One thing that I have been having a hard time with is integrating technology into teaching and having a PLC. I found two blogs that have mentioned integrating the two (I admit, I haven't looked too hard). Doug Johnson at the Blue Skunk Blog posted about it last May, before I started reading the blog. He was kind enough to let me know about it today. The other one is L. Gaffney's personal blog. I think Gaffney is in the same position that I am. My problem is that in my graduate school courses, they talk ad nauseam about Professional Learning Communities, but never about using technology. In all our school meetings, we talk about PLCs, but never about using technology. All the people in my education/tech network (blogs I read, Twitter network, Facebook, etc.) never mention PLCs. It seems that there are two forces pushing through the education world that I am exposed to and they are not together or linked. This really bugs me, because I really like both the ideas. I think that collaboration (a major component of PLCs) is extremely important. When I was in college, I was the academic activities adviser, and my sole purpose was to get academic classes and colleges to collaborate with other people. I think one of the best and most efficient (and sometimes most effective) ways to collaborate is by using technology. Technology here can be defined as email, instant messaging, blogging, wikis, using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or any other number of things that would help us collaborate.So, Jethro, what are you going to do about it?Great question, I am glad you asked. Doug Johnson's blog post made some great suggestions for how to integrate technology into PLCs. The only problem, though, is that I think he went too big for what I think teachers would go for. This is what I want to do. I want my team that I collaborate with to use technology. I want to be able to access the worksheets, handouts, and everything else we use on the web. I think this is important, because if I can access it on the web, my students have an opportunity to as well. I already try to do this on my own here. I want all my students to be able to do the assignments when they are absent, and I want my students' parents to know what is going on and be able to take their part in helping their children succeed. With my team, I want us to be able to meet without "meeting".My Goals for My Team:I want us to be able to update each other on the fly with how a certain concept was received with a certain teaching style or approach.I want us to be able to work collaboratively on documents (worksheets, common assessments, lesson plans, etc.) in close to real-time without having to set up a meeting time after school.I want us to be able to have a place to store data so that we can access whenever we need it.Doing a wiki would make it so we could do more than just our one-hour weekly meeting. Finding other resources on the web would allow us to be more innovative and resourceful. Blogging about our experiences would help us know what others are doing that could help our students learn better. Using Twitter with other English teachers could help us find more ways to teach what we need to teach. Using YouTube would help us record instructions for class assignments so that students could watch us explain what to do. There are many more possibilities. As Doug pointed out (or someone on his blog pointed out), the point is to use technology as a means to accomplish a goal, and not as the goal. We want our students to learn, let's do everything we can to make that happen.So, what am I going to do? I am going to make a wiki for my 7th grade team and then invite my team members to add to it. As of right now, they are both against the web stuff, but I will work on them. Wish me luck.

Let's get right down to it. I would like to request some comments for my Political Aspects of Education class that I am taking right now. First question is:What are the major challenges facing American public education right now?The second questions is for Utahns and other informed parties that know what happened here last year with school choice and school vouchers.After the voucher vote this last year, do you intend to vote for different legislature members this year?Please respond to these two questions in the comments. You can post anonymously, if you feel so inclined.Now on to the good stuff. I have been using Twitter since the middle of December. To be honest, I don't know how I got started on it. I think that it might have been from my friend, Chris, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it was about the same time that I started using Facebook. Facebook mostly helped me get better at Scrabble (and connect with some old friends, I guess). The best thing about Twitter is that I have been using it a lot to help me get ideas for teaching. I mostly just read what other people mention, and I have met some really neat people and learned so much I don't even know where to begin.I am collaborating with another middle school teacher in Kansas on a wiki for the presidential primaries. I also got connected with some other edutech bloggers here in Utah, in my district even, and that is really neat also. I have felt so alone recently because I don't feel like anyone in my district, even the tech guy at my school, is very social web literate or even interested in it. I just recently learned that one other person at my school does have a blog, but it is private and I have not received an invitation. I also have found other middle school teachers on twitter and that helps also because I can bounce ideas off of them as well as get brand new ideas from them.I am so impressed with how kind the community has been in helping me out and using it as a tool to help others. I enjoy knowing that many of my questions are answered without too much waiting.

We won!!! We had a great time doing the activities for the Freerice.com marathon and making our Wiki. Here are some pictures of the activities:The SWAT team wiki has turned out to be an amazing experience. Students are much more excited about doing work at home. Also, we now have 16 pages on the wiki with over 300 revisions of the pages. It is very interesting to see how much they use it. I plan on using it more in the next quarter. There will be a learning center assignment due where about 60 kids will be using the wiki to track results of the Super Tuesday. I am pretty excited about it and I hope it will go well. I will post more after we get the video call with the NASA scientists. Wish us luck.

Twitter VersionPlanbook is an amazing program that helps teachers plan their lessons, inform parents, and keep organized. This is a must-buy for all teachers who use computers.OverviewThe tagline for Planbook is "Making one part of your day a little bit easier..." Planbook by Jeff Hellman is a digital planbook, and a little more. I found this software through a comment on TUAW a while back. I don't usually read comments, but that time I did, and I am glad because this is one of the best products I have used. It is wonderful. Right now, it only is available on the Mac, but a PC beta is in the works.Useful FeaturesOne of the best uses of this program is a digital file folder. I do so much on the computer because it the only part of my life that is organized. It is the only system that successfully keeps me organized. Below is a screenshot of the main interface. You can click it to see a bigger picture.It is very easy to add lesson plans. You just click on the day, and a drawer opens that allows you to enter in plans, homework, public/student information, and upload files or attach web addresses. You can divide it up by class and since I only teach one subject, it is pretty easy. I don't typically make official lesson plans, but I can and do with this program.When I first saw this, I thought I would download it and take advantage of the system. You can make up to 20 lesson plans on the demo, but then you can't make any more. I did that for a little, deleting the first lesson to make another, etc., but then, after a while, I realized that it would be better to just pay the $30 to buy it. It is very intuitve, easy to use, and responsive. It doesn't bog the computer down, either.Some other features include the ability to run weekly and lesson reports that you can give to your administrators, students, students' parents, or just to post on the wall. You can also as many files and links as you want so you don't have to worry about all your filing cabinets overflowing.The best feature though, is that you can use publish your files to FTP, .Mac (which I don't have), or to a local folder. The really great thing about this is that I can publish all the lesson plans to my website and then I just direct kids there when they are absent or lost a paper. It is a great tool for teachers because the calls from parents, complaints from kids, or anything that slows down the teaching process gets really annoying. I know there are a lot of other systems out there, but this system works the best of the four I have tried. When kids leave on vacation, and I don't have the lesson plans ready, I can just tell them to check the website while on vacation (like their going to do any work anyway!) and then it is their and their parents' responsibility. Below is a picture of what it looks like on the web in case you didn't click the link to my website.I love that all the handouts are on there. You can also change the themes so that it looks different. You can even make your own theme, if you know CSS. I would like to do that, but time is too expensive right now.OpinionIt is pretty apparent what my opinion of this software is. I love it. I do have a few suggestions, though, that would make it better.Jeff Hellman is a teacher. He does this in his spare time. Earlier this year, when I first bought it, I had a hard time publishing the lesson plans to the web. It was really frustrating, and I emailed Jeff, and he helped me out almost right away. It was the fastest customer service I have ever received. On his website, he mentions that people lost data when they upgraded to Leopard. He saysAs a teacher/developer, my goal is to save my users time. If your planbook file loses its data, I'm not saving you time and I'm probably making you miserable. Data integrity is my number one priority and this is why the data loss bug that several users reported on Leopard was so disconcerting to me. Jeff really cares about making a quality product, and that is a great thing. Here are my meager suggestions:1. An RSS feed for the new updates so parents (or administrators, if they are like that) can see what needs to be done each day. Or, it would be neat if the program could email some information on each day's lesson plans to the parents so they wouldn't have to check the site every day. The email would also help teachers who don't have a domain name or a .mac account.2. The dialog box for uploading files should go to the last folder used. When you attach a file, the dialog box opens up to your home folder (which would be like opening up to C:\ on a PC) every time. This can get kind of annoying since I have a folder that contains all my handouts. If I add more than one file to a lesson plan, it is inconvenient to go through all my folder hierarchy to get to that one file I need.These two additions are really the only things that I have been bothered by since using this program.

Somehow, I ended up at this post by a guy named Jared Madden. He talks about Presence Applications (PA) and how they are the new media and around to stay.PA’s ‘bridge the gap’ between platforms and allow you to ’subscribe’ to a information source (be it a person or company).So, PAs like Twitter and Jaiku allow you to use a cell phone, the web, a mini-app on your computer, or something else to subscribe to what (people) are presently doing. So, you can follow not just people, but also, oh, I don't know, what about fire departments?This is amazing. I already follow a company, Woot.com, on Twitter so I can stay up to date with the great deals they offer. I follow a guy who is a tech job headhunter here in Utah, just in case ;). And I have my regular network of edutechers: educators that use technology and push for more technology integration in schools.Imagine in the emergency services world, you call 911, and they can autosubscribe you to a specific twitter feed regarding your call. You could get live updates of where the ambulance or fire engine or police officer is.Imagine a news outlet creating specific feeds for a particular developing story. I am sure this already exists to a certain extent, but I just don't know about it. Imagine notifying people of the election results in nearly real-time via Twitter.There is a group that does a Twitter Story, called twittories where people contribute to stories in 140 character increments.Basically, the world is open for new ways of communicating. Although it can be scary to imagine that, it is also very exciting.Quick quote from @arthus on Twitter as I am writing this:Actually, student implies there is a teacher and teacher implies that there is a student. Learner can be self-directed.

So, I was the teacher of the month at my school for December. I wasn't actually planning on blogging about it, but I thought it would be a good time to draw attention to what my students are doing, since they are the ones doing all the heavy lifting. I realize that much of this probably is not that exciting to someone who is not in my shoes, but I am very excited about it. In December, I found out about a girl's blog in NY. I talked about her desire to make a difference in others' lives. She challenged a classroom to do the same. I talked with my students and they came up with some great ideas, and then we implemented two of the three best ones. The first idea was to have a day set aside where the students could go to freerice.com and see how much we could donate. We donated over 750,000 grains of rice. We used almost all the computers in the library almost all day long and had 12 other teachers participate with their students. The second idea was to create a wiki page for our team. This has been the most exciting because it got me started in with another teacher in Kansas doing a collaborative wiki for the Primary elections. Some, not all, of my students really took this idea and ran. I am very impressed. One girl has been editing a page called "Fun Stuff" pretty much every single day since we started. That is a big deal for a 7th grader. Of course, I finally post about her dedication the day she misses changing it. ;)Anyway, my principal said that although I had only been at the school for a short time, I was already making an impact. I hope I really am. I hope these small accomplishments really do help my kids learn and make an impact. Otherwise, who really cares?Have a good life.

Here are the links. I saw President Hinckley speak a few times. I ran the teleprompter for him once at BYU-Idaho. Other than that, I haven't had any personal contact with him. I do know this, though: Gordon B. Hinckley was a prophet of God, just like Moses, Adam, Noah, Peter, Nephi, Lehi, Mormon, and all the other holy prophets in the scriptures.Have a good life.

So, my classes have been working on the Campaign Trail Collaboration wiki with a bunch of other schools around the country and world. It has been an interesting learning experience as wikis are still very new to a lot of people. It is interesting to see who excels at it and who does not. Most don't. It is surprisingly difficult for some people, even parents. That is completely understandable, though. It took me a little bit to understand the nuances of a wiki as well. This video from the "CommonCraft Show" helps explain it much better than I can.Learning is supposed to be frustrating. If it is not frustrating, you probably aren't learning. I like to think of it as a piece of wood being carved into something beautiful. If the wood were still alive, surely it would hurt and be painful. But, the benefit is that it is becoming something great and beautiful. That is how learning should be (notice I didn't say education!). I am sure that some people are going to get upset and say that learning should be fun/enjoyable/safe/whatever other positive thing you want to contend it should be. Joseph Smith said:I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else...all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 304).You can still enjoy learning even if it is frustrating.I had a parent who actually emailed me with some valuable reflection about her experiences working on it with her son (and husband). I include it here with her permission:Hi Mr Jones,Just wanted to give you some feedback on the Super Tuesday activity M participated in. It absolutely got him involved in tracking the candidates and was valuable for the opportunity to work with others as he added to the state info as it developed. We did not see any info entered from other students on his state. Could it be because we were not looking in the right place? It has the potential to be a great collaborative activity working with others to track the election process. That is the whole point for this, to be a collaborative effort. It helps people work together and learn together.We were a little disappointed this morning to find the updated info that he had entered at 9:30 pm last night was gone this morning. We did not print out a page from that time, but he did print one out this am to turn in to prove he was filling in the info on [his state's] primaries. Here they learned on their own how to adapt to a new medium; they didn't know what the protocol was, but were able to figure it out on their own.This was the first time he ( and his father and I ) had ever used the wiki page. Not surprising, but now they have used a wiki, and the next time their child has to do something with technology, this experience will help define their approach to a new one later in M's career. We spent a lot of time figuring out what to do and how to get to the appropriate areas, so maybe in the future a bit more detailed instructions would be helpful. I am assuming she means better instructions than "Here is the wiki page. Do it." ;) I didn't give very good instructions, that is for sure. It was a great experience for M in using technology and working with the computer. He was copying and pasting results repeatedly to update the info, which really made him get comfortable with going between windows, etc. This is a great skill for him to learn. He will be able to use this later, I am sure. We'll be interested to see if M did this assignment as expected. It was a good learning experience, and a little frustrating too. Thanks for your help. Since this is my first time teaching, I don't even know how good of a job I did teaching it. How can I give someone a bad grade for making a concerted and valiant effort when the directions were so poor to begin with?RI did spend some time with the students teaching them what a wiki is and how it works, but I didn't teach them well enough. We were able to get on the computers and edit some wiki pages, but they still didn't get it. Showing the video posted above really helped them out. That was a very positive thing to do. I should have done it earlier.So, what have I learned?1. I need to give clear concise directions that are easily understandable.2. It is okay if learning is frustrating.3. If you are fair and equitable and try new things, most parents will support you.

Today our school did a talent show, and some parents were able to come and watch their students perform. The students all performed very well and the classes watching were very respectful and polite. They impressed me.I thought it was cool that the parents could come in and watch, but I am sure some could not make it. One thing we could do to help them see it is broadcast it on Ustream.tv. I am planning on doing this for my students' book projects at the end of this month (just waiting for district approval ;). One added benefit of the streaming the talent show is that it would be a way to build community support, an essential part of a successful school.A school with healthy level of community support will be a better school than one which doesn't. If two schools are essentially the same, but one school has enormous community support, it will be a better, more inviting, more successful school, with better student achievement.I am sure this is not an easy thing to do, but I imagine that if everyone in the community is interested in the success of the school, it can happen. It starts with a principal being willing to allow others into the school. I guess not just willing, but actually inviting. The principal of the school would hold many community events in the school to help people feel like they can come to the school. The principal would also get rid of those stupid "Every person entering this building must check in at the principal's office" signs. I think this principal would also have to live in the school's boundaries (there might even be a house next door to the school where the principal lives).In classrooms there would be a lot of parent involvement. Parents would be there volunteering to help Monday through Thursday, with some coming in on Fridays. I have 165 students. If one parent of each student came in once, that would take care of the whole year. In these classrooms with parent involvement, there would be a lot of hands-on activities, learning centers (stations), places of individual or group work, as well as a "lecture" place if that is needed as well.To help parents (and teachers) there would be a day-care type class that teachers could bring their children to. It would be run by a couple teachers and a bunch of students. It would be free to those who left their kids there while they helped in classrooms. This incentive could help young, energetic parents come in to assist students and teachers.At the end of the day, a part of the school would be blocked off. Tutoring would be available after school almost every day. Computer labs would be opened, and extra-curricular activities would be available for students who need a place to be after school. It will keep them safer than being home alone or on the street causing problems.Several nights each month, businesses and community and religious groups will use the building for meetings, training, learning, growing, sports, and anything else they need.Here are the reasons why we should do these things:People will enjoy sending their kids to a school that is open and inviting.Parents and business leaders will be willing to donate money, time, energy, effort, and resources to the school if they are actively involved in it.An open inviting school will be safe, not because we make people check in at the office, but because everyone at the school will care about keeping it safe. Friendliness is more effective than mandates to "check anyone without an ID badge" and that will make the difference.Fewer problems with discipline because students aren't going to goof off as much if 1) they know the teacher talks to their mom or dad weekly or 2) their mom, dad, or friend's mom or dad is there in the class with them.Are there negative aspects of this plan? I am sure there are, but class is about to start so I will leave on a utopian note ;). Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.Have a good life.

My students are chatting via video call tomorrow with Ginger's students, and Ginger wisely suggested that we prepare for the meeting. I framed it like this:Students, you will be in three groups researching one of these topics: (1. The city where these kids live, 2. What is a charter school and 3. TPLC, the school the kids attend.) You will be talking to them tomorrow on a video call and doing this research will help you be prepared, so write down things you know about your topic, write down some things you want to know, then you can get on a computer and start finding and writing down things that you learned. (It is basically a K-W-L chart that one student understood and drew as such on her paper.) The point is to be able to ask thoughtful questions that will help you learn more about them and their life.I told them they needed to be able to ask the students their questions, but they should be meaningful questions. As I was roaming around the room looking at what they were doing, I was confused at what they were researching. A few of them found the school's website. Four or five of them had a page open about the state but were looking at the flag and finding out what the state emblem, state tree, state bird, state motto --I can see the state motto meaning something, because they could ask whether the students know it and if they apply it to their lives (but I don't think they are going to ask that)--, and other trivia questions about the state. Is it just me, or is that just frivolous stuff that doesn't really mean anything?I pictured myself as an elementary school teacher making them do that for each state in the nation--much of what I remember from elementary school was just time-sucking research that didn't mean anything beyond the worksheet. Am I wrong, are our ES teachers better than that? Or am I the one at fault for not explaining it better? (Wouldn't be the first time that happened!)Have a good life.