Why can't I turn down the pages?

If you find something you like on a page in a book, what do you do?

Turn down page corners ...

Underline ...

Highlight ...

Jot in the margins ...

Circle ..

Draw stars ...

Use sticky notes ...

So what do you do when you find a webpage that you like?

It can be kinda hard to do the same things ...

But some of the Diigo tools can help!

Here are some other resources that might help with Diigo too:

• Diigo in the Classroom

• Getting Started with Diigo Educator Account

• An Introduction to Diigo for Educators

• Using Diigo in the Classroom  

• 12 Reasons Teachers Should Use Diigo

photo credit: quinn.anya via photopin cc

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School News: Drum Up Some Business

Let’s see, equipment… check, location… check, now that you have these things setup what’s next?  Hmm… oh yeah I need some backing to make sure that the School News is a success.

Me, I’m always one to get permission first rather than ask for forgiveness later.  So I would first talk to your school Principal about this new opportunity at the school to help students with literacy, vocabulary, reading, digital-citizenship, self-confidence and presentation skills.  How do throwing out these words help?  That is exactly what having a school news show will do for the students that are a part of the program!  Even for students that already seem to have a good grasp on vocabulary and reading can be challenged because of the presentation component. 

It’s a challenge for you as well being the teacher that has decided to take on this role, as the “Trailblazer” at your school.  If you get the ok from the Principal it is now time to get the ok from the other teachers.  Here is when having a ready to go sample broadcast where you are in front of the camera to show comes in handy.  They will get to see how you react in front of the camera, consider their student reactions and then make a decision.  You could even show the sample broadcast school-wide to students to get their reactions and interest level.  In the schools that I have seen this done the students excited about the prospect of being on the school news cast. 

With that being said now you have to figure out the process to get your students working with you on the news.  I have a few steps that seem to have worked in the past and will share them here.  By all means this is not the end all be all and you may have additional steps or comments about the process, I encourage you to leave me comments at the bottom of the article.

Step 1:  Setting up your Broadcast Team

You want to create the roles/jobs that the students will be doing as a part of the broadcast team.  Anchors, Writers, Production to name a few.  And you want to set a limit on the number of students you will have as a part of the Broadcast Team.  You want to have at least enough so that if someone is out or late there is someone to fill in.

Step 2:  Application Process

Yes I said application.  You want to have an application that students will fill out just as they would for a job.  This will give them some real world experience for life after school.  How you create the application is up to you but some things to consider including as well as the job description is a discipline policy that covers actions in and out of the classroom.  This would also outline dismissal from the broadcast team for student

infractions.  A photo release that needs to be signed by a parent or guardian. You will also want to make sure that you have writing samples from each student and notify them that they will have to complete an on camera live audition using their own material.  During this process it seems that as students want to get involved others that were on the fence come out of the wood work to apply and you tend to have far more than you could ever use.  But the great thing for this is that you will have a steady stream of backups should something happen.  If you have enough interest you could set up a rotation with multiple groups of students.

Once you have all of your applications in and have selected your team now it is time to get the magic started!

Step 3:  Putting the Pieces together

Now that you have identified the students who will be a part of the broadcast team it’s time to get things started. 

Production Team Training: Even though you have assigned everyone to their positions it would probably be best to train everyone on how to use the equipment just in case someone is not there.  The reason for this is that at some point you want this to become self-sufficient where the student have total control of the news show.

Writers:  You want to give your writers a standard script that they need to follow but that they can update and change daily.  That also have to be turned in ahead of time for review and rewrite if necessary.  Here are some standard items you can put in the script.

Daily Announcements, Birthdays, Lunch menu, Weather, Upcoming Events and Recognitions (students & teachers).  Many of these things can be done a couple of days ahead especially things like birthdays, menu and weather.  This can make things easier for students to turn in.  Also you can allow the students to research other things to put in the script.  Items like a word, joke or quote of the day, an interesting fact, something that happened in history on this date.

Anchors:The face of your newscast that can make or break the success of the broadcast.  Something that your anchors need to understand is that they need to be dressed appropriately each and every day that they are on the air.  They are representing the entire school whether or not they are on the air or not.  There are more Do’s and Don’ts for this group than the others because of being in front of the camera.  Practice is also a key component, ask them to go over the script in front of you.  Encourage them to practice at home, in front of a mirror or with others on the broadcast team.  This will help them to get over some of the jitters of being in front of the camera and help steady their speech and nervous tendencies. 

Just having these few things setup prior to jumping into the deep end will prevent a lot of problems down the road and make your School News a success. 

photo credit: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc

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The Instructional Technology Wife Swap

Educators seem to draw inspiration from the funniest areas.  Sometimes lessons evolve from an incredible experience at a teaching conference, and other times teachers just sprinkle clips from “The Simpsons” through a Language Arts presentation to make things a little more engaging.

Well, get ready, folks - this epiphany comes to you courtesy of ‘Wife Swap.’

In case you’re not familiar with the show, ‘Wife Swap’ takes two diametrically different moms and puts them in a worst-case scenario: that is, they have to live the life of their antithesis.  A strongly conservative wife gets dropped into a household of liberal nuts (their words, not mine!), or  the hippie/new-age mom has to deal with a family that believes hunting, tractors, and Jesus are the only way to live.  It’s a show that prides itself on creating conflict for the sake of entertainment.  And, of course, at the end of every episode the wives get to return home to their ‘normal’ environment, and share with their family the bits of wisdom they’ve learned from the whole experience.

This particular pairing saw an etiquette instructor swap places with a do whatever you want, free-range parenting mom.  They both had to live by the rules of their new families for a few days before switching it up and making the new families live by their rules.  So, the free-range mom struggled with formal dinners and table manners class, while the other mom had to deal with unruly kids at the grocery store who told her to “kiss (their) butts.”  Entertaining stuff, just not necessarily life-changing.

But then, when they got to set their own rules, the real education took place. The ‘kids will be kids’ wife learned that some people value respect, but was able to inject a little bit of fun into the family’s proper way of living.  The etiquette instructor showed how manners, along with discipline, could change the entire climate of a household.  Afterwards, her “swapped” husband even said something along the lines of, “I never knew my kids could act this good... but it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

People tasked with changing technology culture in schools -  instructional technologist, technology facilitators, or, my preferred term, technology coaches - are essentially living out the wife swap idea in an educational context.  They hail from lands far away, and bring with them foreign ideas of how life in the classroom should work.  It doesn’t matter that they might also be teachers, or have educational licenses, or anything else.  They are always the outsider.

And teachers, by proxy, act as the family members who are struggling to adapt. Their normal mom is gone, replaced by this new mom with whacked-out ideas about how the world works.  This person might be staying with the family, living in their home, and eating their food, but this person’s belief system simply fails to mesh with the established norm.  Essentially, if technology coaches become the unwarranted swapped wives, classroom teachers become the family members who don’t realize a little fresh perspective might do ‘em good.

Still with me?  Good… because here’s where things get a bit tricky.

See, ‘Wife Swap’ requires new wives to live the life of their predecessor for a short while.  They might put up a fight, complain, cry, and eventually threaten to leave the show, but they still have to adhere to the family norms already in place.  This does two things: first, it gives the new wife insight to the family make-up.  You ever heard the old expression, “to really understand somebody, you have to walk a mile in their shoes”?  This is the reality tv version.  An immersive cultural experience is the foundation of study abroad programs across the world because it works, and ‘Wife Swap’ is no different.

Secondly, this lets the families, or in our case, the teachers, see the new wives in a different light.  It breaks down some of those defensive barriers.  When the families see that the new wife is willing to go well outside her comfort zone, many times to the point of breaking down,  they understand that this new wife is still a wife, and mother, and everything else, but she’s different only because her past experiences are different.  Does that difference make her wrong?  No.  Is her difference of belief system a bad thing? Definitely not. Can the family now learn a little something from her?  Possibly.

It’s our jobs as educators - be it technology coaches, or classroom teachers, or directors of technology, or school administrators - to always focus on learning, and to always focus on the kids.  We let a lot of the “white noise” in educational innovation cloud those two ideas.

And so occasionally, we need to swap wives.  We have to understand together that, just because we both have preconceived ideas of what should be happening in a classroom, doesn’t mean that we’re both right.  It also doesn’t mean that we’re both wrong.  And while technology coaches are responsible for training teachers in new and exciting educational resources, those same coaches should learn as much - or more - from the teachers they’re trying to help.

This philosophy is key if we ever hope to hear our teachers say, “I never knew my classroom could be this good… but it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

photo credit: Profound Whatever via photopin cc

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Symbaloo!!!!!!

When I met with Kindergarten teachers yesterday, one of the teachers said she had seen someone using Symbaloo and would like to learn more about it ...

I use Symbaloo EDU many times each day so I was glad to share!

We started by looking at one I had created with the sites that I visit often. I explained that having all these sites in one place was a time saver for me! And the fact that I could make it look pretty and colorful only made it better!

Then I showed some other symbaloos that I have made that are smaller and might be easier for teachers and/or students to handle ...

For me it is a way of organizing resources that makes them accessible ...

Since it was getting close to time for them to get students, I said I would send some instructions and videos for them to refer to.

When I got a chance to work on that this morning, I was planning on typing out a list and taking some screenshots to make a video ...

Then I decided to see what was already out there since I did not need to recreate the wheel ...

So I started searching ...

And finding things!!!

As I was discovering more and more resources, I began thinking about a way to share these resources with the teachers ...

So I decided to create a Symbaloo about using Symbaloo in Edu!

   

I have not added much yet, but will continue to add resources as I find them!

The great thing is that I won't have to send the teachers something each time I update the symbaloo since it updates automatically!

If you have or know of any great examples/resources on how to use Symbaloo in the Classroom, please send them my way!

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