teaching

How to teach Google Apps to ninth graders

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon My colleague, Nancy Jo Turner — a phenomenal teacher — knows how to make sure ninth graders learn new tech skills.

She understands that it’s the little things that count.

Today, she wanted her students to learn how to create a new Google presentation, how to title it correctly, how to share it with others, and how to start adding slides to their presentation.

Most teachers would choose one of the following (flawed) strategies:

1. Do a teacher-led demonstration,

2. Give students an instructions sheet and skip the demonstration.

Number 1  bores ninth graders and does not encourage them to learn the process. Number 2 creates chaos and does not ensure that all students understand the correct procedure.

Here’s what Nancy Jo did:

1. Explained the steps first and made students write them down,

2. Did an interactive demonstration with me,

3. Brought students immediately to the computer lab to apply their knowledge.

By taking time with Step 1, my colleague emphasized to students the importance of understanding the process and getting things right. I liked that she did not provide students with a cheat sheet. Although some educators may argue that this kind of notetaking isn’t an example of  “21st century skills,” it definitely helped the ninth graders focus on the procedure.

My colleague’s interactive demonstration showed students the power of Google Apps in real time. I turned my computer screen around at my desk so that students could see our simultaneous collaboration. Immediately, there were several loud “oohs” and “ahs.” Instead of listening to a boring, one-way demonstration, the students got hooked.

Finally, Step 3 was crucial, too. Ninth graders learn best when they don’t have to wait until that night or the next day to assimilate their knowledge. Despite some tech problems in the computer lab (Google Chrome is better for Google Apps than Internet Explorer), students were mostly successful beginning their group presentations.

Teaching is very complex. When should we teach step by step, and when should learning be more independent, more constructivist?

Today, my colleague demonstrated that the best way to teach specific, precise tech procedures to ninth graders is to teach directly and to break things up. Although we should allow our students to go off and explore, we first need to teach them the basic tools so they feel confident to be on their own. favicon

Update: The Classroom Kindle Project

Posted on by Mark Isero

Stock-Kindlefavicon No new Kindles this week (despite some rumors!), but here’s a quick update on The Classroom Kindle Project:

1. I’ve created a Kindle Agreement for use with students. People ask me, “Do you let your students take the Kindles home?” My answer is, “Of course! That’s the whole point.”

A few concerns follow: (1) What if students purchase books on their own? (2) What if students damage or lose their Kindle? (3) What if students use the Kindle inappropriately?

I haven’t had any problems yet, but the Kindle Agreement makes things a little more official. It’s also a great checklist to remind me of what to cover during my how-to-use-the-Kindle tutorial.

2. The Kindle e-book library has grown to 110 titles. In their English 12 class, students are participating in a classics unit, in which they’re reading a classic of their choice. This unit has increased interest in the Kindle because of the difficulty of the books. The Kindle’s built-in dictionary and text-to-speech features are coming in handy.

Some highlights: Rio is reading Dante’s Inferno; Elisa is reading 1984; Jadz is reading Edgar Allen Poe; Princess is reading Emma (and loving text-to-speech); Francisco is reading Lord of the Flies; and Liz is reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It’s wonderful to see them reading challenging texts. The traditional way of teaching novels — where the teacher assigns a book, and the students, in general, don’t read it — doesn’t always work. I’m happy to report that I’m seeing a lot more reading because there is a lot more choice.

3. The students are talking about the Kindles. I encourage my students to show off their Kindles to their friends. This has caused some pretty neat conversations. One of my most popular questions is, “Does it have a touch screen?” (Touch capability is becoming standard for this iPad generation.) Here are some other things they’re saying:

  • “That’s sick!”
  • “What are you reading on that?”
  • From a jealous naysayer: “Why can’t you just pick up a book?”
  • “I’m almost finished with Hunger Games!”
  • “I want one!”
Overall, I continue to be very happy with The Classroom Kindle Project. It’s slow going, but I’m appreciative of the progress we’ve made and of the donors whose generous contributions have gotten us this far. In the next week or so, I hope to post some images and videos to demonstrate the impact that this project is having. Thank you again for your support! favicon
everything else

Hacked (three times)!

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon I like technology, but I don’t like being hacked.

I mean, Who do these people think they are? And what’s the point, exactly, of hacking my professional blog and my class website?

Don’t they know I’m a teacher?

Yes, both this site and iseroma.com, my class website, were hacked multiple times over the past three weeks.

Not fun at all. The malware destroyed Iserotope’s RSS feed and linked the site to Canadian pharmacy advertisements. Then, over at iseroma.com, a different strain made it impossible to access the site at all.

All told, despite my above-average tech skills, I ended up having to hire a professional to clean up my websites.

Argh!

The good news is that it looks like everything is cleaned up now. Plus, I’ve added additional security so that (hopefully) this doesn’t happen again.

I know that some of you reported “weird” and “funky” things happening over the past few weeks, so I thank you for your patience as I figured it all out.

Update, February 27: It looks like the problem continues when accessing the site on phones and tablets. Please let me know at markisero AT lhssf DOT org. Let’s take care of these hackers!

Update, March 4: Thanks to Laura, I think I have nailed these suckers. I am hopeful that we won’t have any more problems. favicon

teaching

“I’m still here.”

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon I don’t believe in teacher movies. You know them: Dead Poets Society, Dangerous Minds, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Freedom Writers, and Stand and Deliver, to name a few.

Even when they’re accurate (which is almost never), these movies send the wrong message: that if you’re a (usually white) teacher who really cares, you can get your students to do extraordinary things (while being a martyr, too).

We all know things don’t quite work that way.

Progress is slow. Growth takes time. Breakthroughs are few and far between.

Most of the time, we see success only after the fact — at a graduation ceremony, or when students visit us many years after taking our class. Feel-good, movie-worthy moments rarely happen in real time.

That’s why the other day was special. A student texted me for help on her essay. She was stuck on understanding the passage’s syntax and didn’t know how to find solid evidence.

For the first hour, we texted back and forth. Texting, of course, is not the best medium for deep teaching and learning. But I was surprised how horribly we communicated with each other. I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. She thought I was being snarky. At one point, the exchange even got testy.

But I knew that I had to stay in, that I couldn’t let my student go. So I gave up on my frustration and tried a different tack. We agreed to cool off and try again later on Google Docs. (Believe me, at this point, talking on the phone likely would have made things worse.)

Once on Google Docs, we quickly got some momentum. The interface offers three discourse spaces at once: informal conversation in the chat window, academic dialogue in the comments, and student work in the essay window.

We had a good flow going for more than an hour. My student had persevered and gotten past the most challenging parts of her essay. The road looked clear. And then it happened.

She asked me what I thought about a specific piece of evidence she’d selected. Although it wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t too strong, so I told her so. I wasn’t even mean about it.

But my criticism set her off. In the chat window, she wrote that she was giving up, that there was no point to all this work, and that every time she worked hard, I shot her down.

I could have gotten defensive. I could have told her she was acting irrational.

Instead, I took a deep breath. And then I wrote, “I’m still here.”

There was a very long pause. Yes, I felt like I was in my own movie. I half expected Google Docs to tell me my student had signed off.

But instead — luckily, I think — my student responded, “OK, let’s go.”

And then we spent another finishing up her piece.

In her reflection afterward, my student wrote: “In the end, I finally pulled through. I think that I need to fix how I give up so easily when things don’t go my way. I just need to fight through.” favicon

technology

Not enough computers? Phones will do.

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon I’m not at a 1:1 school. Far from it.

Our school has no laptops, no tablets. There’s a computer lab downstairs, but that is shared with everyone, so you can use it every three weeks or so.

I used to collect old desktop computers. At one point, there were 12 computers in my classroom, thanks to donors. It was impressive. But they took up a lot of space.

In small classrooms, mobile devices rule. I’ve written grant proposals for laptops and netbooks. (I don’t believe in tablets.) So far, I’ve had no luck.

So I’m stuck with one computer in my classroom for student use. It’s a great machine. But when there are 23 students wanting to type and revise their essays, one computer just does not suffice.

The good news is that my students are getting better and better at using their phones as mini-computers. And technology is catching up, too, and bringing more functionality to smaller screens.

Google announced today some significant improvements to Google Docs on Android. Because my entire writing program is based on Google Docs, and because many of my students already use their phones for academic work, this update — which allows for full collaboration — is a big deal. Take a look.

Of course, writing on your phone is far from ideal. I find that students make many more errors when drafting on their phones. In addition, revision is more difficult because it’s harder to see the entire document and its organization. Nevertheless, I’m impressed with what my students can do.

Given the state’s budget cuts to education, it doesn’t look like my school will be getting huge numbers of computers anytime soon. But the good news is that more than 90 percent of my students have fairly sophisticated phones. So I’m pleased that phones can serve as a makeshift substitute.

I hope that phone technology will continue to improve. Maybe the next steps are pico projectors (to display a larger screen) and virtual laser keyboards (for easier typing).

And while the techies are doing that, maybe they could throw in a built-in printer, too? favicon