Anyone want to get involved?

Just wanted to share the following information with my CTER classmates:

I received the following email this morning from the local Regional Office of Education. I found it interesting that they want to revamp the standards for English language arts, mathematics, and science, but mention nothing about technology!
An echo of some of tonight's discussions! But, for any of us who feel the need to get involved in the future of what will be taught in the state of Illinois may find this a very good opportunity to get involved! Without teachers who value the future of technology in the schools, the same old ideas will be brought to the table. We will sit in our classrooms wondering where in the world these archaic ideas come from, and wish for change!

Good Morning
Just wanted to call your attention to the opportunity for your staff to participate on teams of educators who will examine the Illinois high school learning standards in English language arts, mathematics, and science.

If you have teachers with interest and expertise in these areas, please have them apply to work on a core content team as part of Illinois’ initiative with the American Diploma Project to align the high school standards to college and career benchmarks. It would be wonderful to have representation from our area on these teams.

The documents about this are at the links below:

http://www.edseek.org/docs/StateSupt/ADP-Letter.pdf

http://www.edseek.org/docs/StateSupt/ADP-Q&A.pdf

http://www2.learningpt.org/ILDiplomaProjectLaunch/

The deadline for applying is December 19, 2008.

***********************

Jane Quinlan, Regional Superintendent

Champaign-Ford ROE #9

What about instructional videos

OK.. so this week's instructional video was MUCH easier than the digital story. I think the music just really got me. I think that the video I made this week will really be helpful at school. We have full time kids who come all day every day, but we also have asmall group of kids who come to our building after their regualar day at the high school. It seems we have to remind those students how to log in and how touse the EdOptions page. I have been thinking all week about how other videos like this could be useful and I think my next project will be one on writing 5 paragraph essays. Our district has a writing across the curriculum program ongoing and I think teachers and students alike could benefit from a video reminding them of the requirements, along with helpful reminders and ideas. It's nice for students and teachers to be able to get help without having to come right out and ask for it!!

November 1st Already??!! Not many days left til the end of the semester- and graduation for some of us!! I attended the Corn Belt Conference on Technology this week and was impressed by the amount of technology being used at University High School in Normal Illinois. The key to their success seems to be a superintendent intent on being among the best in the technology field, and a close relationship with Illinois State University. In the spring of 2008 and the University supplied the school with several classroom sets of Notebooks and Tablets. I was impressed with the way students used them in class.

After visiting several classrooms in the morning we had roundtable discussions with the participating teachers. I wasnt surprised to hear that many teachers in the school still weren't really using much technology, and that at this point the administration was OK with letting each staff member move at their own pace with integrating it.

The coolest thing was realizing how much of the stuff they were showcasing I was already familiar with! CTER Rocks!!

What about Digital Storytelling

Wow! What I thought would be my favorite project of the course ended up being a nightmare! I love the idea of doing the digital story, and I learned a lot about using Windows Movie Maker, and I am sure the next story will be much easier. I had massive computers problems this past two weeks that are hopfully cured with a new sound card. After receiving numerous error codes and having the computer just shut down, I was beginning to think my hard drive was going out. Not a big deal with two other computers in the house, until I remembered I had deleted all the pictures from my digital camera and had no photos to work with!! Another lesson I learned this week, don't delete photos until I am done with them.

The movie is about Kickapoo State Park, which is about 4 miles from my house. I basically grew up there and to go out and take pictures and tell a story about it was really gratifying for me. I had to keep cutting things out though to keep it around 3 and half to 4 minutes.

You can find my video at www.youtube.com at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNAWBB7hqOY


I was so impressed with all the videos done this week! I love to hear people's stories and find about what is important to them.

What about School Security

As some of my CTER classmates know, my school, Rantoul Township High School went on soft lockdown this week. At about 1:40 on Wednesday, October 1st, there was a man outside my classroom screaming and shouting that he was going to kill everyone. This is not normal behavior in our neighborhood, so we called the school office and reported it. Within a few minutes the police arrived and we were put on "soft lockdown". The building and surrounding grounds were searched and secured, and we all had to stay in our rooms with the doors locked until an "all clear" was sounded.

Technology has changed our security system tremendously! Within 5 minutes of the lockdown, 785 parents or guardians were notified of the situation either by email or phone! Every teacher in the building received the email as well! Luckily, the threats were not serious- apparently the man yelling was a local man who had a history of mental illness and has been known to do this sort of thing at the local IGA and the Family Video. If only we had known that!

But my real comment is about the technology... I think it is great that all parents are notified of the potential threats at their children's school. I would have probably felt better as a parent knowing what was going on when my children were in school.

Or would I? Does this technology and messaging system create distress and panic in the community? If I am at work 30 miles away, how will I react to the fact that my child may be in danger? Apparently many parents reacted just as I think I would... they left their jobs and their homes and parked outside the building. They continuously called the school office for updates, jamming the phone lines so bad that no one could call in or out! One parent must have called the media, bacause by the time our lockdown was lifted 45 minutes after it began, the local TV station was already there with a reporter and a camera.

I just don't know how I really feel on the subject. Until this past Wednesday I thought I was all in favor of the messaging system. But now I just don't know. I see both the pros and the cons. I see that as a parent, I want to be informed, and in a position to do whatever is necessary to protect my children. But also as a parent, I am not sure I would have the capability to react logically and sensibly in an emergency situation when my child is on the inside and I am on the outside! What would the consequences have been had there been a real threat to our safety and the phones had been jammed and parents had the bus lanes blocked so that we couldn't have evacuated students if need be? With so many vehicles around the bilding, how could we be sure of who the bad guys and good guys were?

I'll keep thinking about this one, and hope that we don't have to deal with a similar situation any time soon. I am sure as my teacher brain has a few days to rest and relax before the new week begins, I will be less negative about the idea!

Webquest update

Just a note about my webquest post of earlier today. If you click on my Zunal Webquest site, you won't get to see the webquest, just the sign in page!

It's up and running now!!

What about Webquests?

I have to say that beginning work on creating a Webquest this past week was much more enjoyable than updating my e-portfolio! I love the idea of webquests, allowing self exploration and creation by the students. I have used several webquests in the past while teaching in the traditional high school English classroom. My favorite was a Shakepeare quest, "Will the Real William Shakespeare Please Stand Up". I also have used "Life in Shakespeare's Time". I like both because my students liked them. I used to do a project about Elizabethan times and use library books and other research materials. While some of my students did a good job with it, others just lost interest while trying to sift through books and find information that pertained to the specifics parts they were looking for. Another problem with doing library research is that a school library is only stocked with so many books, so students can't check them out to use outside of class. Trying to get 6 classes of 25-30 students each enough print references to complete a project is a real teacher's nightmare!

Another great aspect of webquests is that the students are able to be as creative as they want. Most webquests ask the students to complete some sort of presentation of their knowledge. I am usually pleasantly surprised by the presentations I see. I don't require students to do power point presentations, but I have seen some great ones done, and also a variety of other kinds. Posters, videos and even a costumed plan! When I allow the students to come up with their own vision of how to present the knowledge they have gained, I find that they are much more innovative and creative than me!

Creating my own WebQuest this week, titled "Money, Money, What to do with the Money" has been fun. My idea comes from the fact Eagle Academy will be moving into a new building in about a month. We have computers and the basics needed for running an alternative school, but I wondered what sorts of things the students would think would be the ultimate in a technology based school. My webquests imagines that a fictitious booster club is giving us $25,000 to spend on technology. The students are to explore different types of hardware, software and other materials that they would like to have, and then present their ideas to the boosters. I am really excited to see what they come up with, and think I will put the webquest up for them to use in the next few weeks. I am using Zunal.com for this webquest, and while it is a really easy program to use, basically fill in the blank, I think over time I would want to move the quest off to my own page so I could be creative in the design. For now though, it is a great program and I think it's a great way to create quickly and easily. For a teacher who wanted to create lots of webquests, or practice with content without worrying about the formatting, it is perfect!

Reflections 9/1/08

Evangeline said...
You have an interesting perspective given your current field of work. I wonder how many of your students might have excelled more in school had technology been more meaningfully integrated in their learning. You see yourself as a facilitator - which is good - but how do you see yourself facilitating. What do you do now that you didn't in the past?

Margie Says:
In the past, I thought of myself as a "fountain of knowledge". I learned to teach the way I was taught in the 70's. The teacher stood at the front of the room, spouting knowledge, and I took notes and listened, and hopefully either absorbed enough of the information, or could study and memorize it long enough to take and pass a test. After a few years in the classroom, I figured out that just wasn't working with my students. So, I learned to ask a lot of questions, guide class discussion, and try to ensure that everyone was involved in the learning process. I also went to a conference that changed my thinking... The speaker taught us that students remember more information when they find it for themselves that they do when someone tells them. Of course I knew this somewhere in my brain, but, I had just never processed it. I was too busy sharing my knowledge! :)

Do I think that my students would have been more successful if technology had been more integrated into the regular high school? You bet!! Now I know, on all levels that students have to be active learners. I see it with my 3 year old granddaughter when I try to tell her how to do something, but she really only learns it when she does it for herself, and I see with it my high school students who are exceeding all of our expectations for them because at long last, they are able to learn by doing. We have to ask the right questions, and give them a place to go to find what information they need, but they are learning.