Keynote Take-A-Ways

As previously stated, many of these early postings are likely to be drawn from the technology conference the Accomack ITRTs attended in April. This posting falls in to that category.

Looking over my notes from the keynote address by Dr. Pamela Moran, Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS) I’ve decided just to make note of a few of my “take-a-ways” from this address.

She stated that there is an unfortunate tendency for schools to have “test prep curriculums”. On that subject she quoted Albert Einstein as saying “Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted counts.” She went on to ask; “What if ‘Attention’ didn’t mean gaze?”

Dr. Moran pointed out that college drop outs, are, for the most part, not content incompetent, but process incompetent. Employers looking for employees are looking for thinkers, team workers, people with good work ethics and good citizens—qualities not necessarily found in students who have only been taught to select the correct choice. We need to produce students who are “process competent.”

She told the story of a teacher who gave an economically disadvantaged child a cell phone. The student filled out here FASFA form, collge admission applications, and scholarship applications using that phone. Yet, she noted, we treat cell phones as if they are gum.

Doctor Moran went on to compare technology to a playground. When children are small, she noted, we go to the playground with them, supervise them carefully, teach them to go down the slide (not up,) and other important playground protocols. However, too often parents and achers just turn kids loose on the technology playground, rather than accompanying them into this big world.

She offered multiple evidences of how pro-technolgy Albemarle Count y Schools are; they’ve built a cell tower, they have embraced BYOT (bring your own technology) and have student ip addresses registered with the school, and on their county web page they invite you to follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.

I’m finding the process of reviewing my notes and storing important observations, points, links, and other resources to be a gratifying experience, and, if someone out there on the cyber playground can benefit as well, that is even more gratifying.
Have a nice afternoon.
Larry

Classroom Polling on the Net

One of the better sessions I attended at the EdTech conference was presented by Jeff Nugent of a Commonwealth University. It was on classroom polling. Jeff was concerned with showing us the uses of polling and not merely how to do it. To do this he had us become students in order to demonstrate how polling makes student’s thinking visible, and therefore can be used for formative assessments. We also experienced how it could be used for peer instruction and mass
collaboration.

We each came into the classroom with a mobile pad, laptop, or cellphone with texting capacity. We went to the website polleverywhere.com. Jeff had the following question displayed: If two glasses of water are filled to the same level, but, one has ice cubes in it, which glass of water will have a higher level once the ice melts? We clicked on our responses (or texted in a response) and as we did a bar graph appeared—responding to each answer as it came in. The next question we responded to was; “How confident are you of your answer?” After giving us a moment to respond, Jeff asked us to “convince your neighbor.” Following which we were polled again on the original question.

This was a quick way to get us thinking about a science lesson, not just listening to a teacher explain the answer, but doing some analysis, building arguments, listening to others, reasoning, etc. It really made for a high interest lesson. If you're interested in using something like this, let your friendly ITRT know, or simply go to "polleverywhere.com" and create a poll for yourself.

There are several other similar sites I’ve looked at this school year, some of which also enable a teacher to have a “backchannel discussion” going on during class. But, I’ll tell you more about those sites in some future blog.

On March 14 and 15, 2012 three of the county's ITRTs attended the EdTech 2012 conference held at Virginia State University.  The conference was organized by Community Idea Stations, a division of WCVE Public Radio/Television in central Virginia. Each day of the conference offered numerous sessions in four time slots.  Some sessions provided attendees with various resources, some sessions were "how-to" sessions while others were demonstrations.  Many of the first posts to this blog will be information from sessions at that conference.

Welcome to the Accomack County Public Schools ITRT blog.  The intention is to blog about tools and resources teachers can use in their classrooms.  The plan is to provide at least one tool or resource per week, along with ideas for their use and/or examples from education.