The 21st Century Student

Picture taken by Rachel using her iPad.

Tonight I want to dedicate my post to one of my students because today she made my day special. Most of all she made me proud to be her teacher. For over a year, I have spent my time being an advocate for 21st century education and I often times hear jokes about technology and questions on why changes should be made in the classroom. My answer tonight is for students like my student, Rachel, the 21st century student.

At the beginning of the year, I had hopes for my class to blog, but with the adjustment of going from a traditional classroom to a 21st century classroom many of the students were not quite ready to blog with all the other changes they were experiencing at the time. Recently, on her own, Rachel started mentioning her blog. Curious, I asked her about it and she said it wasn't a real blog, but an area on a computer where she was typing about her day. I knew at this moment she was ready to learn to keep her own blog, the one I had hoped the students would have started at the beginning of the year. So, just yesterday, we worked on setting up a blog for her using edublogs and this morning she came in ready to write or you might say type.

When Rachel walked in this morning, she had one thing on her mind. I had assigned a tessallation project using StoMo and iMovie on the iPad and she had hers complete. She couldn't wait to show me! When she played her video I was amazed! So much, that I shared her video at lunch with the other teachers and sent it to my principal who was home sick today. As soon as we came in from lunch and recess today, Rachel was on her blog writing, not because I asked her to, but because she wanted to. What was she writing about? Her project, what else would she write about today?

When her blog was complete, she was excited for me to read it, and had hopes the world would see it, too! After receiving special permission from her mother to have her video project online, Rachel was so excited that she jumped and yelled "I AM SO FAMOUS!" You see Rachel is proud of her work, and like many other children in the 21st century she wants a chance to share it with the world and for the world to watch, read, and listen.

So, tonight I ask that if you are reading my blog, go visit Rachel's blog and post a positive comment and make Rachel the FAMOUS person she already is! Because this child is just one of many children who need a classroom that engages them using 21st century methods.

(Please note, my student uses a pseudonym to help protect her identity and all comments on her blog are monitored by me. All negative comments will be removed.)

VolunteerSpot

I was recently on twitter, when someone posted a link advertising VolunteerSpot. It was advertised as a way to keep track of volunteers and limiting the number of volunteers for one thing. I was quickly intrigued, especially with helping coordinate field day for school and needing chaperones for an upcoming field trip, that I opened the link to see what it was all about. Today I finalized everything for my field trip and sat down to use VolunteerSpot and I must say I am in love with this website!

Today I only tackled setting up VolunteerSpot for my field trip. My class is going on a field trip and sharing a bus with another class. The parents in my class are great about volunteering to go on field trips, but I have a small problem because I can only take 6 parents on the bus. In the past, I have handled this problem different ways: I had a lottery and pulled names of parents and also took first parents to come in with a form. The problem with the first method is that not all the parents picked turned in their form right away and he problem I faced with the second method is that I had filled all the seats for parents on the first morning and had to tell some of the parents of children who came in that first morning that the seats were filled.

So far, it seems VolunteerSpot seems like a fair method for getting parent chaperones and arranging which parents will get to ride on the bus. For example, tomorrow I'm sending out one email to all the parents in my class with a link to sign up as a chaperone. Parents will have two options: one to chaperone and ride the bus and the other to chaperone and carpool. The great thing about VolunteerSpot is once 6 parents have signed up to ride the bus, no other parent can sign-up for this section. I also don't have to let parents know that the seats are full because they will see that already online. It seems like the fairest way for parents because if their child is sick all the parents are still getting the information and it isn't a matter of whose child made it to class first.

Tessellations, StoMo, and iMovie

Well, it has been a while, I won't lie since my last post, but I'm going to set a goal to post more frequently onto my blog. Recently, I began taking a Web 2.0 course and to be quite honest, I am slightly disappointed because I am running a 1:1 iPad class and my course acts like I have never encountered Web 2.0 tools or used them in my classroom. I sit at my computer doing the assignments thinking I can teach the course better and I could do it in a more interactive way. In return, what I have is the drive to write what I do in my class because honestly, I get more ideas from blogs than I am from the course I am taking.

Last week, like many other teachers, I began focusing on what I was going to teach for the upcoming week. In math, we were getting ready to reach the math lesson on tessellations. Every year, I have the children create their own tessellation and I always have children who will do a beautiful job and those that just wanted to be done with the assignment. So, I thought to myself there has to be something more I can do to showcase the students' creativity and bring. So, I began searching to see what other teachers are doing and came across Tessellations Revamped for an iPad. This is a blog posted by Chelsie Meyers for a lesson she did with her students on tessellations. The students design a tessellation, and using the StoMo app and iMovie app on their iPads they create a movie of their work. Here is an example, 

Today when I introduced tessellations and this project to my class, I received a much different reaction from my students. They were excited, in fact they shared this excitement on Edmodo with 34 comments in one minute. I would say this project is a success!

Well, I certainly would love to write more, but this school year I adopted the cutest little dog, Sadie. She shares a love for technology, and unfortunately I have to compete with her to be able to use my own computer and ipad.

Why are students not creative?

I hear it over and over again, mostly from educators, students aren't creative. Hearing this would make me angry because I truly believe that students are creative, but their creativity is not the same as ours was when we were there age.

This year, after teaching students I had taught before for two years, I have a new bunch of students. I think these first two weeks of school has been adjustment period for my students, as they realize that I'm not like other teachers. For example, this week I assigned a project for my students to make a poster about any city in the state we live in. After going over the requirements, I asked the students if they had any questions and one child raised her hand. Her questions was this, "I'm confused as to how you want this poster to look. Are you looking for a rock band style poster or the information organized a certain way?" And for the first time, I realized majority of my students were not creative and the reason why they were not creative is because teachers have dictated every step and appearance of their project, and more than likely this became a factor in their grade.

My answer to my student was simple, I want the poster to look the way she wants it to and not the way she thinks will make me happy. After all, this project is a reflection of her and the type of work she produces. As long as the required elements were on the poster, the poster could be put together any way she would like it to. When I said this, you could see the children's brains going to work and this child in particular told me that she wanted to make her poster into a big brochure. That never even entered my mind as an idea for the poster! When I looked at my students this time, I saw CREATIVITY!

So, if you really wonder why students are not creative ask yourself if your assignments allow them to be creative?

How I became a 1:1 iPad classroom?

This question was recently tweeted to me and unfortunately with twitter's 140 character limit, it makes it hard to answer the question fully. So, tonight I just wanted to explain how this happened for me.

A year and a half ago, my school began the Race for Education. For those of you who have read some of my other blog posts, you have heard me mention this before. I apologize if the information seems repetitive. Well, to encourage teachers to participate, we were told that 100% of the money we raise could go towards our classroom. That year, I made it a mission to bring in some new technology in the classroom. I raised around $800 my first year and purchased an iPad using that money and put the rest of the money towards buying a new table for classroom to replace a broken computer desk. So, this is originally how the iPad entered the classroom.

This past school, I started the first half of the year with just one iPad. And honestly, it was amazing seeing what just one iPad could do in the classroom. The PTOwas seeing some of the things that were going on in my classroom and decided that with our two big fundraisers, an annual auction and the Race for Education, they could afford to fund a class set of iPads. I was asked if I would be willing to take on this mission and like most teachers reading this blog, I said yes. So, half way through the school year I became a 1:1 iPad classroom. Along with purchasing a class set of iPads for my Fourth Grade class, every teacher was given an iPad to use in their classroom as well.

This upcoming school year, my school has purchased another class set of iPads for the Fifth Grade. We hope to continue purchasing another class set every school year, but again we are only able to afford to do this because of our fundraising.

QR Code Job Chart

It seems like just yesterday, I was finishing out last school year and now I'm already preparing to go back to work and teach a new group of students. I am really looking forward to a new school year, I have a lot of new things to do with the students and can't wait to see how they like them. One new thing that I have added to my class this year is a QR job chart.

So, here is how the QR Job Chart works. If you look in the bottom left of the picture you will see a piece of orange. That is actually an orange envelope that I have attached to the wall. At the end of the day, all QR codes are placed in the envelope. This year, students will have a new classroom job everyday, instead of keeping it for a week. When students come into the classroom, they will take turns getting a QR Code out of the envelope and then placing it on their number. I attached velcro to the back of the codes and on the calendar, that I have turned into my job chart. Students will then take out their iPad and prepare to scan for their job.

There are a number of free QR Code Reader Apps that are free for the iPad, the one viewed in this photo is Qrafter. As you can see it is easy to use for students and gives a quick scan, but will not create QR codes unless purchasing the Pro Pack. However, if you do want students to make their own QR Codes on the iPad, you can get a free app called Easy QR. Both apps are available on my students iPads for them to use. 

Once the student scans the QR Code, it will show the student what their job is for the day. 

So, I know many of you are probably wondering how I will know who is doing what job for the day because it seems like I would spend a lot of wasted time trying scan all the QR codes to figure this out. So, with this job chart, I created the job "Job Manager." This person is responsible for scanning all the codes with their iPad and using a google form (with one of the extra classroom iPads) will just check off which students have what job. I will then be able to access the form as an excel sheet and quickly be able to keep track throughout the day. However, it is up to the Job Manager to make sure all jobs are completed by the end of the day. 

Have questions? Use this QR Code to email me, post a comment below, or follow me on twitter @21educator.

How my class got a new mac mini!

I went in today to tutor at school. I'm not fully sure what I was thinking on scheduling myself to tutor after returning home from an awesome trip with @mollymittura. Last Tuesday morning, we got up at 2:30am to get ready to fly to Boston to attend the BLC 12 conference from Wednesday through Friday. Then on Saturday morning, we took a bus to NYC and that evening took another bus to Mt. Laurel, NJ. On Sunday, we went to visit Philadelphia and then went to Atlantic City. We came home last night. It was so much fun, but a little exhausting. I think if we do this again, I may rethink the amount of clothing I bring because after the first few hours I cannot even begin to explain how heavy my backpack felt carrying it around NYC and Atlantic City. Thankfully, we did not have to carry it around Philly. Sorry, got a little bit off right there, but back to the story, since I was at the school to tutor I found a lovely new shipment of iPads and a new Mac Mini for my classroom.

When I speak to people about my classroom and I mention that I run a 1:1 iPad program. For people who do not have them in the classroom or have not seen them in the classroom, they are amazed, and are quick to say that they wish their school had the funding to do a 1:1 iPad program. But the truth is, is that I teach in a very small school and money doesn't necessarily grow on trees for us, so how are we able to fund this program? Simple, we have a Race for Education.

For the past two school years, every Spring students and teachers mail out letters asking relatives, family friends, etc. to sponsor us in running/jogging/walking for one hour. And the one thing the PTO was great about was motivating the teachers to take part by allowing us to use 100% of the money we raised to purchase items for the classroom. Okay, I'm not sure how motivating it is to all teachers, but I send out at least 100 personalized letters for this fundraiser. Last year, I raised enough money to purchase an iPad for the classroom. In this past school year, the parents enjoyed seeing what we could do with one iPad that they decided to use some of the money raised from the Race for Education to purchase an entire set for my classroom.

This school year, I raised over $1,000 to purchase things for my classroom. I allotted money towards a new Mac Mini, web hosting, digital camera, tripod, and green screen. All these things, were purchased for my students to use in the classroom. My expectation with these new tools is to teach my students how to create a classroom website and maintain it on the Mac Mini, use their iPads to link their blogs to the website, and create a news station and share what we do in the classroom. I'm also tossing around the idea of starting a podcast.

I guess what I am hoping to get across to my readers in this blog is, don't use the excuse we don't have the money for that. If you really want to see your school or classroom become a 1:1 program, it is possible. The Race for Education is great fundraiser because the school keeps 100% of the donations and you will find many people are very generous for this fundraiser, especially when they receive a handwritten note from a child.