Books in Sixth

Today it has been one month since I have posted a blog entry;  the tablets are but a memory, the news stories have died down, and I have run my cycle of emotions with this whole situation.  I will have to admit.  I have been living in the land of disappointment and uncertainty; watching the news articles come out day after day with their pointy finger subtleties and their patronizing whispers of blame.  It's enough to crush your inspiration and creativity to death. I have been back and forth on what to do with my blog now; abandon it, change the title and focus, or continue to write it with the same focus of personalized learning minus the tablets.  There is the sure fact that the tablets are coming back so in the meantime it is imperative that I continue to explore personalized learning for my students, with or without 1:1 technology.  Last year we toyed with the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) concept with our students.  My team designed a contract ...

Last week was one crazy week! We took our annual overnight camping trip to the Betsy Jeff Penn 4-H center where students focused on leadership and teamwork skills.  This was a time to disconnect; no cell phones, tablets, laptops, or computers.  Just nature and its beauty, some mosquitoes and spiders,a beaver pond and fall leaves, campfire songs and great weather.  And let us not forget the horrible skunk smell in my cabin, which I kind of got used to by the second day; No, not really! It was a wonderful experience for our students and a great way to stay connected to the natural world. And we were back to school on Friday when the email came. We received the email Friday morning around 8:30.  The email stated that due to quality issues, the tablets, covers, and chargers were to be collected from the students throughout the county until further notice. I knew there had been problems with the tablet glass breaking easily; even 2 of our own teachers expe...

What middle school student doesn't like to talk??...Even the ones you think are quiet. The absolute best way for them to learn how to use their tablet, involves just some honest to goodness "play".  There must be time to explore and this helps students become independent learners in the process.  So which feature did they zero in on first..... the class discussion feature that allows the students to talk to one another, as well as with the classroom teacher. If you are a middle school teacher and you are in tune with your students, you would already have a feeling about how this would go down.  First of all, they love to talk. Second of all, they have no idea what to say to one another.  We just kind of sat back to see what they would do with this feature. And I have to say; not surprised, somewhat impressed, and highly amused. Conversations went a little like this..... hey..... hello......wuz up......hey..........hi.........hiya.....what's for homework......ba...

Instruction and Practice: On day 2, I pushed out some vocabulary practice on the tablet.  This was so exciting, because I was able to scan the pages of their vocabulary book, which they cannot take home, and create a playlist where they can keep these vocabulary pages as practice and reference.  So here is me, doing the typical teacher thing, where I start the activity by having them open the document and everyone at the same time begins completing the exercises.  Problem #1:  Some students were moving very quickly through this process and some were moving very slowly through this process.  Problem #2:  I wasted some valuable instructional time waiting for all to finish so we could check their answers.  Problem #3:  We did not have time to go over it before class ended, and now everyone is in a different spot. Reflection: So here was my paradigm shift: I have come to the realization that releasing control will be the obstacle for me and well a...

How many times am I going to hear this??? "The kids will break them, lose them, and they will get stolen." "In 2 years the tablets will be irrelevant and useless." "The tablets will not solve our educational problems." By the way, educational problems will never be solved.  (That should be in that quote with death and taxes.) Is is not just human nature to resist change?  Absolutely!  But, hey, is all this negativity really necessary?   History speaks amazing success of many innovations and ideas that were doubted and predicted to fail. What I see is a general lack of knowledge, written by a whole bunch of people that went to school, but yet, have never spent one day teaching school.  FYI:  It's real different now. I would like to hear from an actual student;   talking about how the tablets are not going to help them, or how the tablets are useless, or how the tablets will be irrelevant in their education in 2 years, then, I think I would...

Since we are studying story elements in class, I have been inspired to write this blog as an original story outline. Exposition:  The students and myself, Northwest Middle School, Tablet Distribution Day The excitement is killing me all morning in anxious anticipation of the day.  The tablets are charged, the PowerPoint is cued, my playlist is ready, and I am expecting miracles. Rising Action:   The students enter the room and after we take care of some maintenance items, we begin passing out the tablets, chargers, and orange covers.  The students are so excited and can't wait to get their hands on them.  Forget following the original "wait to power on" presentation slide.  Students begin to immediately explore.  Comment #1 "Look at all the math videos on this thing"!  We go through the basic tablet features, talk about tablet responsibility, and attempt to try the student/teacher interactive features. Climax:   Many students...

Connectivity, Connectivity, Why are you such the irritating mystery? You thrash us to and fro, Knocking us out in vicious throws. By now, I thought you would discover, the needs - already uncovered. But instead we continue to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, distribution seems way too late. We are bound by your limitations, will you be ready by Holiday Vacation? What is standing in your way; the mobiles, the server, the electronic highway. We need several miracles here to get this thing going, get it in gear!! As we wait, and wait, and wait, for Thursday  -  the magical date. Stress Test - Yes, it was! STAY TUNED!!! (Distribution to 6th Grade Thursday, September 12th)

Let me start by saying, WOW!, what a day;  Excited students, teachers, administrators, staff, volunteers, and parents. Northwest Middle was hopping with the Tablet Buzz yesterday.  Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students (700+) entered the gym and were greeted with smiling, happy faces.  It was a busy morning; everyone was exhilarated and filled with anticipation. All Smiles! Awesome Sixth Grade Teachers As students trickled in, teachers grabbed groups of 23 students, 3 boxes of tablets, and covers and headed off to their classrooms to begin BOOT CAMP. Before I go any further, I must digress and explain our school environment,  more specifically,  the 6th grade "village". Let me introduce you to our 6th grade "village": We reside in trailers, a huge pod of more than 12 "mobile units" connected by outdoor boardwalks and awnings.  We are backed by woods and close to a nearby farm that I have never seen, but have heard ...

The Northwest Middle School staff converged this summer to prepare the tablets for distribution to the students and plan lessons for Student Boot Camp. (BE SURE TO READ MUSINGS BELOW) Day 1:  The Unpacking Each of the near 1,000 tablets had to be unpacked, labeled, registered, updated, and charged.  I lost count of how many boxes actually passed through my hands.  All in all, it was hard work, but a great learning experience; I gained a wealth of information that can be used should certain problems arise.  (Note:  Even though the A/C was not working due to construction, spirits were high and people were excited.  Or maybe that was the Krispy Kreme donuts that made everyone Happy, Happy, Happy!) This is only a few in a big long line. Looks crazy, but I promise we were careful! Day 2:   Charging, Planning, Charging, Planning, Charging We arrived a bit early to pack up charged tablets, and hook new tablets up for chargin...

Here is the article Mike Shaw wrote for the Northwest Observer when he visited us on Day 3 training. Check out page 8-9.  We had a great time talking and taking pictures; I got my TMZ reference from him. Great Guy and Great Writer!! http://issuu.com/pscommunications/docs/nwo_08-02-2013?e=8663047/4262235

I mentioned in my last blog that during the last session of Day 3 training the media storm arrived.  So maybe it wasn't like a huge "storm" as you would associate with paparazzi or TMZ, but it felt pretty significant. My principal (Rich Thomae), the Executive Director of Instructional Technology and Personalized Achievement Curriculum and Environment (Jake Henry),  and a reporter from the Northwest Observer (Mike Shaw) all showed up to gather information from the Northwest Middle teachers attending the training; that was where I came in. First the interview for the Northwest Observer....questions first, pictures second..... that will all appear here a few weeks from now; stay tuned. Then, Dr. Henry asked if I would speak to the Board of Education the following week.  He was to give an update to the board on the PACE initiative and had asked a PLEF, a principal, and a teacher(myself) to be part of the presentation. The anxiety inside me screamed “NO”, but out ca...

I am going to combine Day 2 and Day 3 training since they both feel like one big amoeba sloshing around in my brain. First, let me say, that before Day 2 and 3 training, I began playing with the tablets and discovering some of these sights and such that I had heard mentioned and suggested.  I figured out the whole Google Drive thing and am now in the cloud.  The scan feature on Drive is super cool.  I then figured out how to upload documents and links to the playlist builder on the tablets from my Google Drive . Next, I created an Edmodo page for my students, got some apps, and began “tinkering” with that.  For those that are a bit reluctant with technology, you just have to start clicking and learning.  You really can’t mess up anything and, if you do, in most cases, there is usually a nice delete button to get rid of whatever you did.  For the most part, it’s a lot of common sense.  And never underestimate the “help” link; I have worn that one ...

What to do??  Neither tablet would log in.  Time to call in the big guns. I emailed tablet support about my tablet problems and figured I would hear from them in a day or two, closed my laptop and left to run errands. Within literally 2 minutes (and I have proof), I received an email back. Once I got back home, I began emailing back and forth with Amplify tablet support and all in all, must have talked to 3 or so people.  (They really wanted to make sure my problem was solved.)  We finally ended up on the phone troubleshooting various things with the tablet, none of which worked. The end result..... I was to go back to the school where my tablets were registered on Day 1 training, let them connect to the wifi, and finish all updates and downloads.  Skeptical, I was, but a few days later, I gave it a shot, and what do you know…  It worked. I emailed Amplify back and, within minutes, I was back on the phone with tablet support and logging in ...

Day 1 tablet training took place on June 21st.  I went in with very few expectations; everything was so new and unknown, I didn't know what expectations to have.  They tiered the training for beginner and advanced and I had signed up for the advanced class; not because I am an advanced user of technology, but because I find technology user friendly, in most cases, and easy to figure out with some "tinkering". My only concern at this point was keeping up with the rest of the class. Every school has been assigned what they have termed a PLEF (Personalized Learning E-something Facilitator??)  This is a person that is assigned to our school to guide us and help us through this process. Ours is fantastic and dynamic!!  And he was our instructor the first day. Day 1 was spent as it should; learning where things are on the tablet, leaning how the interactive features work, exploring applications and some functions on the tablet.  There were also a ton of Ampl...

Not only is joy my name; joy is my attitude.  And in the mixed up crazy world of our educational scene, we all need to remember to be positive and joyful; especially when fostering the lifelong learner in ourselves as well as developing the lifelong learners in our students. This is my "positive" journey with "personalized learning"; the latest buzz word in education.  I am not going to even begin to define this term since that too is ever changing.  What I am going to do instead is attempt to record my journey, as a lifelong learner, into the world of technology, from one who has only began to skim the surface of how technology can and should be used in the classroom. Our county recently received a $30,000,000 grant to put a tablet into the hands of every middle-schooler in our district. (what they call 1:1- 1student, 1tablet)  HUGE, right!! And guess what - hasn't been done before.  Even more HUGE! So where should we logically begin??  Training the ...