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Monitoring Technology at Your School Site December 4, 2008

This month’s Tech Bucks has focused on some ways you can monitor the use of technology in your schools.  As we continue to acquire more technology it is essential that we have a clear purpose for how it will be used in classrooms and beyond.  Administrators must be willing to have clear expectations and support for teachers and staff to learn how to utilize the tools available to them in the most effective manner.

In addition, we all must have a clear understanding of what we expect our students to be able to do as a 21st Century Learning.  Understanding the standards for our students in grades K-8th are essential to have a clearer picture on what one can expect to see in a learning environment.  I have also been a large proponent that if we expect our students to meet a certain level of understanding at each grade level then it is critical our teachers can do that also as a minimum expecation.

After going through the ISTE Online Class on NETS, please post your comments and thoughts below and feel free to comment on what other administrators or PT staff say.  Thanks to Tonya Thompson from East MS for getting us started!

Hispanic…His – Panic…A Nation’s Panic? September 16, 2008

I was in D.C. last week where I had the privilege of attending the “Summit on Education Reform and Hispanic Education Attainment.”  The purpose of the summit was to increase awareness and share information focusing on the “promising” practices being implemented nationwide and the positive outcomes they are producing for Hispanic students.  The speakers represented a wide-cross section of key stakeholders from across the nation.   Speakers were as broad as the secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings to the superintendent  of schools from Hidaligo Independent School District in Texas.  From policy creator to practitioner the speakers provided illuminating information I believe we can learn from here in APS.

So why is the discussion so important to the White House and our nation?  It is simply a matter of numbers, both from a census standpoint and definitely from an economic standpoint. In 2005-2006 there were 50 million students in our schools.  10 million of them were Hispanic.  In 2023, Hispanics will become the majority minority.  Maybe they will stop being referred to as the minority by then!  However, by 2050, if trends continue, the Hispanic population will reach 39% and they will be the largest low income and limited English proficient group in the U.S.  Now, that is a reason to panic and to wonder if we are doing everything we can today to stop that future trend.

A major focus of discussion in the morning was centered on dropout rates.  One of the goals of the White House is to determine a consistent formula for all states to measure their dropout numbers as each state has a different way of reporting this information.  The rates can vary depending on how a state puts the data together.  When cohort groups are followed, the dropout rate is higher when compared to looking at calculations.  When looking at cohort data the rate for Hispanic dropouts is as high as 40% in comparison to other calculations which had it as low as 22%.  40% is much more accurate.

If dropout rates continue to be this high the impact on the U.S. economy is dire.  However, Charles Hiteshew, from America’s Promise Alliance put out some data that I believe is a critical reason to stop this trend.  Take a look at this information:

• 2/3rds of new jobs will require some post secondary education.
• 2 years of post secondary education will be required for a middle class lifestyle
• A one percent increase in graduation rates would yield 1.8 billion dollars in saved social expenses (welfare, health, criminal justice)
• If Hispanic graduation rates increased to be the same as whites by 2020 personal income levels would be 310 billion dollars

If those are not reasons to examine our practices I am not sure what it will take to make us ensure we are doing everything possible to make a difference for all of our students who are not making it through our institutions of learning.

What stood out for me in this summit were the number of successful programs that are making a difference for Hispanic students and families.  Families and parental education were key aspects of every successful program.  In fact, Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, said it was the “bedrock” of NCLB.  The most inspiring speaker of the day goes to Eduardo Cancino, Superintendent of Hidalgo Independent Schools in Texas.  I will post his power point once it is on the web as I believe we can learn a lot from what his high schools are doing in the area of STEM Education.  I will close this blog by highlighting some key points made my Eduardo and what his district is doing to stop the Panic and to make a difference for Hispanic students:

• No Child Left Behind should really be called, “Every Child Prepared for College and Beyond”
• Every district employee is part of the team
• In a three day orientation and training program, ALL new teachers spend part of one day touring the district to fully understand where students live and to gain background on the lives of students
• Every student in their high school will take college courses during their course of studies.  Some students get bussed to some of the four year institutions for part of their education and they will receive college credit.
• Incoming 9^th grade students take assessments that measure where they are to determine what course of studies they need to enroll it to either catch up or to begin their college course work.  They look at every student as being individual and unique and the school’s role is to meet them where they are in their learning.
• Counselors are organized by career pathways so that they fully understand what is required for a specific career and the appropriate course of study
• Students can earn any type of post secondary degree as they realize that 4 year college degrees are not for everyone
• Parents are involved and engaged from the very beginning of school.  They offer classes for parents in ESL, GED, and college preparation.  Some parents have actually started attending college with their students.

Other inspiring programs that can be found via the web include:

• El Valor.  A pre-kinder program that is working to meet the education needs of ELLs and children with disabilities in Chicago.  They use a dual language approach to build upon the strength that students bring recognizing that all learning from the time of birth to the age they enter school is based on language.
• Parent Institute for Quality Education.  This is a national program that trains and engages parents to be active partners in their children’s education.
• Department of Education Web sites:
  • www.yesican.gov – General website for NCLB information
  • www.mymoney.gov – Curriculum on financial literacy
  • www.edu.gov/mathpanel - Key findings from research on best practices in math

Technology Training at the School Level September 9, 2008

I recently came across a great site from Mesquite, Texas.  There is a dynamic video that states the expectations that students have for their own learning.  I will add the link at the end of this blog.  What really stood out for me was the training requirements they have for their beginning teachers.  As part of their educator certification process beginner teachers must have a certain level of proficiency with technology.  Mesquite has a very elaborate training plan for their teachers that focuses on five areas:

• Basic Technology Literacy
• Information Acquisition
• Productivity
• Communication
• Integration

I won’t go through each one and rather encourage you to visit their site to see what you learn.  I do see this as a powerful learning model as I have always believed that if expect students to be global communicators, then their teachers need to be using email and blogs to communicate across the world.  Having a common expectation for all learners could be extremely valuable.I also have seen some of our schools create some wonderful learning opportunities for their teachers so I want to highlight some of the efforts I have noticed in our schools:

• North Middle School:  One of their “big” pushes this year is teachers use of technology within their instruction.  Leadership at North has allocated mandatory training for all teachers and rather than do whole group training, they do it during teachers common time to create smaller learning groups.  In addition, they have created other opportunities for technology training and they are seeking the support from the Instructional Technology coaches and trainers assigned to their school.  Recently, Kurtis Quig, one of the assistant principals sent this request to our team, “I have some requests from North Middle School, and I was wondering if they would fit into your schedule. We have 4 Social Studies teachers at NMS that are truly wanting to take on TECHNOLOGY as their professional development for this school year. “  This is a great example of a school that is making plans for their teachers to be technology literate.
• Kenton Elementary School:  Recently, Principal Linda Harvey sent me an email telling me her instructional technology teacher was setting up a training for training on the use of Activ Studio.  They had teachers sign up for the class that don’t even have the interactive white boards because they want to learn!!  Another great example of a site creating additional opportunities for their teachers to learn.
• Arkansas Elementary:  New Principal Alejandra (Maria) Morales is working with our staff to create morning technology training classes for her staff.  What I loved about Arkansas’ plan is they plan on upgrading to Office 2007 as a building and they are going to learn together to ensure a smooth transition.  In addition, all of the classes they offer at Arkansas will be available to other teachers in their feeder areas.  That is trust and teamwork!
• Boston Elementary School: In preparation for their new school and all of the new technology Boston started “Tech Tuesday’s” last year.  These were before school classes and they were optional.  The Instructional Technology Teacher, Kim Duran, leads these classes with support from our staff.  This year, when Boston opened, teachers were prepared to use the technology.  This training has continued this year and “Tech Tuesdays” continue to be the way teachers develop their skills and ideas for successful integration.  Principal Shawna Lyons has a strong vision for what is possible there and her expectations are that every teacher will use this technology throughout their day. 
• Hinkley High School:  Hinkley was a big recipient of a grant from the Morgridge Foundation.  20 classrooms have been outfitted with the latest interactive white boards from Promethean.  An additional 6 classrooms that had these tools also received sound systems and the new Activ Expressions.  Hinkley has made a big committment to training.  All of these teachers are currently involved in an online class led by our staff.  Very soon our staff will be working with the teachers during their planning time once a week.  Administration at Hinkley has made this a priority so the time is available.  What is powerful about this model is that all of the teachers are in small learning communities so they can interact, collaborate and learn together about all of the tech skills and the integration skills necessary.  In addition, the World Language teachers are doing additional iPod training during thier planning time so again, integrating the training into a teacher’s day is a powerful model!

So a few examples of some great ways to build capacity with our teachers.  All of the sites have some common themes:

• Committment from School Leadership
• Finding the time for the training to happen
• Planning with our staff to maximize training
• Utilizing key site staff or our staff for training support
• An expectation to integrate technology into instruction

Visit Mequite site and I would love to hear what your school is doing or anything you notice and learn from Mesquite.Mesquite Web Site

Podcasting - On a PC August 26, 2008

First off I have to say thanks to Randy and Jay.  I had to hold them captive to help me go through all of the steps to create a podcast on a PC.  I have to start this by saying creating a podcast on a PC is doable, however, it takes more steps and there is not the seamless integration like the macs have.  I am disappointed the most by not being able to easily add a jingle or audio file.  Again, it is not that it is not doable, it just takes a few more steps. 

Before I get into the steps the first thing I had to do was to download Audacity.  Audacity is a free open source software for recording and editing sounds.  This was a simple download and easy to complete.  There are tutorials on Atomic Learning that will show you how to use this program.

Ok, here are the steps it took for me to complete this podcast and I have posted the podcast at the end of this blog.

1. I recorded my voice on an iPod with a Belkin voice recorder.
2. I synced my iPod to my DellLaptop and the voice memo was transferred immediately.
3. I opened Audacity and imported an audio file.  The file was in my iTunes library as a wav. file.  It was listed under Unknown Album and Unknown Artist.  I am known now!
4. I wanted to add a jingle so I had to convert a song from a m4a format to a mp3 format
5. I then imported another audio track and brought it this audio file.
6. I did some basic editing in Audacity and arranged the audio file and faded the jingle.
7. I added a new audio track and recorded my voice directly into Audacity.
8. I saved the file as a Audacity file first to edit it later if necessary.
9. I saved the Audacity file as a mp3 file format and dropped it on my desktop.
10. I uploaded it this post.
11. That’s it….check it out and let me know if you have any tips!  We are already starting to search the web to find some sources for jingles so let me know what you use to create audio files.

ivans-pc-podcast.mp3

Here is a video showing our hard work using the new Mino Flip Video Camera.

Randy and Jay’s Big Day with the Boss

Podcasting - On a Mac and then PC August 20, 2008

So one of the challenges we have been facing is to purchase Apple computers to create podcasts, video work, and other key areas.  Three high school music programs utilize Apple computers to create content for their musical performances.  One of our high schools just made a big switch over to mac laptops and key reasons were the seamless integration of the software and the belief that students will be able to focus on creativity and productivity with the macs.Our district standard are Dell computers and we have over 11,000 of them in our district.  They are a key part of our solution so we have to ensure that we are able to do everything we know the macs can do on a PC.  I am currently getting ready to support a classroom teacher and a group of students.  One of our goals is to create student podcasts of their writing or book talks.  We have one mac in the classroom and 35 Dell laptops.  We need to find a solution so students can use the PCs for the work.  I know it is doable, I just have not done it myself so I am going to learn.Below you will find a link to a simple, simple podcast I created on a mac.  It took me less than 5 minutes to create it, add a jingle, and another voice introduction.  I spent more time looking at the jingles in Garage Band than I actually did editing the podcast.  The steps I took were:

1. I recorded my voice on an iPod with a Belkin voice recorder.
2. I synced my iPod to my Mac Laptop and the voice memo was transferred immediately.
3. I dragged the new voice memo sound file to Garage Band and dropped it in a male voice track.
4. I added a jingle by selecting from a library of music.
5. I copied the first male voice track, deleted the file attached, and re-recorded an intro to this podcast.
6. I saved the file as a podcast and exported it to iTunes.
7. Now, I am not sure if this was the “right” step to do but I needed to change the file format from the iTunes “mp4″ format to a “wav” file so I can load it on Word Press and play on a pc. I used a free program called “Switch” to do this conversion.
8. That’s it….check it out and let me know if you have any tips!  Next, the PC version!

Managing Complex Change… July 17, 2008

I have had some great conversations with some other educators here at the Learning Communities Conference.  One of they threads that I have noticed is the success or failure of different projects.  In preparing for a presenation next week at CASE a colleague of mine, Mike Porter, shared with me a change management matrix.  It is from 1987 and when I saw it I realized that it applies to so many things in life and it can be used for any project or implementation of a new concept or idea.  I have shared this with others and really believe it is a good model to MANAGE CHANGE!  It starts with creating a vision and then having a plan in place to ensure what you want to create is accomplished.

Summer Learning…. July 14, 2008

I am out in Boston right now and one of my goals for this week is keep track of my learning.  I am attending the November Learning Conference.  Some of our staff attended last year and learned a lot.  If you are reading this now it is because I sent an email to you so you can track my thoughts for the week if you choose.  I have struggled with writing in blogs because I just don’t do it enough.  The other part is that I often read other people’s blogs and think do I really have something to share or to even say.  Of course, I know that is just an excuse so here we go! 

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