Computer Curriculum

Recently I was given the task to create our elementary and middle school computer and technology curriculum so it is integrated with the regular classrooms and helps align to Common Core.  This is an overwhelming task!  I need your help!  Please take a moment and fill out the form below.




Once you've finished the form, check out the results here.  Thank you so very much for your help!  Let me know how I can help you!

No Homework? Really?!?

"I show you how much I love by how much homework I give you," I said. "And I love you a whole lot!"

Those are words I've said over and over and over to students and parents.  I can give you numerous reasons why I think it's a good idea for kids to take homework home.  In fact, let me list a few.  (NOTE: You'll notice that some of these are not exactly educationally sound but I'm just going to be honest here and show you some of my bad teacher cards too.)

• Growth comes from struggle.
• Practice makes perfect.
• Parents know what students are learning when work comes home.
• Students have something to do during study hall. (See! I'm honest!)
• We ran out of time in class.
• It's a good discipline technique.
• It prepares kids for middle school, high school, college, real life...
• Everyone since the beginning of time has had homework.

Maybe you agreed with my list.  Maybe you didn't.  Maybe you could add fifteen more reasons. Regardless, I feel a change coming over me.

This school year is a different year for me for numerous reasons. I have a decreased teaching load to make time for technology research.  Half of my classes are advanced math classes. I don't have language arts for the first time ever. I'm recovering from a nasty neurological disorder which leaves me with lots of muscle irritation and little energy.  

I find myself giving the kids very little homework, which is odd for me. It didn't start as an ideological change.  It was more circumstantial.  The advanced math kids tend to need less instruction time and get work done more quickly.  I'm used to history class being 25-30 minutes like it was in my old school, but it's 55 minutes here.  This means that kids can get things done in class. I just don't have the energy to grade a lot, so I don't assign as much. I'm still giving a fair amount of work, but the kids are doing it here. 

And, I'm feeling less stress -- from the kids, from the parents, and from me.  

I have my own version of a flipped classroom.  I used to teach for 40 minutes and give 15 minutes to get started on homework (if that).  Now, I teach for about 5 minutes and give 50 minutes to get the work done.  This is marvelous!  Not only does virtually every student get everything done before the end of the period, but I get to conference with each student as I grade work on the spot and have the ability to teach focused, personalized mini-lessons if needed.

One of my favorite bloggers is John Spencer over at Education Rethink. John isn't afraid to think idealistically and expect that things can still be that way.  He's not afraid to admit his struggles.  And he's not afraid to call the rest of us on the carpet on a number of issues. I may not agree with everything he says, but he makes me think about why I do what I do.

If you spend any time reading that blog, you'll realize that Mr. Spencer doesn't assign homework.  He decided he would rather spend his time playing with his kids and his kids would rather be playing with Dad.  He realized that his students' families probably feel the same way, so he's abolished homework in his class. Here are his 10 reasons to get rid of homework.  In fact, he even has a spreadsheet of teachers who have abolished homework completely.

While all these thoughts are swimming in my mind, the news hit our teachers' lounge that the state of Maryland abolished all homework.  (It turns out that only one elementary school in Maryland did this -- in favor of 30 minutes of reading per night -- but that really isn't the point.) My colleagues -- whom I respect and think are excellent educators -- acted as if this was the beginning of the end of education.  I just sat there and thought that it was a cool idea and couldn't wait to see how it plays out.

I have not signed the no-homework spreadsheet, but I'm thinking about it.  This post serves as my method for thinking out loud.  Help me out here.  What am I missing?

Ditch the Homework List!

1. Decreased stress for everyone involved: students, parents, teachers
2. Less divisiveness.  We are all working on the same team. It's hard to see that through the haze of homework.
3. Kids need to be kids. If they are bogged down with homework, they have less play time.
4. Parents have the ability to take back control of their home and how they raise their kids. 
5. Parents are not at odds with their kids to get it done. 

Keep the Homework List!

1. Parents feel more connected with student learning when they know what's going on at school.
2. What happens if/when I get assigned another language arts class which involves a lot more reading, writing, editing, and rewriting?
3. Just when you say, "I'll never..." an exception will come along and make me eat my words. 
4. How do you define homework? This is going to need subpoints.

• Is studying for a test homework?
• Getting supplies for an experiment or research project?
• What do we do with assignments not finished in class?
• What about long-term projects and reports?

So, I'm dying to know.  Where do you fall in the conversation?  What are your thoughts?  

Confessions of a Bad Hurdler

I had a dream of running the steeplechase on my college track team.  I asked our coach, and he was agreeable to it, provided I figured it out myself.  You see, our college was so small we rented a high school track for practices. We really were a rag-tag group of non-runners trying to get into shape before summer break with only one coach.  The same man was my cross country coach and I'm sure he figured I couldn't do anything goofier than he saw in the fall.

So... I set out to teach myself how to steeplechase.  The first goal, learn how to hurdle. I called my high school coach, who agreed to help.  My roommate and I drove spent a Saturday morning at my high school where we learned the fundamentals of hurdling.

What happened is that I never once ran steeplechase.  My winter blubber never dissolved during the track season so that I felt comfortable running roughly two miles while jumping over obstacles.

I did however reach ROCK STAR status on my track team. I was a hurdler!  I ran in the 110 high hurdles and the 400 intermediate hurdles.  And I was bad.  Not only did I never win, but I'm not so sure that I beat anybody in any race I ran.  I was an out of shape distance runner trying to run sprint events...but my teammates thought I was a big thing.

I took a chance.  I learned a new skill.  I did something the other people around me were too intimidated to try.  To the others, it didn't matter that I was good or bad but that I took that risk.

Looking back at my technology journey the past couple decades, I see some similarities. You see, when I started teaching, I hand-wrote my own tests. Over the years, computers began to creep into my classroom, till I realized I had technology and had no idea how to use it.  That led to my Masters' thesis on the topic of technology integration (published in 2002).  From then on, I've been something of a tech integrator, but things really changed when I started teaching at a different school that had just rolled out iPads.  I responded to an email asking how we were using our iPads in class.  My list -- verbatim -- made it into a Head of School email sent to the whole school, and I instantly became known as the iPad specialist.

You can look at a hurdle and decide to either jump over it or not.  Same thing with an iPad or a computer. Use it or don't use it.  Those who do choose to jump over the hurdle are revered by those who don't (and frankly, are probably looked at as a bit nutty).  Those who chose to learn how to use the iPad and integrate it into lessons are looked as something special.  Why? Because we took the time to learn how to do something the other people didn't want to learn.

There are days I don't feel like I'm doing anything special.  I can still be a lazy teacher at times, but a lazy teacher who uses a cool tool with the kids.  There are days when teachers ask me for a special lesson idea.  I'm more than happy to help out.  I do a Google search, skim off the top 5 results, email it off, and look like I did something great.

What makes a great teacher is not the tools they use but how they use them.

I was a hurdler at one point in my life, but I was slow, out of shape, and really bad.  Wouldn't it have been cool if I went into my hurdling career at my best performance weight and really tried to learn the craft well?  Then again, it would be really cool if I attacked every day of teaching with the same intensity that an Olympic hurdler attacks the first hurdle of the gold medal race. THAT'S what makes a teacher worth remembering!

Maybe one day I'll tell you about my triple jump experience!

Claco

If had been smarter, I could have been involved from the the very beginning.  But I chose to sit and watch instead.  Last spring, Eric Simons reached out to me to ask me about teacher collaboration.  I answered a few questions and let him do his thing.  Maybe I didn't understand what he was trying to do. Maybe I was too busy trying not to drown in the end of the year festivities.  At any rate, I didn't get involved till just recently.

Back in the spring, it was Classroom Connect.  Now, the name has been shortened to Claco, but the concept remains the same: Give the teachers a chance to collaborate and learn from each other.  Sure, we can do that in a variety of methods, but here is a centralized location where we can all meet and swap ideas. Think of it as the teachers' lounge, but without the fattening pumpkin bread and stale coffee.  I'll leave it to other people to expound on the founding of the web site.  Instead, I'll focus on my use of it the last few days. 

Claco is still in its beta format, but I was fortunate enough to start up this fall.  I spent the last couple days sick at home and was finally able to take the time to sit down and look at the genius of this site.

I've never been on Pinterest, but from what I've heard of that crafting idea site, Claco has a similar feel. You post ideas or sites that work for you on your personal page.  However, that page is visible to all others on the site.  Your online colleagues have the chance to come along and find your posts and "snap" them to their page as well.  

So far, I'm using this site as a chance to organize myself.  If I find a site I like, I bookmark it and move on.  I may or may  not come back to it later, but when I try to find a bookmarked site, I have to wade through a ton of stuff to find it.  "What was THAT site for?"  After an hour or two of work, my bookmarks are now cleared out.  I'm using Claco to hold them for me. 

Next, I'm going through and posting iPad apps that work for my classroom.  This will help me decide which ones are really worthy of sharing with the public.   I'm also rooting through my Google Docs finding lessons and activities that I've done.  

Obviously, I blog because I want to share what I'm learning with the larger community.  Claco is going to help me keep do that in a more organized fashion.  If you want to see what I'm doing in math class, you may find it on this blog, but it will take some searching.  Claco will make it easier for you to steal... I mean, borrow.. from me. 

I'm having fun with this.  Since I can create portfolios on any topic I want, I'm not just doing my content areas, but I've also included Common Core, Educational Technology, Social Media, Apps I Use, and plan to add a Bio portfolio.  In addition to useful web sites and Google Docs, I can also direct you to people who have influenced me and helped me in my learning journey.

And I haven't even started visiting other people's pages to see what I can learn from them!  I envision myself sitting at my desk one Friday trying to come up with a lesson idea, skipping over to Claco and a digital colleague to find the perfect tool to help me teach that hard to learn lesson. And I don't think I need to tell that this is a very good thing.

So, I suggest you visit Claco, sign up for the beta program, subscribe to my portfolio, and start organizing your content and collaborating with us! While you're there, zip me a message and say hi!

Yummy Math and the Election

Common Core.
Yummy Math.
Electoral College.
Conservative Christian School.

What do these all have in common?

I teach at a private Christian school in a battleground state.  While I don't know for sure, I would venture a guess that 90 percent of our school voted for Mitt Romney in the recent election... if the general somber mood around here the last few days is any indicator.

We, like most other schools in the country, are pushing toward alignment with Common Core standards, which has consumed much of my focus the last couple weeks.

I still love educational technology. In my blog reading, I recently stumbled upon Yummy Math, which is a blog which attempts to teach math in a fun, interactive way.  The best thing about it is that nearly every lesson  has the Common Core standards that it meets listed at the bottom. Hmmm... Math. Fun. Technology. Common Core without thinking too hard.  What's not to love?

Digging deeper, I saw a lesson on the electoral college, and I knew that this was the place to start my math yumminess. I started Monday morning with my 5th and 6th graders in the computer lab, where we watched the electoral college video by New York Times then dug into the questions provided by Yummy Math.  Now, you need to realize that I teach advanced math, and many of these kids are used to things just clicking for them.  They don't need to try to understand stuff; it comes naturally.  So, a number of these kids struggled with getting started.  I was amazed at what they didn't know about senators and representatives.  Then it hit me that they would have no reason to know it since they probably haven't had a civics course yet. We did discover that Google helps considerably when researching a topic we don't know.

Once we got past the initial hurdle of figuring out the changes in representatives and electoral college votes, things went smoothly.  In all, it took about a period and a half for most kids to finish the activity.

Tuesday, I gave the students a blank electoral college map to color that evening. I encouraged parents to allow their kids to stay up late and color the maps in as the night proceeded.  In exchange, I made math class the next day a "blow off" day allowing books and iPads with no formal teaching.

As I said early in the post, we are largely Republican around here. That lead to some interesting conversations come Wednesday morning.  The good news is that we already laid the groundwork by discussing electoral college and how the entire process works.  Later in the day, a student who did not do this activity with me looked at all the red on the map and couldn't understand how Romney lost.  He didn't have the electoral background that the other kids did.

Overall, I give two thumbs up to Yummy Math for helping me teach a difficult concept.  Thanks!  I'll be using your yumminess again soon.

Oh, and Brian Marks at Yummy Math makes for a great Twitter conversationalist.  You know how I love to interact with the developers!

Epic Full-Length Stop Animator Project

In my seventeen years of teaching sixth grade, I can honestly say it's rare to see every student engaged, enjoying a lesson, and learning something.  That's why I'm so excited about the Epic Full-Length Stop Animator Project.

The goal of our project is to create a 90-180 second stop animation video.  A few weeks ago, we did a short video project, and the kids enjoyed it.  While the video-making process was fun, the final product left me wondering if we could do better.  I enlisted the help of a friend of mine who is an animation guru (media professor at a local university) and got started on creating a great project.  You can see our instructions here.

Today was the second day of the project, and the kids were merely planning.  They were working on storyboards, drawing on the white board, trying new camera angles, and figuring things out.  It was so cool to just look out over the class and see every student working, interacting, and...enjoying it.  The plans are diverse: clay, Legos, ants in love eating watermelon, construction paper sandwiches, poodles in Paris, and an action figure-eating toy.

Next week, they will do their actual filming, but I had to share this one short practice video of the creation of Clay Man.

This is going to be cool!

Math Book Monday!

A few weeks ago, I started reading a math story to my 5th and 6th grade math classes.  This is my first year since I started teaching in 1994 that I don't have any language arts classes.  I think this is a way to keep my inner reading teacher happy.  Little did I know that we would have a huge Common Core Standards realignment this year, with one major focus of language arts across the curriculum.  Math Book Monday, coupled with Kid Blog, is really helping to get ahead of that change.

I think the kids are liking it.  We've read four books so far (listed below).  Some are a bit hokey, some are funny.  Some are directed toward a younger age.  All of them are teaching math concepts, which is a good thing.

I started compiling my list from on this blog post and by asking friends on Facebook.  Slowly a small list started, then I emailed my local library.  Fortunately, my local library is the Cincinnati Public Library.  A bigger city library, means more resources.  My list is starting to grow, and I'll be happy to continue to share that list here.  I wouldn't mind if you added your thoughts, comments, and suggestions on the document. (Ironically, some of these books were recommended to me by a former student who is studying to be a math teacher.)

Later this week, I am heading back to the library for another armful of books.  I can't wait for Round 2!

Math Curse

Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table

How Much is a Million?