Aoi’s Bookroom

Mrs. Peterson’s VoiceThread

Mrs. Badilla’s VoiceThread

Mr. Grosland’s VoiceThread

Mrs. Haehnel’s VoiceThread

Mrs. Barber’s VoiceThread

Overall the project was a good one. Unfortunately, we did not have time to do a rubric. There are many aspects that could be considered in a rubric and I would definitely write one for any future project.

What could have been better?

Let’s just get this out of the way. I made a frustration list that included the following:

VoiceThread Issues

At first I didn’t sign up as an educator but I didn’t realize the mistake until I was ready to start making each thread. The limit is only 3 free threads but educators are allowed more. Fortunately, my account was quickly updated. I still need to explore the options on VoiceThread. At first I didn’t get the publishing conditions right. As it is I did not get separate accounts, or identities (I’m still not sure what the difference is) so all comments had to be made through my account. This meant that I had to log in on the computers that would be used by students. I spent time before every class getting this set up. I think all of the difficulties I encountered can be overcome if I can just have enough time to work more with the site.

Hardware

The sound on the 8 computers that we used was too low so students could only hear themselves if they used headphones. It was an extra step for me to go through when setting up the computers. The very first time some of the mics were not pushed into the socket all the way so some students had to record a second time.

I had asked classroom teachers to supply the student pictures. I thought this would give the teachers a chance to practice using the new bean cameras we had bought for all the teachers. Unfortunately, this did not happen from all teachers so at the last minute I was taking pictures and uploading them. The quality of some of the photos is compromised because of the rush.

Classroom dynamics

There were a couple days when another class needed to use the computers and I ended up going through the set up process twice. When students were actually recording we had two classrooms using the library, about 50 students. Sometimes it worked beautifully. Other times it was very loud. Some students who were writing were distracted and didn’t finish with enough time to record.

What worked?

There were times when all 50 students were on task and humming. It was a wonderful site to see. I could not have done it without the help of the community cultures teacher. One of the fourth grade teachers gave up one of her prep times to stay when the community cultures teacher had a sub. This was one of the more chaotic times but I am deeply appreciative of the help I had.

The mics worked very well, even in a very loud room. I plan on getting one for every computer because we could have had many more recording at the same time, without a loss in the sound quality.

Computers can be a powerful motivator. Students who had been puttering around suddenly got to work when they realized that they would not be using the computer until the paperwork was done. I’ve learned that preparation is critical for quality online presentations. Students who are not ready on paper are not ready to be on the computers.

The Rewards

One of the special education teachers stopped to tell me how good she thought the project was. Some of her students came back from the library all excited about their recordings so the teacher took time during class to see what the students had done. This gave the teacher a chance to see some of the work her students had been doing. It gave the students a chance to proudly show off. It also might give the teacher an idea for a way to integrate technology into one of her future projects.

I enjoyed watching students who are often very quiet in class suddenly become confident speakers in front of the computer. It gave ESL students a chance to speak in a way that seemed almost private and yet becomes a very public performance. It will be interesting to see if it increases their comfort level when speaking in class.

The project gave us a chance to teach students a number of different skills. Students read books, used atlases, recorded bibliographic information, practiced retelling a story, and gave a public presentation. It was a good example of project based learning and the integration of technology into the project.

I have to admit that I was really nervous about doing the VoiceThread project with my students. I don’t record video or audio for personal use and although I know how to use a camera, I don’t even take that many photographs. I’m a librarian at heart, not a sound engineer or photographer. So this project felt a little like diving into the deep end of the pool for the first time.

My work laptop has a built in mic. I didn’t know that until I did this project but now I know that I can use that computer for other kinds of recording apps such as podcasting or screencasting. Because of this project, my tech support person discovered that the computers that my students use do not have built in mics. She very helpfully found some small, inexpensive mics that we could purchase. Our computers are beautifully arranged but very close together in the library.

Library computer lab

Would many students all talking at once be a problem? I decided to buy eight of the Olympus ME-52 Noise Cancellation Microphones. I left one computer in-between hoping that noise would not be a problem in the recordings.

These mics are tiny. They look enormous in the picture but they’re actually very small. I decided that I had to put them away after every use so that none would be stolen. However, they worked beautifully. The very first time we used them the noise in the library was really over the top. There were two classes using the space at the same time and I was sure that the recording quality would be compromised. We learned that students had to hold the mics very close to there mouth (H1N1 concerns) but the mic did not pick up the sounds around the speaker. The downside was that students who moved the mic away from their mouth, even just a few inches, faded out. It was easy to instruct students to hold the mic close and still while recording. Now I know that I can have a mic at every computer and will be buying enough so that 25 students could be recording all at the same time. If I had known this at the start, the folktale VoiceThread project would have been very much easier.

Here’s the real point of this post. It’s VERY difficult for classroom teachers to do activities like this. How much simpler would it have been to have the students retell their folktales to a classmate, or even in front of the whole class? Sure it would have taken time but it took two weeks to record students anyway and even then not everyone recorded. Students would still have had good practice at analyzing, retelling, and public speaking. Using VoiceThread added a huge complex step to the assignment that challenged me to my limit. I’m relatively comfortable with technology and I found it difficult. How can we expect teachers who are afraid of technology to attempt this sort of thing? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret doing this project, but there needs to be a lot more support for teachers who are trying to do something new.

Now that I’m done with the project and looking back on it I would really have appreciated some help. Every school, or at least every district, needs a technology coach. This person should know about the different online possibilities. They should know what sort of hardware is needed and how to work it. They should know how to set up accounts on various sites so that using those sites would be as easy as possible for the teacher. I’m not saying they should do the job of setting up the accounts but they can help the teacher see what needs to be done and how to do it. They can help teachers decide what sort of technology works well with the project. What’s the objective of the lesson and how can we best showcase student work? Will students be using cameras, mics, video equipment? How do we teach them how to do that? A coach could help teachers understand how much time is required to teach the process and even help them write lesson plans to accomodate the technology that will be applied.

I come back to this issue time and again because “we want what’s best for our students.” It’s a huge mistake to expect teachers to just know how to do all this stuff. Teachers who are afraid will not go there and the students suffer for it. Cash strapped districts may not want to go this route but something has to be done if we expect our students to be ready for the real world.

For the first time since I became a media specialist, I am a prep provider, not for all grades, just for 4th and 5th grades. This quarter I was fortunate to be able to collaborate with the Community Cultures prep teacher who was using folktales to teach 4th and 5th grade students a variety of skills. The project we put together required students to complete the following:

• Check out a folktale book and read it
• Find out what country, continent, and hemispheres the story came from
• Tell about the main character and setting
• Record bibliographic information
• Retell the story

This project tied into some of the regular classroom activities for 5th graders who were also studying characterization. Unfortunately we were only able to meet with one of the 4th grade teachers to discuss connections.

There are many connections to media literacy skills. We started out the quarter looking at the ten basic Dewey Decimal categories. Students found the Dewey number, 398.2, and browsed the shelves for a story they liked. They used the book itself to find the country of origin then used an atlas to find the continent and hemispheres. I had noticed the year before that students did not know how to find and record bibliographic data so this was good practice for them.

The Community Cultures teacher I worked with wanted to have some sort of showcase at the end of every quarter. We decided that VoiceThread would be a good way to showcase students retelling their folktales. This would expose students to a technological process, which is one of my goals to help my students be better prepared for any activities that the classroom teachers would plan.

The last week of the quarter starts tomorrow and students are still finishing up the project. My next post will take a look at what worked and what didn’t.

Even though I love it, I haven’t been on Twitter  much lately. There’s only so much multitasking I can do and all the things I’m trying to keep track of are getting the best of me. Maybe I’ve just been distracted by all the other things going on in my life right now.

So, I was amazed to get messages from twitter friends telling me that I was sending out weird spam messages. When I checked I was embarrassed to find that this was in fact the case. I wasn’t sure what to do at first but apparently changing the password works. I changed it twice and thought all was good. Then I got an email from those nice twitter folks warning me that I should change my password. I didn’t remember when I last changed it so now I wasn’t sure whether I still needed to change it or if I was ok.

I logged on successfully, looked at the Direct Messages I had sent and thought that now my account was probably ok. Unfortunately, I opened TweetDeck. Since it still thought I was using the old password I was now locked out of my account. Finally this morning I was able to log into twitter again but when I tried to log out, change the password on Tweetdeck and log in again it didn’t work. At least this time I could get back into my twitter account through the website.

Why am I letting my Twitter frustrations get to me? Deleting the account and starting over was tempting but I didn’t want to lose all the contacts I was following. I haven’t even been using it much in the last few months. Certainly part of the reason is just the hassle and time it has taken. I’m also worried now that if I try to use the twitter app here on Edublogs I’ll run into the same issues and get locked out again. What about my facebook account? Is there some link there I need to change? What’s worse is the concern about that particular password. Is it lost to me now? Should I rethink any other place where I might have used that password?

Why do people do these weird things? It wasn’t for money. The links posted through my account just went back to a twitter page. The only reasons I can think of are to annoy, to show that it can be done, maybe to scare someone. Obviously some people have way too much time on their hands.

I had planned on posting this earlier but have been unable to contact the presenter for permission or links to other work so I opted to summarize, leaving out specifics such as timings and a rubric that was presented. If I hear from Dr. Light I will pass on this information in a later post.

Dr. Gina Light presented a session at the recent MEMO conference entitled Keyboarding in Elementary Schools.  She has had considerable experience as a media specialist and has taught keyboarding.  However, she points out that according to Minnesota law keyboarding should be taught by a “Certified K-8 Business Teacher, certified classroom teacher for his/her own class, or a teacher with computer application endorsement.” I didn’t see media specialist anywhere in that list.  A district can get a variance for one year only.  According to Light, about 33 Minnesota districts have variances. Even though media specialists are not on the qualified list of instructors many of us to teach keyboarding. How many schools are ignoring this law?  Probably most of them.

Students need to be able to keyboard every day for about a quarter, specific instruction starting in 3rd or 4th grade.  Then they can practice the rest of the year using various applications. Teaching keyboarding means that something else has to not be taught.  What should a classroom teacher give up?  This is a decision an administrator has to make but in these days when more and more schools find themselves struggling with AYP the decision to teach keyboarding is easily sidelined.  Even if districts use free online apps, the real cost is time.

I know there’s some debate about the importance of keyboarding but I found Light’s reasons for students to learn keyboarding to be compelling. She points out that students show improvements in behavior, reading/writing skills, overall technology skills, and confidence.  They’re more willing to write because they get to do it on the computer, show more pride in their work, and ultimately enjoy school more. Even if handheld devices become more prevalent in education, some level of keyboarding is surely in order.

Photo credits: <div xmlns:cc=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#” about=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/1629254/”><a rel=”cc:attributionURL” href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/”>http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/</a> / <a rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>CC BY 2.0</a></div>

Keyboarding post

I wanted to assure everyone that I am in fact working on a post about keyboarding at the elementary level.  However, I am waiting for a response from the original MEMO presenter in order to properly credit her work.  Keyboarding is difficult to fit into the elementary schedule so I wanted to see how others were doing it.  That information will be posted as soon as possible.

Short break

In Minnesota at this time of the year students have a couple days off so teachers can attend the teacher’s union conference. I don’t go. Since I went to the MEMO conference at the beginning of October, I don’t feel the need to go to another one so soon.  I’m busy trying to figure out how to apply the things I already learned.

Website woes

My website, Harambee Elementary School Media Center, is in desperate need of revamping.  I’m really embarrassed to even link to it but this blog is about how I’m experiencing and learning about technology. I enjoyed working on my website and can get caught up in it but now I’m wondering if that’s where I should spend my time.  I do use my site when teaching but finding the time to work on it is challenging. TeacherWeb is NOT a free service.  When I first joined the cost was a mere $25 a year which I paid out of my own pocket. The price has gone up to $39 a year. I guess that’s still pretty reasonable but I know there are free options out there. Free Technology for Teachers, has an excellent post entitled 8 Ways to Build Websites. I highly recommend this blog to any educator interested in exploring education related online options.

Technology plans for the quarter

The quarter is half over and I’m feeling like I haven’t done much with my students. The new interactive whiteboard has been fun and challenging. Students are enjoying it but they haven’t been on the computers yet. I’m collaborating with the Community Cultures teacher and the 4th and 5th grade teachers. I’m planning on using Voicethread for their folktale presentations and just started figuring out how I would do that. I’m really excited about it so look for more information after we start using it.

Meetings

Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent more time in meetings than actual teaching. However, these meetings have been worthwhile. I met with my principal recently. We decided that we should try to meet once a quarter. That gives me a chance to update her on what we’re doing in the library, both from the instructional end of things and the administrative end. Since my clerical support has been cut we are trying to work together to find solutions.

Professional development

Yesterday was a PD day in our district. The first half of the day was spent exploring ways to differentiate. I thought it was time well-spent and hope to incorporate some of the things I learned into my lesson plans. We spent the second half of the day doing some sort of technology training. Those of us who already have interactive whiteboards shared some of the things that we are doing with them. It was really very enlightening. We have some great teachers. Those teachers who did not yet have a new board went to a basic presentation on the boards. I heard that they are very interested and want to use the boards themselves. Hopefully we can share until next year when more will be installed. These teachers also learned how to use the new cameras they received while those with whiteboards learned about more advanced options for the boards.

The Challenge

When I look back over all the things listed here I realize that there are some exciting things happening in my school. In fact, I didn’t even list everything! It’s fun, exciting and very challenging. I need to remember this when I get discouraged. I’ve changed a lot and so has my school. Now we need to see if the abilities of our students reflect those changes in a positive way.

Keynote — Anita Beaman and Amy Oberts: Reading 2.0

These two dynamic speakers arrived with a fun presentation that showed how librarians could mix technology and reading in very creative ways. These ides can be found on their Reading 2.0 wiki.  Here are just a few examples:

• Look for interactive sites that are associated with books.  The example they used was the Elephant and Piggy dance game from Mo Willems’ site.
• Create screen savers that represent books that students could read.  Instructions for how to do this appear here on the wiki.
• Put a label in the back of nonfiction books with links to more information.
• Wordle can be a new way to do a book report.
• Movie-making isnot as hard as it looks.
• Bookmark author sites on school library delicious account.

Session 5 — Change from the Radical Center — Presented by Doug Johnson

Doug opined that we can’t usually get much done when we’re polarized.  How do we bridge the gap between two extremes?  He discussed 10 ways to do this.  I’m hoping that his presentation will be uploaded to the ning.  My mind is like a sieve these days.

Session 6 — Keyboarding Issues in the Elementary — Presented by Gina Light

This was a very informative session describing what was required for keyboarding instruction, at what age, who should be instructing, etc.  I’ll be meeting with my principal in about a week and will give this information to her.

Overall Conference Impressions

I enjoyed the conference and, as expected, came away with good ideas that I can use back at school. In general it was a little depressing. The profession in Minnesota appears to have been decimated by recent budget cuts so the number attending was lower than in previous years. It probably didn’t help that it rained the entire time.  Fortunately we were able to get around through the skyway. The most uplifting part for me was seeing friends from grad school and other colleagues I’ve gotten to know. I also made a new friend in the Kahler Grand Hotel elevator. Can’t ask for much more than that.

I’m not really a huge conference goer.  I should go to more because for there’s seldom much in the way of professional development at inservice days.  I try to get to the MEMO (Minnesota Educational Media Organization) conference that’s offered in the beginning of October every year.  I always take something back that I can use in the classroom and I always come away with something to think about.  It was sad to see that the number of attendees seemed to be lower that previous years.  Minnesota budgets have been hard on media specialists.

Keynote

The keynote speaker was Dr. Scott McLeod (Dangerously Irrelevant) who warned us that he might say things that we didn’t want to hear.  He challenged us to think about 12 questions we should be asking ourselves.

1. Do I really understand the economic climate?
2. How do I best support student acquisition of 21st century skills?
3. Do I really understand how students are using social media?
4. What did I do this month to support open access initiatives?
5. What does it mean to be a “book” these days?
6. What does it mean to be a “library” these days?
7. Am I modeling for students and staff these new literacies?
8. Am I teaching appropriate use or empowered use?
9. What have I done this week to help my leaders?
10. Do I truly “get it?”
11. What percentage of my job requires me?
12. Why am I here?

Not only are the questions thought provoking but we were given time to talk to our neighbors about how we felt.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a keynote that required audience participation.

Session 1 — Thinkfinity Curriculum Resources Overview — Presented by Cara Hagen

I’ve looked briefly at Thinkfinity.org before but thought I needed more information.  I think now that I need to look at it some more.  It has thousands of lesson plans, interactive resources and web links.  But I wonder… are the teachers at my school so locked into curriculum that they can’t use resources like this?

Session 2 — Graphic Novels in the Library and Classroom — Presented by Heidi Hammond

Having taken a children’s lit class from Heidi, I knew that this session would be interesting.  I liked the brief history of comics and graphic novels that she presented and her research.  This is an area I’m quite interested in expanding in my elementary level library.  I’ll be looking for her handouts on the MEMO ning.

Session 3 — Fast & Fun: Lightning Presentations on Library 2.0 Tools & Topics — Presented by Ann Walker Smalley

I haven’t really done much with Image generators because I’m not real artsy but my students might like to do more with this sort of application so I shouldn’t ignore it.  Why have I been ignoring Firefox Add-ons??  Easy Youtube Video downloader looks like it would be really useful.  PLN’s are vitally important.  One of my frustrations when I first started looking at blogs was how to find blogs that would meet my needs.  Now there’s 100 Best Blogs for School Librarians.

Session 4 — Web 2.0: Voice Thread, Screencast-o-matic, Moodle — Presented by Mary Litwinczuk

I haven’t done much with Moodle but I think there are people who really like it.  I’ll definitely go back to Mary’s Moodle course if I have questions about Voice Thread or screencasting.  I’m planning on using Voice Thread for 4th and 5th grade presentations this quarter but wasn’t sure just how to do it.  Now I think I see that it would work.  Very exciting!

Whenever my media assistant had a sub I waited nervously to see how much technology skills they possessed.  It always took time out of my schedule to train them on the basics, some taking notes.  One person had to refer to her notes every time she checked a book in or out.  One of my own guest teachers was appalled by the mess of books the students had after the activity I described in my last post (The Right Technology).  She made them put back all the books they had taken off the shelves.  Needless to say, I then had no assessment data for that class, and who knows whether the books were put back in the right place?

My plans this week call for the use of an interactive whiteboard Dewey decimal lesson I found online at Promethean Planet.  After giving the pretest at the beginning of the year, I learned that students were confused about the basic Dewey categories.  Some were even confused about the difference between Dewey numbers and fiction call numbers.  The Flipchart I found looks like it has a lot of information and I think it will engage the students so that they’ll remember it.

How much technology do I use when I know I’m going to have a substitute?  On Friday this week, and next week I’ll be gone.  Do I still use the Flipchart lesson or do I assume the guest teacher has no experience with interactive whiteboards?  Do I have to leave my laptop at school, hooked up and ready to go or can I use a different computer?  Should I describe in minute detail how to use the interactive whiteboard?  How much assistance can the students provide?  I wonder how others handle these difficulties.  The technological abilities of the sub can make or break such lessons.

There’s no point in abandoning old lessons for new technology if the old ones work.  Today my fifth grade class did one of their favorite activities.  The most advanced technology they used was a post-it note.

I use 3×5 cards with call numbers on them.  I have everybody (picture book) cards, fiction cards, and nonfiction cards.  Sometimes I mix them together.  Today I decided to just do fiction since the everybody picture books are being moved and don’t have new labels yet.  Each student gets a card and finds a book with a matching call number.  They bring the book and card up to a large conference table, write their name on a post-it note and stick it to the card.  After putting the card in the book, they get another card from me.  They have to do this without talking.  I’m the only person they can ask for help.

This is an important assessment for me.  I check the books and cards to make sure they match and collect all the post-it notes for each student.  If they don’t match I make a note of it.  For the students, it becomes something of a competition and they strive to find more books than anyone else.  I can quickly tell who is having trouble finding books on the shelves.  Basically it’s a test but they think it’s fun.

Today I told the students that we were going to be doing an activity that I knew they liked.  When I held up the cards they cheered!