Education, Stading Style

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

I’m 40 hours from attending the International Society for Technology in Education’s annual conference in San Antonio.  I’m attending courtesy of the school district’s professional development grant and the loving support of my family as I couldn’t attend with kids in tow. 

As much as I love technology, I am going to be completely outclassed.  I will be challenged and my brain is going to hurt.  I know this because I’ve attended the Alaska version of this conference and it was amazing. This is a video I made reflecting on that conference:

http://animoto.com/play/XdDYfQyH1XNQwzmsnIc4Vg

ISTE is going to be ASTE on steroids, I’m sure.

I.AM.SO.EXCITED.

A student just told me, you probably shouldn’t have hooked the Apple TV up. He and another student are dueling over the AirPlay feed. It is humorous to watch, and also quite necessary. Friday they will use the iPads and Haiku Deck for a presentation related to Around the World in 80 Days. It’s the first iPad presentation in our school and even if it isn’t is the most polished, it has been a good process to get to that point.

Many teachers seem to fear technology for this very reason; the students will just mess around and not work. Well, of course they will mess around but at some point, and it doesn’t take very long, they shift to using the technology for learning. If the tech stays locked away and comes out only occasion then it might as well stay locked away. Teachers need to allow for ‘play time’ as time well spent upfront when using new technology in the classroom.

After school my daughter asks, “Can I use your iPad?”

I’ve joined the ranks of iPad owners. Maybe it is a full circle thing…my college computer was a Mac Classic II. Since then it had been PCs (lots of them, so it seems) until an iPod nano for my birthday two years ago.

Something was missing, though, from my educational repertoire. I have a school district laptop as my teacher computer so that isn’t anything to scoff about (thank you, KPBSD) but with me getting more into Twitter and technology for students, and now the Daily 5, the laptop wasn’t doing everything I wanted it to.

Today I entered grades while walking around the room, took digital notes during reading conferences and and was relatively sneaky about pulling up the projected website in class to see what else it was about so I would better understand the assignment my co-teacher planned for the class.

I love technology. Teaching with a tablet is going to be fun.

Source:LiveScience

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I can see some of my students really latching onto these infographics as ways to report learning. I need to look into how to make them with the time and resources we have available.

I promised the 3rd and 4th graders an online video to display recent work regarding spelling rules.  What I would love is for them to tell me, “Mrs, Stading!  We want to do an online video for _____________!” but I know they aren’t there yet. However, if you are ever going to move forward, you have to start somewhere.

Animoto might be that place for them.  I know it is my starting place.

What I like about Animoto is that it does all the fancy stuff for you…you just add words, photos and videos.  It is also super easy to revise.  For example, the first version of the video doesn’t showcase the student work very well…but the animation is lovely.   So I tried a different version and now it is about the students, and not about Animoto.

I had entirely too much fun on Twitter today.  Friday night I noticed a couple of posts with #pencilchat tacked on (though it looked to start earlier than that).  I’m used to #edchat or #pick-an-elementary-grade-chat, but #pencilchat was new.  I however was on my way to work on my ‘novel’ so I didn’t pursue it.

When I popped back on Twitter this morning, I found quite a few #pencilchats in my feed.  This time I followed it, and kept checking back through the day.  Sarcasm (frustration) was the main type of tweet as people substituted ‘pencil’ for ‘computer’ or ‘technology’ or similar.

I am fortunate to work in a district that embraces the pencil as best we can.  We aren’t a rich district, but we’ve put money into pencils and we have great pencil support.  Every classroom at my school has pencils in it if the teacher wants pencils in it, and if they don’t, there are four dozen portable pencils for the students to use.  It is a good set up and my colleagues and I challenge each other to use pencils for more than just fill-in-the-blanks.

Read more about #pencilchat in this article: “Why #Pencilchat May Be the Most Clever Education Allegory Ever.”