CFF teacher Meeting

Over the past two days, I have met with the new CFF teachers.

Meeting with CFF teachers can actually be a trick at my school. Unfortunately, just because of the way we set up the program, it isn't really all that possible to bring in subs to cover classes. And, because of time issues, there's really only a 30 minute (20 minute after waiting for students to get out of the halls and teachers to pack up for the day) window after school when all teachers must be in the building. I've tried making meetings before school, but a lot of teachers don't have time--they don't show up on time, or they have to prep for the days classes. And, we can't make teachers stay any later--even offering to allow them to leave early the following day isn't much of an incentive for most. And, most of the time, meetings can't be mandatory--I don't have that authority.

So, after a great deal of emailing, my principal finally did make a mandatory CFF meeting for new CFF teachers. I didn't get exactly what I wanted--a meeting for all teachers, CFF and non, new and old--but life is about compromise.

The meetings were identical, but divided into two groups to make sure that a) everyone had a chance to attend and b) keep attendance small (this was when I was still expecting more teachers) so that the Tech Director and I could answer questions without them getting out of hand.

The agenda was simple: real basic intro to your laptops, whiteboards, and projectors. Laptops came first. The basic rules were, know where your cart is housed (up to six teachers are now sharing each cart, and each cart has a permanent home) keep the carts plugged in, make sure students remove and replace laptops carefully and plug them in, and report tech issue to the tech department, not the person keeping the cart. I of course also emphasized that there was to be no eating or drinking while students used the computers. The whiteboard/projector intro was equally basic: how to turn it on, open ActivStudio, plug in all the wires, shut it down, flip between computer and video. The Tech Director also emphasized not turning the projectors on and off too frequently to lengthen the life of the bulb.

So all that was lacking was...any sort of mention of integration. Again, compromise. I'd been hoping to have a longer meeting (or two--one for laptops, and one for projectors). But in a school, time is not something easily come by.

I've created a sort of sign up sheet for my teachers. In some ways, I think one on one instruction/conversation about HOW to use the technology--not just how to make it function, but how to integrate it and make it meaningful--is going to work better than large group instruction. To that end, I created and shared a google doc with all of the teachers, so they can sign up for when they want to meet with me.

I probably could have done better, and maybe even thought the entire process through a little more. Since I won't have a chance to meet with teachers face to face to introduce google docs and walk them through the set up, I emailed them directions on how to set up a google account and access the shared document. Then, all they had to do was type their name into the cell on the chart for the day/period that they wanted to meet with me. It seemed simple.

But, I forgot about the verification email that google sent out. Its sometimes hard to remember these things, when I signed up for this or that program so long ago. The verification email from google had a list of links to google apps that teachers now have access to. That tripped some up. I sent out another email that had the original link to my shared document, hoping that that would be enough to keep frustration levels low, but I fear that teachers just don't have time to be patient with a mistake like that.

For now, I'm hoping that, if I wait til Monday, and send out another email with all the directions (better directions that explain that the links in the verification email will not lead to my document) teachers will forgive and forget.

Even with the sign up issues, I've still had the chance to work with three teachers one on one so far. Working one on one allows me to go at their pace, address their questions, and gives each teacher time to use the equipment--instead of doing a one size fits all group training.

And, even though I had trouble getting folks to sign up for google docs, one of the "cart keepers" decided to create a google docs sign out sheet. I swung by to help her set it up and share it. Most of my advice revolved around giving clear instructions on how the set up process worked. I hope that she has better luck than me.

Sight Project--Day Three

I think yesterday might have been one of the most hectic in classroom days I've had in a while. It just felt like everything that could go wrong did. But really, it was only one class out of three.

The first and third classes went fine. There were a few issues here and there, but nothing major. The middle class was a nightmare.

In all of the classes, the students were left to their own devices to continue working on the project. The teacher went back on her plan and told them at the beginning of class they would have one more day to finish. This hurt the hoped for sense of urgency. But, students still did work continuously for the most part. Some wasted valuable class time trying to edit music to add to the stories. Some who did not construct a good plan were still hunting up images. But most kids were working on editing and arranging images. A few tried out recording themselves, but very few had anything keepable by the end of class.

The middle class had its fair share of problems throughout. An inexplicably high number of students had to keep restarting because they could not connect to their student drives. This took up a lot of valuable work time. Then, several students were having trouble saving their work. It didn't take me long to realize it was students who had imported images straight from memory sticks or jump drives. The easy fix was to make sure the sources was in the computer before saving, so the file could be accessed. However, this was a problem for students who used multiple memory sticks--since only one could be in the computer at a time. I had to have kids drag and drop the images to a folder in their personal drive, delete the images, and then reimport them. This was horrible, because I had to walk each kid through it one by one. It was one of those days when it seems that the students just didn't have the ability to follow directions without me over their shoulders. And I was sympathetic. I think for most people this would be considered a complicated problem.

To make matters even worse, at the end of class, some students suddenly lost their network connections and couldn't save to their student drives. Once again I attempted to give general directions for this: save to your desktop, restart, move to your personal drive. But, I kept getting students raising their hands with the same question. I was becoming frustrated with the technology, my inability to effectively address all of the students at once (students who didn't yet realize they had this problem were still working and not paying any attention despite my telling everyone that I had something very important to say), and the impatience of students who seemed to think they took precidence over someone I was already helping because they were suddenly having problems, too. Massive problems in the last five minutes of class are exponentially more frustrating than massive problems at any other time.

Needless to say, I started the last class of the day explaining, once again, to save frequently. Saving frequently will not only prevent the loss of ALL work in the case of some failure, but it will also alert students to network issues earlier. I explained that, in the last five minutes of class I would not be able to help everyone, so if everyone had an issue at then end of class, most of them would lose work. It was not the best or most helpful tone to take, and it was largely colored by my multiple frustrations from earlier.

Many students do not have basic trouble shooting, or problem solving skills when it comes to technology. They encounter a problem, and thier first and only reaction is to shout to anyone who knows how to use computers. (I eventually told students that those politely raising their hands would probably get my attention sooner than those shouting my name). They do not have the ability to assess the causes or work through possible solutions to a problem. Quite a few needed help saving to their own jump drives. I'm not entirely sure that they weren't capable of doing it. After all, they had saved images to the drive to bring them to school. But, at school, they only saved to their personal drives. I fear that yesterday, in my frustration, I fell back into the trap of enabling learned helplessness.

I was very focused on technical issues yesterday. My reflection doesn't seem to have anything but them. That's a shame.

Reading Project--End

I haven't had a chance to update on this project.

With snow days, conferences, and trainings, I was out of the building for the very end of the project. The Reading teacher told me that she had very little trouble finishing up the recordings. She had a few absent kids that she had to record after the official end of the project. She had one student who refused to read in front of the class, but agreed to be recorded after school.

We had some time to discuss the assessment for the project. Most of that was decided early on, because she had to give the students a rubric. The whole project was 75 points, with 5 points each given for meeting deadlines along the way. Twenty points were given for creativity in selecting the article and modifying it for speaking. And, 15 points each were given for accuracy, pace, and emotion. So, the bulk of what was assessed was the three main goals that she had for the read aloud. We were a little worried about having so many points for the creativity with the assignment, but it did end up being a large part of the WORK involved. The teacher took notes while the students read live, and then used the recordings to be able to revisit and look at specifics. So even grading this assignment turned into a large time commitment for her.

Throughout this assignment, we've talked about changes that we would like to make for next year. After having started the recordings, I was made aware that several teachers have actual video cameras, so I would like to use those next year. Also, we talked about using monologues that would be performance ready, to cut down on the prep time and frustration for students, and allow the project to be more clearly focused on reading out loud. I think this year, the students could very easily come away from this project feeling like it was an internet search and writing project. We are still not in agreement about having the same reading being used for the initial recording/reflection and the second recording, or having part of the grade based on the improvements listed in the reflection. i think it is important for me to try to be practical. These are not my classes, and I am not ultimately responsible for grading their assignments. Partly, I think this might be a matter of not having high expectations--the Reading teacher does not feel that the students are able to write good reflections and therefore to get much out of them. My main goal for next year will be to get the teacher to model writing a good reflection. If the reflections improve, perhaps she will see value in adding that as an assessment component in the future.

All in all I think this project was successful. The students all had to read aloud in front of the class, focusing on accuracy, pace, and emotion. There are aspect of the assignment that can, and hopefully will, be improved upon to allow the students to learn more from it in the future.

Cell Project--Day One

I went down to the Bio class for day one of the cell project. Some of it didn't go well, some of it did.

An overview of the project--we are having students create "my space" type pages using a wiki. Each group will create a page for a certain part of the cell. They will have to include bffs (the student names) hangouts (where its found in the cell) links (resources used) pictures, etc.

Today the kids signed on and began basic editing. In the first class for some reason creating pages didn't go very well. I would have liked to have tried a different method of page creation, but the teacher said she wanted to create the pages. It didn't take long to do. I think that had I been the teacher, that is the route I'd have taken, too. The first failure was a hassle, although we did overcome it. However, in that situation, with limited time, the last thing you want is to waste more time in another class trying to do the same thing in a slightly different way that might also fail when you have a perfectly valid fool-proof alternative.

I spoke with the teacher who is a little of the opinion that the children are more focused on editing things to make them look nice than on the actual research and info involved in the project.

Its a valid concern.

I've done projects with a fun or "irrelevant" element to them. I think I've found that even though kids will focus on the fun bits, they will get to the information and "meat and potatoes" of it. They just do the fun eye catching stuff first.

She has expressed that she originally wanted to have the students do the research--with old fashioned pen and paper--and then have them create the wiki from it. She has also said that perhaps next year she would have them fill in a pre-created format--with the information--and then let them play with and edit the visuals.

I also think that the "irrelevant" part of this project is not so irrelevant. Teamwork, collaboration, communication, basic computer literacy skills such as editing text and saving often, introduction to wikis, taking responsibility for their own learning, multitasking. None of this trumps the actual biology, but is it on the same level?

And more importantly, is this helping? Is anyone going to get anything out of this project? Are any of the above skills going to be taught or strengthened by this project. Will the biology info be conveyed? Will it be conveyed more effectively, or will children learn it any better, or even at an equal level, than if it had been done in the form of notes?