Learning as a Way of Teaching

Thanks to Audacity and a few iPods, our students took final exams 21st century style.  Instead of leaving the classroom to have tests read to them by another teacher, students stayed in the classroom and listened to their test on iPods.  They had the power to listen at their own discretion without having to be singled out.  Of course, they did look different since they had iPods and the others didn’t.

Their teacher made this comment:  “Instead of hanging their heads, they were actually excited about getting the help.”

The hardest part of the whole process was creating the audio files, and that process is not hard at all.

Now if I can just get the school to buy 10 more……

A common problem of junior high students involves note taking.  So much of instruction involves lecture it is imperative that students learn how to take effective notes.

How many times have you said the following (or something similar):

•  ”It was on the board.  You should have written it down.”
• “Where are your notes?”
• “Why are you not taking notes?”

LD students struggle with note taking as much and in most cases more than their non-disabled peers.  Some of the struggle comes from disorganization, inattention, and unmotivation.  Even if those hurdles are cleared, there is still a skill that is unlearned in taking good notes.

Joseph R. Boyle, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University researches note-taking, cognitive strategies, and early reading techniques.  He suggests that for students, notes serve two purposes:

1. They aid student understanding of lecture information, and
2. They serve as reference material for later study.

Students who struggle with note taking do so for various reasons.  It is important to diagnose the reason so that a plan can be executed.  Whether it is an attention deficit, mechanics of writing, vision, hearing, assimilation, motivation or comprehension; pinpointing the issue is key in developing an accommodation or modification.

“These students are not motivated.”  I hear it at least 5 times a week.  Students spend their days going through the motions.  They attend classes, sit in their desks, and produce nothing.  Teachers’ gradebooks are littered with zeroes for students who simply will not turn in assignments.  We preach to them, give them extended deadlines, threaten them.  We do everything possible to motivate them and get no results.

Granted, 80% of our students do their work and meet deadlines.  It is the 20% that make us scratch our heads and wonder what is in the water that this many students do not have any sense of urgency to take responsibility for their educations.

I know that there is not a magic bullet that will kill the apathy in the lives of my “20%ers.”  But what can a person do to get students to work when detentions, calling parents, and even bribery does not get the job done?

We are spending our last school day in the computer lab finishing up our space pages.  The students have really created some excellent looking sites and a few of them are ready to tackle adding a blog to the project.  I have used learner-blogs in the past, and I wanted to use them again here.

The hurdle I had to overcome was creating student blogs without an e-mail account for all of my students.  The Gmail trick is the answer, but Gmail is blocked by our Internet filter.  However, the filter cannot stop my iPhone!  HA HA!!!  So I registered my students using a Gmail alias that goes to my Gmail account, that I then retrieve using my iPhone.  I am able to activate the blogs and have the students blogging in no time.

In collaboration with one of our 7th grade science teachers, we were able to create The Great Space Race.  Students are building some great sites with great zeal and determination.  Googlepages has made it real easy for our novice web designers to make a good looking site with minimal effort or training.

The trick was getting Google accounts for our students.  After I went through the hassle of creating accounts for them, I discovered that many of our students had e-mail accounts that they could have used for the project.  We were not using e-mail, they just needed them for login purposes.  I consider it a lesson learned that perhaps I should get students to get an e-mail account before allowing them to participate in the project.  Hmm…

Kim discovered the power of subsidiary accounts with Gmail.  This trick did not work for our project because the alias e-mail would not work in order for them to sign up for a Google account.  However, I managed to get all the accounts created.

It is a common complaint of all teachers.  Not enough time to do the things that need to be done and the things that we want to do.  I would love to blog every day.  There are not enough hours in the day to do all of the things that I have learned in the world of 2.0. 

Since the fall of last year, I have learned the power of student blogging, wikis, and collaborating with educators from all around the world.  Unfortunately, the roles that make up my job description could not care less of my wishes.  Here is what I have to do (which prevents me from doing what I want to do):  I am the district’s inclusion facilitator, I am the special education coordinator for the junior high, I am on the district’s assisstive technology team, and I am the testing coordinator for the junior high.  If I could only have a few more hours in the day I could do things like:

1. Develop the wiki mentoring project that I started last year.  I had students at the high school encourage students from the jr high in their writing skills.  The seventh graders wrote stories that the high schoolers critiqued and gave advice on.
2. I would teach several teachers on each of our campuses how to use blogs in their classrooms.
3. Podcasting has appealed to me for a very long time and I cannot seem to find the time to delve into it.  I tried getting some students involved in an after school podcasting club, but it went over like a pregnant high jumper.
4. Last year, I collaborated with a class in Maylasia.  It was a lot of fun, it did not last as long as I would have wanted it.  I just do not have the time to try that again.
5. I would like to have a really informative website.  One that can be used by students and teachers alike.
6. Every heard of Moodle?  I have and do not know a lot about it.  I would like to teach classes online, but that requires time that I just do not have.

Could it be possible to just blink my eyes and have this list happen?  The amount of time it would take to launch some of these projects is several lifetimes…..

….and I only have one life.

There are times that I thought parents of secondary students didn’t care.  Parental involvement seems to decline as students get older.  Yesterday was not the case.  Hundreds of students and their families came through our doors for “Meet the Teacher.”  We were all amazed at the turnout and I was very pleased to see that parents still care.

I have spent a few days back at the office and I am sad to see summer come to an end.  I got to spend countless hours with my children playing board games, swimming, watching cartoons, playing video games, and visiting family.  Treasured moments that I will cherish forever and one day wish for again.

But it is time to face a new school year.  A new year with bright expectations, new students, and new collegues.  We return to work tomorrow.  Move over summertime, it is time to change the world again.

No one likes to admit that they are lazy.  Maybe because we do not like lazy people.  What ever happened to not doing anything, anyway?  Well, let me explain how blogging contributes to my laziness:

Every time I read through my feed reader, I learn something new.  In fact, I owe it to fellow bloggers for helping me navigate through Web 2.0.  And because they have done all the discovery work for me, I do not have to do anything.  Trial and error is eliminated for me as I try what is suggested by bloggers from all over the world.  I do not have to work real hard discovering what works and what doesn’t.  And that is why I blog, because I am lazy.

I get it.  I understand the importance of schools remaining relevant.  You do not have to spend any more time telling me that schools need to be using the tools that students are already using.

I have totally bought into the idea that a global audience pushes students to take pride in their work.  I envision students blogging, building wikis, creating media rich content, and establishing learning relationships with students from all over the world.

Problem is…I am teaching behind a wall.  Those who are in charge of our technology have a filter that blocks all blogs.  Edublogs and learnerblogs come through, but only because I asked them to look into them.

We have computer labs for students to use.  However, they are so locked down, students cannot even access the hard drive.  All of their content has to be saved on their student folder that resides on the server.  A server, I might add that is getting slammed.  If students want to upload files on their wikispace, the files cannot come from the server (for whatever reason), so that prevents them from putting anything original on the wiki.

I am collaborating with a class, and our students cannot produce the same level of work as their new colleagues in Malaysia.  Our computers are not only locked down, but they run Windows 98.  Even web-based tools are difficult to use since we are using an operating system that is older than most of my students.

I would almost equate it with being like a kid in a candy store….with no money.  Before me is a brand new world of tools that inspire and engage students.  But they are all out of my reach.  I can smell them, see them, and almost taste them; but they are unobtainable.

But all is not lost.  It is possible to teach some of the skills, just without the tools.  But not in a way that engages like Web 2.0.  Sigh….