high school and beyond

Okay, as much as I think this is a good idea, I don't seem to take the time to post daily blogs so I don't know how successful I'll be at this. I have spent the past week visiting with teachers and helping them with ideas for developing their social studies lessons in ways that engage students and include opportunities for students to interact with the information using reading, speaking, writing, and drawing activities that will also help build overall literacy. It is a focus in our district to establish withing students the desire to peruse post secondary education venues, whether it be a traditional 4 year college, a community college, or some some of training program that will give them an advantage in the workplace. To that end, most of the middle schools I have been to have begun to display banners from various colleges and having teachers talk about their college experiences during the "getting to know you" period of back to school activities. I'm wondering what other schools do to help build the expectations in students that they will not only graduate from high school, but continue on to some institution of higher learning .

Beyond 23 things

I have changed jobs over the summer. I am now a support team specialist for social studies. I had a big plan to continue to use this blog site to have a place to to communicate and share with my teacher friends and with those that I am now mentoring and supporting in their social studies classrooms. I'll write in here a while, mostly as a place to put down my thoughts and experiences. I want to include my blog address to the bottom of my signature on my district mail. I doubt I will ever have as sophisticated a place as Cool Cat Teacher blog or any of the other great sites I see, but I will try to create a place that is informative and useful for those who care to look.
So what does that fancy new job title mean? I am assigned to work with three middle schools and three high schools. I'll work with the principal, the campus Support Team Specialist, and the teachers in the social studies department to help with lesson planning, finding resources, and trying out new ways of presenting the same material. I will focus on the TAKS years (8th, 10th, and Exit level) but also support all secondary grades in ways that will benefit teachers and students in the test taking years. Several TEKS are taught across all grade levels. Students can get a good grasp on those overlapping objectives through repeated exposure to the skills.
Our superintendent Duncan Klussmann has made it clear that our mission is to instill in students the desire to attend some type of schooling beyond high school, so increasing the students' overall literacy is essential. We as social studies teachers need to be sure we are incorporating good reading and writing strategies into our everyday expectations. In this space I intend to write about sites, materials, strategies, and observations that may be of interest to other social studies teachers. I hope others will read, comment, and add to the conversation.

Thing #23

WOW! What a rewarding experience!
What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey? I liked so many things. I liked finding blogs written by people that have similar interests. Creating my own vidcast and seeing what other teachers had created on TeacherTube was fun. Using del.icio.us to tag sites is very useful.
How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? This program has expanded my view of tech applications in the classroom and I have surprised myself by taking to the blogging. I don't usually get into writing on and on about myself and my own blog needs a lot of work to come up to standards with others, but I have really enjoyed the format and putting myself out there.
Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I am changing jobs this year and going into a support position out of the classroom after 27 years. I hope to go into to classrooms and help teachers develop plans around some of the skills I have learned. I think the idea of adding my blog address to my email signature is a great idea and a place I can write about what I've been doing so that all who care to read it can begin to network with me and other teachers across the district. Without this class I would never have thought to do anything like that.
What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept? I think taking this class over the summer is ideal. It would have been more difficult to take during the school year. For the most part, the directions for each lesson were clear and easy to follow. Most of the time I had trouble it was my own impatience that had caused the trouble. I think one possibility would be to meet as a cadre to share/troubleshoot in person or somehow encourage more communication among those participating in the class at the same time.
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate? YES
How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities? This was truly a worthwhile professional development class. How often can you say that?

Thing #22

Nings are very interesting and shows another way that people have found to get together to share information around a common interest. I liked the Ning for Teachers and found lots of interesting blogs, lesson plans, and ways to connect with other teachers. I tried signing up for the Living History Worldwide ning because you can't see anything on the site without signing in. I have submitted my personal information and now have to wait to receive approval before they will let me sign in to see anything. That was kind of creepy, and the web page had lots of strict rules posted, which makes me think they have have trouble with inappropriate content. I just thought it would be interesting to see re-enactment videos of the American Revolution or Civil War. I'll have to wait for my approval to see if it is really something I want to be a part of. Nings seem to be an area that take lots of hit or miss discovery to locate worthwhile groups.

Thing #21

After having read and watched several examples of podcasts and vidcasts that others have done, I have been wary of trying this one. Reading everyone's struggles and successes has helped me to put together a simple podcast. I think students would really get into this kind of activity and would enjoy viewing others' projects. They can make biographies of presidents or a timeline of events, like Steps to the Revolution with narration that gives details and facts.
I made a simple video of birthday pictures (taken on my phone's camera!) from my great niece's 2nd birthday party with photostory 3. It was very easy to use and students would be able to create simple videos with little instruction. Now I'll see if I can successfully embed it here! I can't believe it worked! I got an error message and closed to read other people's tips. One issue was the size. So I saved it again in the format made to attach to an email because it is compressed and takes up less space. When I came back to my blog, here it was waiting for me! I hope it is still there for you all to see! I don't have a microphone so I just used a music choice they provided.

Thing #20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjhS_6Oa0DQ This one is about the power of videos in teaching history and showing that a visual presentation can help people put themselves in the event and have an empathetic connection rather than passively reading about them. (Even though viewing is just as passive as reading-maybe more so-we have become a very visual society!)

The other site I found was a good montage of US history from Constitution to modern day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf_FWcjKXaU

Every time I try to use Teacher Tube it seems very slow to load. I really like Blinkx for its highly accessible up to the minute videos and the large store of archived videos that are easy to find and view. I liked the Zamzar site, and think that will be very helpful in capturing ans using some videos that are not easily accessible from school.

Thing #19

I love Im Cooked. I don't cook a whole lot but I love to watch cooking shows on PBS. This site is full of ordinary people cooking recipes on video. It is so much better than reading recipes and trying to envision what it should look like. These are just people in front of a camera putting together basic dishes. there are some elaborate, ethnic, and exotic dishes and some are more professional than others, but all of it easy to access and addictive to watch!
Another site I liked is Yahoo! Answers. Kids would love this site, because they are always full of questions. The difference with this site is that anyone can answer and the answers are sometimes just opinion comments and not really going for correctness of information. You just type in your question and get answers from whomever wants to join in the conversation. It's not like Ask.com, which tries to lead you to an informative answer. I saw lots of questions that no one had posted an answer for, so that could be frustrating, I guess.
Minti is a great site for parents and I forwarded it to a friend who recently had a baby. It is questions from parents of young children, and answered by other parents. This is a good communal site that provides insight and support during the mommy years.
The Web 2.0 awards list is a great place to go check out the best of what's going on in technoland.

Thing # 18

My daughter bought a small computer and it has only a home version of Microsoft products. She had trouble composing papers in a very minimal word pad application. When she sent me documents as attachments, I could not always read them. OpenOffice immediately eliminated that problem and gave her a quality product. I can see that students with computers at home would be able to use this product or Google docs to have access to good programs that will make them proud of their finished products. When I tried to download it to my school laptop I got a message saying I did not have administrative rights and the install wizard couldn't complete the download. I'll try again and see what the deal is. I wasn't logged in to SBVPN and maybe that will make a difference. I'll also go read other blog posts to see if anyone else encountered this problem.
Google docs is great if you want access to documents from any computer. You can also invite people to share the work you have made. Students could complete their assigned writing or research activities and then share with the class and teacher. They have the beginnings of good templates for a variety of purposes and look to be getting stronger all the time.

Thing #17

Searchrolls was interesting as a good tool for someone who does lots of searching. If I got into heavy Internet research with my students I can see how this would help to keep them from wandering off into inappropriate or inferior sites. As for my own professional use, I can see how I could develop a set of go-to sites to help build Activboard flipcharts using tried and reliable sites. For my personal use, I don't do so many intense searches that plodding along on Google won't suffice for. I think I created a searchroll, but I am not sure. And I'm not sure that I am ready to be this organized since I'm still stumbling around.

Thing # 16

I often use Wikipedia for a quick source because it seems there is an article about just about any topic imaginable. I also know that the information is not always reliable, so I just use it as a starting point. I think a wiki set up around a common topic that kids can contribute to is a great thing, but if it is editable by the general public, it is open to misuse. A wiki would have to have a log in requirement for a specific group in order to prevent malicious editing. I went onto the sandbox portion of the Spring Branch Library Future wiki and made a comment about how useful I think this class has been, and how this format can be a model to teachers who are trying to develop technology components to enhance their classroom. Developing purposeful, self-paced lessons that can be shared with and commented on by the others in the group will be extremely motivational to today's students. I am impressed at the forward thinking of the library department of our district.

Thing # 15

I think the downtown Houston Public Library reopening is a perfect example of what the future of libraries is. It is so much more than a room of musty books where everything is muffled and quiet. The new library is a multipurpose building that provides a wide variety of resources to the public. It is alive and vibrant and ever changing. Libraries (and whoever makes up the collective "them" of librarians) have really taken the lead in making sure they remain relevant and essential. It is a hallmark of the freedom of speech and information in our country that allows and encourages such access to all of what the Internet and technology have to offer.

I enjoyed reading Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries? I especially liked the discussion of getting away from the "just in case" backup collection that librarians feel compelled to keep. I can really relate to that hesitance to throw out the paper copies and just rely on the ability to retrieve documents from the cyber sphere. I think we all have stories of the Internet going down at a critical time or platform changes that made old data irretrievable. And what if somebody pulls "the plug" and there's no electricity? What will become of us if we don't have everything written down? And don't get me started on conspiracy theories of hackers or black ops government groups manipulating the data to make it say whatever they want it to. I've watched Total Recall and RoboCop and Conspiracy Theory !

I think subsequent generations will have less trouble with this reluctance to let go of the paper, but I don't know that I would ever want to.

Thing # 14

I have explored Technorati and visited a variety of sites. I found it pretty easy to maneuver through and understood tagging information and how that works. I found some good information to expand my understanding of using technology in the classroom. I also found some good book review sites and have gone to the library and checked out some interesting titles. Now I have even more stuff to read with all my bookmarks on Google Reader and that seriously cuts in to my read a book time. I was reading a blog post where a woman was telling how she visited her reader 7-14 times a day. When do you sleep?! I want to DO more than I read about what other people doing. There are times when I am interested in a specific topic or am collecting information for research, but a daily search just for the sake of searching is too overwhelming for me. I do feel increased confidence and success in my internet abilities!

Thing #13

I had been hesitant to tag things in the past, but with this tutorial and exploration I can see the benefits of tagging sites that have a common theme or that are easy to return to. I have a very long list of sites in my "favorites" so I can see this would help clean that up. There are times I read something that is interesting, but I don't really have immediate need for. later, I'll wonder, "Where did I see that?" The tagging system will help me to mark a page and then have some hope of retrieving it later. As far as it being a social network, students can certainly share their resources with others who are in their class or accessing tags from people who have marked sites. There is so much stuff out there, this is at least a starting point for an organized look at what is available on a given topic.

Thing # 12

I hope everyone is enjoying their Independence Day holiday, brought to you by U. S. History! I have been reading and commenting on other posts since we began this process. I guess I have never been one to keep my opinions to myself. The suggested readings for this lesson, though, were very helpful and led me off into another voyage of discovery.
I have been reading blog posts about other educators who have begun to integrate technology into their daily classrooms-meaning that they have developed class blogs or wikis with lessons embedded and ways for students to post their work as well as comment on others. I have found some good information, and one really cool thing I found was Voice Thread (see sidebar for information). It allows for a visual post and for comments to be provided both in written and spoken form. I think that would be a very useful tool on a class wiki page. A college professor who apparently was part of a 43 Things class sometime in the recent past posted his journey with a class wiki and spoke of the successes and difficulties he has encountered. http://michalska.wordpress.com/ Vicki Davis, on her Cool Cat Blog http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/ also has very in detail information about her award winning wiki and is very good at explaining and showing examples of what has worked for her.
On a completely unrelated search, I went looking for movie reviews because I like to check out DVDs, especially in the summer. I found lots of sites, but most were difficult to read. This one was pretty good. It covered a variety of topics and had a lot of different contributors so you can get a sense of what the movie is about and whether it fits what you are interested in. http://www.moviesvideos.com
Here comes the daily rain shower. I'm going to log off and enjoy a nap!

Thing #11

Okay, so this is is a pretty awesome site. One of my daydream fantasies has been to be locked in a library and having nothing to do but read. This site is great because it lets you honor the great stories you have read and read what other people have to say about books you love. You also get to see what other people are reading and find treasures that you may not have found on your own. I determined this year to quit spending so much money on books and instead use the public library. On the one hand, I enjoy browsing for the book and reading it, but I have a difficult time returning books that I like. I want them to be on my shelf so I can return to them when I want. Anyway, I joined, added some titles I thought of off the top of my head, and will return to refine my page as well as read recommendations for future reference. Now if I can just find the time...
I have been thinking a lot about how to integrate what I am learning in the class into teaching U S History. Here are some ideas I am working on developing lesson plans for: If you found George Washington's Ipod, what would be on his playlist? Write a text or email dialogue between John and Abagail Adams or Washington and Hamilton during the Revolution, or Jefferson and Hamilton, Paul Revere and Sam Adams on the night of the Boston Tea Party. etc. Create trading cards for the first five presidents and have a swap meet with other classmates. Create a magazine cover published in Massachusetts (or Virginia) dated April 13, 1861. Research to find 10 titles Jefferson had in his personal library. Use those titles to write about
I still have 7 days of summer school left and I have just accepted a position as a secondary support specialist for social studies. After 27 years in the classroom I am due for a sea change. Now I just have to figure out how to sort out what I want to keep and what will be sent to the dumpster. I had to do this when I moved from elementary to middle school. It wasn't easy then and will be more difficult now.

Thing #10

I have been playing with all the fun sites and have been trying to brainstorm lists of things I can do with my kids to incorporate some of these things. I am teaching summer school, and I think I will ask those students to help me with some ideas. They obviously were turned off or not served adequately during the school year, so I'm going to ask them what they think could be done to "punch up" history lessons with technology. I worry about being sure there is accurate content rather than just lots of flashy fun. One suggestion for a lesson I saw was for kids to be given 10 minutes to receive a text on their cellphones from someone off campus. I worry about liability: what if they contact someone inappropriate, what if parents resent paying for texting, what about the one or two kids who don't have phones-or kids make fun of them because they are not the latest technology. My school is a very have/have not campus. How do you control inappropriate content? Every site leads to many others. I guess at home kids have access to all this stuff, but I am somewhat uncomfortable sponsoring or assigning something that might initiate inappropriate contact. At school we have a firewall, but can I take that much class time from a TAKS tested class to take all the students to the lab the number of days it might take to get these kinds of things produced? Am I just too much of a worrier? I have liked some of the videos that were produced in a classroom and then posted on a web page for others to view. I can see that being a manageable projcet.

Thing # 9

First let me say that I really enjoyed and appreciated the information in the blog by Cool Cat Teacher. The advice about how to choose the things to include in your blog list
Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? I went to sites that I have read in the past and looked for the RSS button so I could add it to my Google Reader. For some, I had copy and paste the URL.
Which Search tool was the easiest for you? I Like the Technorati site. It was easy to search. I also used the Topix.net site but it was more mainstream media news and entertainment with lots of ads.
Which was more confusing? Syndic8.com was confusing to me.
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? I found some sites dedicated to American History and to educators who teach history.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/historycoalition
http://blog.historians.org/
There are lots of blogs about traveling, and those interest me. I didn't add a lot of new ones tothe reader, because I find that a few good news sites will generally link to others if you are interested in reading simialr articles onthe same subject. Most all news sites have a place for people to post comments. Putting too many in the list will just cause me to tune it all out, I think.

Thing #8

Okay, I've spent several days on this and I have created a newsreader on Google. I have added several blogs and looked through thousands. Then I typed up this scintillating commentary on the whole adventure. Then I clicked off the page without saving and lost the whole thing! I know this will not be as witty as the original, but the gist of it was a recurring theme in my previous entries. There is so much out there-on any subject imaginable! I have a custom Yahoo page that has blogs about the Astros, which is really all I follow regularly. On the Google page I put lots of news sites. I enjoy watching the "fun" videos on all types of subjects. You Tube is insane. People are basically exhibitionists at heart, I guess. I think the political sites will be very interesting to follow in this historic presidential election year.
As for using this with my students, there are applications as far as incorporating writing projects in with their history lessons and networking with other students.
I am a curmudgeon, I guess, because I am not so very interested in ready just anybody's opinion about just any subject. I am more interested in being out there doing things than to read about other people's adventures. I barely have time to read the newspaper that comes to my front door every day. And I am more interested in laying across the bed reading the articles in print than to be hooked to the computer screen. Is that just wrong thinking?

Thing # 7

It amazes me the sheer number of photos on the web! And they are so easy to access, share, and manage. I downloaded Picasa and then uploaded some of my millions of family photos. There are a lot of little ones in our family so I am constantly getting pictures. This is an easy way to organize and share them. Adding a caption right away helps me remember the event. My niece used to maintain a web page with a calendar and photos posted so all the family could access them, but it became difficult to manage. I think blogging would be a much easier medium for her since it is so informal and has so many easy options available. I didn't create anything I am ready to share here.
I can see the Google notebook as a great organizer and time saving device when doing major research projects. Kids love to use Google maps and we have used that tool before to look at the major battlefields of the Civil War.

Thing #6

I've had a lot of fun exploring these sites. There are so many things that can be done so easily. One site I had a lot of fun with is in the Bigbluelab at fd's Flickr Toys. I played with the magazine cover maker and could see a use for it in my history class. Students could use iconic images from various time periods in U.S. History as the backdrop for creating their own magazine covers "of the day." It actually was not as easy as it looked as far as coming up with good, clever tag lines and attention getter phrases that would let the reader know what to expect inside the cover. Students would be able to incorporate knowledge of specific events with overarching concepts and issues. They would also be able to add in information related to events happening in other parts of the world at the same time.

Remember that old TV series, Just Shoot Me, where every new episode focused on a different part of the magazine cover? It was a lead it to the next segment of the show. That's what I felt like when I wa mking my own feeble attempt at a cover. It was fun and challenging at the same time.

Thing#5

Flickr is a lot of fun and I can see how it can be useful to share photos with friends and family as well as make images available to students. I am always interested in seeing photos from around the world to see different landscapes and views, and yet also notice how we are all alike. Seeing photos of cats, or children, or weddings shows that we are a diverse group of people that really all have the same basic interest, needs and desires.

I chose to download a photo of Ruth the Acrobat because it reminded me of the book I just finished, Water for Elephants. I know this was supposed to be about a topic I teach. I'll do better next time!

Thing#4

I emailed my information. Every time I get into this site I discover new thing and go off on some discovery journey or another and look up to see that time has flown by. The obstacle of time that I was worried about has started to happen because I go to log on to do the next Thing, but look at the time and know that I will have difficulty limiting myself to just completing the next activity and then getting back off the computer. I seem to either be here for 3 or 4 hours or avoid the whole thing for fear of being on the rest of the day!

Thing#3

Deciding on my avatar was fun. I couldn't decide between making a complete fantasy or representative of my true self. I settled on somewhere in between. (Actually leaning a lot closer to fantasy as far as age and figure are concerned!) She has a much sweeter smile than I do by this time of year. I am teaching summer school so I can't afford to be that easygoing just yet!

Thing#2

Viewing the 7 1/2 Things video really made me start to think of what my goals are for this class. I originally signed up because I want to earn hours but I am teaching summer school. The classes offered this summer conflict with the hours of summer school. If you had talked to me about blogging just a few days ago I would have said I was really not interested, but now I am daydreaming about the ways to use this with my students. I am sure my goals will continue to change as I learn new "things."