Kevin’s Meandering Mind

I discovered Google Sites this week. You know, it was one of those applications that I read about when it launched, scrolled through some posts about the merits of it, and then never checked it out. Instead, I kept using Google Page Creator for some school website projects, which has been fine and dandy and all that.

But this week, I finally explored Google Sites, which allows you to create an entire website that feels a bit like a modified Moodle (with not nearly all the bells and whistles) and just like so many other Google applications, it is relatively easy to use.

The downsides?

• I love Google but they are giving this away to increase their own content on the web under the banner of Google
• The URL of your site defaults to a Google Site extension
• There are limited themes and options

The upsides?

• It’s incredibly easy to use
• You can set up a website in minutes
• You can replace the Google Banner with your own
• I have not seen any advertising anywhere on my Google Site (always a concern with freebies)
• You can control what features are active on the site (such as comments, etc)
• You can share administrative control and collaborate with others (similar to sharing in Google Docs)
• Easy integration with Google Video, Google Docs, etc.
• You can layer pages in different ways, such as under a parent page or not

All in all, if you are searching for an easy way to make a classroom website, Google Sites might be one option to consider. (Here is an example of a teacher website that used Google Sites). I worked with Weebly to show students how to begin to make a website last year, but I think Google Sites might be easier and have more flexibility for kids.

So what am I creating? It’s an eZine for the three youth programs that the Western Massachusetts Writing Project has been running this summer. We’ve never done an eZine before, but we wanted to showcase the writing and movies that were created by kids at three different sites this year.

You can take a sneak peek at our site, if you want, and any feedback on it would be most appreciated as we continue to build it in the next week or two (one camp is still running).

Peace (in development),
Kevin

(This is part of a weekly feature called Slice of Life Project)

I was sitting at the table, in a meeting at the end of the school year and thinking: although I am no meeting lover, this group of people is really special. There were such smart, dedicated people in here and it made me glad (once again) to be part of an organization like the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. Our work as part of the National Writing Project is to connect with teachers and think of ways that best practices in the classroom around writing and learning can bubble up through the system to create positive change in schools.

At this particularly WMWP Executive Board meeting (where I sit as the technology liaison for our writing project), we were reaching a vote on a new mission statement. We have been on a year-long endeavor to craft a mission statement that reflects not only our core values but also our vision for the future of our organization. For the past two years, we have been working to view our writing project through the lens of social justice and equity, and now we are re-aligning much of our work in that direction. We’ve had to ask tough questions about what we are doing and why we are doing it, and we’ve had some interesting discussions on topics ranging from race to diversity to the role of our organization as a face of social change.

The vote for the new mission statement was unanimous. Here is our statement, which is a wonderful endorsement for the purpose and power of education in the fabric of life.

“The mission of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project, is to create a professional community where teachers and other educators feel welcomed to come together to deepen individual and collective experiences as writers and our understanding of teaching and learning in order to challenge and transform our practice. Our aim is to improve learning in our schools — urban, rural and suburban.

Professional development provided by the Western Massachusetts Writing Project values reflection and inquiry and is built on teacher knowledge, expertise and leadership.

Central to our mission is the development of programs and opportunities that are accessible and relevant to teachers, students and their families from diverse backgrounds, paying attention to issues of race, gender, language, class and culture and how these are linked to teaching and learning.”

Isn’t that a great missions statement? We worked to make it inviting to all teachers and educators and also for students and their families. Now, as one board member noted in our meeting, we have an obligation to follow through with this vision and work hard to become the force for change that we envision. We hope this mission statement is a guide for the future, and not some emblem of the past.

And I can’t resist another Wordle, using our mission statement as text:

Peace (in change),
Kevin

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about a Technology Across the Curriculum conference that I helped to organize. Yesterday, I did some reflections on how the conference went and today, I wanted to try to bring you a little deeper into the conference work. Much of this has already been posted on our Western Massachusetts Writing Project News Weblog as a way to distill information to our teachers, but I wanted to share it out here, too.

Here is a collage of photos (I used a site called Stained Glass Collage to mix and match up some photos).

Finally, here are two comics created by participants in the Digital Storytelling workshop (using Make Beliefs Comics):

Yesterday, my Technology Team at the Western Massachusetts Writing Project hosted a Technology Across the Curriculum conference and we had about 25 teachers attend, which is pretty decent for a Saturday morning. Most of them were not affiliated with the Writing Project and so, we are hoping that this served as a positive introduction to our ideas of “teachers teaching teachers” and “writing to learn” as the focus of activities.

Our keynote speaker, Mike Flynn (who is the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year and a teacher at my school and a good friend), did a fantastic job of setting the tone of the day. Mike presented on the topic of the value of video in the elementary classroom, focusing in on a television program that he and his second graders produce around curricular themes (weather, salmon, etc). He injected some good humor and, also, laid out the rationale for such ventures (student engagement, knowledge of subject, public speaking, etc). I later joked to him that he may have lost a few folks when he mentioned that sometimes he is up until 3 or 4 a.m., working on editing of the movies at deadline.

We then broke the day into two sections, with three workshops. Everyone went into a session led by Tina on social networking for teachers. We wanted to give everyone a view of the ever-connected world. Tina had everyone visit, and urged them all to register, for Classroom 2.0 and begin connecting with other teachers. At the start of the conference, I noted that more than 20 teachers from my own network had posted greetings for them at our blog site, and they were all duly impressed and encouraged by those words. (another thank you to everyone).

The other two sessions were Audiocasting in the Classroom and Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum.

The podcasting session was a combination of exploration and then hands-on work, using Audacity, which only one participant knew about. We also recorded a collective Day in a Sentence podcast (to be released later today with the Day in a Sentence post). They loved using Audacity and immediately understood the potential of the use of voice. One of the teachers is at my own school and we began planning how my class of sixth graders might team up with her class of fourth graders for a collaborative project.

The digital storytelling session, led by Mary, had folks working with both Make Beliefs Comics (always a huge hit) and VoiceThread. They loved the potential of VoiceThread. I had set up a master account, and created alternative identities for them to use and experiment with. I could tell that the examples we showed in the areas of math, science and history were hitting some chords with them. Our discussion at the end of the session (which I will podcast later) was also informative.

At the end of the conference, a number of folks asked when we would be doing more of these hands-on technology conferences and that is something our team will have to think about. There clearly was interest and our model of engagement and hands-on work was what these teachers needed. They wanted time to play and we gave that to them. Almost every hand in the room was raised when Mary asked how many of them learned something they could try out in the classroom on Monday.

For the most part, it was a smooth conference to run, with a great team of folks. We held the event at my school, and so I had time to prepare during the week (putting Audacity and PhotoStory3 on all of the computers). The wireless Internet network was wicked slow, for some reason, and so loading time for some web-based applications took a bit of time. The participants were more patient than I was. I paced the room.
Also, I want to give a shout-out to my school district’s Information Technology leader — Kim F. — who volunteered to come to the Conference, and act as tech support and troubleshooter for the sessions. I often run into teachers who are at odds with their Tech Staff and come into conflict. I know I am lucky to have Kim around and for her to give up a Saturday morning to be with us — as a volunteer — says a lot about her support for teacher inquiry. (And I let her play with my XO Computer, which had her full attention for a time).

I’ll be posting a few podcasts in the coming days and some photos from the conference. All in all: a great success.

Peace (in reflection),
Kevin

On Saturday, my Western Massachusetts Writing Project is hosting a half-day conference at my school on using technology across the curriculum. Our hope to is have conversations and hands-on activities around the topic of integrating technology and writing into the various content areas (math, science, social studies, etc.) The model for this event was inspired by a similar conference put on by Bonnie and the Hudson Valley Writing Project last year (I had the pleasure of being the keynote — see the article that Bonnie wrote for the National Writing Project).

We have about 25 people signed up (we had set a limit at 30) and we are all feeling a bit antsy, I think, about the event. (The technology better work! he says with anxiety) I was lucky to have my friend, Mike Flynn (the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year) sign on as keynote speaker, and he will be talking about video production in the elementary classroom.

Our other sessions are:

• Connecting with the World: where we will be exploring the benefits and possibilities of social networking for teachers and students. The hands-on activity will include joining Classroom 2.0 and beginning some interactions with other teachers on the vast and growing network (7000 members!).
• Audiocasting in the Classroom: where we will be listening at and looking into the use of audio recording and podcasting in the classroom. The hands-on work will be a group Day in a Sentence podcast (be sure to listen for it) and then we are either going to show them Audacity or the online podcasting site called Odeo Studio. Our intention had been to use PodcastPeople, but we just found out you know have to pay for its services (bad bad bad).
• Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum: where we will try to show some examples of digital stories and then move into using VoiceThread to post to a thread that I created and then, hopefully, have them create their own threads. I also have PhotoaStory on our laptops, so we can shift to that, too, if necessary.

Our new WMWP Technology Team has been using a Ning site to do some planning for this event and they are a great group of teachers who are interested, but not all quite experienced, in the use of technology in the classroom. I think this will be as much a learning event for us as for our participants. And isn’t that what makes a conference so interesting? (I hope so)

If you want to look at our Technology Across the Conference weblog, where we will launch our workshops, you can do so by going here: http://masswp.org/techconference/ Any feedback or suggestion from you is most welcome.

In fact, it would be very cool if some folks went to our Conference Blog and left a comment for folks coming in on Saturday. Maybe a welcome to the Web 2.0 World or a piece of advice on how you use technology or links to cool sites or just about anything. If you do so, please leave where in the world you are located, so they can see the connections that are possible.

(consider this part of the 31 Day Comment Challenge’s task of turning over a blog to readers through the use of comments — please use my conference blog to do so.)

Thanks!!!

Peace (in connections),
Kevin