In the last post, I talked about how my new 7th graders were telling me they lacked self confidence. My orginal plan was to share a free website my wife had shared with me, however, I got off track.   She attended the conference at Bowling Green a few weeks back and while Mike and I were presenting she traveled to a few sessions.  One session showed her the website Motivator.  It is a grea free site and I believe a good way to personalize motivational comments for your students.   I plan to use this a few times a week, to add quotes and motivational comments with images of my student.  I hope by the end of the year to have a room full of these images and quotes.    Give it a try and let me know what you think about this free software.  In a few weeks, I plan to address the question: How do we motivate middle school students in a more thoughtful way.   Cheers, Garth

School started this week.  Just like the last 16 years, I could not sleep for the first two nights.  Tired and that funny feeling in my stomach, I made it to work almost an hour early.  The room was set up and the lesson plan ready for day one.  The students were smiling and bouncing from room to room.  At 12, they still are excited to start a new year.  They seemed open and ready to engage in learning.  By the third day (after a pretty good sleep), I interviewed each student on video into my computer to save for later use.  I asked them three questions:  1.  What are two goals you have for this year?   2.  What is one long term goal you have for life?  3.  What are two things I should know about you?

First, I was shocked how many came into the hall with sweat dripping from their foreheads because they were scared of being on film.  I encouraged each student and gave them some positive feedback.  My goal was to save these files until the end of the year for them to view and comment on.  BUT, of course the new cloud server did not really save them, all were lost.  Oh well. 

What I found most interesting were the comments:  yes, some talked of all A's, Honor Roll, and wealth and fame, but most talked about one word:  confidence. 

I was stumped on this one.  I did not expect these students to say "I lack confidence in my ability."  I don't know why this hit me so hard, but it has forced me to think about  how to move forward.  I know kids gain confidence from doing a task well, taking pride in it.  So, I have to find ways to provide chances for my students to gain confidence from doing great things with our content.  I have a feeling this is going to be a harder task than I thought.

I wonder what else they would tell us about learning, if we really listened?      

Dublin, Ohio:
tonight we spoke with Scott Sibberson, technology specialist at Dublin Jerome High School.  Scott's bio is below the podcast.  Garth and Scott met via Twitter and Garth was interested in Scott's Tweets and what was going on at Jerome High.  Scott talked about how listening to Alan November's BLC 10 conference motivated him to find new ways to use technology to create PLNs (Personal Learning Networks).  Scott discussed the plans for rolling out Twitter in his building.  We will talk with Scott in a few months to see how it is going as well as talking about some of the technology projects teachers in his building are doing.

Scott Sibberson
Technology Specialist
Dublin Jerome High School
Dublin, Ohio

sibberson_scott@dublinschools.net  (work)
ssibberson@mac.com (personal)
twitter.com/ssibberson
http://scottsibberson.blogspot.com

As technology specialist at Jerome High School, I work with teachers and students to implement technology in classrooms.  My
responsibilities include basic troubleshooting, training, and implementation of new programs.  It is my hope to make technology a
seamless part of the education process.

Bowling Green, Ohio:  August 11, 2010.  Mike and I presented "The Giant Eagle Standard".  During this presentation we discussed the student created online textbook, skype collaboration, and Google Docs collaboration between two school about 35 miles apart.  The link to the wiki is here.  Full Presentation is below.

Garth, Steph and I are currently listening to Alan November speak at a technology conference at Bowling Green State University.  He started with a question: "what is the most important skill we should be teaching students?".  Alan then said that the president of HSBC, West Point University and a college professor all said that it should be EMPATHY.  Interesting talk Mr. November is giving about all the ways we, as teachers, should be using technology, but he is very pessimistic about teachers changing, giving students more control and bringing social networking into the classroom.  Great talking points, lots to think about.  More from the road as it occurs.

-Mike

Tonight we talked about a few things, in ESPN "rapid-fire" format.  We discussed web filtering in schools, the use of Facebook in the classroom, a great website called Answer Garden, and the use of cell phones with students.  Below is the Wiffiti wall that we created.  Wiffiti, which we have discussed, allows you to post messages to a live web page via the computer or your cell phone.  Please text the number below and add your comments about the technologies we discussed.

Text this number: 87884
Start your text message with: @wif33872
Then just type your answer

Mosaickr.com is a mosaic maker.  You use flickr photos to create mosaics.  I plan to use this site this  year for open house.  On the first day of school, I will take photos of each student and upload them to my class flickr page.  Then each day I will snap a few more photos of students working, so that by open house I have a few hundred images.  Then I plan to use  our school logo to create a mosaic for my door.

The examples below are from the Mosaickr.com site. You will need to have a flickr account, but you do not need a lot of photos uploaded.  You can create these mosaics using open source images others have taken right on flickr (Cleveland, Ohio has over 600,000 images).  You can get the Small mosaic for free and it downloads directly to your computer.  You can also pay a fee and get much larger images.  The downloads are fine for most application in school. 

Classroom Ideas:
1.  Historical figures with images from their life or geography mosaics
2.  LA: What book are you reading? Images of that subject
3.  Science: Ocean Theme, Weather, Animals, and more
4.  Math: Great architecture of skyscrapers or buildings (even my hometown of 45,000 has 29 images of buildings,  Newark Ohio)
5.  Art: Famous Artist with their work
6.  What would you add?

Wallwisher is a great new website that allows users to create virtual sticky notes and post them to a wall.  As  I read through the companies FAQ and "about us" pages, I learned 2 things: they have a great sense of humor and the walls you can create through their website can be an extremely useful communication tool for schools.  Students do not need to sign up or register to use Wallwisher, and your walls can be made private.

Some possible uses for Wallwisher in the classroom?  I could see this as a great communication device where students can post questions, either about homework or important concepts from class.  Other students can answer these questions, or debate topics by adding their own sticky notes.  Sticky notes can be moved around so you could organize different areas of your wall for different ideas.  Maybe you want to see if people would rather take a test on Thursday or Friday?  Just have students put their name on a sticky note and slap it up under the day they like.

As technology presses forward and we, as teachers adapt to these changes, free websites like Wallwisher are providing unique experiences that make virtual communication more interesting and manageable.  If you take a step back, Wallwisher is basically a twitter post/blog page.  The difference is interface; you can move and rearrange your posts (sticky notes) and their is a bit more interactiveness to the communication experience.  Try it today in your classroom and set up a homework help wall.

-Mike

Websites mentioned in this show:
NorthWest Ohio Educational Technology Conference--watch the live webshow from the conference on Aug 10 and 11.
State Standard Student Created Textbook, In wikispaces
Wiffiti Send texts to your classroom computer
Wallwisher add post-it notes for homework help?
Mosaickr: Cool for Open House images.
At the end we shared how we start the first day of school.  What do you do?
And who knows, we could have missed some.  Garth and Mike

Our webshow was canceled tonight...Mike explains in our podcast.  However, the guest was ready, so the show went on via skype and GarageBand.  The topic for tonight was Social Networking in the State of Ohio.  Abby created a Ning site called "Ohio Educational Technology Network" for teachers in Ohio to share ideas, lessons, podcasts, the list goes on and on.  Tonight we discussed the future of this site and the possible directions the site will take.  Please visit the site at www.oetn.org.

Abby Thaker's bio is below.  Enjoy the podcast.

Abby Thaker manages Professional Development for Smart Solutions K-12 (www.ssik12.com) where she works with school districts throughout Ohio to support effective classroom technology integration.  Prior to joining Smart Solutions Abby taught elementary school, first as a Teach for America corps
member in North Carolina, and later at a charter school in downtown Cleveland.  Abby has served as an Ohio Education Policy Fellow through the Institute for Educational Leadership and Cleveland State University, and 21st Century Learning Fellow with the Powerful Learning Practice.