Saturday, August 24, 2013
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
So Why BYOD?
Teaching and learning is happening in every classroom. Some of these classrooms are using methods honed from years of experience, some are using the same packets and PowerPoint presentations year after year, and some are attempting new ways to increase student learning. No matter which camp you find yourself in, all of these methods are being disrupted by our world and the innovation that occurs everyday. With this innovation comes new challenges and at the same time new opportunities, both being exhilarating and scary to teachers, parents, and administrators. But there is no escaping the fact that our world is one of connectedness, information, and fast-paced change. The pressures of our technology-driven world are being felt in our schools and the BYOD movement seems like it is moving full speed ahead.
My district is officially going BYOD for the first time this year. And as the first day of school arrived, you can feel some of the anxiety and excitement around this issue. So is BYOD the right answer...I think yes. Why?
1. School should not be an isolated place detached from the real world - The world is run by connecting technologies and the rate of connectedness only seems to be growing. Schools need to reflect the world for which they are preparing students to thrive in and succeed. Within the standards and curriculum, personal technology can be one more tool that can aid a student in their learning journey. Would we deprive a student of a learning aid if it were supplied by the school? No...so should we deprive that student of a learning aid if it is student owned? I say no to that one too.
2. BYOD begins to level the playing field - One of the arguments I often hear against BYOD is the issue of equality. Doesn't BYOD just widen the digital divide? In my opinion, BYOD actually closes the digital divide and makes technology more available to students. A given classroom might have access to 10 devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, etc.) and with classes of 25 - 30 students, we have around a 3:1 student to computer ratio. Now let's say 10 students bring in their own device. With those 10 students using their own devices, the 10 district owned devices can be shared amongst the remaining 15 -20 students. That classroom is now operating at a 2:1 ratio for those students who did not bring in devices. We are closing the digital divide, at least at school. I will fully admit that there is not equality in this example. For there to be equality, we would need to operate at the level of the lowest common denominator...that would mean no BYOD. Looking at the math above, I don't feel that is a sound decision.
3. Fear of change is not a valid excuse - There is a certain amount of fear and anxiety that surrounds BYOD. Student devices bring about a new set of challenges to teachers. This was probably no different from when the dreaded calculator started making its way into the classroom! A successful BYOD classroom puts a premium on good classroom management. Clear expectations, consistent procedures, and appropriate consequences must be in place for success. Funny thing is...this sounds like the characteristics of a well run classroom (BYOD or not BYOD). Teachers who struggle with classroom management will struggle with BYOD too but that is no reason to disallow student owned devices. Procedures and classroom expectations will need to change for a BYOD classroom. No longer is ok to require every student to create that PowerPoint, or write that book report. Students need the freedom to use their devices in a way that best shows their learning. All of this change brought about by BYOD can be frightening but fear should not be an excuse to limit students on their learning journey.
So as the BYOD debate rages on and as we roll out our program this year, I am excited to see the change. I am excited to work with teachers in creating a successful BYOD climate in their classrooms. But my greatest excitement is for the students, and I hope they take full advantage of this opportunity.
The world is changing quickly. Innovation will continue to grow and grow. If are not ready for student devices in school now, what will we do in the near future when the cutting edge becomes the norm?
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| http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Google_Glass_detail.jpg/800px-Google_Glass_detail.jpg |
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Do You Ever Look at the Terms of Service?
Whether you agree or disagree with the level of blocking on your school network, most of us work in an environment of filtered internet access in our schools. There are many times that I wonder why a particular site is being blocked because it offers a potential to enhance learning in the classroom. What I found out was quite interesting...one of the factors we take into account is the terms of service. When you are evaluating a website, do you ever go look at the terms of service? Within the terms of service, there is usually an age requirement or a parental consent requirement. Let's look at a couple terms of service from two popular websites.
Example 1 - Minors under the age of 13 not permitted. If the laws of your country of residence so permit, minor children may utilize a Prezi account established by their parent or legal guardian, with such parent or guardian’s approval. If you permit your minor child or legal ward (“Child”) to use the Service, you hereby agree to these Terms of Use on behalf of both yourself and your Child. You further agree that you are solely responsible for any and all use of the Service by your Child regardless of whether such use was authorized by you.
Example 1 - Minors under the age of 13 not permitted. If the laws of your country of residence so permit, minor children may utilize a Prezi account established by their parent or legal guardian, with such parent or guardian’s approval. If you permit your minor child or legal ward (“Child”) to use the Service, you hereby agree to these Terms of Use on behalf of both yourself and your Child. You further agree that you are solely responsible for any and all use of the Service by your Child regardless of whether such use was authorized by you.
Use of the Service by Minors 13 and Older. Users must be 13 years of age or older to use the Service. By using the Service you represent that you are 13 or older, and that you will not permit a minor under the age of 13 to use the Prezi Service, your Prezi account, or otherwise interact with the Service. Prezi will never knowingly solicit, nor will it accept, personally identifiable information from visitors or users known to be under thirteen (13) years of age.
As you can see, students using this service must be 13 or have parent consent. If you read through the above text, you see that these terms of service come from the popular presentation website Prezi. Have you seen students under 13 using Prezi? I know that I have and I wonder if they had parental permission. Something tells me no.
Example 2 - If you are under the age of 18, you should review this Agreement with your parent or guardian to make sure that you and your parent or guardian understand it.
This one was a bit of a surprise to me...this is from Storybird. Storybird is a great tool for students of all ages. It is a great tool for authentic learning, but even it has age restrictions. Many other popular sites have age restrictions such as Voice Thread, WeVideo, and more. Does this mean that students under the age of 13 cannot use these websites? Absolutely not. Teachers just need to communicate with parents about the website and how it will be used. A hassle maybe, but you are modeling the ethical use of Internet resources. Whenever we can model positive digital citizenship, that is a plus for our students.
So the next time you find a great web resource, make sure to check out those terms of service. With all this being said I don't believe in blocking just because of the terms of service but that is a debate for another day and another blog post!
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Blog Posting (weekly)
-
everystockphoto - searching free photos
- everystockphoto.com is a search engine for creative commons photos, located in Vancouver, BC. We aim to be a community for designers, developers, photographers and other media publishers who want better, easier access to license-specific media on the web. - post by rebuscador
- free photos - post by Kelley
- Search engine for stock photography - post by Sameer Ahuja
- フリーで使える写真検索 - post by genki katsutani
- free photos - post by Tapir
- There are some questionable pics here. But still good resource for us to use in helping students find pics. - post by k5tech
- June 1 brought the announcement from your former employer of their pension buyout plan. This plan is projected to reduce General Motors pension liability by 26 billion dollars, but how do the choices impact you? You can read the free white paper further explaining the topic at http://gmpensionbuyout.info; it goes into detail about the options you find yourself facing. On top of educating yourself, it's advisable to seek the advice of a professional financial planner. There are many factors involved in determining which option is best for you and your family, but only days until your decision deadline of July 20, 2012. Make sure you get the help you need to make the right choice. - post by mohdshawon mohdshawon
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Taking Your PLC To The Next Level
After unplugging for a couple weeks, it is time for my first training session this summer. Blogging before a workshop always helps me prepare and get ready. Our workshop is about taking your PLC to the next level with technology resources. My district has made PLCs a major focus for the past two years and many functional PLCs are working. Others are in neutral and some need a kick start. All of these groups could utilize some of the resources we will be sharing.
Organizing Resources
With so many resources available online, organizing and curating resources is a vital skill for all educators. In terms of PLCs, having an individual and shared space to collect resources can be a valuable tool. Teachers can collect resources individually and share them out or the PLC can save all resources to the same place. Here are some resources that can help in this process.
Diigo - PLCs could create a group where all members could tag resources for further use. Individual members could also collect resources and then share the links to their Diigo library. Using the Diigo extension makes collecting web resources a breeze.
Evernote - PLCs can use Evernote to take shared notes or for resource collection. Notebooks can be shared with all members and collecting resources is a breeze with Evernote Web Clipper.
Pinterest - Pinterest is highly popular inside and outside education. Because many people are using this personally, the learning curve is usually none! This helps get over the initial stage of learning a new interface. Users can jump right in to creating boards to house their online resources.
Google Drive - As my district moves to Google Apps for Education, I think we can utilize this for PLCs. PLCs could setup a shared folder where they can save documents, videos, etc. for use as a PLC. Google Docs could be used for shared meeting notes and there could be shared documents that are used for resource collection.
Best Resources for Personal Learning Networks
The collaboration in PLCs brings the collective wisdom of the group together for the good of all students. While this collaboration is great, it is limited in its scope. Sometimes we only see how things are always done in our schools and it gets hard to see other possibilities. By starting a personal learning network in online spaces, you see other points of view and ideas. Additionally, you now have infinitely more educators to learn with every day. So instead of collaborating with a PLC of maybe ten members, you now can interact with thousands. During the course of these interactions, you can bring back ideas and resources to your PLC. These resources are a great place to get started.
Twitter - The number of educators on Twitter is growing everyday and there is every type of educator to follow. Everyday, educators are sharing resources, journal articles, blog posts, etc. There are also a number of organized chats happening on Twitter. These chats allow educators to discuss ideas and find solutions to the problems in education. PLCs can bring back what they learn from their Twitter use or they can create a common hashtag to use for tweets pertaining to their PLC.
Follow Educational Blogs with Feedly - Blogs are a great source of information on many educational topics. But to effectively use blogs, you should use an RSS reader to collect the newest posts on the blogs you follow. By using a reader, you never need to visit the blog site but instead any new posts are delivered directly to you. Feedly is a great resource for collecting these feeds because it can be used with any connected device. PLCs can use resources from blogs to help solve PLC goals.
Google+ - More and more educators are starting to use Google+ as a personal learning resource. The circles feature has great potential for PLCs. All the members of your PLC could be in one circle. This would make resource sharing among PLC members very easy. PLC members could then follow other educators based on their interests.
Web Conference PLC Meetings
For some teachers, meeting with a PLC group can be difficult. An example would be the middle school drama teacher. He/she might be the only drama teacher in their building. It would be great for them to meet with the other drama teachers but the travel might be an issue. With web conferencing software, these "singleton" teachers can meet their PLC from anywhere. There are many software choices for web conferencing such as Microsoft Lync, Google Hangouts, or Skype.
There has never been a greater opportunity to collaborate and to find resources to help students learn. These online resources can take your PLC to the next level!
Organizing Resources
With so many resources available online, organizing and curating resources is a vital skill for all educators. In terms of PLCs, having an individual and shared space to collect resources can be a valuable tool. Teachers can collect resources individually and share them out or the PLC can save all resources to the same place. Here are some resources that can help in this process.
Diigo - PLCs could create a group where all members could tag resources for further use. Individual members could also collect resources and then share the links to their Diigo library. Using the Diigo extension makes collecting web resources a breeze.
Evernote - PLCs can use Evernote to take shared notes or for resource collection. Notebooks can be shared with all members and collecting resources is a breeze with Evernote Web Clipper.
Pinterest - Pinterest is highly popular inside and outside education. Because many people are using this personally, the learning curve is usually none! This helps get over the initial stage of learning a new interface. Users can jump right in to creating boards to house their online resources.
Google Drive - As my district moves to Google Apps for Education, I think we can utilize this for PLCs. PLCs could setup a shared folder where they can save documents, videos, etc. for use as a PLC. Google Docs could be used for shared meeting notes and there could be shared documents that are used for resource collection.
Best Resources for Personal Learning Networks
The collaboration in PLCs brings the collective wisdom of the group together for the good of all students. While this collaboration is great, it is limited in its scope. Sometimes we only see how things are always done in our schools and it gets hard to see other possibilities. By starting a personal learning network in online spaces, you see other points of view and ideas. Additionally, you now have infinitely more educators to learn with every day. So instead of collaborating with a PLC of maybe ten members, you now can interact with thousands. During the course of these interactions, you can bring back ideas and resources to your PLC. These resources are a great place to get started.
Twitter - The number of educators on Twitter is growing everyday and there is every type of educator to follow. Everyday, educators are sharing resources, journal articles, blog posts, etc. There are also a number of organized chats happening on Twitter. These chats allow educators to discuss ideas and find solutions to the problems in education. PLCs can bring back what they learn from their Twitter use or they can create a common hashtag to use for tweets pertaining to their PLC.
Follow Educational Blogs with Feedly - Blogs are a great source of information on many educational topics. But to effectively use blogs, you should use an RSS reader to collect the newest posts on the blogs you follow. By using a reader, you never need to visit the blog site but instead any new posts are delivered directly to you. Feedly is a great resource for collecting these feeds because it can be used with any connected device. PLCs can use resources from blogs to help solve PLC goals.
Google+ - More and more educators are starting to use Google+ as a personal learning resource. The circles feature has great potential for PLCs. All the members of your PLC could be in one circle. This would make resource sharing among PLC members very easy. PLC members could then follow other educators based on their interests.
Web Conference PLC Meetings
For some teachers, meeting with a PLC group can be difficult. An example would be the middle school drama teacher. He/she might be the only drama teacher in their building. It would be great for them to meet with the other drama teachers but the travel might be an issue. With web conferencing software, these "singleton" teachers can meet their PLC from anywhere. There are many software choices for web conferencing such as Microsoft Lync, Google Hangouts, or Skype.
There has never been a greater opportunity to collaborate and to find resources to help students learn. These online resources can take your PLC to the next level!
Saturday, June 8, 2013
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