by John T. SpencerI have a class set of netbooks.  Visiting teachers will often mock the little machines by asking if my students can make videos or do extensive photo editing.  Actually, they can, but often they don't.  Sure, as a class, we will create a documentary.  In small groups, students will create podcasts.  However, the most powerful tools are often simply old-school tools with a social twist. Word Processing: Sometimes we forget that one of the greatest gifts of a computer is the chance to edit and revise text.  Sounds a little lame, perhaps, but to a class that is used to paper, the opportunity to constantly edge closer to mastery is powerful.  Add the social sharing aspect with Zoho or Google Docs and it's now possible to use a solitary medium for cooperative learning purposes. Spreadsheets: I rarely read a tweet about the HUNDRED MOST AWESOME WAYS TO USE A SPREADSHEET.  As a tool, it can feel cumbersome and even a little anti-social.  Yet, we use it to crowd source shared knowledge, to create large-scale community needs assessments and as a great visual opportunity to see math concepts fleshed out (think simple interest rates or algebraic equations). Concept Maps: Again, a slightly older medium that is often forgot, the concept map is powerful in the opportunity to display one's mental process in such a visual method.  True, students can create paper-based webs, but the concept mapping process allows them to move a map spatially. Blogs: At first glance a blog is simply a digital version of a journal.  However, blogs have become our running dialogue on learning.  Whether it's their vocabulary (they are able to tag it with subject and name, so that they can see vocabulary across the subjects) blog, their private blog (which functions as a journal, a scratch pad for their final works, their reflections in various subjects, etc.) or their public blog (where they communicate with the world), the class blog  or various small group project-based blogs, a fairly simple medium becomes a powerful tool for digital literacy. Slideshows: I realize that PowerPoint can really suck.  I get it.  However, I have found Google Slideshows to be a great way to teach sequencing of events or to get students to create a visual representation of complex subjects.  For example, I might ask students to choose ten symbols to represent the Cold War.Internet: Perhaps the most powerful tool is the most overlooked* - the simple ability to search a massive amount of information and synthesize it as a result.  My students use a Google Document with a table where they write the inquiry question, the facts, the source and the bias of the source.  These are then used in creating articles, writing scripts, recording podcasts or participating in debates.Don't get me wrong.  We might use some social media like Twitter or Schoology.  Students might do some online video editing or use a very specific, targeted site like Wordle or Google Maps.  However, it is often the simple, old-school tools that have the ability to transform learning.*I changed the wording after a comment by gasstationwithoutpumps.

TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE! by David Andradehttp://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/I've been selected to serve on a jury here in Connecticut. The case is only supposed to run for about 5 days, so I won't be out of the classroom that long. However, I don't like missing school for any reason. So, I'm very thankful for the technology resources I have in my classroom and the fact that I have been using them with my students all along.The case is tentatively slated to start this coming Wednesday, so I have two days in school to layout the plans for the sub and get organized. I've been working on the plans this weekend, and realized that things weren't changing much from what I would have been doing with them if I was in the class. The only real difference will be that I won't be physically in the classroom to give real-time feedback and guidance to the students and I won't be doing the short topic lectures that I usually do for each topic.My AP Physics students are working on the unit on Sound and the Physics class is working on the unit on Universal Gravitation. The AP Physics class will be reading the chapter in the textbook and doing problem sets. Both classes will be using websites and Multimedia Science School (MSS) software to further explore and understand the topic. The websites and MSS software have self paced lessons on the topics, with problem solving practice, virtual interactive labs, videos, and demonstrations of the concepts.I will be communicating with the students via the class blog, and will be communicating with the sub and my colleagues via email to monitor their progress and address any issues or questions. My department is very good at looking in on classes with subs and assisting with any issues. The class blog will also be used for students to submit their work, ask questions, and receive answers and help from me. Normally, I would use the blog for all of this, but I would also be in the classroom to answer questions and give guidance to the students as they work. Instead, I will have to answer questions and give guidance in a delayed time format via the blog each evening. My students all subscribe to the blog so that they get updates when I post new things or respond to comments. They also contact me via school email for questions and issues so we are able to expand their learning beyond the normal school day.I also maintain a class web site that has resources, links, handouts, and more on it. I post solutions to work along with the lecture notes that I use.Technology will keep my students learning and exploring as I am absent from the classroom and not cause the typical wasted days and busy work that many students experience when their teacher is absent from the class.I am very excited and intellectually curious to experience our justice system 1st hand and am very happy that I can do this and still educate my students because of technology.AP Physics Class BlogPhysics Class BlogClass Resource SiteMultimedia Science School SoftwareWhat are your experiences with activities for your students when you are absent from school?

by Mike KaecheleIn my technology class the "content" is somewhat up to me and I don't give tests. I teach using projects as both the content and the assessment. Since I have some freedom regarding content I like to show students how to use on-line tools for learning integrated with other subjects. I try to work with other teachers in my building to tie into what they are doing in their courses. So I worked with the 7th grade science teachers to have students make videos about different kinds of waves. I showed students different examples and gave them many choices for ways to present. The following is one way.You may have seen this animation from RSA set to a talk by Sir Ken Robinson. If not, it is worth the 12 minutes.I showed part of this video to my class and told them that this was one choice for their presentation style. I would let them use a new tool, my livescribe smartpen. One group took me up on it. First they wrote their script and practiced it on scrap paper. The smartpen requires special paper with micro dots printed on it that an infrared camera at the tip of the pen reads. They then recorded it talking while they drew. They did it in the hallway so there is a bit of talking in the background.The really nice part about the pen is that you simply plug it into your computer and upload your program and you can easily put it on the livescribe site. From there you can get embed code to put it wherever you choose online. This next quarter I am going to have the whole class try making this style of videos. So you like this idea, but have no money for a pen. Try using this online whiteboard from GE instead. It lets you email a link to 2 or 3 friends so multiple users can draw at one time. It records the drawing and allows you to play it back. Students can email their finished drawings to themselves or save them. Students could put them on-line using a screencast program such as Jing (requires free download) or Screencast-o-matic (online and easily uploads to Youtube in HD). You can get almost the same effect as the pen for the great price of free!

Qwiki came online to the public today in alpha form and right from the start it demonstrates that the future of search will be social and multi-media inclusive.While in no way do I find the Qwiki experience ideal -- I generally have problems with site-hosted sound that competes with whatever I'm listening to as I surf -- I do see it as marking the type of future the Web might present. As it stands now, the Internet is still primarily a visual medium. Part of that has to do with the battles that went on years ago with Napster and the like that forced music and commercial film into proprietary situations like iTunes. And despite YouTube's appeal as a place to find information and video stuff, no one would confuse it with a site that provides a welcoming and engaging aesthetic experience.In a way, our forms of communication themselves have become (once again?) primarily visual. Just compare the number of emails and texts you've sent in the last three weeks to the number of phone conversations you've had.And so, there is a great opportunity for an Internet experience to develop that is more social, more interactive with all senses and intelligences, and more aesthetically engaging. What will it look like? Well that's anyone's guess. But I think Qwiki offers us a glimpse into what might very well be in its infancy, namely the New Internet.

John T. Spencer - This is a cross-post from my own blogThe principal stands up at the staff meeting and delivers his well-rehearsed announcement. "After a recent audit of student interaction and some severe cases of verbal bullying, we've decided to prohibit any voice tools within the classroom." "What would those be?""Oh, any tools that can be used for social interaction. We've found that students are engaged in a large-scale social network called friendship. They simply request friends and next thing you know they are talking to one another." Collective gasp. "I know. It's pretty scary. One kid committed suicide after he was verbally taunted. And if we've learned anything in education, it is that the best way to create a policy is to use one isolated outlier incident and present it as the norm." "So, what will we do?" "Well, students will use a mouth piece that will prevent them from speaking during class.""Isn't that a classroom management issue?" I ask."We're making it easier for you. Just think of it this way. You allow students to speak in class and another teacher doesn't. Next thing you know parents are complaining about the inconsistencies. We'll just ban the voice altogether." "But what if we want students to use their voice collaboratively?""Data proves that learning is done best in isolation. It's the only way for us to have 100% making AYP by 2014." "He's right," another teacher adds. "Kids can't talk to one another on the test." "But they'll need to speak to one another in the future. They'll need it in most jobs." "I disagree. Most jobs ask people to sit silently," the principal adds. "Like what? Name one job where people never talk.""Mimes and monks. And that's just the ones that begin with m." "He's right. I've heard miming is making a comeback with the death of Marcel Marceau. We can't have good mimes if they grow up talking." The principal finally reassures me. "We'll have a voice lab open. Your kids can sign up for programmed speech. It's like a non-religious catechism and it helps guarantee that they don't talk about anything off-topic, off-color or social-related."Note: This is satire and is not in any way related to my own experiences. My district is actually ahead of the curve on allowing authentic social media.

by Mike KaecheleI have been working on creating an on-line portfolio the past week or so. This is a page that I made that I thought I would share with you:In college you have to write a philosophy of education, but I choose to write a philosophy of learning instead because that is what is important to me.Lectures don’t motivate, active learning does. I believe that whoever is doing is learning.I believe learning is social and should happen in community through investigations, experiments, questions, and conversations.The learner should have an active role in choosing both the content and the method of their learning.I believe learning should be holistic, not compartmentalized into artificial subjects.I believe that every learner is an individual human being with her own feelings, emotions, strengths, weaknesses, passions, and dreams to explore.I believe textbooks are a poor source of learning, unmotivating, and a crutch for teachers.I believe learners should be connected to the world through on-line tools to share and expand their learning.I believe that learning should be "real world" right now, not just preparation for later careers.I believe students can and should  make meaningful contributions to all fields of study today.I believe learning should be assessed informally and formally with formative assessments not just high stakes tests at the end.I believe that all students can learn, but that curiosity and motivation has been driven out of many of them by the boredom of how we "do school."I believe the reward for learning is personal satisfaction and enjoyment, not a letter grade.When you stop learning you’re dead.I’m still learning every day…

By David AndradeDave's Top 10 ListsStudent ResourcesThese are resources that I believe can assist students in their education. They are in no specific order of preference. Click on the links for more information about each one and it's use in education.1. Evernote - take notes, collect web clippings, share notes with classmates, get organized. 2. Trackclass - is a great, free resource for students. The site allows students to track their classes and assignments, and even will send reminders (email or SMS) for upcoming assignment due dates and test dates. There is also a note taking utility so students can take notes on it if they have a computer in school.3.Dweeber - is a homework collaboration site that also has tools to help students learn better. It is described as a homework social network. Students sign up, for free, and can add their friends, known as "dweebs" to their network. Students can work on homework together and help each other out. It even as a virtual whiteboard so that they can work together just as if they were in the same room.4. Drobox - is a service that allows you to sync your files on your computer with their system as a backup. This also allows you to access the files anywhere. You can also sync the files across multiple computers. No need for USB drives anymore.  5. Cybraryman  - Cybraryman has a great web site with tons of resources, sorted into different categories. The student section is excellent.6. Digital Literacy - Our students live in a digital world and need digital literacy and how to be safe online. 7.  Google - Docs, Calendar, Gmail, Search, Tasks, iGoogle, Bookmarks, Reader, Google student blog, Blogger, Sites, Picasa - info, research, organizing, portfolios...Google is an excellent resource for students. They can create and collaborate on projects using Docs, stay organized with Calendar and Tasks and iGoogle, save their Bookmarks, create a blog or website, upload and share photos, create e-portfolios, do research, and so much more. 8. OpenOffice and OpenOffice for Kids - OpenOffice is a free office suite that is a great alternative to Microsoft Office (and free!). LibreOffice is a new version that is being released by the same group that started OpenOffice. OpenOffice for Kids is a scaled down version targeted at kids, ages 7-12.   9. Smartphone Experts - More and more students use smartphone's these days. Smartphone Experts is a group of websites dedicated to smartphones. There are different sites for each smartphones, from Android to iPhone to Blackberry to HP/Palm webOS. They offer tips, reviews, app news, and much more, helping people to make the most of their smartphones. Since our students have these pocket computers, why not give them a resource to help them use them more effectively. 10.  Their teachers. Teachers are the single best resource for students. We can lead them to other resources like the ones above and we can help them use them. We also can help them understand and use those resources. Share your favorite student resources with us.

by Shelly Blake-Plock"Sage on the Stage", "Guide on the Side", "Meddler in the Middle".When it comes to teaching, they each have their time and place. There are times you will be the sage because you have to be. There will times you will be the guide because they need you to be. There will be times you will be the meddler because that's just a part of being a good teacher.But these tags aren't enough.At least in my experience, the majority of real learning doesn't happen just because a teacher is a sage, a guide, or a meddler. Rather, real learning only happens when the teacher and the learner are one and the same.Real learning is only self-assessable. Real learning happens because it has to. Real learning has real consequences that have nothing to do with grades. Real learning happens when the teacher leaves the room and the school closes its doors for the day. Real learning happens when students learn to teach themselves.And it happens all the time. And it's not graded by teachers. It's graded by life.Teach your students to teach themselves. Teach autodidacticism. There is no better lesson.

by John T. SpencerI don't understand the freedom movements in Egypt.  I'm watching it closely, but I'm watching it in the way that one watches a sporting event.  Even the violent clashes feel more like a movie when I'm holding fresh sourdough bread and sipping french press coffee.  With the soft buzz of my Macbook humming along, I can view the events as isolated events.  I can miss the context.  I can fail to recognize the power of place and space and time.  I want my students to know about this as it happens.  However, I also want them to see the context.  Ideally, we could interview someone in Egypt and we could read a few novels from an Egyptian perspective.  We wouldn't be experts, per se, but at least we would delve into the power of place and how it shapes people.  *     *     *It's a mid-December and I'm swimming through my Twitter stream, attempting to find a friend.  According to the list, I have well over a thousand "followers," but I'm exceedingly lonely.  Christy is having a coffee with a  friend and the kids are already in bed.  What I really need is a one-on-one pint, but it's too late to call a friend.  I attempt to engage in a conversation, but it quickly becomes a crowded echo chamber.  I've found four people spread throughout the world who all believe pretty much the same thing I do - or at least they do with regards to teaching.  For all the talk of technology and diversity, I've found myself honing in on homogenization in ideology. Within this digital solitude, I yearn for something longer than a tweet.  So, I begin a book.  It's a vague idea hashed out on a twenty mile run, but now it's taking form.  The first ten pages are a mess, but I'm changed. I'm thinking now about character and setting and recovering context.  (Incidentally, the book is a fictional superhero memoir that will be out in ebook form within the next couple of days)It starts a process of recovering context.  I begin to read more books and fewer blogs.  I limit my musical selection to two albums per month (this month's pick is the latest from Iron and Wine along with Natalie Merchant's Tigerlily), because I had become so dependent on music-out-of-context playlists.  I call a few old friends and start meeting up each week, because unlike my Twitter friends, these guys know my story and my mannerisms and we don't limit ourselves to 140 characters. Lately I've started talking to neighbors and listening to their stories. It's why I still won't get a cell phone, even if it's a smart phone and the world's collective knowledge is at my finger tips. I don't need the whole world in my hands. *      *      * The mainstream media has largely ignored the trial of Shawna Forde, a Minuteman terrorist, who shot down a man for being Latino and then reloaded the gun in front of a young girl and shot her point-blank in the head. "I guess it's not as big a deal if it's not in a Tucson grocery store and if the girl isn't white and if nobody in Congress is shot," one of my students writes. "Why aren't people connecting the dots?  Why don't they see how this violence is the same mindset as Sheriff Joe and his goons who threw my neighbor out of her car and then deported her husband?"My students know this context.  They understand that the violence is part of a larger, scary movement of white supremacy in our state.  They understand it, because it's in their back yard.  Unlike the plastic faces that read the teleprompter, my students can see a bigger picture outside the hype of "late breaking news" (it's always late and always broken)  My students understand that life is less like a Twitter stream and more like a novel.  They get the notion that setting has a place and that there is something toxic happening in our own backyard. I want my students to recognize that context matters. It's why we do the following:Interview people in-depth who actually experienced the events rather than simply relying on a textbookSearch primary source documents Read novels, both as a class and as individualsTake pictures and write poems about our cityCreate documentaries about issues in our own backyardServe at the local food bankI want my students to recover the notion of context.  I want them to see that people are shaped by our environments and I want them to be active in transforming their own environments.

by John T. SpencerA professor once told me that true authors need to learn French and cultivate a taste for Bordeaux and Rachmananav. He said that anyone who wants to know the cost of a word should buy a good fountain pen and a Moleskin and think twice before scribbling out a few lines on a cheap notebook.  I watched students nod their heads. The cost of words.  Ask a kid who has been called "an illegal anchor baby" about the cost of words. So, I bought myself a six pack of Widmer, spent a day speaking in Pig Latin and played the Greatest Hits of The Band. I decided that the apostles Paul and Simon were right in the notion that the words of the prophets were written on the subway walls and that much of academia is designed not to cultivate a love of language, but a dissection of it. In other words, I learned to hate words. I learned to be ashamed of my voice and to play pretend with my vocabulary. I learned to like, you know, try and avoid big words and stuff. Then I learned to wear the heavy academic jargon like a necklace before the elite crowd, only to wonder if they could recognize it was gaudy costume jewelry from a kid playing make-believe.I didn't recover my voice until I began teaching. I found it impossible to play pretend around a group of people who only cared about whether I cared about them and I cared about the subject. I couldn't be the teacher who pretended to know (or care to know) about the slang and they weren't impressed with a word like "pulchritudinous." I began to ask them to find their own voice that had been silenced in a sea of worksheets. I found that their voices were often rougher than I'd imagined, shaped by more pain than I've experienced and filled with a strength that I hadn't seen. I found that their voices weren't always expressed in written format and that some of the most powerful messages required a canvas or a podcast or a dance or a skit.