Loving This New Technology!

We’re off to an exciting start with our new technology. Last Friday, I divided my students up into three groups, each rotating to stations around the room. One group of students used the i-Pod touches to watch a slideshow on the hero’s journey. While they were watching, they were taking notes and responding to questions by tracking the hero’s journey in The Lightning Thief, our class novel. I created the slideshow using Keynote because I, too, had trouble with Garage Band. Keynote worked perfectly, and it was easy to export the file to iTunes, and then to sync iTunes with the iPods. My only difficulty with Keynote was when I tried to include short videos in my Keynote slideshow. It worked well on Keynote, but once I exported the file to iTunes, the videos didn’t match the voices. I ended up just including the videos separately in iTunes, not as a part of the slideshow. It worked out well and the kids seemed to LOVE this fresh approach to learning.

While some students were working with the iPod touches, another group of students worked with the laptop minis. These students were using the internet to research the Greek gods that are included in The Lightning Thief. I met with these students and briefly discussed reliable resources on the internet, and I was pleasantly surprised by how critical students became of unreliable sources. They quietly pointed out helpful websites to their group members and added to their notes on the Greek gods. I loved listening to the great discussions coming from these students!

The remaining students were reading their SSR books or catching up in The Lightning Thief. Of course, everyone wanted to spend all of their time using the technology, but because all students completed the three rotations, everyone worked well together and completed their assignments.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my students. Chaos? I can’t even believe how well it worked though! The students were focused and engaged for the entire period. And perhaps the most exciting part is that even my tough, difficult students who rarely seem interested were doing some of their best work. Clearly, Friday was a success! In fact, Friday was so successful that on Monday we used our technology again.

I’m excited that now we have email addresses for our students. I’m ready to get started on our class Ning. I can see using the Nings, a separate one for each of my classes, frequently. There’s so much you can do on Ning!

My pre-AP students are getting ready to start a group project on the Greek gods, and we’ll be using the flip-cameras. I can’t believe how easy they are to use! Then, of course, the students will be able to upload their videos on the laptops or the ipods. Exciting!!!

Now that we’ve gotten started using this technology, I can’t believe how easy it is to work with the district curriculum and to strengthen daily lessons to make them more memorable and engaging. After making my first slideshow, the ideas started flowing. Unfortunately, while I’m trying to sleep, new ideas will pop into my head. That’s getting old. I need my sleep!

I’m disappointed that I don’t have a common planning time with the 8^th grade team, and as the only 7^th grade teacher with this technology, that means that I’m creating all of the lessons. On the bright side, though, the ideas really are flowing now, so I’m not too concerned. I just wish we had more time in the day. Then again, I’m sure I’ll become more efficient as I learn.

My students and I are incredibly grateful to have all this technology in our hands!

--Melissa Weedin

We've Started!

The last week has been crazy! The iPod touch devices were delivered on Friday, Sept. 11th. That Saturday, Valarie, Jennifer, and I attended a workshop about Macs and iPod touches. We were really eager to use our new technology in the classroom A.S.A.P. (and so were our students), so we put a top priority on figuring that out this past week. Jen had already been hard at work on a PowerPoint on Figurative Language so after we got the Mac, she successfully converted it to Keynote (on the Mac). Our hero!

The workshop we attended on Saturday suggested we use Garage Band for podcasts, so Valarie, Jen, and I had our first recording session last Wednesday after school. The recording went pretty smoothly, but when we were done, that's when the problems began. When we tried to put the images from Keynote into Garage Band, it took Jen some time to match them up with the proper narration, but she persevered! Then, when she put it into iTunes, only the voices were available, not the images. By this point, it was late. She had been working on this way too long, already, and really needed to get home. (The problem with our Mac is that right now, we are unable to get it to open at home, so we've had to do everything up at school). I thought I'd look at it one more time after she left, and I realized that you can narrate on Keynote and that it appears in iTunes with no problem. It's so easy (but from what we were able to tell, if you mess up, you have to start all the way over). I checked to see that it would open in iTunes, and it worked there, too.

The next day during our planning period, the three of us recorded our narration, AGAIN, in Keynote. We got it into iTunes with ease, and we were ready to roll. I also had some movie clips from WingClips (Inspirational Hollywood movie clip downloads licensed for church or non-profit viewing) that I wanted to get into iTunes for a lesson on Conflict. I had them saved in RealPlayer on my Dell, but could not figure out how to get them on my Mac. I was going to just download them again on the Mac, but the internet wasn't working. Finally, by Thursday afternoon, the internet worked on the Mac, so I was able to get those downloaded on the Mac. They were saved in QuickTime, and I figured out a way to convert them to put them into iTunes. Success!

In our classrooms, we made efforts to prepare our kids for using the iPod touches. Valarie had her kids come up with their own contract for using the iPod touch, and Jen and I made one that we had the kids sign. Our 8th Grade Pre-AP students were at the spot in our curriculum where it was time to review figurative, so on Friday we did a three group rotation. One group has Silent Sustained Reading, one group took notes and did some independent practice on figurative langauge using the video we made (from Keynote) that was on the iPod touch, and one group worked on an activity connected to our class novel. Students were given about 20 minutes in each rotation. They seemed VERY focused when they had on the headphones and were taking notes. It was amazing the differences I saw between that version of reviewing a concept and when we do it whole class. If we had used that same video with the whole class, there would have not been as much engagement. Jen agreed that the rotations worked really well in her class. Of course, there are some kinks to work out (mostly with the focus of the other two groups who don't have the technology), but we look forward to discussing that and trying it again with our Academic classes. I actually was able to use the videos with my Academic classes on Friday. The students were supposed to view the movie clip, figure out the type of conflict it showed, and explain the conflict. The students were either doing their Silent Sustained Reading or were viewing the clips. It was amazing to see how those students were focused when they had on their headphones and that little screen. The other kids who were waiting for a turn were mostly really focused on their book. I would say a few students were a little distracted, but this was a Friday and the first day of using the devices. I would not say they were really any more distracted than they would be on a regular day. That was my most challenging class, and yet they still did well.

This next week we'll try the rotations with our Academic classes. We're ready to use the iPods for some different types of activities, as well. It's just that we need time to figure everything out. I think having the time to be as creative as we want to be will be one of our greatest challenges. Also, we feel bad because this year we don't have the same planning period as Melissa. She was sick and did not get to attend the workshop last Saturday. She's very good with technology and a quick learner, but we really counted on being able to team with her during planning time. I filled her in on what we've been up to, but I want to make sure she has enough support. Maybe this blog will help? I don't know. I know I would not have been able to make any of this work in my classroom this past week if it weren't for my team members. This is all happening so fast. It's a total whirlwind. Jen has grad school two nights a week, and this is Valarie's first year of teaching. They are doing a great job balancing everything.

Also, the Dell mini laptops arrived on Friday. We have not even had a chance to think about those. I think we'll wait until we get info on the Gmail accounts before we start to worry about that. This is exciting, but a little overwhelming.