, PowerPoint presentations and jeopardy games, and scratch projects. Their final scratch projects, as well as some practice ones they created earlier this year, are posted online in a virtual gallery. Check them out!

1st Grade Pen Pals Project

Looking to connect to students in another part of the world? 1st graders at BB&N are doing just that using epals.com. During their study of Mexico 1st graders are doing a pen pal project with two schools in Mexico, one in Tijuana and one in Saltillo. Each BB&N student is paired with a student from one of the schools. The students write letters to each other, take pictures of themselves and important places around their schools and then the teachers send them back and forth. The students are really enjoying learning about their buddies, their schools and daily life in Mexico and with the speed of e-mail the students are getting responses to their letters/questions quickly.

Epals.com has been a great tool in this project. There are thousands of teachers/classes from around the world on epals.com. We found many in Mexico that fit our criteria. We are doing a simple e-mail exchange but epals also connects classes that want to focus on a particular project. The site also offers curriculum guides for those teachers/classes that help framing their pen pal exchange.

What is a PLN?

Have you ever heard of a PLN? It seems to be quite a buzzword these days. A PLN, or Personal Learning Network, is a network of people from whom one gathers information as well as interacts with, though that does not have to be face-to-face. While the acronym is relatively new, the idea behind a PLN is not. Teachers have always shared with and learned from each other. Some ways you can use a PLN:

1. I belong to a group of Massachusetts educators (MEMSET- Massachusetts Elementary and Middle School Educational Technologists) that just started meeting together and collaborating this past year. We have been gathering every month or so, using an email list for questions and for posting news, and using Google Aps to share our curriculum.

2. You can find a ning related to your interests:

• After a technology conference with Tom Daccord of EdTechTeacher, I joined his ning for the National Council for Social Studies.

• I am also a member of the Classroom 2.0 ning which often sends out announcements about live and interactive webinars.

• Lastly, I am a member of the Independent School Educators Network ning and a couple of its subgroups, including “Schools of the Future.”

3. You can use social networking, such as Diigo:

• I am a member of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch Users group to get updates about using handheld devices in the classroom.

• BB&N’s technology department members have created a group in Diigo so we can share articles with each other, and all of the pages we bookmark get posted on our technology department blog for the whole school.

4. You can follow members in your field through their blogs and tweets. Though I’m quite busy these days, I try to follow leaders in Educational Technology. I went to a presentation at BLC a few summers ago where Liz Davis and Lisa Thumann presented “25 Ed Tech Leaders to follow.”

How are you using your PLN? Please share your ideas below. Not sure where to start? Take a look at http://edupln.ning.com/, the personal learning network for educators.

Quick Math Information: iTunes Applications

This may be old news, and the offer will expire quickly, but from now until May 6th the "Everyday Math Apps" sponsored by the McGraw-Hill School Education Group are free to download for teacher appreciation week.

The link to the iTunes page is here:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtistSeeAll?dkId=11&ids=413312889&softwareType=iPhone

To Kill a Mockingbird Blog

For the past several years, and thanks to the inspiration of Eric Hudson’s idea, my class creates a blog as we read To Kill a Mockingbird. The book is great fun study with eighth graders both because of their eagerness to practice their new skills in literary analysis as well as their passionate responses to the events in the book. The blog provides a perfect venue for them to share insights into the novel and to create a communal, public record of the evolution of their ideas. They post about symbols they identify in the novel. They post about their moral outrage as they read about the verdict. They comment on each other’s posts in order to agree, disagree, or refine their classmates’ ideas.

Students are required to write polished paragraphs and to support their ideas with evidence from the text. Because they know how public and lasting their writing is, and that its purpose is to build a communal resource, they are invested in contributing their best work. Each student writes frequently and receives immediate feedback from their classmates as well as me. This blog has become an exciting and invaluable component of teaching this novel. By the last chapter, the students have worked together to create something for themselves and each other of genuine intellectual achievement.

Besty Canaday, MS English Department Head

Web Browsers: Further Exploration

While downloading Google Chrome (a web browser like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox), I came across a good beginners guide to web browsers and the internet. If anyone is interested in the basics of web browsers and internet usage, then this link: http://www.20thingsilearned.com/ has a handy starting guide.

From the charming format that imitates a book to helpful information regarding cloud computing and a thorough explanation of cookies this handy guide of "20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web" is a good primer to understanding more about the internet and browsers.

One of the chapters of the book that might be especially helpful for projects is the "Using Web Addresses to Stay Safe" section. (Found here: http://www.20thingsilearned.com/url). Although not directly related to school projects the chapter addresses discerning how to tell what sites are legitimate and which are not.

Hopefully, starting with the site "20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web" will lead to learning more than 20 things about the internet and web browsers.

6th Grade ACTion Project at the MFA

This past Sunday, April 19th, at the annual BB&N at the Museum of Fine Arts day, all 6th grade students had their impressionistic artwork on display. In addition, there were laptops available at the MFA for visitors to view the students' recent technology projects incorporating their art pieces with French and Spanish recordings about their painters. This project has been called the MFA ACTion project for Arts, Culture, and Technology.

All 6th graders completed a master study in their art classes with Sharen Bowden then researched their painters and paintings in their Spanish and French classes with Senora Cristina Carrion Murphy and Madame Soizick Munir. In technology class the students then scanned their artwork and recorded their Spanish and French scripts. All elements of the project were pulled together by the students using MIT's scratch programming environment where some students also chose to animate their paintings. All projects have been posted online in a gallery.

How to use Google Forms to Create online Quiz or a Survey