I think that most classroom teachers would agree that preparing a for a substitute teacher is often more work than it is worth. As a technology integrationalist for part of the day, my sub plans can either be incredibly easy (e.g. keyboarding for first 20 minutes, TimezAttach or Freerice.com for rest of class) or incredibly challenging, especially if I don’t know who my substitute will be, or if I know the person is not comfortable with technology, doesn’t know their way around our computers.
Since we have returned to work this January, I have missed all or a portion of 7 days for training. It has been great to be a student, but more challenging that usual to prepare for the substitute.
With some units, I teach the skills and then the classroom teacher finishes up on their own time. For example, last week a teacher asked me to show the students how to create a timeline in Excel. They had never used the program before and so I got them started. She had prepped them before hand by having them decide which of their own life milestones were going to be on the timeline, so I spent ten minutes teaching them the tech side and then they were ready to roll. She scheduled lab time during the week to finish the project. Easy.
Unfortunately, I only see my students once per week for 45 minutes and I’m trying to finish my web design unit. If I were using Contribute with my students, then I could reasonably ask my teachers to finish up the pages with their classes since they use that to maintain their class pages. However, I’ve been teaching the students to actually write the HTML tags, writing their pages by hand. I cannot ask a teacher to do that.
I was gone three days of the first week back to work after the Christmas holiday. That meant the kids had forgotten a lot. Not wanting to have so much time lost, I tried to leave a lesson plan that let the students keep working. It sounds like it met with limited success. My students remembered too little and she couldn’t support. It was a setup for all of them and I realized that I should have left a one off lesson instead.
Then today I read Sylvia Martinez’s post entitled Students as Substitutes. That wouldn’t be a good choice for unplanned absences, but for a time like this, where I knew weeks in advance that I was going to be absent, this could have been a great solution. I especially like this idea for my fourth and fifth grade classes; my lessons for third graders are usually easy enough for any sub to teach, especially since my assistant (who is NOT a teaching assistant) is very willing to drop by before school to help the substitute get up to speed.
Part of my recent spate of training was 3 days spent with the amazing Jenny Black at Tanglin Trust School to work on my Promethean ActivStudio Curriculum Developer certification. I am now more eager than ever to get my students creating flipcharts instead of just using them. I would so love to see the end of Powerpoint instruction and see its use diminish, since it is such a challenge to helps students create truly engaging presentations with it.
Picture instead that with a substitute on hand, they were taking turns using their self-prepared flipcharts to teach their classmates a new skill. Even if they run into troubles with the IWB, since all of the students would have been creating flipcharts, then they should all be able to help; the software is not rock science. However, unlike Powerpoint, I think the Activstudio software could encourage students to develop more interactive features in their presentations. Just as they love the animations and sounds in Powerpoint, I think they would love the actions, sounds, containers and ability to embed things in flip charts. I rarely see a good Powerpoint inspire other students to do better work, but just like good student-made web pages challenge many other students to improve their own pages, I think a clever student-made flipchart would spur on other students to meet the challenge.
Next steps for me include getting more copies of the ActivStudio software. 6 copies come with each board. Right now I have 8 boards and 8 copies of the software installed, plus one lab installed. I either need to move those lab installs to my lab, or get more copies. Also need to re-explore the student use of the Activstudio software. Last fall Kent had discovered that at the Promethean Planet website there was a page where students could download the software. I can’t remember if it was the full version, but it was not just a player; students could use it to create flipcharts at home!!
So, what about you? Have you ever had students teach when you were absent? If not, could you? Would you? Why or why not?
As usual, Graham Wegner is making me think. He posted a great parable about online collaborative projects and it’s forcing me to rethink an experience I had last year that I never paused to reflect upon because it felt like a failure.
Graham’s parable shows some of the challenges of coordinating an online collaborative project. I’ve been on both sides of this parable. Mostly I’m on the tech coach side, but after my experience last year of taking part and then disappearing from a good online collaboration, I’ve learned that even with all my tech experience, I can make a mess of it.
Differing schedules, teacher’s declining, no class of my own all contributed to my failure. I had joined the project was to force myself to do more with wikis, more with Flickr, but the project itself kept getting more complex, having more requirements and steps to follow until, for me, it collapsed under its own weight.
Now that Graham has brought this experience back into my focus, I’m realizing I can take quite a bit of learning away from the experience…
Start really simple. If the students can’t do most of it themselves, then chances are, I’ll learn far more than they do. Nothing wrong with me learning a lot, but teaching time is too short for me to do things that don’t greatly benefit the students.
Similarly, start small. Online projects often require a huge amount of communication and ongoing planning by the teachers. The more teachers, the more people who must be consulted at each step. The more people involved, the more formal a process may be needed to manage it all. Sometimes, just having two teachers, two classes will be the most effective, despite all that could be gained from having more kids in more places involved. Likewise, start with a shorter termed project. If it rocks your socks you can extend it.
Be very clear what you want the students to get out of it. Use backward design to fit the project to the learning and not the other way around, as is so tempting with new tech tools.
Check, check and recheck access before committing. My account at work has more privileges than student and teacher accounts. Didn’t think to check access when logged in as one of them, until we were into the project. They couldn’t add comments to the wiki. They couldn’t upload to it either. And the wiki only allowed so many comments per hour from the same person, so I couldn’t log them all in as me.
Upfront, try to make a realistic prediction of the time commitment and the the skills needed. Make those estimates based on the time it will take a new user, not you who have been experimenting with the tools for months. Based on the little I have done with online projects, I’d say double the time you think it will take, both in class and outside of class.
Consider all the schools’ vacation schedules when creating the project calendar. Also note end of term, standardized exams, etc.
Keep communicating even when the ship is going down. I expressed my frustrations minimally and then bailed. I wish I’d had the guts to stay in longer or at least take my leave more gracefully. I really enjoyed the people in it, but after three months, it felt like it was pulling me under. I was so much happier when that weight was gone. I don’t think relief is what we should feel at the end of collaborations.
Next time I feel tempted to dive into a project, I’ll reread Kim Cofino’s wise words about planning and implementing social networking projects. She has been involved in many successful projects. Her post comes from a place of wisdom and experience.
In the mean time, what tips can you add to my list? What else should we keep in mind as we embark on collaborative projects?
Okay, I’m back home on a regular keyboard so I can reflect a bit on my XO experience so far.
I’ve just begun to explore the One Laptop Per Child XO computer. I purchased it as part of OLPC’s Give-One-Get-One program. Here are some initial thoughts…
Pros
Great software set for kids. It comes with a great collection of constructive software that encourages kids to explore, create, experiment. I think many of my students would come with such a strong schema of “computer” that they would have trouble diving in and figuring things out. I hope kids in developing nations find that easier.
Wide variety of applications. The XO ships with a great variety of apps already installed, from photo, video and recording, music creation, measurement, writing, drawing, painting, web browsing, chatting, programming, memory games. There are more available online and still more in development, including Scratch. Can’t wait for that!
Amazingly strong wi-fi receiver. My old ibook has a good antenna in it, often finding 5 or 6 more networks than Kent’s Powerbook can detect. The XO has a much farther range than my ibook, and it is just a click to access unsecured networks, such as coffee shop wi-fi.
I don’t have access to a second XO or I’d be testing out the mesh networks. Get two XOs in range of each other and they automatically form a mesh network. That in itself is interesting. When you realize that MANY of the applications on the XO are collaborative, then the idea of mesh network becomes amazing. I can invite you to collaborate with me on my picture, my story, my music. I can even invite you to browse the web with me.
Visually appealing. I was sitting in a coffee shop today near a window and people on the other side of the window kept stopping to look at it. I would have been interested to see children’s reactions to it, but none came by.
Expandable. I just bought a 4 GB SDHC card. There is a slot under the monitor. It slides right in. You can’t run apps off of it, but you can store files there. Has 3 USB ports so I can plug in mouse, keyboard, thumb drive or other peripheral goodness.
Sturdy. Light, rugged, easy to carry (built-in handle), sealed keyboard.
Great community. There are already good resources online. Here are a few I’ve used the most:
Tiny keyboard. That’s GREAT for its intended users, but is making me crazy. I’ve ordered a folding keyboard to use with it.
Slow typing. I can type much faster than the letters can appear on the screen. Not sure why that is. It doesn’t seem to matter if I get way ahead of the display. The letters get there eventually. However, I can’t check for typos as I type.
Lots of lag time. Slow to start. Web pages were slow to load. Slow to switch between home and a running app.
Track pad is a bit dodgy. I’ve grown too used to my mouse with the scroll wheel and the the ability to scroll from my ibook’s trackpad. The XO’s trackpad doesn’t scroll the window. Mine isn’t very well callibrated. I’ve recallibrated it and that helped, but it is still tricky to click exactly where I want to type. It is also slow. I haven’t found a place to speed it up.
Bookmarks are temporary. They persist until I close the browser, then they are gone. I hope this is a bug that will be fixed.
No tabbed browsing. Didn’t realize how dependent I was on browser tabs until they were gone. I can open more than one copy of the browser, and move between them via the home screen.
News Reader isn’t working. Not with the subscriptions already in it. Not with ones I tried to add.
Of course, the biggest Pro is that if you buy one, a child in a developing nation receives one as well. Pros don’t get much bigger than that.
I’d love to hear from you if you have one. How is it working for you? Any killer apps you’ve found? What do you love/hate about it?
This is my first entry from my XO laptop. (It will be short because the keyboard is too small for me to touch type on it and the spacebar requires a heavy hand.)
I am just starting to use it. I am impressed that I can access Blogger Dashboard with the Browse program.
The last few weeks have been amazing at my school. The Learning 2.0 Conference started it last September. Then the Laptop/Wi-fi pilot in the high school helped key people start seeing the shift that needs to happen. Vision planning and strategic planning are making evident the need for 21st Century teaching and learning skills. All of it deserves to be blogged.
However, it is Friday night. I’ve been worked on budget stuff until the wee hours. It seems a better use of my time to introduce you to this amazing kid. Enjoy!
