Do the Math

I purchased server space to host webpages and student projects so I decided to go ahead move to the new address. The new blog is up and running. All posts and comments have been moved.

The address is davempowers.us

Thank you edublogs for your help and support with this blog.

Sincerely,

- Dave Powers

It is Easter Sunday, the last day of Spring Break. I was just reflecting on the school year, getting excited and ready for tomorrow, and catching up on some reading when I came across the perfect blog post that summed up my views on management (including administration, school boards, and my time management).

This was one of the best posts that I have read in a while. I suggest any teacher, administrator, school board member, or involved parent read it before embarking on a the next planning phase (including but not limited to: fourth quarter lesson planning, future of the district meetings, or even your family’s schedule for the upcoming week).

I took a lot of time to reflect this spring break. I took the time to update and organize my classroom because I had the time for once and because it is re-energizing. I called the project “Two White boards and a Smartboard”

People always say to stay away from school for spring break, and I think this is usually good advice, but for this spring break all I wanted to do is get reorganized, rejuvenated, and excited for the last quarter that I get spend with the exceptional group of eighth graders that I have had the pleasure to teach this year.

This is a question that I think many math teachers struggle with. Many times, there is not a sufficient way to “poll” the students to find out if the class is “getting it” or if one more explanation is needed.

In this new School 2.0 era, there are many devices coming out to provide instant feedback to teachers that can help answer the question “Are we ready to move on?” Smarttech makes Senteos to use with Smartboards. Promethean makes Activotes, and there are probably countless others that I have failed to learn about.

My middle school team has been begging for a set of instant response handhelds for a year now. Because of our interest, our begging, and our well crafted PTO grant which describes how they can be used to provide formative assessment, we will have the opportunity to test out a set of Senteos next school year. We are excited to test out this technology and find the many uses for improving our practice.

But this is not the reason I write this post.

Two weeks ago, I heard about a new web 2.0 tool called Poll Everywhere which allows students to respond by text message from their cell phone to a poll posted by a teacher. While I am not sure if schools are ready to start allowing cell phones in classrooms, and I am not sure if parents are ready to fork over the money to pay for unlimited text messaging, this new tool got me thinking differently. I wondered if we were wasting our money by buying the Senteos because they will soon be obsolete. The cell phone will soon be a full functioning handheld computer that will allow students to do much more that we can even comprehend yet. I recently watched the apple release of the SDK kit for the apple iphone and it does not seem like it will be long before students can write articles (Literacy), graph functions (Math), videoconference (Social Studies), and instantly share data (Science) all from their wifi enabled phones. It seems like this is the new platform for mobile communication, and it will be the platform for some time to come.

I have started to see that as we think we are working to get closer to the curve, instead we might be falling further behind it. This is one of the countless times that I have thought to myself, “Now we are cutting edge,” only to later find out that we might be farther behind than we thought we originally thought.

As I read a post on Will Richardson’s blog and the discussion that follows it and I realize that my school is in alright shape. I just frustrated because I think that we could be farther. Here is how:

We need to think differently!

We need to start to writing the policies and form the expectations and guidelines now so when this is all possible (two years from now), we are ready to push our students ahead instead of holding them back.

I like to think about what the classroom will look like in ten years, but to tell you the truth no one knows. The best we can do is try to predict and plan ahead. We need to attempt to stay current, applicable, and as worth while as possible.

Last week, I had the opportunity to observe a video conference for students studying geography. I expected to see our kiddos on one side of the camera sitting and listening to a speaker on the television much like the “traditional classroom.”

Man was I wrong. I saw six classrooms of middle school students all connected and competing with one another to find out where in the world each school picked to be located. Every student that I saw on the screen was absolutely engaged and participating in some way. Some students were researching using search engines and Google maps, others were listening to the questions and answers recording every clue that was available. To get more information about the contest visit…..

As I left the contest, the hamster wheel in my head was spinning out of control with new questions and ideas.

“How could a similar environment could be created for middle school math students? Is there is something already out there for students studying Algebra? If not, could it be created? What should it look like?”

The wheel in my brain has been spinning out of control all weekend trying to find answers and I have had virtually no luck.

We (the Algebra teachers of the world) could create a math competition after each math unit or math concept and have a network of classrooms competing for prizes.  If there are any interested Algebra teachers or Connected Mathematics teachers out there in the world, I would love to get connected with you. Just leave a comment and I will get in touch with you.

I have spent the better part of a year working with my amazing teaching teammates exploring new technologies with our middle school students. We have put in the extra hours and energy it takes to try these new methods of communication because we have seen the impact these methods have had on our own learning. We have explored blogging, wikis, ed.voicethreads, and many other wonderful tools. As a team, we failed with a few of these tools but we were very successful with a few others. One of the tools that has been most effective is online discussions. (more…)

Yesterday, I presented at Clayton School District’s Professional Development Day. As a first time presenter and second year teacher in the school district, I was nervous for days leading up to the workshop. I knew that what I have to say is very important and should be worthwhile to the teachers who attend, but I also knew if I did not do this presentation well, twelve teachers in my home district are going to be turned off to the idea of using Web 2.0 tools in their classrooms. After much deliberation, I put together a presentation that discussed the why, before the how, and that was paced at the correct speed so any teacher understand.

Here is what I (but really we) came up with…

Here is a link to the presentation (w/no audio) CLICK HERE

Here is a link to the presentation (w/ audio) CLICK HERE

Here is a link to just the audio file recorded at the workshop CLICK HERE

Reflection On the Experience

Wow! What an experience this was. I had around thirteen teachers attend who were eager to learn and ask questions. I believe that each one took at least something from the workshop that could be applied to their classroom. And if not, that at least know the basics of what is happening in the world in regards to the read write web and the creation of web 2.0 tools that teachers can use. I am hoping that the group can continue to discuss the possibilities that Web 2.0 technologies create and also the actual tools that are effective in the classroom.

After seeing the interest that these teachers had in the technologies, I am talking to Michael Fournier about creating a School 2.0 committee at Wydown that could meet to discuss the newest Web 2.0 technologies available. I am brainstorming about ways the committee could present the ideas and web tools over the internet for the teachers, students, parents, and administrators of Wydown and beyond…..CHS, City of Clayton, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, North America, and Planet Earth.

To Those Who Attended

To those teachers who attended, thank you adding your personal experiences and reflections during the workshop, and also the positive feedback that you gave me while talking to your colleagues. Your comments on the blog have added to my reflection about both the positive impact this technology could make if implemented correctly and also the negative impacts that this technology could have that teachers using these technologies have to watch and plan for.

I hope that we continue to have creative and reflective conversation as our teaching careers continue.

-Dave Powers

Now that you have had time to reflect on the impacts of Web 2.0 Tools on Schools and Classrooms, I want to ask another question. Anywhere in your last reflection did you mention a Global Economy, a Global Society, Global Citizens, Digital Literacy, and/or Global Contribution(s)?

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Teachers across the globe are attempting to prepare their students for “The Real World.” The real world today is much different than “The Real World” from ten years ago, which was different than “The Real World” ten years prior to that. And I don’t think the school system changes to accommodate for this and truly prepares students for “The Real World” of tomorrow.

Here are my next questions for you to reflect on (and reply about):

1) Why don’t school systems change as fast as “The Real World” changes?

2) What do you think our school district should -or- could do differently to prepare our students for a changing global society?

Welcome “Web 2.0 for Teachers” - Teachers!

First of all….THIS IS NOT A WEBSITE. This is a blog. If you don’t know the difference already, you will find out what the difference is soon.
In the workshop Web 2.0 for Teachers, by Dave Powers, we have already discussed

• a short history of the internet
• a definition of Web 2.0
• If you are reading this but you were not in attendance at the workshop, please view the presentation. Stop when you see the first Stop Sign.

[slideshare id=92050&doc=web204teachersnoaudio0814074740&w=425]

• For starters…you might think about Wikipedia’s YouTube’s impact on schools.
• Type up your group’s reflection.
• Break it down into positive impacts, and negative impacts.

2) Next, when your group comes up with a quality response…

1. Please click on the article’s headline. You will see a box that says LEAVE A REPLY at the end of this post.
2. Copy and paste your response directly into the box. Make sure the formatting is correct, and then click SUBMIT COMMENT.

For years, people have gotten up in the morning, grabbed a cup a coffee, and thumbed through the newspaper trying to find some interesting articles to read. In my opinion, this process is quickly becoming history. The reason = RSS Readers.

I recently learned about a piece of technology that is changing the way people read. At the November Learning Conference, I attended a workshop that discussed how reading and writing is changing in the web 2.0 era.

In the workshop, Will Richardson discussed the tools that have brought about the change: RSS readers and blogs.

Instead of thumbing through the paper browsing through the misleading headlines or getting on CNN.com and seeing what their experts are saying, you can now use the internet and an RSS reader to subscribe to certain authors of information (the ones that you trust) or, even better, just certain categories of articles that your favorite author writes.

After trying out this new technology, I am sold that this is going to change the way people find much of the information they read in the future.

A real life example of how this works:

I am an enthusiastic middle school math teacher in St. Louis, MO. I just experienced first hand how the world is evolving changing and how there is a need for the education world to change with it. I want my classroom to be more applicable to and therefore more useful in people’s lives. So I am writing a blog entry about it.

The parents of all of my students that need to be educated about the Web 2.0 era and how it affects their lives and the lives of their children. The problem is, there are thousands of websites about web 2.0 tools. As parents start searching, questions arise. Which of these site  are good at explaining the tools instead of selling the tools? Do they explain why parents should be using the tools also, and why it is good for their sons and daughters to be using the technologies? So what can parents do?

Well, here is where the RSS reader comes into play in public education:

My students’ parents know that I have looked through many of these tools and I am using the best ones in my classroom to educate my students more effectively. So my parents subscribe to my blog. Better yet, my parents sign up for specific categories of my blog so they do not have to read things I write that do not apply to them or their children. My parents subscribe to the category “lifelong learning.”

From the teacher’s perspective:

This is very efficient way to get information that I think is important to my students’ parents, such as what happened in class today and what is new in their children’s world that they need to know about. This seems like a true working relationship between school and home doesn’t it.

From the parent’s perspective:

This is a great way to stay in touch with what is going on in their children’s lives, and a great way to receive some extra technology education from the school also. Can anyone say, “Effective lifelong learning system.”

In my opinion, this process only works if the RSS reader becomes an everyday tool that parents check (just like email).

So, this is when you need to get to work!!!

If you are a parent:

Within five minutes, you can be set up with a free RSS Reader and you can be plugged in to what is going on in your child’s world.

If you are a teacher:

Check out Edublogs.org Within five minutes you can be set up with a blog that you can use to publish blog entries and communicate with you students’ parents.