Character Counts: Citizenship

I had the privilege to be a part of the Storm Lake Elementary School Character Counts assembly today. The pillar for the month was Citizenship, and my small part was to talk to the students briefly about Digital Citizenship. Now, you have to realize that I spend most of my educational time these days with adult learners. The opportunity to talk to kindergarten through fourth graders was very special. From the Pledge of Allegiance, to the Star Spangled Banner, to the fired up teachers with the purple stars, to the press box of students taking pictures and videos of the event, to the high school students who came in their uniforms and costumes from all the activities they are involved in to encourage the young students to get involved in the SLCSD community, to the sea of purple representing good citizenship, to the cheering and the wave, to the little students shouting out answers to my questions during my short presentation, it was a truly moving experience. I suppose I am nostalgic because my babies are eighteen years old and graduating from high school this year, but I think it's more than that. It's the very special nature of the Storm Lake Community Schools and the love and dedication of the teachers, the students, the administrators, the staff members, and all the community stakeholders. There are so many who dream such big dreams for the future of these kids. Good citizens one and all!

The Chromebooks are Here!

We've tested a few Chromebooks in the district over the past year, but now we have thirty to really give us data about their suitability for student devices. We will scatter ten of them throughout the district for teachers and students to test, and we have deployed twenty in the ELL room at the HS. Mrs. Green, Mrs. Hernandez, and their students couldn't be happier! They are the ones who did the initial Chromebook testing, so they know the Chromebooks are what they need.

After using a Chromebook for a long time myself, my prediction is that our other teachers and students will love the devices, too, once they get a chance to test them out.

EdTech Day

The day has finally arrived. Looking forward to teachers and administrators learning, sharing, and creating. This is what teachers do when kids are home - Learning to be better teachers, learning to let go and let students learn:

SLCSD EdTech Day Website

Go, Tornadoes!

EdTech Day for Teachers and Administrators

Monday, Jan. 21, 2013, is going to be an exciting day in the Storm Lake Community School District. All teachers and administrators will be gathering for the third full day of EdTech professional development in just over a year. EdTech learning, collaboration, and classroom planning are the work for the day. The goal of the day is increased student use of technology for learning content/curriculum. The major technology tools we will focus on are Google Apps; Google Chrome; SmartBoards and Student Response Systems; Blogging, Twitter, and Digital Storytelling; and Edmodo and Schoology. Both students and teachers are currently using all of these things in different classrooms in the district. The purpose of the day is to both increase teacher and administrator knowledge of how to use the various technologies and also to share all the ways these technologies can be used by students and/or whole classrooms for learning. Online collaboration and reaching outside the four walls of the school to learn are a major focus.

This EdTech Day is organized a little differently than the past two EdTech Days. This time the morning will be spent in the teachers' own buildings in PLC groups accessing a website created specifically for the day. It is full of resources and collaborative opportunities for the teachers and administrators. Each PLC will decide as a group what to focus on, because we believe strongly in differentiating PD to accommodate teachers with different needs. In the afternoon, teachers will gather at the high school for the opportunity to step out of their small PLC groups and work with others from all over the district who are focusing on the same EdTech integration strategies. "Expert" teacher facilitators are assigned to the various EdTech tools, and they will share their knowledge and classroom examples, but they will also just be available to assist with the work of their peers as they develop their plans for their own students.

Keep an eye out for our EdTech Day hashtag on Twitter: #sltech. We're hoping for a very active day of sharing resources and back channeling about our learning.

Goodbye, 2012

The last day of 2012 and besides my two computer technicians and me, there are few people working in the district. We love days like this, though. We get so much done! Justin and Jorge have finished reconfiguring all the middle school laptops so that they will log into the network faster, and they have have swapped out the batteries in the UPS that keeps the middle school network up in the event of a power outage. In addition, they've worked hard to resolve and close trouble tickets.

Me? I've spent every spare minute the past couple of weeks preparing for our EdTech day for teachers that is scheduled for January 21. The plan is to work collaboratively in PLCs and online in the morning and then to work collaboratively across building lines in the afternoon with facilitators and other teachers who want to implement similar technology integration in their classrooms. The focus is ultimately completely student based. "What will students do with technology to further their learning of the curriculum? is the guiding question. On the other hand, teachers will have the time to explore the available technologies to choose what will work the best in their classrooms. The hope is that the guided practice and modeling will give teachers the confidence to take the necessary steps to student independence. This is the second EdTech Day for the school year and the third full day in the past calendar year, so teachers are refining, expanding, and adding to student technology use for learning in the classroom.

It's been a great year EdTech-wise in the Storm Lake Community School District. We've added lots of equipment, but more importantly, we've expanded what students do with the technology, and that afterall, is what's really important.

Here's to 2013. What awaits us for learning in the new year?!

Technology in Classrooms

My greatest pleasure on the job is hearing from teachers about the work they have students doing in their classrooms with technology. It is gratifying to know that as a district we have made the move from "teaching technology" to "learning with technology." With approximately thirty labs of computers for student use, as well as many individual computers for students to use, technology is a regular part of our classrooms. We are asking students to research, to create, to solve problems, and to collaborate with others. Rather than focus on the acquisition of the latest technology toy, we focus on what we want to students to do, and then we decide what best works for that. Usually it's something we already have right here in the district, although often we determine we need more of what we already have!

Here are some examples of what our students are doing right now:

1. Mrs. Warkentin's and Mrs. Jacobsons's third graders are creating Google Presentations about different Native American tribes. They are comparing and contrasting "types of clothing, hunting methods, food they ate, and...how the location of the tribes...affected their way of living." This has been a cooperative learning activity as the students have all worked in pairs.
2. Mr. Baker's fourth graders are studying immigration. Their project is to do "family history interviews," tying their knowledge of immigration to their own families' experiences.
3. Mrs. Huntress' third grade students continue to blog. Recently, they have been blogging about Native American tribes, both current ones and those from the past, allowing comparing and contrasting. From this study, the students have written about the needs of Native American communities today, and they have collaborated with a classroom in Okoboji to get input on their writing from students from outside the district. They even Skyped with a Lakota reservation school.
4. Kindergarten classrooms continue their collaboration with schools outside the country, including Canada and Japan, among others. They've created classroom presentations to share. They've recorded introductions about themselves to share. And, they've Skyped with students in other classes. What a great way for our little ones to think about culture!
5. Mrs. Tucker's seventh graders are writing their own music compositions.
6. Mrs. Cole's students are creating book trailers that are available on the SLCSD YouTube channel. You will also see video projects from other district classes on our YouTube channel.
7. Mrs. Hixon's seventh grade science students are "researching environmental problems...such as habitat loss, endangered animals, and global warming." They are taking the next step, though, and they are using technology to "create awareness of the problem and/or to provide a solution to the problem." They are creating and publishing "websites, PowerPoints, and Prezis...to make the public aware of what they can do to help."
8. Mrs. Green's high school English Language Learners are creating "web-based portfolios" that can be used not only for assessment but also "as a tool for future job or college applications." The students are using Google Apps as the place to work on their projects, because they can collaborate there and get almost instantaneous feedback.
9. The high school geometry classes taught by Mr. Grant are using software called Geometer's Sketchpad for "hands on demonstration to help visualize different parts of a triangle."
10. Mrs. Vieira has her high school Spanish students blogging, researching poets and creating presentations in Voicethread, using Google Docs to share vocabulary in sentences for immediate feedback, and accessing Spanish resources to increase their Spanish skills. In addition, the Spanish 3 class collaborates with three other Iowa schools regularly for learning.
11. Mrs. Mouw's Accelerated English students are doing a research project about cultural history, that makes extensive use of technology. They have "researched, questioned, created, written, revised, problem-solved, collaborated, and exercised their inventive individuality in how they are choosing to fulfill the assignment's requirements." I've seen the assignment, and it is authentic, cross-curricular, collaborative, and demanding. Combining family history with research, history, literature, creative writing, reflection, and collaboration is enhanced enormously with technology.

Realize this is just some of the learning that is going on in the district this very day using educational technology.  It's becoming the way we do business here in the Storm Lake Community Schools, and that is a very good thing!

Attend EdCamp Iowa

Attend EdCamp Iowa

This is your chance to collaborate with and learn from others in Iowa who are interested in improving education for Iowa students. Teachers, administrators, students, parents, interested community members. Come one, come all!

You really must reserve Saturday, February 16, 2013, for this event:

EdCamp Iowa Info and Registration