Its Up to You

"It's up to you." I have found myself saying that to a certain class a lot lately. After reading Josh Stumpenhorst's blog and following him on Twitter, I began to think. I wanted to make my class as student centered as possible, so I jumped in. I provided the students with learning objectives and turned them loose so to speak. We are studying the Civil War era so I broke it into three parts, Causes of the War, Events and People During the War, and Reconstruction. We started with a pre-quiz to give me some statistical base to see growth (I also gave this to another class who is not participating in this "project" so I can compare at the end). Since then my students have been planning and researching. One of the biggest complaints I have had as a young teacher is that students want things spoon fed to them. I can't tell you how many times in the last 2 weeks I have had students ask how should we put this together? Or what should this part look like? My response lately has been "It's up to you." And I think they are starting to figure it out, at first they were frustrated by my responses, but now they nod, smile and go back to their groups. Many of them are meeting after school at friends houses or the library. One of the things I have implemented is we have weekly meetings where I have been talking to the students about how to make sure that they are making progress.

It hasn't been all roses though. Many of my students know they are being unproductive but fail to change. I truly believe that many of them have been told to sit in their seats and be quiet for so long that they struggle when you put them in a group to realize that talking about their boyfriend/girlfriend etc. does nothing to advance the project. For example, one group mentioned to me that they struggled to accomplish things when they sat next to a certain group. The problem is the next day where did they sit? Right by the same group, and I let them go because I want them to realize what they are doing. When I noticed again that they were not being productive I simply asked them why they were sitting by the same group they told me  yesterday they were distracted by, they didn't have much of a response.

Over all this has been a great experience so far. We have only scratched the surface to this point, but I hope at the end the positives outweigh the negatives and there is true growth to be seen. I want my students to stop looking at me for answers, and instead look at me with questions to explore. Hopefully this experience will be a great one, with students growing in their understanding of the Civil War but also as thinkers.

Maiden Voyage

It is only fitting that the first entry to this blog is being created with the iPad 2. Our tech director ordered us a handful of these for some of the teachers who she thought might use them the most, I was one of the lucky ones. For the last 24 hours I have been searching for apps to use in my American History class (reviews to come later). I feel like such a nerd I woke up around 4:30 just so I could play with it before school. I have always been a huge fan of technology I remember as a kid in school my favorite days were lab days, and they still are now as a teacher. I find it very rewarding when you can introduce a student to new ideas while using a tool that the enjoy. I have found in my short time as a teacher that if you can find something that will interest the kids on a technology level they become more involved in the content as well...that has a been a tough sell at times to other teachers and administrators.

One thing that I hope people will find from this blog is not just what a technology can do or what it does best but how I personally have used it or seen it used. All too often I search around for information and there is plenty of it but it can be so basic. What is hard to find is a real classroom experience, someone who has used the tool and can tell me how they used it in their room with their kids. Take for example google docs, I have searched for hours for how teachers are using the features of google docs in their class rooms, maybe I am looking in the wrong place but I am not seeing it. Hopefully this will fill that void. By the way this is not meant to be a bash on other bloggers by any means, some of the most useful information I have found in my teaching career (all 1.5 years) has been from blogs! Many of them are far more informative than some of the college classes I was "required" to take.

iPad 2 initial thoughts, short and sweet. Surprised at how easy it is to type on the screen when in landscape mode. I never guessed it would be this simple. That said I wouldn't want to write a term paper on it but that really isn't the intention of the device so all is good. Today I used Evernote, not so much for what it actually has to offer over other apps but because I didn't have much else to use to be honest. Students were working in groups and one thing about 8th graders is they are easily sidetracked. As I wondered around the room with the iPad I took notes of the conversations kids were having, they had no clue I was doing this they thought I was playing with my new toys! After about 5-10 minutes I stopped all of the groups and read them my notes, even they were amazed at how far off track they had gotten. After our talk and my note sharing I was pleased with the increase in productivity, they had no clue how unproductive they were being, what an ahha moment that was for both myself and my students. Evernote though was great, does exactly what it should do, short notes, not really meant for much more than that but syncs between iPad/iPod/phone/computer so you will always have access to your information.

I am hoping that this becomes something regular for me, maybe it will offer a chance to decompress, share thoughts, and hopefully help someone else along the way. Please comment if you have something to add, I really look for this to be a community space with lots of sharing of ideas and methods for integrating tech in your classroom!