Brainstorming with Students on Technology Bill of Rights

Yesterday, I mentioned how a group of teachers at my school is working to develop a basic Technology Bill of Rights. In an effort to continue to make sure my students have a voice on the topic, I collectively brainstormed with all fuor classes yesterday around the idea.

First, we talked about the US Bill of Rights and what it means. Then, we talked about the technology available to them in our school and some ideas for increasing such opportunities in the future.

Next, we did our brainstorming for use of technology. Here is the list. You’ll notice that much of it revolves around taking care of the equipment so that everyone has equal access to it. If nothing else, our discussions reinforced in them the idea that being careful, and creative, can go hand in hand.

Obviously, this list is long and work will have to be done to winnow it down to some main elements as part of our larger discussions.

Norris School Technology Bill of Rights

  • Be respectful of equipment
  • Don’t change the settings (desktop, dock, etc)
  • Don’t be impatient (if computer is slow)
  • Put wires back in cart
  • Use appropriate websites
  • Make sure the laptops are plugged in when you are done
  • Use two hands to carry equipment
  • Make sure laptops are completely shut down before closing “the lid”
  • Be mature with things you find on the Internet
  • Don’t run with the computer
  • Technology focus on the upper grades
  • Don’t waste time (fooling around) on the computer
  • Don’t delete “history” on browser
  • Don’t look at (without permission) or delete files that are not yours
  • Don’t print without permission
  • Don’t buy anything on the Internet
  • Don’t email from school
  • Be grateful that we have technology at Norris
  • Be serious, but also be creative and have fun
  • Don’t have drinks or food when working computer
  • Keep the Cart in order (ie, laptop to charging area)
  • Don’t yank flashdrives/Mice/other out of USB plug
  • Try to avoid touching the screen
  • Don’t push and shove at the Cart
  • Be respectful of computer neighbors/environment
  • Try to save work on flashdrives
  • Don’t bang on the keyboard
  • Don’t take keys off the keyboard
  • Don’t download without permission from teacher
  • Be set up in a work space before you start working (no walking, standing, etc, while using laptops)

Peace (in the plan),
Kevin


What would you put in a Tech Bill of Rights?

We held our first Technology Community of Practice meeting yesterday afternoon and although we did not get far with our long list of topics (everything from upgrading old software to discussing whether we begin to move from Macs/PCs to Netbooks and iTouches), it was a good beginning for a group of us who want to move technology forward at our school — for both teachers and for students.

So, we are trying to come up with a Technology Bill of Rights for our school — a sort of guiding document for using technology and equipment for both teachers and students.

We are now on our own closed Ning network as a team, starting these discussions both in person and online.

I wonder: What would YOU put into a school-based Technology Bill of Rights?

Here is what I came up with a brainstorm:

All students should have access to all technology. Make it a level playing field for everyone, regardless of socio-economic status.

Plug ’em back in! (for the next person)

If you break it or if you think you’ve broken it, own up to it and tell someone who might know how to fix it.

Don’t be afraid of the technology.

When I put out a query on Twitter, I got a few responses:

The right to keep and bear cell phones, iPods, and other personal tools for information access. — rrmurry

Everyone has the right to a safe environment. – 81teacher

One of my colleagues in our group gave us this quote to think about:

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.” Thomas Jefferson, 1823

Do you have a suggestion for us as we develop our Technology Bill of Rights? I would love to know what you think.

Peace (in the tech),

Kevin

A Technology Community of Practice

This afternoon, a group of teachers at my school will convene the first Community of Practice (CoP) for technology. This is an interesting development, I think, and one I certainly welcome as we move further into technology integration. We have three computer carts (two PCs and one Mac), a handful of Interactive Boards, and assorted other stuff floating around the building.

Since last year, our school has moved into regular team meetings — first, it was known as Professional Learning Communities and now it is Communities of Practice (I see a Boolean comic coming …). Whatever we call it, this networking is important to us, even as we work as a school to figure out a good balance between setting goals for the work in this circles.

My hope is that our Technology CoP group will think about ways we can share out the technology we are doing with our students with the rest of the staff and consider ways to move us, as a whole, forward. My guess is that many people who say they are using technology as only using it for students as “gatherers” of information (ie, kids go to web and copy information) , and not as “creators” of content (ie, making movies, podcasts, etc). I’m going to try to be persistent, without annoying everyone, that this is the direction we should be going — helping students to become “composers” in a digital world through the use of a myriad of technological tools available to us. I may even print out the statement by National Council of Teachers of English that now puts emphasis on multimedia in the Language Arts field.

My worry is that this group will be seen as the place where we talk about what kind of technology we need to buy next — software, hardware, etc. — and while that is important to a degree, I think we have a lot already here at my school. I want to focus on practice, not purchase.

It’s very heartening that our principal is excited about this new technology CoP group and is fully supportive of the concept. He really does believe in bringing teachers along in this direction but also knows that there will be pockets of resistance to technology. I know that, too.

I wonder if you have a similar group at your school or organization? If so, I would love to know how it is going and what advice you might give to us as we move forward on our own baby steps.

Peace (with others),
Kevin

More Dreams …

This is another digital story created by a student for our Dream Scenes Project. They really impressed me with their visions and their digital stories.

Peace (in the future),
Kevin

Dreaming the Future

Most teachers have a Dream Project for their students at the start of the year. It can be a valuable way to work closely with our new students and get to know them better. We find out a lot about a young person by their aspirations. Mine is a digital story called Dream Scenes and we finally … finally finished the digital stories up yesterday.

They are fantastic stories and I am impressed by not only the dreams, but also the way they quickly adapted to technology they have never used before — Photostory. And most have never used Paint for a real art project. Only a handful have ever recorded their voice.

There were many mini-lessons along the way but also, I actively encouraged students helping each other and once again, I am always moved by how much they are willing to share what they have discovered, even to people outside of their friend networks.

I’m going to share a few Dream Scenes over the next few days. Enjoy!

Peace (in the dream),
Kevin

A glimpse of some Dream Scenes

My students are in the midst of recording their voices and completing the start-of-the-year Dream Scene digital story projects. They are doing a wonderful job with their aspirations and my emphasis has been on using their “voice” as part of the digital work. A common piece of advice from me to them: “The music is too loud … go back and edit the sound.”

Here are a few of their illustrations, which I shared on my interactive board last night for our Curriculum Night for parents:

Peace (in the dreams),
Kevin

Where Short Stories Come From …

As we get into our daily routine of writing, I know some of my students will struggle with short story writing prompts. They need something to move them forward, to spark an idea. So, one activity that I do at the start of the year — and then repeat later on — is to have all of my students generate lists of possible short story titles. They then select one of their titles and “donate” it to the classroom. The title is written on a slip of paper and put into a Story Jar, which we then pull from as inspiration from time to time. I also record the story titles as a document that I keep on my computer.

You’d be surprised at how much fun they have with this assignment. It helps that I tell them that “you don’t need to know the story,” just come up with an interesting title. The stories may come later. Or not. They may never write the stories for the titles they create. I think they like that kind of freedom.

Here are a few that we generated yesterday from one of my four writing classes:

  • The Hole in the Garden
  • Trapped at Ground Never
  • Dead End
  • Inside a Lamborghini
  • The Big Red Tractor
  • The Norris School Nightmare
  • The Continuous Story of Jimmy the Jellybean
  • The Messed-up Play
  • The Boys’ Bathroom
  • The Charmed Pencil
  • Duck Duck Zebra?
  • My Worst Day Ever
  • I’ve Seen Better Days
  • The Hidden Passage
  • The Teacher in Room 201
  • The Pink Flooperbinkle
  • Leo the Classroom Elf
  • How I Got Trapped in our Cellar
  • Locker 231 in the Hallway of No Return
  • The African Alligator Rescue

Peace (in the possibilities),
Kevin

Using Closed ToonDoo Comic Spaces

Since the spring, I’ve been beta-testing a new site with my students called ToonDoo Spaces for the ToonDoo organization. The open/public ToonDoo site is a social networking site for comic creators of all ages with easy-to-use tools and loads of clip art, backgrounds, options for creating your own characters, tools for compiling comics into an ebook format, and more.  It’s really fun to use. But the public ToonDoo site is not really appropriate for my students, as it features risque humor, language and more. I’ve often used Make Beliefs Comics because it is a closed site. But Make Beliefs has many limitations at this point (but it is free).

So when ToonDoo announced that it was experimenting with closed comic networks for schools, I signed on to beta test it. All spring, my sixth graders (11 and 12 year olds) were fully engaged in the use of our ToonDoo Spaces site. They would walk in the door and immediately ask: Are we going to make comics today, Mr. H? And they give a little shout of “Yeah!” with a fist pump when I say “yes” (after we do whatever other work we have planned).

In the summer, I used the site again with a Webcomic Camp, and again, the kids loved it.

As of this morning, my students had created almost 1,800  comics.  (Yes, you read that number correctly, 1,800 comics.) That’s a lot of writing and creating!

Here are some of my reflections:

THE GOOD

  • I love the ease of use of ToonDooSpaces. It really is quite simple to use, both as a user and as an administrator. I had my site up and running in no time at all, added 75 student users in the time it took me to type their names, and we were ready to go. Simplicity is beautiful.
  • The closed nature of the site allows you to foster a creative community of writers, without the outside world looking in. And, like other networks, this closed community is not bound by physical space. So you could easily collaborate with others in the world.
  • There is a separate site for the administrator, where they can do such things as add elements to the homepage, monitor users, change passwords, block inappropriate comics, highlight comics for the entire network, remove clip art from the gallery that students have access to and add new users in seconds.
  • I like the various options that students have as writers. Comics can be collected into ebook collections. Students can create their own cast of characters for their comics. They can even use the drawing tool to add their own art. They can leave comments on each others comics. The site using the framework of a social network, but with comics as the main focus of the writing.
  • The clip art collection is extensive and features many different artistic styles. And ToonDoo keeps adding more art to the sites.
  • Comics created in the closed site can be easily embedded in other online spaces. You just grab the flash code and embed it. It’s a nice way to move from the closed work area to a public sharing of student work.
  • Students have access to the site at home, and many of mine were eager to keep writing at home. You can’t beat that, can you?
  • The ToonDoo folks are using a Ning for gathering feedback and offering support. I’ve been trying to post some reflections there as we go along.
  • A new filter also flags comics with inappropriate content and allows you to either freeze a student (no one else can see their work) so that you can talk with them, hide the offending comic from sight so the creator can fix it, or remove it from the site completely.

The Possibilities

  • I’ve used the ToonDoo Space for Comic Strip Poetry. Haikus and other short poems are a natural for this format, and it really led us into a discussion about “design” and how backgrounds and art must complement the writing and not come into conflict with the words. Some of my students “got it.” Others? Not so much.
  • I love that students can collect comics into ebooks (flash-style, with pages that flip). I’d share one but that is one of the bugs they are working on. When I try to embed a book from our closed site, the code reverts to a book from the open ToonDoo site. But some have already created books of their poems and others are creating longer comics by stitching together a series of comics in the ebook format.
  • At my summer camp, students were making all sorts of comics around characters that they created in the ToonDoo tool that allows you to invent and create a character. They had a lot of fun with that.
  • You can also upload photos and, like Photobooth, morph and mix the photo on the site and then use it in your comic. It’s strange fun.
  • This kind of comic creation could be used across the curriculum. Comics could be used to explain a math problem; to investigate a moment in history; or to demonstrate a science experiment. I think there are a lot of possibilities here.

Some Final Thoughts

I think ToonDooSpaces and others are on the right track. Comics seem to be a natural platform for all levels of writers. My advanced students move into complicated stories and poems while my struggling writers are interested in the art-writing element of comics. It really reaches across different levels.

If you are interested, I notice that the ToonDooSpaces site is offering a 15 day trial period and you can use their chart to see how much it would cost to get a subscription for a longer period of time. Whether it is worth it is up to you and your budget. But as someone who used the site and watched my students ask every day if they could make comics,  I think ToonDooSpaces is a great asset to the Language Arts class.

Peace (on the funny pages),
Kevin

Wordling Obama’s Education Speech

President Obama gives his speech on education today and the White House released the text of the talk yesterday. I grabbed the words and put them into Wordle and created this image:

My aim is to show this to my students in context of the speech and talk about some of the themes that will emerge today. Of course, “school” is a theme but also responsibility, education, and knowing are there, too.

This speech actually is a perfect fit for my first project with my students called Dream Scenes, in which they must articulate an aspiration for themselves for the future, think about why it is important and explain how they will achieve it. We then move over to Photostory to create a digital story, with their voice and their own pictures (from Paint).

Here is a piece of this speech:

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.

Thanks, Mr. President!

Peace (in speeches),
Kevin

Stopmotion Name Movies

We dug right into technology in our first days of school as I had students use Pivot Stickfigure to create short stopmotion animation movies using the letters of their first name. You should have seen the engagement and concentration, and heard the laughter. And you should have seen students reaching over to show another a trick they discovered or share their movies in progress with each other.

It seemed like a real “bonding over technology” period of time and I can already gauge who is comfortable with working on the computer, who is not, and who can meet deadlines and who will have trouble with deadlines. That was part of my learning experience.

I also began showing the movies to the other sixth grade classes (this particular project was just with my homeroom class to start the year) as  way to signal that we will be getting creative this year. And my class got raves and applause from the others. Nice.

Peace (in the motion),

Kevin