iCONN in Peril?

Out of all the free resources available to us at THS, the one that is most commonly used and relied upon is the Connecticut State Library's database and e-reference suite--iCONN. iCONN has transformed our high school media center's reference collection into an information hub on par with many university libraries. It has put at our student's fingertips an incredible array of newspaper, magazine, and academic journal articles; image and digital library collections; encyclopedias and eBooks; as well as access to the statewide collection of print resources through it's Request program. It has changed the way students conduct their research and has equipped them with the necessary information literacy that they will by utilizing in their post-secondary pursuits of college and work.

Of course, iCONN is not really a free resource. It is funded by the state and federal governments and serves not only our public schools, but also all of the State Universities as well as every Connecticut resident through our public libraries. Word came down yesterday that Governor Rell is proposing to suspend all state funding for iCONN: http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/lib/governorrell/budgetnegotiationsreport_may28_02.16pm_rev.pdf
(p.32)

It looks like there are many other cuts and every segment of the state's population will likely be unhappy with at least some of them. Suspending iCONN, however, will drastically effect all of our students! It will revert our 21st-century researchers back to the back to a place that today's students have never known. Please find some time to contact your legislators about the impending cuts to iCONN!!

Green Resource

I wanted to share the link to a video that I think would be a great (free) resource for science, social studies, and consumer science teachers. It got a great review in this weekend's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/education/11stuff.html

It can easily be viewed within one class period and should generate much discussion on the topics of environmentalism, consumerism, and the culture of Americans. Click on the comic and take a look...

Entertaining Presentation Tool!

Here's another one of those free applications that holds some promise for student presentations. It's called ToonDoo: http://www.toondoo.com/

Students (and teachers) will have fun creating cartoons, comic strips, and even graphic novels using the characters, scenes, and props available. Simple cartoons, like the one I've created here can be accomplished in minutes and it's pretty easy to pick-up once you've played with it for a little while. Once created, these illustrations can be added to a web-page, blog or even a Word document. I like ToonDoo because it allows me to be creative even though I have no artistic talent--maybe your students will too!

A New Literacy

A great deal of time is spent in our media center trying to get our students reading. For me, the most surprising aspect of this task is the ease in which it is accomplished. THS has a good number of avid readers. Each day I encounter dozens of students who are inquiring about specific books, discussing favorite authors, or simply borrowing multiple titles from our "new arrivals" area. With all the other available diversions available to them, who would have thought that today's teens would still have time for books (and I'm referring here to the ones with actual pages).



Of course, there is still a good segment of the student population who wouldn't be caught dead with a monograph in their hands. How worried should we be about these kids? Are they doomed to a future of limited literacy? From what I am seeing, we've got little to be concerned about!



Again, technology has come to the rescue. I think today's students are doing more reading and writing than we can imagine. But does surfing the social-networking sites and texting friends actually count as reading and writing? Well, here there is some debate...



See Motoko Rich's New York Times article, "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading" (7/27/08):

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1518016981&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=103090&RQT=309&VName=PQD



As a product of the television generation, I'm a true believer that the internet (and even cellphones at this point) are legitimate literacy tools. The media that today's kids are using daily requires a level of interactivity that at its core is essentially reading and writing-based. Should we as teachers not take full advantage of this new literacy? Let's keep the reading and writing coming by incorporating the tools that our students already know into our daily lessons. (Just don't tell the kids that they are learning reading and writing skills).

A Blog For Your Classroom?

Some of you may already be using blogs in your classrooms. For those of you who haven't yet tried, I'd like to offer some justification for incorporating them into your repertoire:


1) Your students

• They are comfortable with the technology.




• They will be more motivated using it.




• Their quality of work may improve because they know their peers as well as their teachers will be reading their work.
  
  


• They will get practice in using 21st-century tools that they can incorporate into their future educational and work experiences.

2) You

• Can view, comment on, and grade student submissions from any computer or laptop.




• Save trees and free yourself from constantly lugging around student papers.




• Develop a web presence where students, colleagues, and parents can easily view the work and goings on of your classes.




• Show that your students that you know a thing or two about 21st-century tools and reources.
  

So where do you begin?

I've looked and worked with a couple of free blogging sites that would work well in the classroom setting. Feel free to take a look at the links below to get a feel for what a blog might accomplish in your classroom.

Blogger is the site I used to create the blog you're reading here. It has many features, yet is fairly easy to set up. Blogger has an affiliation with Google, so if you're already up and running with any of Google's applications, it will be a snap to get going. A simple way to start would be to post a blog entry and ask your students to respond to it in the comments area. This thread of responses could count as class participation or perhaps be a homework assignment. You will, of course, have copy of what the student has written as well as a date and time stamp to reference. You can review the posts before they get published and there are privacy options that can restrict who sees and posts to the blog.

View an example of classroom use of Blogger from Brooklyn, NY teacher Al Doyle:

http://www.thetowntempest.blogspot.com/

Edublogs is another place you could consider setting up a classroom blog. This is another free site geared towards use in the classroom. It appears to offer better privacy features than Blogger and there are ways to set up individual blogs for each of your students without them needing their own email addresses. I experimented with Edublogs and liked the way it worked. Public viewers, however, do see advertisements unless you pay a modest subscription fee (about $40 /year).

Here are a couple of examples from last year's Edublog award-winners:

http://missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog/

http://areallydifferentplace.org/

There are other blogging resources which I have not yet experimented with: Wordpress, ClassBlogmeister, 21Classes, Ning, etc. I would like to hear from anyone who has developed a successful classroom blog with these or any blogging sites and let me know your preference. I'd also like to work with any teacher at THS in putting together a blog for their class. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think...

Things Have Changed

Take a look at this commercial, which was brought to my attention on Dr. Scott McLeod’s “Dangerously Irrelevant” blog. It’s a pretty slick condemnation of the traditional university classroom. Rest assured, I’m not a proponent for abandoning all current teaching methods. Clearly, though, there’s something to be gained from this video’s message. Encouraging our students to incorporate technology into their learning will better prepare them for their post-secondary pursuits—college and work! I also believe that many students will find their schoolwork more enjoyable and satisfying when they employ some of the newer tools and gadgets that I will be exploring here. There need to be no dramatic apologies for “letting our students down”. We can, however, make an effort to update some of our lesson plans to include components of 21st century technology. What do you think?

Welcome!

I think it’s about time that I jumped onboard the 21st century-learning-tools train and share with you some of the various resources I stumble upon in a blog format! I hope to present sites, applications, and software that I think have some potential in our classrooms. I hope you will respond to my posts and let me know if you think these tools might work and how you’re able to use them. Thank you for visiting and keep in touch!