Washington State EdTech Standards

Over the next few weeks I am participating in an online course to better familiarize myself with the Washington State Educational Technology Standards and how to integrate and assess them.  My goal is two-fold, to integrate these standards into my own teaching, and to help teachers find ways to integrate the standards into their curriculum as painlessly as possible.  I cannot possibly cover all the standards, but I can help make sure they are covered between my library lessons and classroom lessons.

So far we have had good discussions in the forum for the class, which is presented by OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction here in Washington State).  One of the most helpful elements of the course is links within each lesson to relevant documents on the OSPI website.  As a teacher-librarian, the most helpful is the crosswalk between the EdTech standards and Information and Technology standards, including the Big6, NETS-S from ISTE, AASL standards and Washington State information literacy standards.

In addition, with the adoption of Common Core in Washington State, OSPI has a crosswalk between EdTech and ELA Common Core makes the connections that teacher-librarians and teachers need to find ways to integrate both EdTech and Common Core within their curriculum.

Lastly, OSPI offers a crosswalk between EdTech and core subjects to further emphasize the many ways in which technology can be integrated.

As we move into more lessons (we are in Week 2 now) that discuss what hardware and software we have available to us, and examine the standards more closely, I will have more ideas for my own integration of the standards and how I can support teachers in their implementation.

Google Search

Last week I began working with the 4th graders on search engines and searching skills, using various lessons from the Google in Education Classroom Tools and Google Search Education websites.  Last year I found the "Start Your Engines" presentation, which introduces terms that I want my students to know and having in common, such as "browser," "search engine" and "query," as well as the video with Matt Cutts which explains briefly how Google indexes webpages and ranks search results.

After that introduction, I taught a short piece of the Beginner lesson on the Search Education website about "Picking the right search terms."  It is difficult to fit in a whole lesson in about 30 minutes, while still allowing for book checkout at the end of library, but we do what we can in each class.  I have the laptop carts reserved, so each student has a MacBook at their fingertips to do hands-on searching and gain experience.

This week I had students work in small groups while we discussed choosing keywords and how to turn a question into a query.  Too often I see students typing entire questions into a search engine, and then getting results which are difficult to weed through to find one that answers the question.  We simplified some questions, then I gave them a few to work through in their groups.  They worked together to do searches, trying different combinations of words, then reporting back about the search.  They focus so much on finding the answer, and sometimes finding the wrong answer, that we need to take a step back to look at the keywords we are using and adjusting until we get a good collection of results before we look for the specific answer to the question.

We will do more practice with selecting good search terms this week.  I was planning to use past questions from the Google a Day website, which gives a search question of the day, but found that it has changed format recently, which makes it less useful for me.  I have specific days bookmarked as good search questions for elementary students, not too complex, not requiring certain background knowledge or alternate query terms, but I can't seem to get to specific days in the Google a Day website any more.  I will spend time trying to do this over the weekend, but it's disappointing.  I found being able to go back to previous days' questions an invaluable teaching tool.  Now it appears to be more of a game and less about a teaching tool.  I'll report back next week after I have had time to play with it.

Kindle Paperwhite

I read a review of the new Kindle Paperwhite, thinking I might consider it for my ereader grant, but the review points out two potential problems for our school situation:

1. The Paperwhite doesn't have an audio out port, and we like to have some struggling readers listen along while they read the text.
2. It doesn't come with a separate adapter, so I would need to purchase one for each device we order.  It is too cumbersome to try to recharge every device on a computer.  I do this currently with the iPad2 I have in the library.

I saw an iPad2 in action last week at a staff development day, as each of our high school students has one, as well as teachers who have gone through training.  The question we were discussing as we were looking at it was: Is the iPad too much for what we want it for?  We need to look at the cost vs. what the purpose of the device really is.

The high school students and librarians find it useful because they can access databases and other research sources through the iPad, but our elementary students would only be using it for reading for now.  We would download apps such as Google Play and the Kindle app for our ereader software.  We also looked at Mackin and Follett as possible sources of ebooks and will continue to research those options.  With the iPads we could expand our use of the device beyond reading ebooks to having apps for math or other subject areas.  Would we really do that, and how would we manage that with 518 students and just a few devices?

One more may enter the mix if the iPad Mini is introduced this week as some have speculated.  I'd like to see the specs and actually hold one to see what I think, along with thousands of other people, I'd guess!

Lots of questions, more research to come, and then a decision needs to be made by the beginning of November, when the grant applications are due.

E-reader grant application

I am in the process of writing a grant for e-readers for my library to check out to teachers, and eventually students to take home.  The first step is to get enough for a small novel study group, see how often they are used, then decide if they can be checked out next fall.

E-readers are appealing for the same reason as buying iPods and MP3 players for downloadable audiobooks was exciting two years ago: instant access to books for students.  I like being able to hand a student just the right book when they want it or desperately need it for their class.  It is satisfying and helps build that idea that you can find things successfully in a library, whether it is a book or an audiobook or information.

The discussions I am having with staff lately is centered around the question of which e-readers to choose.  We have a very supportive public schools foundation that invites grants from classrooms (including the library) for projects and materials, including artists-in-residence, dance education, books, technology, and many other ideas.  I am in the process of writing my grant application, and have found several good resources for supporting information to help complete the form.  Many questions have come up both on the application and in my conversations with teachers:

• Why would e-readers be a helpful tool in the library and classroom environment?
• How would students be limited and protected in their use of e-readers?
• Who would benefit from having e-readers in our library?
• Which grade levels would use them?
• How would we protect our investment?
• How will students be trained?
• How will we purchase new e-books?
• How will the decisions be made as to which titles to purchase?
• Where will the money to sustain this program come from?
• What additional money/items are necessary to complete this project?
• What connections can be made with the curriculum?
• How will we measure the success/failure/usage of the e-readers program?
• Are teachers supportive of e-readers and have shown interest in using e-readers?

I am just beginning my research, and have found several interesting articles online with bits and pieces of information that I am using to inform my own grant writing.  I thought I would collect them all here and then follow up after I have made decisions and written my grant application.

Articles of interest:

• Travis's Excellent Ereader Adventure - an explanation of a year-long e-readers rollout in a fifth and sixth grade elementary
• Kindle Fire vs Nook Tablet - comparison of the features of both e-readers
• The Truth About Tablets - difficulties in getting tablets and e-readers to students
• Middle school boys who are reluctant readers value reading more after using e-readers - a study from SMU
• E-reader Madness - a blog article about deciding between a Nook and a Kindle for an elementary school library
• Gilbert School embracing e-reader technology with Nook Club - a school loaning Nooks to sixth graders, who then train another group to use them when they are done reading their books

Storybird stories

Last spring I worked with a group of 1st graders who didn't need extra phonics or comprehension work during our Reading RtI time, so we did projects, research, read books, studied authors, and wrote stories.  I found Storybird to be a great tool for writing stories, particularly for this age group.

Storybird has sets of illustrations available for students to choose from, then they write text for each page.  Students can change the layout of the page and put the images in whatever order they choose to illustrate their story.  This allows them to focus on their writing and not illustrating a book.  I encouraged them to think beyond what was in the pictures and tell more of the story, not just describe what the picture showed.

Another fun aspect to Storybird is that students can invite each other to collaborate on a story together.  The teacher creates logins for all the students, and then they can choose one of their classmates to work with them on a story they have started.  They had a lot of fun working together, taking turns writing text and choosing pictures for their collaborative story.

Examples:

The Seasons by Teja on Storybird

Friend Ninjas by Newton on Storybird

I love Spring! by Reza on Storybird

Animoto

I had a lot of fun playing around this summer with Animoto, a website where you import photos, then choose a theme and music and it creates a video for you.  Often flashy, always well designed and professional looking, I think there are a lot of uses in schools for this tool.

I plan to work with 5th and 6th graders to create 30-second book trailers later this year.

Forgive the repetitive loud music, but I wanted to start up the year in an upbeat way.  Here is my 4th-6th grade introduction to the Ridgecrest library video, highlighting some important ideas I wanted them to remember.  I used Keynote to create some slides with some text then exported them as jpgs and imported those right along with the photographs.  I thought they would enjoy hearing and seeing it in a way that didn't involve me standing up in front of them and talking.  We had short discussions after the video, but it definitely worked as an attention getter, even if some of them were dancing while watching.

I did another one that is about me, but I haven't had time to show it to classes yet.  I may save it as an example later on when we talk about other uses.  Book trailers, autobiographies, biographies, there are a lot of potential uses for Animoto.

Karen Bonanno: Time to Change the Game Plan

Karen recently spoke at the Australian School Library Association conference, answering the question, "What will be the future if you do not take charge of your own seismic shift?"  It is 30 minutes well worth watching as a school librarian, challenging us to take charge of our knowledge and our teaching and our jobs.


http://vimeo.com/31003940

Online Thanksgiving resources

With our 5th grade studying Colonial America and the Revolutionary War, I'm always on the lookout for engaging resources that provide them with glimpses of what life was like in the 1600s.

Scholastic.com has a colorful and interesting slideshow with audio about the trip the Mayflower took from England to America.

I share the story of Sarah Hale, who wrote letters to every president for decades until Abraham Lincoln gave in to her request for a national Thanksgiving holiday by reading Thank You, Sarah: the Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving by Laurie Halse Anderson.  You can introduce the resources of the Library of Congress and the definition and use of primary sources by showing her original letter and the text.

• Original letter from Sarah Hale to Abraham Lincoln
• Text of Sarah Hale's letter

Colonial Williamsburg has a teacher resource section of their website with multimedia presentations, electronic field trips, and information about life in the 18th century.

Plimoth Plantation has a website with teacher and student resources, including virtual field trips.

Kindergarten VoiceThread

I love collaboration, and our half-day kindergarten teacher and our general music teacher and I put together a VoiceThread by the 23 students in the half-day kindergarten class. They learned the song "Down by the Bay" in music class, and then their classroom teacher had them write sentences that rhymed to complete a verse of the song, including an illustration of the sentence. She did a fabulous job of individualizing the task to each student's abilities, some just had to fill in rhyming words, while others wrote the whole sentence.

Once the papers were done, I scanned them and imported them into VoiceThread, then recorded each student saying their own sentence. I also recorded the class singing the whole song during their music class and included that singing at the beginning and end of the VoiceThread.

I am proud of our students and teachers, and hope to do even more collaborative projects like this next year.

Down by the Bay VoiceThread

Peer Coaching Delicious Links

Now that Delicious seems to be staying around, I am posting my collection of Peer Coaching links, which I will be adding to frequently over the next year.

http://www.delicious.com/joannafreeman/peer_coaching

Interactions with teachers

A short blog post about a technology teacher's interaction with a classroom teacher really struck a nerve with me. I struggle daily with how to approach specific teachers in my building. Some are open to new ideas, some are in denial that they will ever have to learn much beyond how to send an email, some want to try things that are way beyond their abilities, but I don't want them to experience deep disappointment and become discouraged. It is a constant balance of assessing their needs and wants and how they will react when I discuss technology with them.

The teacher in the article was honest with a classroom teacher, telling her essentially that if she really wants to be using technology, she needs to move beyond the projector, computer and PowerPoint. Now, we all know that she is using technology, but technology integration in education has moved far beyond that level of engagement. This connects with the last post on the Technology Integration Matrix. This teacher is using technology tools in a conventional and procedural way, without student choice or self-directed work, as far as we can tell from the blog post. She is ready to move on, based on the conversation, but it took knowledge of the classroom teacher and her comfort level to begin this conversation this abruptly.

I know most of my teachers well, but I only know two or three who would welcome this kind of open conversation. I need to think more about how I will approach my teachers about collaborating on technology integration, without raising their defenses.

Technology Integration Matrix

I have spent some time examining the Technology Integration Matrix from the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, thinking about how it applies to specific teachers and situations in my school. I appreciate the labels given to each axis, as they are much more meaningful and realistic than many other matrices (i.e. the standard rubrics given to students and teachers).

Characteristics of meaningful learning environments:

• Active
• Collaborative
• Constructive
• Authentic
• Goal-directed

Levels of technology integration:

• Entry
• Adoption
• Adaptation
• Infusion
• Transformation

I am rethinking how my technology-related rubrics are worded to make them more understandable and meaningful than just giving a 1, 2, 3, or 4. Wouldn't a student appreciate being told they are in the Adoption stage of technology, rather than that they earned a 2? The descriptions of the levels of integration lead a teacher or student to believe they are on a continuum, and that they will one day achieve Transformation, and that it is an achievable goal for everyone.

As a Technology Integration Peer Coach next year, I will be using this matrix to help me begin conversations with teachers about where they are starting and where they want to be. I do not expect that everyone will be at the Transformation stage (I am not convinced that I am at that stage yet, but I am striving for it every day). I appreciate that there are clear objectives and procedures as examples for different subject areas, including videos. For teachers who work mostly in isolation, just seeing a lesson modeled sometimes gives them the confidence they need to try something new.

I continue to study this matrix, and find new treasures every time I dig around through the links. I can't take it all in at once, but know it will be a key tool for me as I am acting as a peer coach next year. Even if I wasn't a formal peer coach, I would use this in my planning with teachers. My goal is to track teachers throughout the year and hope to see some growth across the matrix. We will start small, in one or two subject areas, but hope to see that spread throughout their teaching over the next few years.

I will create a pre and post survey tool for teachers this next year, hoping to gain some insight into their knowledge of themselves as regards to technology integration. At the end of the year I will survey teachers again along the lines of this matrix and hope to see growth. I will share that tool here as I complete it over the summer.

Poetry Centers

April is National Poetry Month, and though I share poetry with students all year round, this is a chance for me to focus on this genre for a few weeks in a row. Working with K-6 students is an opportunity to use technology with different grade levels to see how they respond. What are they ready to use in Kindergarten? What do most 6th graders already know how to use and how can I build on that knowledge?

I borrowed an idea for a Poetry Picnic from A Year in Reading and created poetry centers that students experienced for two weeks during their scheduled 30-45 minute library time. The centers each had a focus of writing, reading, art, and/or technology, giving students a variety of positive experiences with poetry.

The technology centers included a Kindle, an iPad, an interactive whiteboard, and computers.

On the Kindle students read "Poetry Tag Time," (99 cents) reading out loud poems by Jack Prelutsky, Joyce Sidman, and many other poets for fluency practice.

On the iPad, they had a choice of several poetry apps:

• Animal Tales (99 cents)- a hidden object app based on Mother Goose's Animal Tales
• Fridge Poet (free)- a magnetic poetry app
• A Kid's Poem: My Wagon and I (free)- an audio poem with illustrations
• Shel Silverstein's Animations (free)- short animated poems and excerpts from Shel Silverstein's books.

Students had two choices while using the interactive whiteboard:

• Poetry Splatter - from the Reading is Fundamental website, students choose words to complete poems
• Magnetic Poetry - the official Magnetic Poetry website has several online kits

Several poetry websites were bookmarked on computers in the library for students:

• Giggle Poetry - poetry to read and games to play
• Poetry4Kids - Kenn Nesbitt's website
• Shel Silverstein's website
• Tagxedo - create shape poems with tag clouds online, students enter words and phrases to fill the shape, then publish the result
• Phrasr - online image generator, where students entered a line of poetry they had written

Most center activities were successful with all grade levels, though Kindergarten students did not use the computers to access websites. We looked at Giggle Poetry and Poetry4Kids as a whole class, reading a few poems and playing a few games.

All of the students wanted to use the iPad, the Kindle, and the interactive whiteboard. Technology draws them in and they are receptive to ideas and topics they might have ignored before, such as poetry. Some students immediately shut down when poetry is mentioned, but those students clamored to use the technology and came away with some exposure to poetry through these centers.

Teacher-Librarian Peer Coaching

Washington State's Educational Technology Support Centers and Educational Service Districts are offering peer coaching training for teacher-librarians to help teachers integrate technology into their curriculum to enhance student learning.

I am thrilled to be a part of this program and hope to reach as many teachers in my building and district as I can throughout this year-long class. There will be eight sessions, including a three-day class during the summer and an online meeting. The ESDs are using Moodle as the online platform for communicating and sharing information throughout the year.

Having an opportunity to sit in the same room with other teacher-librarians who are trying to support their teachers in technology integration is powerful. We work in isolation so often and yet are expected to be the experts and leaders in our buildings and districts in educational technology.

I want to use this blog to collect and share ideas related to peer coaching and educational technology throughout schools. The technology should not and does not begin and end in the school library. Technology permeates our schools, homes and workplaces, and preparing students to use it must begin with the teachers who work with students and technology every day.