February 2

Fear of Technology…so unfounded…

This post was originally posted in my Substack.

Yesterday, I had an unexpected change in plans. Instead of my usual Saturday routine, Zoom meeting with the PAECT President, recording my class podcast, and grading student work, I spent the day away from home with a family health issue. All is well now, but my usual schedule was thrown off.

Those who know me, yes my OCD flared up, but I was able to switch up and work on some class tasks using…mobile technology. Accomplishing a lot during down time and saving me from wasting more time today to get caught up, plus work on my usual Sunday routine. 

Many people fear technology and do not see a use for it in an educational setting. Technology, mobile technology specifically, gave me the ability to be away from home and still be productive with my classwork. I set up lessons, adjusted information for my classes, built out resources, all from a remote location. 

None of this could be accomplished without mobile technology, don’t fear it, learn how to use it efficiently. 

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July 9

“What Is” or “The Importance of Relaxation”

So, Summer 2024 is not only upon us, it seems as if it is almost over. July 4th usually brings the “Back to School Supplies” displays to the area stores, which in turn sets my brain into school starts soon mode. This year the the displays were seen toward the end of June in stores that will remain unnamed, I will not give them free advertising here, no matter how small the audience. Last week when looking for a replacement umbrella for my deck, I came across HALLOWEEN DISPLAYS!?!?!?! 

What is my point, you may ask? We as a society are always in a rush to get to the next moment in time, or event. (I am struggling with vocabulary as I write this, I have the Weather Channel playing in the background, which is offsetting my focus.) Be they small events or major milestones, we are always looking to the next step once we reach the most current checkpoint. This behavior is disturbing, to say the least. Many people, myself included, are so focused on what is next that we are missing out on “What Is.” 

“What Is” is in the moment, it should be enjoyed, we should let the good “What Is” moments wash over us and savor them. The “what’s next “will still be there, sometimes looming, sometimes roaring at us like a freight train, but we need to savor the “What Is.” As I sometimes rush through my morning espresso so I can move on to the next task or event, I thought why even drink the espresso if I am just going to slurp it down? There is no enjoyment in it, it is just a routine, but not enjoyable. I am not alone in this, I see others all the time in a rush to move on to the next meme, the next TikTok, the next .gif, the next selfie, the next amusement park ride, etc, while not truly appreciating the “What Is Now.”

Last year, I focused on “Intentionality” as my goal for the school year, I was somewhat successful, but I still have more work to do in building that skill.  This year I will add focusing on enjoying the “What Is” to that skill set. I need to relearn how to relax and enjoy the moment and not rush on to the next. I needed to be reminded by THIS SONG from the B-52’s, one of my favorite songs of all time. (As I watched the video to make sure it was appropriate to link to this blog, I became antsy, thinking of when should I go make my espresso. I resisted multitasking, but it proves that I have much more work to do focusing on the “What Is,” relaxing, and enjoying the moment.) 

Stop, Take a Deep Breath, Look Around You, Enjoy the Moment if it is a Positive.

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March 1

AI Declaration

I am typing this a bit facetiously…I have not posted a blog in many, many, let’s just say an extremely long time.  Chat GPT and other forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have sprung up for public consumption since my last post.  This is my declaration that I will not be using AI to write posts on this blog.

I make this declaration since I have read online at Business Insider that many books are showing up on Amazon that have been written by AI.  As a once-inspiring author, that does depress me a bit.  I like the concept of the human mind and imagination firing up stories that excite and hold our attention.  I may just be getting old and falling behind the times, or I may be a bit bitter that someone with a sentence or two into a website has completed a manuscript that I haven’t been able to complete as of yet.  The jury is out on where I fall.

In the meantime, I want to reassure my dedicated readers, thank you Mom, that the words that appear here and on my personal podcasts will be my own and not those of any Artificial Intelligence entity.

Category: Cool Stuff, Podcast, Random Musings, Rants | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 13

What to do during New State Standardized Testing Window…Expand Project Week

Well, we in Pennsylvania we have new(er) standardized tests, the Keystone Exams.  It was my distinct pleasure to be permitted to proctor them this year, sarcasm is intended.  I hate standardized tests, but that is a rant for another post.  The state window for testing started after Thanksgiving break and ended a week or so after we got back, sorry, but I do not pay attention to such details, I just focus on when we HAVE to take them in our school.  Our district took the tests right out of the gate  following break; if you have to do it, just jump right in and start. With the majority of my students testing at least one of the three scheduled days I knew I would not be able to accomplish much.  My students would either be testing and out of my class, or coming into class after testing and have their brains fried to a mush-like substance.  All students who missed class would need filled in, and students who had their brains curdled would need remediated…what a world, what a world.

I chose to jump into collaborative project week and expand the assignment by a week.  Each of my subject classes had a different project focus of topic, but similar style projects to create.  Podcasts, websites, videos, to combinations of such things were highly encouraged.  Students were to use the new iPads or their own personal mobile devices to work on the projects.  With a week of near empty classes, or classes filled with zombified students I rolled out the projects.

We started slow, students used Google Docs to sign up for groups, topics of research/presentation, and methods of presenting.  We brainstormed ideas of research together as group, discussing why topics were of interest and should they be accepted.  As usual, Edmodo was used as the mothership platform for communication and organization of the classes.  This first week went well, students were able to accomplish work and decompress from the testing.  The opportunity to collaborate, socialize, and have others to lean on was a major benefit for the students.  Those students who did not have to test benefited from not having to do extra assignments, or busy work as they call it.  As you will see in my next post, students who missed for testing even started the projects while away from class.

While I still thoroughly despise such tests, I now have a worthwhile concept to get my students involved in while we grind out these mandatory requirements.

Category: iPods in Education, Lessons and Teacher Things, Mobile Technology, Rants, Student Projects | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 27

Lucky 2013 Class Expectations

Well, it is a new school year and time for a new set of class expectations for 2013/2014.  Every year my students begin blogging and I attempt to blog more; sometimes with success sometimes without.   I have several goals that I have been unofficially building towards the last several years.  They cover course content and classroom technology use.

My expectations for class content and topics is to cover as much of the 20th Century with my history class as possible.  I am also in the process of flipping all of my classes, so I must continue to build and revise the class resources.  These goals dovetail nicely together, creating a dynamic that should play out well into the future. As our department builds towards expanding 20th Century US History into a two year course, the resources we use need to grow and adapt.  No longer will we need to rely on textbooks, but rather primary sources for the students to interact with.  The focus also needs to be pushed for more higher level activities to be completed in class, while the more basic tasks can be done on the students’ own time.  This reversal of tasks will give students more support for actually understanding the concepts we will cover.  By refining and adding to my resource library there will be more options for students to pull from when comes to finding the right type of material to work with.  We need resources that fit every type of learners needs and ability.

When it comes to new technology and tools this year, I plan to learn and teach the tools we use more in depth.  I also hope you o get my students more involved with collaborative projects outside of my classroom.  I have been using many tools for many years with my classes.  It does sound trite, but it is what it is…true.  The students need to see these tools integrated with each other and see how powerful they can be when used together.  I can start the process through modeling, but my hope is that the students’ imaginations will run with the concepts.  My students collaborate well within the class and within the school.  They now need to collaborate and participate outside of that small sphere.  I am hoping to have a number of students voluntarily participate in either the Flat Classroom Project or the Edublogs Challenges.  I will offer full support, but the goal is for them to want to participate in this new realm.

I will keep blogging about the progress of these goals and expectations as the school year plays out.  Hopefully they will be success stories, or learning experiences at the minimum.

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March 2

Better Late than Never: Student blogging ownership

Not being 1:1 in my classroom since October has really slowed down my plans for student projects this school year.  It may just be my own personal bias or train of thought that slowed things down, but things slowed down nonetheless. I felt it was too complex and cumbersome to require students to access and work regularly on projects without dedicated daily access to 1:1 technology.  The students still have completed group projects, but many of the mundane things I wanted them to do have fallen to the wayside.

At long last, my Freshmen are finally personalizing their individual blogs.  I made it an assignment for them to personalize their blogs’ theme, add widgets, pages, and other such things.  There are restrictions to the personalization process, everything must be appropriate for school and relevant in some way.  I want them to begin using the blogs outside of the classroom…I will still award points for bog posts, but I want them to start CREATING THEIR OWN IDEAS….and then publishing those ideas on the Internet.  My Freshmen are in my civics class and what is more civic than contributing positively to the social discourse.

I will still have final approval before posts go public, it is one safeguard I am not comfortable relinquishing at this time.  I do not know if many, or any students will blog on their own outside of class, but I hope they do.

Category: Lessons and Teacher Things, Rants | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 11

Smartphone growth spurs rethinking of marketing – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Smartphone growth spurs rethinking of marketing

By Kim Leonard, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, August 11, 2010

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App on a phone
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About the writer

Kim Leonard is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-380-5606 or via e-mail.

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More consumers who use their mobile phones to research and buy products are turning into moving targets.

That’s why businesses including several in Western Pennsylvania are creating applications, or “apps,” for Apple iPhones and Android-based mobile smartphones that point shoppers and service users to their products and offerings.

via pittsburghlive.com

The article specifically discusses smartphone applications that are being made for Pittsburgh-based businesses. My question is, “Why aren’t schools, specifically K-12 entities capitalizing on this usage?”

Many of our students use some sort of smartphone, why don’t we allow them to use the phones in school. In my humble opinion, students should be allowed to use their technology from home in the classroom. Schools can then use their limited resources by allowing students without their own device to use a school machine. Not only would more students then have access to technology, but many would be using tools they are familiar with and have easy access to.

Teachers would have to monitor students better in class, to ensure they were on task, but why not make school more like reality…give the students access to information and technology at their fingertips. Eventually students will be using the same technology for work, the modern workplace demands it. We as educators need to teach them how to use it responsibly, not bury our heads in paper texts and claim there is no place for these devices in our classrooms.

Category: Cellphones in Education, Lessons and Teacher Things, Rants | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 29

Cell phones in class: A responsible story

This is a true classroom experience that happened to a friend of mine the other day.  I am leaving out all names of people and schools, because the incident that occurred is against school policy.  All comments in quotes are just paraphrases of the conversations, since I was not there to witness the incident.  A friend of mine teaches in a high school and had the class working in a computer lab for a project.  There were not enough computers for all of the students to research what they were working on, so the students were sharing computers.

My friend noticed a student facing away from the group and acting a bit “odd.”  My friend walked over and the student had a cell phone out zipping around on the touch screen.  As my friend was about to say something to the student, the student turned around and said preemptively, “I am not texting, I was looking up my topic.  I do not have a computer and it is too nice to have to wait and work from home.”  The student then held up the cell phone for my friend to see the screen.  My friend asked about phone fees, to which the student replied, “It is free, I am not stupid.”

Lo and behold, the student had Googled the topic and was reviewing sites to start gathering information.  My friend looked at the student, told the student, “Okay, keep working, but be careful, we could both get in trouble if you get caught.”  The student continued working, and eventually found a site with information and began taking notes.  Learning was occurring in a positive way, class went on as planned, the Earth did not stop rotating, other students did not pull out their phones and begin the wholesale acts of texting, sexting, and calling each other to the point of using up all of their minutes.  It was what should be considered a non-issue, but I am writing about it because kids are not allowed to use this type of technology in class, because some believe that cell phone use is a gateway act to anarchy in schools.  It isn’t, IF YOU TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO USE THESE TOOLS RESPONSIBLY!

Now, according to my friend’s school district’s policy, the phone should have been confiscated from the student, the student should have received some sort of detention, either after-school or Saturday morning.  The phone could have been liberated but only to parents/guardians at a time a few days later in the week.  If the student would have refused to give up the phone, the student could have been suspended from school, which also meant there would have been a large disruption to most of the students in class.

I know that my friend has told students in the past how to use technology for learning purposes.  My friend is well ahead of the curve, we often discuss the projects we have are having students create and share resources with each other.  After all that is what a PLN is supposed to do, and mine is super-fantastic, but I digress.  When asked if my friend had modeled cell phone use in class, the reply was, “Not to that extent, I do not have Internet on my phone.”

The student had actually listened to past conversations with my friend and explored learning on their own.  A marvelous concept…taking initiative and using tools that they already know well to complete work appropriately.  My friend’s next goal will be to show the student some free note-taking apps for the student’s phone.  We do not know if Evernote or Documents 2 will work on that type of phone, it was not a Blackberry or iPhone, just a basic touchscreen version with Internet capabilities. There is some research for us to do so we can help this student prep for college in a couple of years.

Hopefully some day soon this can be a common occurrence and not a topic to write about…

Category: Cellphones in Education, Rants | LEAVE A COMMENT