Parent/Community Involvement

As I sit here stalling instead of doing what I should be doing (call it procrastinating, call it multi-tasking, or make up a creative name for it), I have to reflect on a tweet from one of my new network connections, alexgfrancisco.

Ms. Francisco posed the question, "How do we as leaders promote engagement of teachers, parents [and] students?"  Her tweet guided me to Rliberni's Blog – Radical language, which poses the same question.  I quickly noticed two responses that stand out:  1) parents and community members should be invited into the school as often as possible, and 2)  schools need to overcome the preconceived notions parents have of school (based on what school was like when they attended).

My mind began whirling with ideas:

• schools can hold evening workshops for parents/community members
• photography workshops
• art workshops
• science experiments
• fitness nights/mornings
• computer workshops
• office software workshops
• woodworking workshops
• metalworking workshops
• math workshops
• book clubs
• technology workshops (blogging, wiki's, social bookmarking, etc. - whatever the emerging technology happens to be)
• music workshops (guitar lessons, piano lessons, voice lessons, etc.)
• these workshops can be led by teachers and students
• a minimal fee can be assessed to cover costs of the workshop

As parents and community members become more active at the school, communication will become better between school and parents/community.  Students who lead workshops - teaching parents and community members - will not only gain self-esteem, but will gain valuable leadership skills.

The workshops don't all have to occur at the school either.  Virtual lessons can be taught using the plethora of available Web 2.0 tools.

In addition, students could practice broadcasting skills by commentating on streamed home games of indoor sports.  Links to the streams can be provided to the community.

I'm sure that some of these ideas could be criticized as "better in theory than in reality," but I wonder the effects if any of them work!

NetGen2010 Project Update - Student Summit

Wow!  It's been a while since I last posted an update on the NetGen project.  The NetGen blogs began with NetGen2010 Project for Speech class and Speech Students Blazing Along.  A lot has happened since I have last blogged.

While the students were hesitant to jump on board at first and were, quite honestly, whiny, their final summations in the PPHS Student Summit on May 12, 2010 were impressive (recording link).  As part one of the project consisted of collaborative NetGen wiki pages analyzing the synthesis of the trends of the 2010 Horizon Report and Don Tapscott's norms of the Net Generation, students were tentative to make posts and/or edit posts.  After the students made their first posts, they tended to get more comfortable with the wiki pages.  Not all students completed their wiki assignments - most, in fact, hesitated until the last minute, missing out on daily homework points and the full experience of collaborating on a wiki.

Part two of the project brought the Video Challenge, and a rebirth of energy from the students.  Most of the students completed, uploaded, and embedded videos for the project, and all students were involved in either acting in a PPHS Speech student video or in creating and uploading an outsourced video for a student from another school.

The NetGen project culminated in the PPHS Student Summit.  The Summit was an online web conference using Elluminate.  The Summit was treated as a formal business web conference.  Among those who attended the Summit were Honor Moorman and her class from San Antonio, Texas; Josh Piper and his class from Farmington, Illinois; Kim Caise, a NetGen veteran who stood by to assist if necessary; and Maureen Talbert, superintendent of Pleasant Plains School District.  Each student prepared for the Summit by creating a slide that was displayed while he/she identified himself/herself, specified with which NetGen group he/she worked, and explained what he/she got out of the NetGen experience.  After all students had given their presentations, the Summit was opened for questions from the audience.

My worry throughout was that I would not see the "light bulb" moment.  However, the Summit provided that moment!  The students and I were all excited and nervous on the day of our Student Summit.  To add to the nervous excitement, we learned on the day of the Summit that a reporter from the State Journal-Register, Amanda Reavey, would be with us in the classroom.  As I set up the laptops, I tried desperately to provide each student with a functional microphone for the Summit.  I was able to get most of the 20 students set up with a system - the students who did not have a functioning microphone used the mic of a student sitting next to him/her.  The students were in panic mode for the entire setup time - I had to calm them down and remind them again of the process of the Summit and of what they were going to discuss.  However, after we got started with the Summit, students began to relax.  I am proud of the manner in which the students spoke and text chatted in a professional manner.  Not only did "light bulb" moments shine through during their individual presentations, but they also demonstrated proficiency in the concepts of the project during the question and answer segment of the Summit.  Students fielded questions from the online audience by volunteering their answers either over the microphone or in the text chat area.

On Sunday, May 16, 2010, I was excited to see the article in the State Journal-Register titled "Speech Students in Program Study Benefits of Technology" written by Amanda Reavey.  The students got much more news coverage for their project than I had anticipated.


In reflection, I am excited to see that the "light bulb" moment happened for almost all of the students.  That made the process all worthwhile to them.  I knew that they would eventually have the moment (sometimes the moment doesn't happen until well after the class is over), but I had hoped I would be able to be there when they connected, and I was rewarded with a surplus of "light bulbs."


I have been speaking to Josh Piper of Farmington High School about the project and am excited that he will be joining the NetGen project next school year.  I have also been asked if I would present a workshop at Auburn High School and hope to start the spark in their school as well.


I am planning on participating in the NetGen project next year and, if possible, work a Flat Classroom project into another class I teach.  With the experiences of this year, I will be more prepared for the project and will be able to lead students into the project with mini-lessons throughout the year on the tools that will be utilized in the project.  I think that even though the students felt like guinea pigs this year, they ultimately felt like they had a productive experience and left with the understanding that the business world for them is going to be a lot different from the existing business world, and they are prepared for the first steps.

My objectives for the project were exactly that: students should have an understanding and be proficient in collaborating and communicating on a global basis.  2010 PPHS Speech students are there!

NetGen2010 Diigo Tag Cloud

Speech Students Blazing Along

The Speech students have been researching the Horizon Report trends this week.  While they have been researching and discussing those trends, they have also been blogging on their activities and experiences.  The frustration level has decreased as they are progressing through the project.  Earlier this week I demonstrated Diigo for them, and they played with the tools using our classroom site as a workspace.  There were post-it notes and highlights all over the NetGen2010 page of the site!!!  We discussed professionalism that must be used in placing post-its and comments.

Most recently, the students began using Diigo to bookmark sites that demonstrate the Horizon Report trend that they will be working with.  We created a PPHS Speech Group for Diigo and used the tag pphsnetgen so students will have a little practice with Diigo before they begin bookmarking sites with their NetGen subgroup team members.

The Elluminate meeting went well on Tuesday - I feel really comfortable with the status of my students.  We are a little ahead of some schools in the research, but I think that the Speech students needed to have a solid background before they begin working with their team members.  The Speech students seem to feel good about their understanding of the project now as well.

Students are joining the wiki and by the end of class on Friday, all should have editing privileges on the wiki.  The only thing that appears to be a concern with students is the amount of email that they are receiving from the wiki and ning.  I have been showing them how to filter these messages in their gmail settings and will show them how to regulate the messages from the settings menus of the ning and wiki as well.

Dickinson Sites Galore!

I seemed to have been falling in a rut the last week and a half.  I felt bored, and the students had to be feeling the same - one student in particular fell asleep twice last week.  We had to shake up the dull-drums . . . therefore, I created a project last night that will not only challenge the Accelerated English juniors, but it will also place the learning process in their hands, giving them choices for the products of their learning.  Students will be creating Google Sites to demonstrate the importance of Dickinson's writing and the impact of her writing on American Literature.  Throughout the process, students will study the effects of Dickinson's life on her writing, her writing style, the themes of her writing, figurative language she used in her writing, critical reviews of her writing, and other writings by Dickinson such as letters of correspondence.

In doing the project, students will not only learn about Dickinson's writing, buy they will also use skills in research, writing, critical thinking, collaboration, communicating through various forms, and using technology as a tool to create a product for others to reference.  Student are grouped into teams of three (there is one group of two in each class because of numbers).  Teams will first fill in the blank cells of the Project Plan below and share the document with me.  Afterward, each team will submit a timeline and workload plan.

The American Literature Sites Project is as follows:

  American Literature Sites

Students will collaboratively work with partners to create a Google Site analyzing Emily Dickinson's writing.  Mr. Langley's Digital Classroom will link to the site so people may view your work in progress.  One Google Site per partner group will be created.  The project due date is March 31, 2010.  Project Plan:

Emily Dickinson - need to know topics & assignments	How to Address the topic or assignment	How to Support & Give Credibility to your work on the topic and/or assignment	Product within the Site that will demonstrate this topic and/or assignment
Effect of her life on her writing
Dickinson's writing style
Themes of Dickinson's writing
Figurative Language commonly used in Dickinson's writing
Critical reviews of Dickinson's writing
Analyze ten Dickinson poems
Other writings by Emily Dickinson (letters of correspondence, etc.)
Which literary period does Dickinson's writing reflect?
Why is Dickinson and her writing significant to American Literature?

---

Grading Rubric:
The project is worth a total of 45 points in the Report category of your 4th quarter grade.  Each Product withing the Site will be scored on the following Expectations and scale:

1	2	3	4	5
Well Below Expectations	Below Expectations	Meets Expectations	Above Expectations	Well Above Expectations

Expectations:

• Project partners will submit their Project Plan to Mr. Langley via document sharing.
• The product demonstrates understanding of the topic/assignment
• The product thoroughly, effectively, and accurately addresses the topic/assignment
• The product is a credible reference tool for others
• Credible sources are used and referenced
• Web sources are hyperlinked with a text link.  Print sources are referenced with in-text parenthetical citations (a works cited page in the site is present)
• Whenever applicable, project partners research how to use the tools necessary to create the product.
• Project partners establish and maintain respectful and cooperative working relationships
• Project partners seek feedback from multiple sources from outside Mr. Langley's English classes (a Google form is a quick survey tool).  Feedback results are presented to Mr. Langley via gmail or document sharing.
• Project partners constructively use feedback from multiple sources to make improvements to the product.
• Project partners organize a timeline for each project and submit the timeline to Mr. Langley via gmail.
• Project partners organize a work-load plan for partners and submit the plan to Mr. Langley via gmail or document sharing.
• Project partners maintain and complete their agreed upon workload according to the timeline submitted or document sharing.

NetGen2010 Project for Speech class

Wow!  Speech class plans have been rearranged for the rest of the third quarter and all of the fourth quarter.  I'm excited to pass on that we are now part of a global project, and Speech students will be collaborating with students from the USA and from other countries.  The project is part of the NetGen2010 Flat Classroom Project.  At this point, I have joined the Flat Classroom Project Wiki, the Flat Classrooms Ning, the Grown Up Digital Ning, the NetGen2010 Google Group; have signed up for a Timebridge Group; and have signed up for Elluminate meetings.  As I have received numerous emails from the project leaders since inquiring into the project, my first reaction was that I met the Hippy Geeks of the internet.  They were so welcoming that I could almost feel them trying to hug me through the computer!

The project itself organizes students into teams of six to seven - incorporating students from the US and students from other countries in each group.  Students will utilize Chapters one, three (chapter three in particular), and five of Don Tapscott's book Grown Up Digital and the 2010 Horizon Report to research and disseminate the information from each texts to create wikis and videos on their proposals for the use of various technology as tools for education and business.  Each Pleasant Plains student is in a separate subgroup team.

My students have currently joined the Flat Classroom Project Wiki, the Flat Classrooms Ning, the Grown Up Digital Ning, and the PPHS group of the Grown Up Digital Ning.  Each also has a Speech Journal Blog to blog on the activities/ideas about the project.  Next week I will get the students set up with Diigo accounts as well.

The Speech students have reacted with a mix of frustration and excitement to the project.  They are excited to be a part of something "real" - something that matters.  They are also frustrated because we don't have all of the project information yet.  I have been relaying the project information as I have been made aware of it myself.  Most of the project plan will be made clear when the students begin working with their respective teams.

While the students are nervous about the project, the overall atmosphere is positive.  They are excited about activity on the nings - "friending" some of their team members already.  I'll update the blog on our progress as often as I can.

ACT Writing Lesson Video

I almost forgot to post this video to my blog.  I felt that the juniors need something to lock onto after they leave the classroom, so I made the ACT Argumentative Writing Video for them to review at their leisure.

I did find recently find that Blip.tv is a much better tool for posting videos because their are no length or file size limitations.  In addition, Blip.tv does not allow the school inappropriate content that YouTube allows.  For future videos, I will be utilizing Blip.tv

YouTube Lesson

The logic was that I was not going to be at school, and I wanted to cover an Introduction to Argumentative Writing lesson with the English class.  I used CamStudio to record a narrated PowerPoint presentation that I would have presented if I were there.  I posted the video to YouTube and embedded it in Mr. Langley's Digital Classroom in the Video Lessons page with specific instructions about how to connect up a laptop to both the projector and the auxiliary cable running to the stereo.   I felt pretty good that I would not "lose" a day because I couldn't be there.  Unfortunately, the sub accidentally bypassed that part of the lesson, for whatever reason - I'm assuming that it was because she was nervous (from what the class relayed to me).  Anyway, I assigned the video for homework after I found that the class did not know what I was talking about when I started discussing the next step of argumentative writing.  Following is the video:

Posting YouTube videos to Mr. Langley's Digital Classroom

I have found YouTube to be a great tool for video storage/playback when you couple it with the embed video functionality of websites.  The English students and speech students have been assigned projects that involved videos, both sets of projects were finalized before Christmas break.  I was able to catch up this week and upload the videos to YouTube and embed them in Mr. Langley's Digital Classroom.  Currently, the speech class project videos are all lumped onto one page of the site . . . I am contemplating creating individual pages for each student as I have done for the English classes.  Each English student has his/her video embedded in his/her page of Mr. Langley's Digital Classroom.

One of my key concerns in uploading the videos to YouTube was the possibility of negative, inappropriate, or hurtful comments that may be posted under the videos on YouTube.  I was relieved to find that I can turn off the comments and video reply comments, therefore eliminating that possibility.  Most, if not all, of the traffic to the student videos will be through Mr. Langley's Digital Classroom.  However, because there is that slim possibility that someone from the general web public can stumble upon the videos, I feel comfortable knowing that the videos may only be viewed and not commented upon.

Because I do feel the students deserve some form of public feedback on their work, I opted to permit the ability of YouTube viewers to rate the videos (one to five stars).  That rating can be interpreted in a general sense by the students and should lead to an increase in quality for the next project as the students try to create a product that will gain more stars than the previous one.

Laptops Update

I currently have 29 of the donated laptops in use in the classroom.  I would like to get two more of the laptops functioning for my classroom, then I will pass on the rest of the laptops to Brian Conklin, the science teacher, and Mike Squires, the computer tech.

I counted 19 Dell Latitude D600's and 10 D610's that are in use.  The D600's have built in microphones, which will be very handy with the voice recordings that speech and English classes will do.  The D610's do not have microphones, but have a faster processor speed.  I am not sure why Dell downgraded the lcd panels on the D610's, but I did notice that all of them have a lower screen resolution than the D600's.  While the D610's have a faster processor and some have larger hard drives, I think the built in microphone and higher screen resolution makes the D600's more usable for the classroom.

The laptops have been used by the English, yearbook, and speech students this quarter.  They will be also used by the photography students next semester as we get into digital photography and photo editing using Photoshop.  Students have enjoyed the flexibility of using the laptops at their assigned seats rather than moving to the computer counters along the walls of the classroom.

The only setup that I have left on the laptops is to map them to the classroom server folders and to connect them to the printer.  Currently, all 29 laptops in service have internet capabilities with a secured connection using the classroom wireless router.

Creating a Podcast Using CamStudio

I used CamStudio to create a demonstration podcast for the speech students.  CamStudio is a software that is designed to create a screenshot video so you can effectively show others how to use software.  CamStudio is extremely easy to use, and created a sleek video of how to create a slideshow podcast.  For the Speech class semester exam, students are using PowerPoint to create the slides for the podcast.  It was a breeze to create a video to demonstrate how to save the PowerPoint presentations as jpg slides.  I was then able to show how Audacity is used to record the voiceovers for the podcast - I recommended that a separate audio file be created for each slide.  I used CamStudio to show how Audacity files are then exported as mp3 files.  Finally, I was able to demonstrate how both the jpg slide files and the mp3 files are imported into Windows Movie Maker where the audio and pictures are matched up and a final product in the Windows Media format is created.  I did make the initial mistake of creating a demonstration video that is longer than 10 minutes.  As I was reminded this morning, YouTube has a restriction on length of videos for it's regular accounts.  I resorted to a quick fix of using Windows Movie Maker to cut the video into two segments saved as wmv files.  While the original CamStudio format is an avi (much better quality format), the two part wmv files turned out okay.  I did lose video quality, but am still happy with the results.  Below are the two videos, let me know what you think:

Etherpad

Josh reminded me about etherpad.com a few days ago.  It is a really interesting web tool for collaborative notetaking.  I used it for the first time in one of my classes today, and it worked out pretty well.  We used it for semester exam review.  I did forget at first that only 15 people can collaborate on one etherpad notebook page, but soon remembered when a few students mentioned that they got bumped off.  After I introduced it to the class, and we played with it for a couple of minutes, we used it successfully to create a semester exam review document together.  We then copied the document into a Google Doc and shared it with the class so they can utilize it to study for the semester exam.  Etherpad has a function that is supposed to export to a Word doc, pdf, or Open Office doc, but none of those would work.  The only export functions that worked were export as html and export as text - both acceptable, but a Word doc or pdf were preferred.

Laptops Donated

St. John's Hospital donated 40 Dell Latitude D600 laptops to my classroom at the end of last week.  The laptops all have 1.8 ghz processors and 1Gb of RAM - better specs than all but two of the existing classroom computers.  Most of the laptops have 60 Gb hard drives (we stumbled upon one so far that has a 75 Gb hard drive).  Approximately 30 of the laptops appear to be in a decent quality - ready to install an operating system and the necessary software.  Of the other ten, three have torn up hinges, and another one has a bad lcd panel.  I hope to use those four as a salvage to end up with at least five total good laptops out of that stack.

Since the laptops came from the medical field, their hard drives had to be erased before I received them.  I installed Windows on one one laptop, Plainsman01, over the weekend, and then set it up with Microsoft Office, the Adobe Web Premium suite, the Adobe Design suite, Skype, AIM, Firefox, and a few other necessities, including a second Gb of RAM from one of the battered laptops.  The laptops do not have cd-roms, but instead have a second battery.  I took the laptop to the conference that I attended on Tuesday, and the battery life appears to be approximately 7 hours.  I set up a second laptop, Plainsman02, on Tuesday evening with Windows and Microsoft Office, and fine-tuned which drivers are necessary for installation and placed them on a flash drive.  On Thursday evening, two yearbook seniors stayed after school for two hours and started the installation process on eight more laptops.  Plainsman03 was set up with Windows, Microsoft Office, the Adobe Design suite, Firefox, and we installed a second Gb of RAM in it as well - it will be used by the yearbook Editor in Chief for electronic submissions to the publisher.  The other seven laptops were set up with Windows, Microsoft Office, and Firefox.  Taking about an hour for supper, I worked on the installations until about 12:30 a.m.  I know it's a little obsessive, but I wanted to have nine of the laptops ready for the B1 English class to use so they could all blog during the same time today.  All went well this morning . . . nine students of the 23 in the class used laptops and were excited to use them.

I will have yearbook students and whoever else would like to help out with installations work on the remaining 20-25 laptops.  Since I have enough computers functioning in the classroom now, I can take my time setting up the rest of the laptops.

After I get the total number of functional laptops determined, I need to make a decision about the desktop computers in the classroom.  Do I replace them with the laptops, or do they still have a purpose?  I also need to propose a new classroom setup to the administration.  I would like to have back-to-back counters installed in two rows where my existing rows of tables are sitting.  I would like the counters to be "breakfast bar" height and have bar stools for seats.  I would like to give the students the opportunity to sit or stand as they prefer.  The counters, having backs on them, will adequately divide the students who are sitting across from each other and will also provide extra tabletop space of the students' books, the laptop, and notebooks, etc.

The one thing that I do need to work out in the next couple of weeks is which breakers control my classroom outlets, what else is on them, and how much more amperage they can safely manage.  I need to find a place to store the laptops so they can charge each evening.  I would like to slightly remodel the cabinets in my office for the task, but will have to have electricity run to them in order for that to happen.  I may just have to get five power strips and find a safe way to stack the laptops so they can charge overnight.

All in all, I am excited about the donations and can already foresee the possible uses of the laptops on a daily basis.  Thank you to all the IT staff at St. John's Hospital for the donation, and thank you to Mollie, my wife, for telling me about the laptops becoming available and making the contact connection between me the IT staff at St. John's.

Diverse Results from Rationalism Project Survey

Josh and I created a Google Forms survey to get a sense of how the students felt about the collaborative project after it was completed.  When I checked the results of the survey, there were 140 responses, nearly all of the students.  Most of the students rated their experience based on working with a partner as good.  86% of the students responded that the use of technologies such as Google Docs and Email as tools to complete the project was effective.  Various forms of communication were used to communicate between partners.  I was surprised to see that cell phone calls only accounted for 3% of the students, while Facebook accounted for 24%, and Other accounted for 69%.  Only 1% of students polled found the Rationalism Project to be not effective in teaching the qualities of the American Rationalism Period.  The suggestions of what to change in the project ranged from changing nothing to changing the project so it was not a partner project and was only done in class.  Overall, I feel the project was a success in more ways than we imagined.  While we learned a few things that need to be done in order for the project to run smoother, I personally am very pleased with the way things worked out in our first collaborative inter-school effort.  The summary follows:

140 responses

Teacher's Last Name
	Durbin 29 21% Langley 28 20% Piper 59 42% Scropos 24 17% People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

Rate your experience based on working with a partner.

awesome - everything went well and communication between partners went smoothly 29 21% good - everything went well and communication between partners was effective with few issues 47 34% okay - the project was completed as a team and communication between partners took place but it was a struggle 36 26% bad - the project was completed with little assistance from your partner and communication between partners was a problem 19 14% horrible - the project was not completed as a team and there was little to no communication between partners 9 6% People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

Rate the use of technologies such as Google Docs and Email as tools to complete the Rationalism Project.
	effective 121 86% not effective 19 14% People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

Check other forms of digital communication that were made outside of class.
	Texting 15 11% Facebook 33 24% My Space 6 4% Cell Phone Call 4 3% Skype 4 3% Other 96 69% People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

Rate the effectiveness of the Rationalism Project in teaching you the qualites of the American Rationalism Period.
	very effective 16 11% effective 80 57% somewhat effective 42 30% not effective 2 1% People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

If you could change one part of the project what would it be? Why?

It was very hard to get things done and communicate with my partners when everyone does things last minute or not at all. I think maybe we should have had a deadline for each virtue, so that everyone did everything at the same time and not right before the whole project was due. I would change nothing because it was so AWESOME.choose your partners. that way you know that the partner you choose is actually going to put effort into the project so that you are not doing it completely by yourself. I would just do it in class. Working with another school did not help this project out at all.I ...

Google Moderator

I just ran across Google Moderator.  It appears to be a great tool for students to present questions that they would like the teacher to address during class.  Class time is never long enough to address all the questions that students have - nor do students always think of their questions during class.  I set up a Google Moderator series for American Literature - Rationalism Period.  I sent the students an email asking them to post questions that they have regarding the Rationalism Period.  Google Moderator not only allows the students to present questions, but it also allows them to vote on questions that they think are important.  This tool will allow me to address the most popular questions first.  I'm looking forward to using the tool - in theory, it should be an effective way to give everyone in class a voice.