Technically Teaching

Our First Online Course! December 20, 2009

Abbey and I are pleased to announce the availability of our first ever online professional development course: “Teaching With Technology”. This 12-week online professional development is focused on the use of 21st century technologies in the classroom. We will cover a wide variety of topics, with an emphasis on immediate implementation in the classroom. In English – you learn something, AND how to teach with it. We will cover the following tools:

• Creating your home page
• Video and pictures in the classroom
• Blogging
• Wikis
• Podcasts
• Collaborative document editing
• Online research
• Social networking
• Cyber-bullying
• Cell phones in the classroom

For each of the tools, you will create something for use in your classroom.  We will also focus on collaborating with other teachers and sharing ideas.

To enroll, log on to http://moodle.technicallyteaching.com.  Create a new Moodle account, click on the course you want to enroll in, and enroll yourself in the course.  Module 1 is available for you to start working on right away.  The official start date for the course is January 15.

This course is FREE and open to all teachers in grades 5-12.  For more information, or if you have questions, email me at mark.samberg@technicallyteaching.com.

We’re Baaaaaaack! December 6, 2009

We’ve been gone for quite a while, but now, we’re back, and better than ever! I’ve been in a new job in a new school. I’m having a great time here in Currituck, NC, but it’s been a busy few months getting situated. Abbey’s also been super busy with work and school. But now, Technically Teaching is back. Look for some great things coming in the next couple months – a few online workshops, a Sandbox, and lots of new resources.

It’s MY Turn! August 18, 2009

Are you fortunate enough to be the teacher who has all twenty-five hands shoot up in the air when you ask for a response?  Or do you experience students whispering “I am invisible” to themselves as they slump down in their chairs in an effort to duck and dodge you calling their name?  Classtools.net provides the coolest student selector complete with audio of a cheering crowd when a student’s name is selected. You have your choice of a typewriter or a Vegas style slot machine to see who the lucky chosen one is.  Teachers simply cut and paste student’s names and there you are.  Check it out!

Be a Wordsmith with Wordle August 2, 2009

Many of you have seen “Tag Clouds” on websites before.  A tag cloud is a “map” of a document, with each word in the text displayed.  The size of the is proportionate to the frequency – the larger the word, the more it appears in the text or website.  This is a great tool to save you time making sure the website you are looking at is actually going to “hit” your desired topic.  However, wouldn’t it be great if you can dynamically generate a tag cloud based on any text you choose.  Enter: Wordle (http://www.wordle.net).  Wordle allows you to paste in a URL or a selection of text, and it automagically generates a tag cloud based on that text.   It’s easy to do, the tag clouds are colorful and can be printed, and can the a launchpad for some really great lessons.  Examples:

• English/social studies: Paste a selection from a book or a primary source document into Wordle to represent the “big ideas” (literally) of the speech.  Take a look at the example below, where I have a Wordle of the Gettysburg Address (click on it for a larger image).
• English teachers: Have students paste their writing into Wordle to look for overused words.
• Guess the Wordle: Great web site with a generated Wordle which you must guess.  Sometimes it’s a story, sometimes the words are associated by a common theme, you have to guess.  Monday’s Wordle is easy, and they get increasingly more difficult throughout the week.

Other ideas?  Share in the comments.

Friending students on Facebook (and not getting yourself in trouble) July 26, 2009

I have to qualify the whole “not getting yourself in trouble” thing.  It’s possible your school district may have policies against friending students on Facebook.  If you work in one of these districts, you probably don’t want to test them.  And as always, there is a standard “Don’t be stupid rule” which always applies.

Facebook began a few years back as a way for students at a single college to network.  Eventually, it expanded to more and more colleges, and now to the world at large.  It seems like everyone who has ever seen a computer now has a Facebook account (except for my parents).  I have one, and I use it to keep in touch with old friends, where time and distance doesn’t allow for telephone calls or visits.  High school reunions in the digital age are going to be interesting.  Everyone who I would talk to at my reunion is already on my Facebook, so I never really lost track of them.  Just random food for thought.

Anyway, at the start of the school year, the thought of “friending” a student on Facebook gave me chills.  My Facebook page is pretty benign, I’ve shown it to my parents and grandparents without embarrassment.  However, I didn’t want my students to see that much of my personal life, nor the occasional “my classes really annoyed me today” status post.  However, one day during my planning period, I was reading a blog from a teacher, who said that posting his homework on Facebook, and using Facebook chat to provide extra help to students was working wonders for homework completion.  It makes sense – I spend a lot of time on Facebook.  I have to assume that validation-hungry teenagers would be spending even more time on Facebook.

So, now, with Facebook’s new privacy settings, I’m happy to say that it is possible to Friend students on Facebook, but still keep that crazy Saturday night a secret.  All Facebook activity is logged, and if there was ever an issue, Facebook tends to be very cooperative with law enforcement.  Anyway, on that note, here is a screencast on how to “student-proof” your Facebook profile.

A few words of warning first:

1) Don’t be stupid – remember that people will judge you not based on what you do, but what it looks like you are doing.  Anything you put where students can see it should be appropriate.  If you write on a student’s Wall, it should be AND SHOULD LOOK appropriate.  Also, remember that it’s easier to misunderstand intentions in text than in person.  Be careful.

2) You will learn more about your students than you ever wanted to know.  I’m reading a status post by one of my students right now “ drunk az hellz“.  She is 15.  I really didn’t want to know that about this student, and it gets on my nerves.  You have to roll your eyes and move on.  If you are thinking of responding to a post like this, I would ask you to refer to the previous warning.

If you can’t see the video below, the original is at http://www.screencast.com/t/j3WmLMdTA

U.S. Government Websites Are Chock Full of Data Goodness July 19, 2009

Too often, our first answer for our data needs is to just “Google it”.  While Google does a good job at text searches, finding data still remains somewhat difficult.  New tools, like Wolfram Alpha are working on solving that problem, but data is still harder to find than text.  Enter: the U.S. Government.  Government websites are chock full of data, more than we could ever want.  Two years ago, Lifehacker did a feature article, called “U.S. government web sites you didn’t know you could use“.  The article contains a list of some of the most data-filled government websites out there.  Use them to create data sets for your classes (a la Excel/Access lessons) or for student research.  Sample lesson ideas:

• Examine census data for trends, correlate census data to historical events
• Graph the exchange rate over time
• Use bighugelabs to create a trading card for different countries.
• Go Geocaching with the USGS
• Predict/graph the weather

Big Huge Labs: Motivational Posters July 18, 2009

We’ve all seen the motivational posters.  You know the ones, where you have a pretty picture, with a black border.  Underneath is a word, and an inspirational quote to go with it.  They are a little too sappy for me, so I prefer the de-motivational posters found at despair.com.  While the poster on the left may not be good for the classroom, they make me smile, especially on those annoying days.

Anyway, before I bore you completely, I’m going to give you something useful.  Over the next few time periods, I’m going to post a few blog entries on bighugelabs.com.  This site is an amalgamation of lots of different tools for using graphics.  For example, they have a motivational poster generator.  Upload your image, your title and text, and watch your poster come to life.  It’s easy to use, and free.  Once you are done, you can download your image and print it out.

Practical uses:

• Find a picture to illustrate and summarize an important quote or poem.
• Have students create a tagline for an important figure.
• Create a poster to remember a key concept.

My favorite, however:

Make your classroom rules more interesting:

Poll anywhere with Poll Everywhere July 9, 2009

We’ve all seen the cool “clickers” at conferences (really known as Classroom Responders).  I had a set of these in my classroom last year.  They were awesome!  Kids loved them, and were excited about answering questions on them.  But there is always a catch.  In this case: $$$$$$$$$$.  Normal classroom responders run at least $2,000 a pop, so getting one in every teacher’s hands is not realistic for most schools.

If only there were a way to leverage something students are bringing to class with them anyway as a “poor 1man’s classroom responder.  What do all of our students bring to class?  Pencils…no.  Paper…no.  Backpacks…no.  Textbooks, definitely no.  Hmmm…….  CELL PHONES.  Every student has a cell phone in their pocket, despite the best efforts of education policy makers.  Poll Everywhere (http://www.polleverywhere.com) meets this need perfectly.  It allows you to put up a multiple choice (or free response) question, and have students TEXT in their answers.  Let’s try it (don’t worry – it’s anonymous). Since WordPress is being annoying and not letting me embed the poll directly, click to go to the poll and vote.

When you text your answer, they are automatically displayed in real time.  Of course, Poll Everywhere also lets you vote via Smartphone, web page (for computer users), and Twitter.  Obviously, there are a few caveats.  You are going to have to monitor your classes twenty times more closely than normal to make sure students are on task.  This isn’t for the “crazy class”.  Your school or district may have policies in place preventing this.  Don’t get in trouble.

Twitter-(not so)-iffic July 8, 2009

I think it’s possible that I’m the only person who doesn’t use Twitter.  It’s not that I don’t like the service, but I just think that it’s overhyped.  Take a look at this recent post from Senator John McCain:

Vote for Mark Reynolds for All-Star! He is a great athlete and an outstanding role model. Go D-backs, 3 in a row!

Or this one from Katie Couric on the Michael Jackson memorial service:

Talked to stevie wonder afterwards. I love the song he sang. Pretty amazing to sit next to such a legend.

Ok, guys, I DON’T CARE!  I think that some of the most useless stuff on the Internet right now can be found on Twitter (which is quite an accomplishment, when you think about it).  I think every teacher right now reading this has too much to worry about in their own lives and classrooms to pay attention to a minute-by-minute accounting of the lives of professional narcissists.

Anyway, I’m going to end the rant here, and talk about how Twitter can be useful in the classroom:

• Create a twitter feed with daily homework assignments and reminders.  Parents and students can subscribe to it, and see it every day.  Also, since Twitter will send you text message notifications of subscribed feeds, a student who subscribes to your homework feed can literally have their homework texted to them every day.
• Cheap classroom responders: Ask a question on your Twitter feed, have students respond to your Twitter feed.
• Summarizing: Since they only have 140 characters to work with, Twitter is a great way to have students summarize reading assignments.

Others?  Think Twitter is awesome?  Post in the comments.