Inside this issue:

How Technology Changed My Classroom 1

Just for Fun Websites 2

eBook Converter 2

GroupWise Tip 2

Characteristics of a Digital Native 2

SMARTBoard Activities 3

iChat Features 4

Canastota Central School’s Technology Newsletter

Well Connected! VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5

SUMMER 2011

“What are you teaching now that you

can teach more effectively and effi-ciently with technology?...Technical

applications must be taught as part of an existing subject so students under-

stand how technology can be a tool that makes them a more productive

and powerful person.”

~ John See, Minnesota Dept of Education

How Technology Changed my Teaching & Impacted

Learning in my Classroom

So my kids love to argue…Let’s put that to good use!

I thought that my persuasive writing unit, in which the

students needed to write an editorial, LTE, or business letter to someone who could make changes was great just the way it

was. The kids had an authentic purpose for writing and were

able to choose their own topics. They had read many editori-als and had evaluated the style and technique of persuasion

already (from the Utica OD). I provided them access to the

internet for research, provided an interactive web tool called the “persuasion maker” to help them organize their arguments

and supporting evidence, and watched their opinions blossom

into excellent, persuasive pieces. Well….hadn’t I done every-

thing right? Authentic purpose for motivation, web tools to help with organization, PowerPoints on persuasive strategies,

plenty of models, higher-level thinking questions that urged

them to evaluate great (and less effective) writing, lessons on how to conduct surveys using Google Docs, etc. The motiva-

tion was totally there, so when their letters were less-than-

persuasive, it was clear to see what was missing. Effective argumentation.

They couldn’t tell the reasons from evidence, the facts

from the opinions, the weak arguments from the ones that really count. When I taught them to use statistical evidence to

support their arguments, they did just as I asked. “The dress

code should be banished because kids don’t like it. For exam-ple, 87% of the students surveyed hate the dress code.” Argu-

ment, reason, evidence. Yeah, but…… Because I had done

the right things to engage the students in the project, all of

their shortcomings could be identified ruling out laziness or apathy as a factor. I could identify what more needed to be

taught….next year. But then the kids’ enthusiasm didn’t

wane….one group of girls were all abuzz after the unit ended; “We love arguing. When can we argue again? Let’s have a

DEBATE!” Maybe not next year, maybe now. The problem?

Well, there were many issues standing between me and mak-ing use of their enthusiasm. One, according to my curriculum

map, it’s time to do the research paper. Every year, we do our

research paper on the Great Depression, as it is the setting for

our next novel. I could facilitate a little debate on an issue, say, in a novel we’re reading, but what would we argue about

now with the Great Depression? And why? Could I even jus-

tify debating during a GD research unit? So I proposed to the students that maybe I could start an after-school debate team.

“How many of you are interested?” When all but two of the

hands went up in my class, I knew what I needed to do. But there was obstacle number two.

I have no idea how to truly, effec-tively debate, let alone teach it! This was

pretty overwhelming. I had never seen a

debate team in action, and I had never

truly studied debate as an art (or science). Yes, we have kids “debate” in class to

increase motivation and to get them talk-

ing and evaluating, but I’ve never really delved into it as a skill. I wanted to cap-

ture my students’ enthusiasm while it was

fresh, and there just wasn’t enough time. So I went to my technology consultant to

ask if she knew where I could get some

information, fast. As I remember it, I

think she had 20 links in my mailbox by lunch, and after school that day, I knew I

could possibly do this. But to be perfectly

honest, I think I would’ve learned a little this year and planned to get more in depth

next year because there was just so

MUCH information and who has the time? But then Margaret did something

that changed everything and prevented me

from doing this at any speed less than full-

throttle: CAPSpace.

Continued on page 5

WELL CONNECTED! Page 2

GroupWise Tip: The Home View

The Home View lets you access your

most important information quickly and all in one

place. From the Home View you can access your mail,

calendar, tasks, and checklist. It is divided into panes

and you can choose which panes you would like and

how they are arranged on the page. Switch between the

Home View and your Mail, Calendar, Sent Items, and

Contacts using the tabs at the top of the page.

To set whether you would like your GroupWise

account to open directly to the Home View or to your

Mailbox go to: Tools>Options>Environment>Default

Actions>Start in and check Mailbox or Home folder.

To select and arrange the items in your Home

View, click on the arrow to the right of the title of any

of the panels in your Home View. Use this menu to

add, delete, or edit panels, or switch between one or

two columns. Rearrange the panels by clicking and

dragging on the title bars for any of the panes.

Just for fun… http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/ - Check out what’s new in the world of technology gadgets! http://funtimenews.com/ - “Fun, interesting or sci-entific news” http://www.funfactz.com/technology-facts/ - Fun technology facts - how many do you know? http://www.cnysummer.com/ - Summer fun in upstate New York

Redo all those boring PowerPoints! Visual Bee is a plug in for PowerPoint that will automatically

design your slides to create an engaging presentation. Download it for free here:

http://www.visualbee.com/

Multimedia ori-

ented

Web-based

Less fear of failure

Instant gratification

Impatient

Nonlinear

Multitasker

Less textual, more

modalities

Active involvement

Very creative

Less structured

Expressive

Extremely social

Egocentric

Information over-

load

Technology is a

need

Feel a sense of enti-

tlement

See all information

as equal

No cultural distinc-

tions

Striving to be inde-

pendent

Risk Takers

Share a common

language

Have electronic

friends

Surface oriented

Constant engage-

ment

100% free for home and office – no restrictions!

Supports all popular e-readers

Converts all widely-used e-book formats

No advertising software, no spyware, no online registration!

Easy to use! Drag-N-Drop! No special knowledge required!

Integrates with Windows! Windows 7/Vista/XP compatible!

Supports 41 languages (English, French, Spanish, German,

Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, and

more).

Tested on 1,000,000 hamsters, none of whom were harmed! :-)

http://ebook.hamstersoft.com/en/home

Characteristics of a Digital Native

From “Technology Literacy and the MySpace Generation”

http://kids.clerk.house.gov/index.html

The Kids in the House Web site is a public ser-

vice provided by the Office of the Clerk of the

U.S. House of Representatives. Their mission

is to provide educational and entertaining in-

formation about the legislative branch of the

United States government to students of all age

levels. Topics covered include the role of the

U.S. House of Representatives, the legislative

process, and House history.

Page 3 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5

Tips for a SMARTer classroom!

Page

The

http://www.shaded-relief.com/

An interactive map you can use to measure the dis-tance, area or elevation of map features, share a map & send a link to a friend.

Map Types: Satellite Images & Maps - shows Google satellite

images & Google street maps Hybrid - shows Google satellite images with gen-

eral road and town overlays Relief - shows shaded relief of the world Natural - shows Tom Patterson's Natural Earth VE - shows Microsoft Virtual Earth's street maps

Tools:

Elevation - click anywhere on the map to find the elevation of the clicked point. ( Meters or Feet)

Distance - click along a route to find the distance. ( meters, kilometers, feet, yards, miles

Area - measure the area of a building or piece of land (square feet, meters, yards, hectares, acres, kilometers or miles)

http://www.abcya.com/media/skeletal%

20system.swf

Can you label the bones?

http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/scramble1.htm

Use Math Magnets to unscramble number sentences.

Exercises for addition, subtraction, multiplication and

division.

Page 4 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5

iChat Features You Should Know About!

Screen Sharing: With iChat you can initiate either a "Share my screen" or an "Ask to share their screen" connection. While connected, a voice chat channel is opened and you can speak over it while you work. To start a screen sharing session, Control-click (or Right-click) a buddy name in

your iChat list and select the sharing direction you want. This is great for sharing a presentation, troubleshooting a problem, collaborat-ing, etc. While the screen is active you can jump between the two by clicking on the screen in the lower-right corner. You can end the session by closing the small box in the lower right. This will also terminate the voice session. Pressing Command-Q or Command-

W will not end the session - those commands will be sent to the remote screen and likely close the current

application or window that's open.

Multi-Person Video Chat: With iChat you can connect up to four people in a video conference - a great way to have a group discus-sion! Once you establish a video connection with another user, you can add others to your chat by clicking the Plus symbol at the bottom of the video chat window and adding another buddy. If you are com-municating with people using AIM accounts you can even join a chat

room and keep a running text log as your meeting progresses.

iChat Theater: iChat Theater is another great feature. Once you

have a video chat running with someone, click the Plus symbol at the bottom of the window and select the option to share a file through iChat Theater (or simply drag the file to the video chat window). The image of the person you are video chatting with drops down into the corner and the image or file you are presenting takes over the main part of the screen. This is great for reviewing im-

ages or presentations.

Important Tips: When you have a video chat running, you will see a Mute button in the lower portion of the screen. Clicking that will mute your audio, but not the audio on the other end. As a result, if you click Mute your chat partner will continue to be both seen and heard and your video will continue without sound. Be careful - If the other person mutes the sound, they will still be able to hear you. Holding down the Option key transforms the Mute button into a Pause button. This both mutes the audio from your end as well as freezes the video from your end. Like Mute only, this only applies to your

feed; the other end is still visible and audible.

Where will the Sun rise and set today? Is there a Full Moon tonight? Where is the Big Dipper? What is the name of that bright star? What are some fun facts about these objects? SkyView Free is an easy-to-use App that answers these questions and more. Simply point the camera to the sky, tap on what you see and discover really neat things about these sky objects. SkyView Free blends the camera view with 3D graphics of the sky objects to provide an Augmented Reality (AR) view of your sky. SkyView Free helps

you find stars, constellations, and satellites. Type the name of the object and then simply follow the arrow until it appears in the camera view. Discover interesting facts about each of these objects.

There’s an

App For

That!

Page 5 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5

Cap Space (Collaborations Around the Planet) is a social networking tool for educational videoconferenc-

ing. Margaret proposed, to educators in cyberspace, a col-

laboration project on debate that would culminate in a live

debate via videoconference. I wasn’t ready for that! She may have mentioned it to me, but if she did, I didn’t really

understand what she meant, and the next thing I know,

she’s forwarding messages from real teachers in Australia, Canada, and Michigan indicating an interest in a debate

project! There was no backing out now….I now had ac-

countability in the form of these three teachers looking to me as the leader. Looking back, it was this move of Mar-

garet’s that forced me to follow through with my idea and

interest and not allowing myself to make excuses of not

having enough time to do something new and exciting for my students.

The three teachers and I collaborated via Skype, email, and the telephone, creating deadlines and organiz-

ing resources. One of the resources referred to me by

Margaret was the Middle School Public Debate Program, a professional and excellent (all-inclusive) website that is

“an initiative to promote class and contest debating for

students in the middle grades.” It’s really a gold mine.

This website included pre-made handouts that thoroughly teach argumentation, the format of the debate, techniques

and strategies of effective refutation, rubrics, and the best

feature, videos of middle school formal public debate so that the kids can evaluate. My students and I now had

everything we needed to truly learn how to debate effec-

tively. Because I was honest with my students from the

beginning that I didn’t know how to lead a debate team and I shared with them my whole process of figuring this

out, finding resources, etc., I feel that I was able to addi-

tionally serve as a model of using the technology available to all of us to be a life-long learner. But of course, this

unit was going to be about a month long: how can I fit this

in when we’re supposed to be on research at this point?

Well, it turned out that in order to debate, one

must conduct an awful lot of research. These kids saw this

right away in the “Ban Boxing” video that they evaluated in which the debaters pulled upon statistics, historical ex-

amples, summaries of the legislative history on the issue,

examples from other countries, etc. The “Boxing should-n’t be banned because 87% of students polled said that

they like it” argument was not going to work. I gave the

students very lengthy handouts made available by the website that taught, through text, how to argue effectively.

The kids wanted to learn, and they read the packet. When

I asked them some basic questions that they should’ve

been able to answer easily after reading page one and they

didn’t know the answer, I realized that this was an impor-tant time to teach/reinforce “reading for understanding”

skills. For this, I also discovered new ways to utilize the

newest technology in my classroom: the Smart Board.

Obviously, the skill that these motivated students

needed to employ was effective summarization and note-

taking in order to learn this text. Because of their moti-vation and subsequent obedience (they read quietly, just

as I asked them to), when they couldn’t summarize the

main points of the text, it was detectable as a skill deficit being the only possible factor. I could ask them to take

notes and summarize, but they would out of obedience,

and I’m not sure that they’d learn this skill in such a way

that they’d remember to do so EVERY time that they read text to learn. So I decided to make the task as inter-

esting as possible and to build in a way to have them see

that it’s valuable and necessary. I had them finish read-ing the packet for homework, and I did not tell them to

take notes, although I did “mention” that good readers

would highlight and take notes. “Is it required?” I was asked? “No, but a good reader would do that if they actu-

ally wanted to learn the material.” I knew that a few

would, and most wouldn’t. But I did feel that most

would actually do the reading. I had an idea that the Smart Board could help.

I had SMART Notebook software installed on all computers in the lab. The next day, I had a task for the

students to complete: create a SMART Board lesson for

the class on the concepts of effective argumentation and

the Middle School Public Debate format (from a new handout). I said that these would be great notes for them-

selves and absent students, and I could teach with it next

year (the best ones). Their lesson had a template: on each page I gave them the heading and they had to fill in

the bullets using the fun SMART BOARD templates that

I learned to use in my SMART BOARD class just weeks before (erase and reveal, multiple choice questions, click-

on-the-bullet to reveal notes, matching, etc.) You know

how it’s fun to create these interactive lessons? Well,

they thought so, too, but they were instantly frustrated when they couldn’t remember the concepts from the text.

Here I was forcing them to outline the text, summarize

their learning, and they hadn’t learned much. They started complaining that they couldn’t remember. What

an awesome opportunity to talk to them, non-lecture

style, about reading-to-learn. Wasn’t that the point of reading last night? To learn effective argumentation

skills? Didn’t they want to learn that? They admitted that

it made sense while they were reading, but they just did-

n’t remember. So did they really learn it? Some students

Page 6 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5

had underlined and made notes on their paper. They were not shy about saying that this was an easy activ-

ity….. I couldn’t have planned this to have worked out

better than it did. My students went back to the text,

used the text features to find the necessary information to include in their lesson; they remembered the content

much better the next day. When they got to the newest

packet, the MSPD format, I was able to observe that the students DID underline and make notes, and enjoyed

creating their own SMART Notebook pages (without

the template; I scaffolded the tasks so that they’d be more independent after the first half) and finding multi-

ple choice questions to stump the person sitting next to

them. By the third packet, the one outlining research

skills and the 4th (refutation), the kids were more and more likely to outline, underline, and summarize with-

out being forced/told to do so. Their research readiness

was satisfying. During what would have appeared to be a detour from the research unit, the kids learned and

practiced reading-for-understanding strategies (an inte-

gral part of the research process!). However, was the librarian ready for me with this unconventional re-

search unit? This was the next obstacle that technology

helped me overcome.

Every year, our librarian knows our research

topics months in advance. He compiles dozens of ex-

cellent books and creates a handout that instructs them on the exact key words they should use to find books in

the stacks on their topics. But this year’s topics, chosen

just days before, were not easy like the Great Depres-

sion topics. The kids voted on their top 4 propositions and were in teams of 6: “Cigarettes Should be

Banned”, Students Should Have Access to Cell Phones

in School, and Corporal Punishment Should Be Illegal, and “Zoos Do More Harm Than Good.” I was nervous

to tell him what I had done; how could he prepare? I

figured he couldn’t. The kids would have to find mate-rials on their own, which actually is much more benefi-

cial when you think about it. He showed them how to

use the electronic databases to which the library sub-

scribes. Cha-ching! How useful was this? I loved watching them conducting online research without

“googling”. Our wonderful school website and the

amazing resources to which we had access allowed the students to more independently conduct effective re-

search, and they used that amazing research to practice

effective argumentation skills in a high-intensity per-formance: a video-taped debate with their peers. Six

students in each class then went on to debate teams

from Michigan and Australia via web conference.

As this unit unfolded, I could see that my stu-dents were actually motivated to and excited about re-

searching so that they could “win” in the debate (finally,

they have a real-life purpose for their research unit), and

that I was able to fit in that “re-teaching” (filling in the argumentation skill gap that I had discovered in their

persuasive writing unit) while still teaching them the

research skills that I was SUPPOSED to be covering at this time. It turned out that my research unit was far bet-

ter (more interesting) and far more effective than it had

ever been before. But my learning experience with the wonders of technology did not end there: after the de-

bates, the kids were anxious to talk more with the Aus-

tralian students whom they had “met” via Polycom:

they begged me to initiate “pen pal” contact. Had I known how valuable that would turn out to be, I

would’ve thought of it myself.

When the first wave of pen pal letters came in

from the Hutchins School for Boys in Tazmania, the

students were giddy with excitement. I was able to print out about 18 letters and make a packet from the time

they arrived in the early a.m. to 6th period (you’ve got to

love e-mail!). The students a) enjoyed the letters b)

were horrified by the grammatical errors in the letters c) practiced editing skills on a few selected letters which

allowed me to teach a grammar lesson that they were

anxious to follow d) discussed the cultural differences between the two cultures based on the letters e) asked

how soon they could write back! It was the last day be-

fore Spring Break. I told them that if they emailed their

letters to me, I’d send them as they came, but that the due date wouldn’t be until the second day after we re-

turned. I received over 40 letters over Spring Break.

Thanks to email and Microsoft Word’s comments fea-ture, I was able to shoot back each letter with comments

regarding each grammatical error with the note that I

won’t send it until it’s perfect. For example, there’d be a pink blotch over a word with the comment on the side

that says, “This is a compound sentence, so you need a

comma before this conjunction”. Over 30 came back to

me over Spring Break, which means that 30 kids were learning grammar over vacation! By day two of our

return, every student had read all of the mini-grammar

review lessons on their paper and had made appropriate corrections, all just days before the state test on which

they’d be tested on editing skills: cha-ching!

While the interest was still at its peak, the tech-

nology consultant/librarian of the Australian school and

I collaborated, via google docs, on potential collabora-

tive projects between our students for the rest of the

Page 7 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5

school year and possibly next year. Some of the ideas we brainstormed were fabulous, and we decided on a

project in which each group shares information about

our daily life/culture/government, etc. in some sort of

presentation. I decided to use a wiki, and research unit #2 was upon us, so I couldn’t just launch into this. I

incorporated the research paper into this project and

accomplished two things at once, increasing motivation for the research unit again. We called the project “Our

American Life,” and I put all of the instructions and

tools needed on the wiki, and allowed the students to offer each other tips and share found resources by post-

ing on each other’s pages. After they wrote their re-

search papers on their topics (aspects of our life here in

Central New York), we exchanged a wiki presentation with the Australian boys. My discovery of the Wikis-

paces, however, prompted me to write a differentiated,

individualized final exam for each student that turned out so effective in assessing my students’ research

skills that I will use it to enhance instruction early in

the year next year. Eureka! Wikispaces should be a teacher’s best friend.

Here’s how I used it: for my final exam, I cre-

ated a Wikispace. The home page provided instruc-tions and a copy of the rubric I created for the assess-

ment using rubistar.4teachers.com. From the home

page, each student found a link to their own test/page from there, where they would find a pasted copy of

their research paper. All students had received their

research paper back with comments and a rubric com-

pleted, and this was available to them for reference. On their individual pages, I provided a link to a resource

that would work as a source for their particular research

paper or they received a paper copy of an article from the Utica Observer Dispatch. They needed to read the

article for relevant information, apply that information

in a logical place in their paper (which requires revision of the original wording of their paper), properly cite the

source with an in-text citation, and amend their bibliog-

raphy to include a citation for this source as well, all in

40 minutes. It worked out beautifully. The reason I chose Wikispaces as a tool for this assessment is be-

cause wiki has an amazing feature: it highlights in red

everything deleted since the last user posted (me, when I created the test) and highlights in green everything

inserted. In a few seconds, I can detect exactly how

and where the student amended the original paper. When you’re grading a research paper on which a stu-

dent has worked for weeks, you can’t really tell if a

student lacked proper citations for a piece of informa-

tion because he or she forgot, ran out of time, made a

mistake, or really didn’t understand; I was able to elimi-nate the time factor to determine the actual skill mastery

or deficit for each student. This assessment was invalu-

able, and thanks to Wikispaces, I will be able to better

differentiate and assess my students EARLIER next year. I will use Wikispaces to grade corrections/

revisions frequently next year to potentially solve the

problem of our students not wanting to revisit their writ-ing to improve. Can you imagine the potential here?

We can create assignments in which students must re-

vise their original writing, and we can grade them on how many sentences were improved, revised, experi-

mented with, seeing the original and the revision color-

coded! Try it! It can have an amazing impact on stu-

dents’ growth as writers!

I don’t know what my year would’ve been like

without our technology consultant pushing/tricking/encouraging me to become a better teacher by utilizing

more of the technological resources available to us edu-

cators at the only cost of the time it takes to learn to use it. I don’t have time to go actively searching for new

technologies and trying to figure out how it can help me.

After all, I have been teaching just fine without it, right?

I can teach for a whole year the same way I taught all of last year with no additional time investment because

let’s face it: we are BUSY enough as it is grading pa-

pers, preparing lessons, calling parents, maintaining our classroom, and completing and creating paperwork, etc.

But DO take a few minutes talking to your technology

consultant, other teachers in your building, or other

teachers in cyberspace about the ideas, problems, and challenges in your classroom, because someone else,

especially your technology consultant, may know ex-

actly what technology can help you by taking you on a path you never dreamed possible. What do you have to

lose? You have everything to gain.

Julie Jacobs - middle school ELA teacher