Teacher Bytes

For those of you who has been reading this blog for the last few months you know that I taught Web Media Productions to a group of 6th graders. The semester is over, the grades are in, equipment packed away, and I have taken time to reflect on how the experiment went. As I look back and look ahead, I have come to this conclusion: it was a successful failure.

To recap, in January my principal asked if I could take one class of 6th graders and do something with the various technologies I have been advocating for the past year and a half. The class would be using blogs, podcasats, wikis, video, and other Web 2.0 tools to complete a variety of assignments. These assignments included school news and in work in each student’s academic classes. My purpose was to demonstrate to teachers and administration how technology could be integrated into everyday assignments and no computer labs would be necessary.

Here are the things I liked:

• The students enthusiastically worked with the technology. Other teachers who observed my students told me they were impressed at how much pride the students took in doing their work. Very few times did I have to discipline a student. There were three students who failed the course but even they did very well when they did their assignments. Also, these students were having troubles in other classes as well.
• Students took ownership in the course and quickly realized their work was out for everyone to see. Some took longer than others but got the point when I was constantly commenting on writing skills, spelling, punctuation, etc…. It started driving home the point their ELA classes mattered. There was also one funny time when one of the students got a response back on her blog from someone outside of school. It scared her. In another incident, a student e-mailed me that there was some inappropriate content attached to one of our videos on YouTube and wanted to know if I could take it down. He was proud of the work he and his classmates had done and did not want it ruined if it could be helped.
• Students realized they were an equal partner in the class. When one of the students taught me how to do something on the blog he later told me that was the first he felt what he knew was important. He when scared when he taught me what I needed to know but bought into the class when he realized I listened to him as a student should listen to a teacher. It was the first time it had ever happened to him. The students worked as a team to solve problems. However, I would send other students to help answer questions and sometimes I let them work it out on their own.

Here are some of the things I did not like:

• Not all of the teachers participated or cooperated. Even after I explained what I was planning on doing more than a few would not help with sharing computers. Even though teachers shared what they were doing in class and gave feedback on my ideas, almost all of them did not follow-up on work students did for their classes. One even got annoyed when she was asked to allow students to do a survey so graphs could be generated, the unit she was on at the time.
• Only two teachers asked how I did something or asked the students to explain what how they did an assignment. Sad considering this was an exercise in showing what the possibilities are.
• While administration was supportive and gave me a free hand to run the course as I saw fit, they only saw half of what the course was about. They loved the videos that were produced. So good the principal has assigned me to do this class on a full-time basis. The idea was for the teachers to see how to do things not me do it for them. In other words, in spite of trying to teach everyone how to fish, now I will be called on to video things in other classes instead of the teachers doing it themselves. This is why I call it a successful failure.

Things I would do differently:

• Say no! At least it sounds good but I loved my students.
• Have a couple of days where we would do nothing but sign up for the accounts needed.
• Make wikis the first assignment so students would have a better overall portfolio platform.
• Work more with audio podcasts but I am sure there will be pressure to get videos out.
• Make sure to have an individual video project so every student would have to demonstrate basic videoing skills before moving on to other tasks.

I am now in the process of designing what I like to call the Multimedia Activity Center or MAC for short (goes well with McCracken Middle School). As this summer project moves forward I will be blogging about that adventure. Don’t worry, I will also be blogging about technology integration as well. It is going to be a busy time.

The other day our Spanish Language liaison e-mailed the parents of one of my Web Media Productions students wanted to have a conference with me. This was not surprising because the young lady, an honor student in other classes, got off to a rocky start. Seems she had a hard time adjusting to the fact that all work was being done online. I thought this would be one of those conferences where I would have to explain and justify everything that is going on in class. Frankly, I am surprised that I have not had more conferences like this given the nature of the course. It also concerned me that we would have to work through a translator given the family was from Mexico. Things get lost in translation.

When the conference started I explained to the parents why their daughter got low grades on her report card. The biggest problem was she missed several assignments. The young lady started the course late and had to play catch-up with an assigned peer tutor. I also explained the work that was missed before she entered the class was not counting against her. Fortunately I had some good news too. After seeing her report card, the young lady realized she was going to have to get to work like any other class. She has never missed an assignment since and is taking the lead on several projects. Definitely a candidate for most improved. Another observation I shared with the parents was the girl was a bit shy and unsure of herself at the beginning. Now she is more outgoing and confident in how she handles herself. She now attempts to work with applications like Voice Thread by herself first before asking for help and readily goes before the camera.
The parents listened and were pleased to hear their daughter was making gains in the class.

Then came the shocker. They told me their daughter has been showing them her work and explaining how she does it. This so pleased and interested the parents they purchased a computer and Flip video camcorder so she may continue using the tools learned in my class with future other classes. They also liked the idea of sharing things such as video with extended family in Mexico. The parents thanked me for teaching new ways to learn with their daughter and I hoped I could teach her more in the future. I never get tired of hearing I have made a difference in someone’s life.

What a start, late to class on the first day and then I had to hunt the students down. Finally found them in the media center instead where they were supposed to be. However, when I got everyone in the right location, which is one of our new classrooms equipped with a Smart Board, Things got rolling. After the usual “this is what we are going to do and this is how you are going to act and this is what you will need” speech I used Voice Thread to get the students used to the idea to putting themselves on the internet. They really enjoyed the activity. The only major glitch was the video I recorded from the Smart Board did not save properly. I am amazed at how well a Bluetooth headset works though (tests and today’s lecture). The lectures will be posted on a wiki site I created for the course.

Today was a different story. The topic was Media Responsibility where we discussed freedom of the press, objectivity, bias, and why these things are important. This lecture ran longer than I hoped by about 10 minutes. Then came the moment of truth where the students realized I was not kidding about them doing videos. The activity of the day was screen tests. I set up my Flip camcorder and had each student come up and answer a few questions while looking directly into the camera. All those brave future TV & movie stars now started getting stage fright. It will be funny showing these videos at the end of the course after all the students gain experience.

Tomorrow we set up our blogs.

For the past year and a half I have been using a rival blog service for the Teacher Bytes Blog. No real reason I chose one over another, it just happened that way. Starting Tuesday, I will start teaching a course called Web 2.0 Media Communications or maybe Web 2.0 Communications. This marks the first time in about a year and a half I will be in the classroom with my own set of students. The 11 students who currently make up the class roster are all 6th graders. For someone who taught Social Studies to 9-12 students, this thought of teaching 6th grade is a little daunting.

The course will have two main objectives. First, the principal wants to see student created school news projects. So you should start seeing blog posts, a podcast, uStream live webcast, and You Tube show under the Bulldog Barks moniker. As soon as these activities are finalized then I will share the links with you. The other objective is I would like to see if students who use Web 2.0 tools in their regular classes actually have better achievement. Students will be required to use what learn about creating blogs, online videos, and podcasts in assignments from their Math, Science, Language Arts, Reading, and Social Studies teachers. At the end of the course I plan to view various test data, grades from 1st semester to 2nd semester, and teacher interviews to see if achievement and the quality of work goes up because students will be posting their work online.

The blogging tool I have selected to use is Edublogs for the school’s news blog and Learnerblogs for the student blogs. Each student will be required to blog about class activities at least once a week and after class lectures and discussions. Since I have selected Edublogs for the class activities, maybe it is time I use Edublogs for my main blog as well, just to keep everything together. It will be a busy semester coming up but if all works well, it should be a fun one too.