Google Apps Reprise

Why Google Apps?


Google Apps Quick Tour


What Students Think of Google Apps


Question: Are there any reasons that K-12 schools should not use Google Apps?

Who would ever think pain can feel this good?

by Ed Latham

I am not a masochist, but I am a boy scout leader which some may mistake as the same thing, at times. This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a district scout camporee with 7 fine individuals from our small town of Frenchville Maine. Our crew ranges from 6th graders through high school juniors with most of our scouts falling on the younger range of the scale. Our scouts are not gifted athletes and half of them are not academically outstanding. In short you may say our troop is a typical sample of students you may have in class in any rural area.

One event at this camporee was the tug of war. With the lack of physically dominant kids, I figured this would be one of the events that our kids dreaded. In fact, it was one of their favorite. The leaders in charge of the camporee threw the tug of war event in more as a time filler as opposed to any serious intent of competition. When boys were finished other events, they would come over to the rope and just start pulling each other around the field creating grass stains that any laundromat owner has nightmares about. The boys had an official pull that they did very well at and then continued trying different permutations to test themselves. At one point only two of our boys were taking on an entire troop of younger, smaller boys. The testosterone was in the air and I have to admit I caught a good whiff of it as I watch the boys preening and strutting their stuff.

I got up off the grass and started sauntering over to the rope as I pulled up my sleeves getting ready for a major lesson. The two scouts that had been dominating were whooping and hollering nervously as a "real challenge" was coming in their mind. I weigh in close to 250 pounds and these two boys totaled 350-400 total. Still everyone was all charged up and eager to see this old man take on the young studs. When we started, everyone was dead quiet and you could actually hear a few joints in my legs "adjusting". We pulled and held each other. They had mass but I had leverage, experience and a confident attitude. The boys learned quickly that if they tugged together, simply weight ratios demanded that my body would be lifted off the ground. I would gain an inch, they would lift me 4-5 inches before I could land and pull back another inch or so. I saw the end coming and started laughing as I bounced on my butt as they dragged me across the line. I knew the pull was unfair. I knew the competition was in no way balanced and I knew I had little chance of winning. The boys did not know that last part of course. Still I congratulated the boys on a fine pull and everyone had a blast with no excuses. I think I pulled a groin muscle or something as I started experiencing a good amount of pain about an hour or so later. Ah, old age catching up with a young mind.

Fast forward a few hours. At the evening bonfire, the leaders had determined there was enough interest in the tug of war earlier to have a pull offs between the two top teams. Our troop was one of the finalist. Our 7 were up against 8 other boys that were marginally bigger than ours. Our team was able to pull on a downhill grade which I figured was to account for the more mass on the other side. The pull was very tight and only after a couple min of pulling did our boys succeed. Then they switched sides! More mass going down hill, I was a wreck. The boys quietly took their new post and gave it their best. They were dragged with ease. They got up proudly as it was pronounced a third pull would decide it. Evidently there was no call to change sides. The boys did not complain once, but dug in to do their best. They held a few seconds then proceeded to get dragged easily away.

All the way back in the crowd they never once hung their head, and never offered an excuse. They were proud of what they did in spite of everything being stacked against them. When they got home and parents asked about the weekend, the tug of war topped every boys list of cool things.

I started walking through the halls of a school today and those part of my body that chose to not keep up with my mental youth were reminding me of my group of scouts and how their learning experience this weekend was so much different from what they may be experiencing in class today. I look to almost any school vision and I see words like perseverance, courage, creativity and so many other positive habits of mind. Until this weekend, I had never seen what the attainment of those traits actually looked like in a group of students. I have seen glimpses in individuals in school, but never the entire group sharing the experience and the learning. In the scouting program, many of the skills and habits of mind are programmed into their activities and merit badges. Watching these boys tackle very clear challenges, failing, and still relishing the experience helps to show me how much is missing out of a student's typical day at school. I have four adolescent boys and between the four of them I might hear of one thing each week that one of the boys might have experienced at school and he thought everyone should know about in a positive way. School just seems to be happening to them with little involvement or personal action.

I limped back to my room at school with my problem solving brain in high gear. Thoughts of Competency Based Education models, Mastery Teaching, and the Scouting Model bounce around my head as I start looking over the revised Maine State Learning Results. Why can't our curriculum look more like these models? The inner puppy in me was barking like crazy that it was time to play with possibilities and revisit hopes and dreams for education. Although, I am sure the muscles will be reminding me of my foolishness for days to come, the aches will help remind me of what real learning can look like. My legs, back and other parts of my body may be quite uncomfortable, but the feeling in my head and heart is oh so good!

Featuring McFalls Elm Street School

The Elm Street School is a K-8 school about 10 miles from Lewiston/Auburn. It is located in Mechanic Falls and is part of Union 29. The good people in this school need to look at every possible avenue to stretch their small budget in order to provide the very best possible learning environment in a caring, community school. Though I haven't worked with them this past year, I had the opportunity in previous years to see their dedication to grabbing every opportunity that might enhance their school. On an earlier post, we looked at the importance of classroom web presence. Check the links below to see a small sampling of the free/inexpensive solutions that Elm Street 7-8 teachers made use of:



Laurie Callahan - Social Studies





Mrs. Callahan's Portaportal







Dan Knott - Science





Mr. Knott's Portaportal







Cathy Wood



Mrs. Wood's Homework Hero Assignment Page









Gigi Lee



Mrs. Lee's Math Website and Weather WebQuest

WDL Episode 19

Award Ceremonies Podcast
Wicked Decent Learning Blog
Maine Ideas in Education


Straight out of Western Maine, Jeff Bailey and Dan Ryder continue their famous/infamous weekly podcasts on issues and opportunities in education . . . with a focus on Maine.

Direct Audio Link to this Week's Podcast

Is it on the test?

Not on the Test
FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing
Process Skills

What is not on the test?

What should be on the test?

Doing Research at OHMS

I'm working with Bev Yates' classes today on looking at ways of finding information and determining whether it can be trusted or not. Link.

NoodleTools

TelstarToo: Images

Creating Using Images Agenda - How can images be used to improve communication?

Just the Facts, Ma'am

One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with. ~ Marshall McLuhan

The question is this: What should we know in our own heads and what should we simply leave to a machine's storage device?

Joe Makley has a fascinating post on this very subject titled, "Platitudes and Orthodoxy in Web 2.0." But Joe goes beyond whether a fact is completely necessary to learn. He speaks to the issue of focus and contemplation in this world where we are bombarded by so much information that we often operate on an instant-to-instant crisis basis rather than through deliberation and thoughtfulness.

Are we in danger of losing both our roots and our wings? Our souls? Any thoughts about taming the technology beast?

Taming the Beast - Choice & Control in the Electronic Jungle by Jason Ohler.
The Idea of Global Collective Memory
Artificial Intelligence at LIM Resources Wiki

In Your Shoes

I received a link to this video from Anne Ireland today. I've been thinking of it in terms of school culture and the top-down, little boxes model that public education has increasingly experienced. Thank you, Anne.



Earlier Post on Respect
Listening to Others
Operation Respect
Don't Laugh at Me

What do you think?

Reconsidering Acceptable Use Agreements

Many Maine schools are reviewing their acceptable use agreements/policies in light of new developments in utilization of the internet. Rather than each school reinventing the wheel, why not share the wealth by listing your school's agreements here?

LIM Acceptable Use Policy Wiki Page

MARTI - Blogging in Adult Education

The adult education staff at Oxford Hills and I will be working on how blogging might be used with their students. Click here to view the agenda.

Essential Question: How can classroom communication and collaboration be enhanced with the use of blogs?

Margie's Maine Blog
HartfordGarden Blog

Respect

"People want the attention -- no one likes to feel like an underappreciated cog in an overworked machine."
~ Vicki Davis

Vicki was commenting on a post from Ed Tech Trek titled "I'm beaming". In the post, Caroline Obannon was expressing her joy when working individually with a teacher who saw clearly and enthusiastically how a tool could be used in his classroom.



The moral of the story is that teachers are very, very busy people and need to be treated with respect. It is so very easy for people who don't spend every day in the classroom to pontificate by throwing out elaborate schemes that in the end are not workable given limited time and energy. I saw it many times during my 32 years in the classroom. Those who work on making changes in our schools must do so without arrogance and self-righteousness. It is time to start trusting teachers while giving them our support.

The ultimate irony is for an outsider to give a lecture to a crowd of teachers on a professional development day on how teachers should be using collaboration, teamwork, constructivism, project-based learning, and interdisciplinary teaching with their students. And yet, how often does it happen? I know I've been guilty of that approach. Not good.

Coincidentally, thanks to Michael Richards' Notes from Millie D blog, I discovered the following:

An Ode to Study Groups

By Folwell Dunbar

From the early Neolithic or late Pliocene
To just yesterday afternoon around half past four
The professional development most often seen
Had participants screaming and running for the door!

The principal would attend a workshop in July,
Buy the hottest new book or some videocassette.
He would come back to school with a twinkle in his eye
And write an S.I.P. teachers could never regret!

A Ph.D. with a huge ego and résumé
Would visit the school two or three times during the year.
And show every last teacher an enlightened way
To make A.Y.P. without even an ounce of fear.

He would stand at the podium and preach to the choir
Bout' NCLB and shared accountability.
"We must raise the bar and then jump higher and higher!
Teach from bell to bell with sense and sensitivity!"

The teachers would leave the cafetorium in glee
With reams of information packed with jargon to spare.
Lugging binders and handouts (at a nominal fee),
They would return to class both in rapture and aware...

Of research-based "best practices" that were tried and true
And lesson strategies that could not possibly fail!
The administration was sharp, knew just what to do:
They had "stood and delivered" the PD Holy Grail!

But as we all know, school change is a tricky business;
It's hard as a tack and never happens overnight.
Workshops don't work, all victims would certainly confess.
It requires blood, sweat, and tears and a terrific fight!

Faculty buy-in and active participation
Are key ingredients for real, successful reform.
To bring about such a meaningful transformation
We have to make the two an essential PD norm.

Embed them throughout the entire training process
To ensure that teachers get both what they want and need.
Create a new culture dedicated to progress
Where everyone has an opportunity to lead.

To accomplish this, there is only one thing to do:
Sound the alarm and rally the much-beleaguered troops;
Get rid of workshops and empower the in-school crew.
Change the paradigm; adopt faculty study groups!

Six to eight people working together side by side
Go explore topics and issues relevant to each.
They travel miles and miles deep and hardly an inch wide,
Until they discover a better, new way to teach.

From crunching numbers to trying a new high-tech tool,
From reading a great book to designing a lesson,
They do any number of things to improve the school.
It is always worthwhile and occasionally fun.

Study groups will increase student achievement and more.
They will earn the school district and state impunity.
But much more important than any assessment score,
You'll be a professional learning community!

Let's hope that the the phrase, professional learning community, doesn't deteriorate to simply mean business as usual. Let's not use language to get in the way of communication . . . but instead to help develop clarity and understanding.

Research-Based Instruction & Reading First

A study of the NCLB Reading First program found that teachers were spending more time on reading instruction but that there was no significant difference in reading comprehension between those schools that used the program and those that didn't.

See interim report here.

Relate Articles:

Washington Post: "Billions for an Inside Game on Reading"
NCTE Elementary Section: "Reading First Called 'Ineffective.'"
Reading First: The Naked Truth
Gary Stager at Huffington Post: The Surge Against First Graders

What do you think? Are there any lessons to be learned here?

Standardized Testing in Maine

Listen to Episode 18 - "Stop. Put Your Pencils Down." at Wicked Decent Learning

DOE - Maine High School Assessment - SAT
Maine Educational Assessment (MEA)
Wikipedia: SAT

What are your thoughts on standardized testing in Maine?

Free Technology for Teachers

Western Maine's own Richard Byrne shares a wealth of free technology resources and how teachers can use them on his daily-updated blog, Free Technology for Teachers. His reviews are based on carefully checking out the latest developments and concisely reporting on how they might be used in the classroom and elsewhere. I find that dropping into his blog saves a great deal of time in sorting through the plethora of new applications . . . Richard does it for us.

Maine Sheet Music Source

An incredibly rich resource of Maine sheet music and more . . . a Maine gem. Click here and get ready to make some music! Did I mention that it is free?

Crazy or Stupid?

"We are told accountability is essential — by people who refuse to be accountable for underfunding schools, who fail to address the social needs of children created by inequalities and who think simple answers exist for complex problems. Accountability flows both ways. I may be crazy, but I am not stupid."

I regularly check out AASA's excellent monthly online publication, The School Administrator, for articles on education. A visit to Paul Houston's column is always a must. This morning I read his "Crazy or Stupid?" offering in which we speaks to issues of accountability and blame.


Recent Issues:

• May 2008 — Values-Based Navigation
• April 2008 — The Work of Transformation
• March 2008 — The Arts at K-12’s Center Stage
• February 2008 — Globalization and Education
• January 2008 — Healthy Bodies, Well Minds
• December 2007 — Life Beyond the Superintendency
• November 2007 — The Immigrants Among Us
• October 2007 — Legal Fallout
• September 2007 — Personalizing Schooling
• August 2007 — Where's Graduate Study Going?
• June 2007 — Personal Evaluation
• May 2007 — Personal Technology
• April 2007 — Professional Networking
• March 2007 — Primacy of the Superintendency
• February 2007 — Gifted Education Left Behind
• January 2007 — Measuring Academic Growth

Cartoon Creation

How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom
Online Educational Comic Generator for Kids of All Ages
ToonDoo - The Cartoon Strip Creator - Create, Publish, Share, Discuss!
Cartoon Youself!
ReadWriteThink - Comic Creator
Comics in Education
Cartooning for Kids
Teacher's Guide for the Professional Cartoonist
ARTSEDGE: Drawing Political Cartoons
Political Cartoons in the Classroom
Using Political Cartoons in the Classroom
Storyboarding
Cartoon Smart

Cartoon credit

New Books, New Readers

I had an absolutely delightful morning assisting Oxford Hills adult education teacher, Ramsey Ludlow, in taping a class designed by the Maine Humanities Council called New Books, New Readers. Mary Alice Crosby, in cooperation with local literacy teachers, facilitates this book group, which consists of adults who are learning to read. Books have been chosen according to theme and readability and discussed in an informal and emotionally-safe atmosphere with an emphasis on connecting with the lives of the participants. Students get to keep the books.

The just-completed series called "Telling Our Stories" includes the following:

Session 1: Recalling Our Past

• When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
• Miz Berlin Walks by Jane Yolen
• Leon’s Story by Leon Walter Tillage

Session 2: Discovering Our Stories

• Tong Ting Finds a Family by Elizabeth Cooke
• The Raft by Jim LaMarche
• Journey by Patricia MacLachlan

Session 3: Other Ways of Telling

• When Clay Sings by Byrd Baylor
• Family Pictures by Carmen Lomas Garza
• Arctic Memories by Normee Ekoomiak

For discussion: How do we tell our own stories? Why are they important? How do we decide what to tell? What do we learn from telling our own stories? From reading others’ stories? How and why do we share our stories with others? How do our personal stories connect to the stories of our communities and country?

This is an excellent model on many levels. Making these connections is important in encouraging persistence in working on the needed reading and writing skills. Oxford Hills Adult Education teachers help participants in developing skills before the discussion group . . . and follow up after the discussion is over.

Personalized education is alive and well in our Maine Adult Education communities!

Related Links at LIM Resources:

Digital Storytelling
Biography
Autobiography
Who

Jason Ohler:

Storytelling

TelstarToo Session: Blogging

“One of the reasons we fear these technologies is because we as teachers don’t yet understand them or use them. But the reality is that our students already do. It’s imperative that we be able to teach our kids how to use the tools effectively and appropriately because right now they have no models to follow.”

~ Will Richardson

Essential Question: How can classroom communication and collaboration be enhanced with the use of blogs?

Connectivity and Warming Up

Blog Definition/Description

• Blogs in Plain English
• 
  
  

Why Blog?

• Blogs in Education at LIM Resources Wiki
• eMINTS eTHEMES: Using Online Journals and Blogs
  
• Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom

View Blogs

• Support Blogging Listing of School Bloggers
• International Edubloggers Directory
• Bloggers in Maine (Please add Maine education blogs that you are aware of . . .)
  

Create a Blog

• Sign Up for a Google Account

Promote Your Blog

• How to Grow a Blog
• Twitter
• Del.icio.us
• RSS

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Bonus: Drawing /Painting/Photo Editing Programs for the Classroom

• TuxPaint
• Project Draw
• Gliffy
• Photoshop Express
• Picnik
  
• Appleworks
  

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Closing . . . .How did it go? What next?