I haven't blogged for 9 months. I've been busy. And (with the help of @heza and others) now we have a 1:1 Laptop Program at SAS Middle School - and from here forward, plenty of amazing learning to blog about. Below is the story of the last two days.
Showing posts with label 1-1 Program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1-1 Program. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
GTA Action Plan: Photo Contest in Picasa Web Albums
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="288" caption="After the Rain - Jana Lohrova"]
[/caption]
This past summer I was fortunate to attend the Google Teacher Academy where I spent two days meeting many amazing educators while receiving training in Google tools and being inspired by the collective creativity in the room.
Our school only uses GAFE(Google Apps For Education) for faculty, not students, and they don't want to take on student accounts for various reasons, but there is a need for using all the collaborative features.
I am going to create and implement a plan to get all ISP Upper School students (about 260) to create their own Google Accounts and then share them with the school so that teachers can utilize the power of Google products with students. DETAILS: I will communicate the requirement to students and assist students in creating Google Accounts. I will facilitate the collection of student email addresses via our website and then push them to PowerSchool and Moodle so that teachers have access to them. I will launch a photo contest to coincide with our Week Without Walls student trips (using PicasaWebAlbums) that will encourage students to actually get their accounts created so they can participate in the contest while simultaneously engaging them learning to use the collaborative features of PicasaWebAlbums. Lastly, I will create instructions for teachers explaining the best way to gather account information from students and then share documents with them as well as lead a number of after school Cyber Cafes on Using Google Docs in the Classroom.
[caption id="attachment_362" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Everyone Enjoying Paris to the Fullest - Lucie Soudkova"]
[/caption]
For the most part, my action plan was successful. That is not to say there weren't some hiccups along the way. In a nutshell, I met my goal of getting all of our students set up with a Google Account and all of those accounts recorded into our various systems. The photo contest was really a bonus and a fun way to go about getting all students to sign up for an account.
All of our students have google accounts. These accounts are used as their "professional" or "school" accounts and are connected to any other accounts they create for school purposes such as Youtube, Turnitin.com etc.
We recorded each student's google account info in our Learning Management System (Moodle) and Student Information System (PowerSchool). Now, when a new student enrolls in our Upper School we ask them to create a google account, then use that info to populate our systems such as those listed above and Edublogs.
Using the Photo Contest as a catalyst for getting all students to create their accounts worked well…for account creation. Students wanted to contribute photos and view each others' photos of our Week Without Walls. Most students created their accounts by the deadline and I only had to chase down a few of them. From the outside, the photo contest ran smoothly, although I did encounter some unexpected issues with using Picasa for this event.
I used Google Sites to create a portal for the Photo Contest, and used PicasaWebAlbums as a way to share albums to students so that they could submit photos to various categories. You can view the portal here.
The issues with PicasaWebAlbums mainly had to do with sharing and specifically me sharing with too many students in a short period of time. I needed to share 4 albums to 300 people so that they could have the ability to upload to the albums. This was too much for Picasa; it seems Google thought I was spamming if I shared with too many people too often. I was finally able to share everything necessary in small batches over about 10 days, which was a big problem since I wanted to share everything out before students went on their trips. I'm not sure if Google has changed any of this, but I know with the advent of Google Plus they've been making some changes to Picasa Web Albums. Maybe this is easier to do now - I'm not sure, but I definitely would look into the sharing features and limitations before I tried another photo contest using Picasa.
My biggest personal learnings were associated with both Google Sites and Picasa Web Albums. I had not created a Google Site prior to this, and so this project really had me digging deep into the menus to see just what Sites could do. The visual nature of a photo contest lent itself to embedding of media, slideshows and instructions. I'm pretty confident with Sites now and feel that I can create sites pretty quickly and easily. I think Google Sites are fabulous for people don't have advanced web design skills but who need to create a site for an event, a class, or for hosting any sort of information.
My action plan was centered around the idea that we wanted a way to utilize the power of Google Apps without hosting our student accounts on our domains. While I like having our student accounts off the domain, giving students complete ownership, this set up does have drawbacks. It just isn't as smooth to share things with students as it would be if they were organized in the teacher contacts and possible in groups. However, I do think that having students off domain is possible, and should not be considered a barrier to effectively using the collaborative power of Google Apps if a teacher is in a situation where the school does not or will not put students on Google Apps. I'd love to hear about other schools that are having success with this same sort of set-up.
[/caption]This past summer I was fortunate to attend the Google Teacher Academy where I spent two days meeting many amazing educators while receiving training in Google tools and being inspired by the collective creativity in the room.
Action Plan:
PROBLEM:
Our school only uses GAFE(Google Apps For Education) for faculty, not students, and they don't want to take on student accounts for various reasons, but there is a need for using all the collaborative features.
SOLUTION:
I am going to create and implement a plan to get all ISP Upper School students (about 260) to create their own Google Accounts and then share them with the school so that teachers can utilize the power of Google products with students. DETAILS: I will communicate the requirement to students and assist students in creating Google Accounts. I will facilitate the collection of student email addresses via our website and then push them to PowerSchool and Moodle so that teachers have access to them. I will launch a photo contest to coincide with our Week Without Walls student trips (using PicasaWebAlbums) that will encourage students to actually get their accounts created so they can participate in the contest while simultaneously engaging them learning to use the collaborative features of PicasaWebAlbums. Lastly, I will create instructions for teachers explaining the best way to gather account information from students and then share documents with them as well as lead a number of after school Cyber Cafes on Using Google Docs in the Classroom.
Reflection:
[caption id="attachment_362" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Everyone Enjoying Paris to the Fullest - Lucie Soudkova"]
[/caption]For the most part, my action plan was successful. That is not to say there weren't some hiccups along the way. In a nutshell, I met my goal of getting all of our students set up with a Google Account and all of those accounts recorded into our various systems. The photo contest was really a bonus and a fun way to go about getting all students to sign up for an account.
All of our students have google accounts. These accounts are used as their "professional" or "school" accounts and are connected to any other accounts they create for school purposes such as Youtube, Turnitin.com etc.
We recorded each student's google account info in our Learning Management System (Moodle) and Student Information System (PowerSchool). Now, when a new student enrolls in our Upper School we ask them to create a google account, then use that info to populate our systems such as those listed above and Edublogs.
Using the Photo Contest as a catalyst for getting all students to create their accounts worked well…for account creation. Students wanted to contribute photos and view each others' photos of our Week Without Walls. Most students created their accounts by the deadline and I only had to chase down a few of them. From the outside, the photo contest ran smoothly, although I did encounter some unexpected issues with using Picasa for this event.
I used Google Sites to create a portal for the Photo Contest, and used PicasaWebAlbums as a way to share albums to students so that they could submit photos to various categories. You can view the portal here.
The issues with PicasaWebAlbums mainly had to do with sharing and specifically me sharing with too many students in a short period of time. I needed to share 4 albums to 300 people so that they could have the ability to upload to the albums. This was too much for Picasa; it seems Google thought I was spamming if I shared with too many people too often. I was finally able to share everything necessary in small batches over about 10 days, which was a big problem since I wanted to share everything out before students went on their trips. I'm not sure if Google has changed any of this, but I know with the advent of Google Plus they've been making some changes to Picasa Web Albums. Maybe this is easier to do now - I'm not sure, but I definitely would look into the sharing features and limitations before I tried another photo contest using Picasa.
My biggest personal learnings were associated with both Google Sites and Picasa Web Albums. I had not created a Google Site prior to this, and so this project really had me digging deep into the menus to see just what Sites could do. The visual nature of a photo contest lent itself to embedding of media, slideshows and instructions. I'm pretty confident with Sites now and feel that I can create sites pretty quickly and easily. I think Google Sites are fabulous for people don't have advanced web design skills but who need to create a site for an event, a class, or for hosting any sort of information.
Final Thought:
My action plan was centered around the idea that we wanted a way to utilize the power of Google Apps without hosting our student accounts on our domains. While I like having our student accounts off the domain, giving students complete ownership, this set up does have drawbacks. It just isn't as smooth to share things with students as it would be if they were organized in the teacher contacts and possible in groups. However, I do think that having students off domain is possible, and should not be considered a barrier to effectively using the collaborative power of Google Apps if a teacher is in a situation where the school does not or will not put students on Google Apps. I'd love to hear about other schools that are having success with this same sort of set-up.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Turntable Trig
Today we experimented with using iPads in a math class. We had 3 school-owned iPads as well as one brought in by a student. Students used the Vernier Video Physics app in groups of two or three to review and investigate trig graphs.
[caption id="attachment_320" align="alignleft" width="222" caption="Turntable Graph"]
[/caption]
Ms. Flaherty first reviewed a couple of math concepts that the students had already reviewed as part of their homework by watching a YouTube clip. Then I demonstrated how to use the various tools built into the Video Physics app to plot the points of a sticky note as it travels around a Fisher Price Turntable, and to set the scale and change the location of the origin. From there, we handed off the iPads to the students and away they went.
Once students plotted the path of the sticky note, and viewed the resulting graph, they then worked through the following prompts:
[caption id="attachment_320" align="alignleft" width="222" caption="Turntable Graph"]
[/caption]Ms. Flaherty first reviewed a couple of math concepts that the students had already reviewed as part of their homework by watching a YouTube clip. Then I demonstrated how to use the various tools built into the Video Physics app to plot the points of a sticky note as it travels around a Fisher Price Turntable, and to set the scale and change the location of the origin. From there, we handed off the iPads to the students and away they went.
Once students plotted the path of the sticky note, and viewed the resulting graph, they then worked through the following prompts:
- Find the equation of your curve.
- How does the equation change as you change the A.) origin, B.) scale?
- By adjusting the position of the origin and the scale crate a graph that has: A.) An amplitude of 5 B.) A wave axis of 10
Findings, Thoughts, Reflections:
- Students were engaged in the hands-on learning, and shared the device appropriately around the group so that everyone got a chance to manipulate the data.
- Students are really comfortable with iPads. They took to the app quickly and were easily able to use the gestures to perform specific tasks within the app.
Investigative Math rocks. I wish that when I was learning math I had had access to the tools that students have today. Changing different variables and seeing how that affects the output helps students get a better understanding than just working out problems.
- Personal devices are better than school-owned devices. When the teacher asked students to send her the files this became obvious. The student who was using his own device easily emailed a few photos to the teacher because his email was already set up in the iPad's system. Web versions of email (we tried gmail) don't allow attaching files from an iPad because they don't know how to navigate the iPad file system. The work around is to either attach the ipad to a laptop and use iPhoto (or another photo app on a PC) to pull down the images, or have students enter their email info into the iPad system, send the files, then delete the account before the class ends and their email account and ipad are handed off to another student.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Reducing the Noise
I just returned from two days of thought provoking conversations with IT Directors from a number of schools in Europe ( I was standing in for my IT Director who was unable to attend). We discussed the education and technology issues that all international schools are dealing with. I learned a lot from listening to others that are far more experienced in planning and managing the IT infrastructure of a school. But the thing that kept going through my head as I left the meeting was how much I think my current school is doing "IT" the right way by keeping things simple, reducing the noise and focusing on learning.
When I first joined the school, I was surprised to find out how many systems or software we just don't have. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of hardware and software for students to use, but from a school administration/management/systems standpoint it is minimalist. And I like it, because rather than spending time managing and teaching people how to use the systems, I get to focus on learning.
Here is a quick list of things that "reduce the noise" at my school and allow me to focus on learning.
Strong Preparatory MS 1-1 Laptop Program that feeds into the US 1-1 Laptop Program - The gradual 1-1 program roll-out started in the MS and built from there. The MS program checks out school owned machines to students in grades 6, 7, and 8. The students go through a "license to drive" type program before they earn the right to take the laptops home and back to school each day. Students enter the Upper School with a large skill set. The MS program prepares them for the increased responsibility that comes with owning and administering your own laptop.
Macs - I honestly can't believe how few issues there are. I don't want to get into the Mac vs. PC argument as I consider myself as someone who can use either OS well, but the truth is that Macs have an incredible up time and don't really have to worry about viruses. Those two areas alone can suck up a ton of time if they go the wrong way. Another great thing about Macs is the built in iLife suite that allows students to be content creators. Additionally, having only one operating system allows for some students to become experts and bring the others along all the while increasing the level of average user ability.
Absence of File Servers - We don't have them. We don't manage them. We don't spend money or man hours on servers or backing up servers. So, where do students and staff store their files? Great question; I should ask them? My guess is that most of them store files on their laptop hard drive and the ones that care to keep them backed up use external hard drives or cloud-based file storage.
Gmail and Google Apps - We have a Google Apps Education account for our faculty, but more importantly we don't have the following: email servers and the monetary and human resources costs associated with the purchasing, upgrades, backups and maintenance of those servers.
Integration Specialists at Each Division - Our current ratio is 1 Integration Specialist for every 275 students. My hat is off to the leadership team that was forward-thinking enough to see the impact that a dedicated Technology Integration Specialist can have on individual teachers, curriculum, and student learning. With a IT Director focused on the big picture, the Integrationists are free from the tasks that can bog them down (budgeting, troubleshooting, managing systems) and able to be in classrooms with students and plan units with teachers to meet the NETs standards.
Open Wireless Network - When a student enters the school and open their laptop they get connected. We don't spend time configuring or trouble shooting. It just works.
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