Old Teacher New Tricks

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Ann Leaness

There are so many times I have heard, we need to get rid of the old, experienced teachers. They are costing us too much money and they are just taking up space. They hang on to their ancient methods and just refuse to change. That is a generalization that hits a little too close to home for me. You see I have been teaching for 21 years. Well, not all of us are just taking up space. Many of us are out there learning new tricks and using them to improve our classroom practice. I have been thinking a lot lately about how the iPhone has become a seamless tool in my classroom. I rarely use a pen anymore.

I am constantly taking pictures and videos with my phone. We create different types of digital media projects in class and the iPhone makes it so easy. I can quickly snap photos and record short videos for the students and email them so they can add them to their projects. I also can catalogue some of the work my students are doing to highlight on our school wiki or document for grading purposes. There are some really cool camera apps that allow you to add effects. ProHDR is my favorite, but I also like Instagram and Color Splash.

I know it’s pretty lame, but I use the standard iPhone Notes app all the time. When students are doing presentations, I take notes. If I need to “jot” something down quickly, I pull out my phone and add a memo. I can then email the notes to myself for safe keeping.

The Google apps are amazing. I have pulled out my phone at my son’s soccer practice and read all my students’ Google docs. I can check their responses to Google forms I have created, and now I can actually create a new document if I need too. I have a Google voice number, so I also use that app to read the transcripts of texts my students send me.

I just discovered the Attendance app. I was able to import my class list using a CSV file. I added student photos. Now, I can easily take attendance and email an end of quarter report to myself. This app also allows you to take notes for each student. This a great tool for formative assessment. I can take individual notes and email reports to my students. I am still learning this app, but it looks like it has great potential.

Dropbox is another great app. I created a separate Dropbox account for my students and they can now use the Dropittome link I added to our class wiki to send me files. I can access the files from my iphone using the Dropbox app.

We just started using Edmodo a few weeks ago and I love it. I can create assignments for my students and they just login, read the instructions, check out the links attached and submit their responses. I also created an Edmodo group for the teachers at school. We share links, notes, and ideas. The Edmodo app on my iphone allows me to check in and see what’s happening. I can add notes and alerts. I am waiting for the day that I can grade the assignments from the app.

Another fun app is the Nag app. I just discovered this app, but can’t wait to use it. If there is one thing I can definitely use help with, it’s closure. We get so caught up in our lessons, I often forget what time it is. With the Nag app, I can set a timer to go off and remind me to wrap things up.

Well these are just a few new tricks this teacher has learned. Do you have any tricks that you would like to share? This old teacher is always looking for new tricks.

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The Paperless Classroom: Let Them Be Experts

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Ann Leaness

What is your teaching style? Do you model everything you want your students to do? I have a friend who is great at modeling, and I love to watch her and learn.  I do try to emulate her by modeling my lessons, but for some reason I inevitably end up running around the room trying to frantically answer questions for those who didn’t get it the first time. When we are using new technology tools, it gets a little crazy. So, I decided to shake things up a bit for the next phase in our project.

My students had completed their research and were required to give a presentation. I knew it would take weeks to introduce all the different presentation tools available, so I decided to put it in my students hands. First, I used a tool called Team Maker to select random cooperative groups. Whoa, that did not go over well. My students staged a mini-rebellion. They were not happy about being placed in groups with students who weren’t their usual friends. I persevered though because I wanted to try to help them build relationships, to break down some barriers, and to get to know one another better.  After the initial furor, things settled to a grudging acceptance by most students.  Next, I placed the following presentation tools on the board: Vuvox, Stupeflix, 280 Slides, Xtranormal, Glogster, Simple Booklets, Garage Band, Animoto, and Prezi.  Using the Random Picker from Classtools each group was assigned a tool to investigate. They were asked to learn its capabilities and functions, to create a sample presentation, and then to teach the tool to the class.

When we began, there was the usual getting started confusion.  “Wait, what do we do?”  “What are we doing again?” Then someone said, “Figure it out!”  And that’s just what they did. They worked together, getting to know one another. They asked questions, shared ideas, and created original presentations. Did I still run around answering questions? You bet, but it was different. The questions were specific and focused.  They were not so dependent, and I could see them gradually becoming more and more confident in themselves.

Going into the project, even though I had the help of my CFF coach, Carolyn, I was a little concerned about being overwhelmed, and about kids being off task and fooling around. With the exception of one or two students, what I saw was the opposite. I saw a student who when groups were announced, who had shouted, “I’m not working with them,” now, pull her two partners in close so they could snap a photo on the laptop camera. She later announced that the next time we worked in groups, she wanted the same partners. I also saw two boys who had been struggling, smile genuinely and share a fist punch when they finished their sample presentation. The presentations were a success. The students were able to explain the functions of the tools, and they were proud of their accomplishments. They loved being able to show me some things I didn’t know. I love that.  Now, the whole class has an array of tools to choose from for their individual presentations, and I have a group of experts.

It worked! Yesterday and today, students were searching the room for the experts on the tool they wanted to use for their project. One girl was in high demand, but no worries, she had actually worked on her project at home, on her own, because she was excited about what she was doing. That happened several times with this project.

There are still a few students who are going to need some extra support, but now, I will have more time to help them become experts too.

Learning beside them….

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The Paperless Classroom: I think I had it all wrong.

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Ann Leaness

Did I have it all wrong?


I was trying to fit a paper lesson into a paperless environment. I think I might have had it all wrong. I am discovering that using technology is not about fitting old lessons in, it’s about changing the pedagogy. I should have trusted my instincts, but I was afraid my students wouldn’t be able to get it, or that the reading and writing part of the lesson was the most important. I know reading and writing is important; nobody will argue that. But, I really just wanted my students to learn and be able to articulate that learning. Does the method have to be standardized? I guess I am still too caught up in having “papers” to grade. This is a serious problem I grapple with, even though I know I shouldn’t let that interfere with the learning. It does, believe me, it does.

The Project

The students chose a topic to research. I wanted them to have a choice. This worked for some of the students, but others were scrambling to decide on topics that interested them. Is this because we spend so much time directing their learning? I did just that with this project. I was the director.  I created Google Doc templates for them to complete. They had to complete several of these templates in addition to some pre-writing templates as well. These were nothing more than glorified handouts. I know that now. I was trying to fit my students’ learning into a box and it really didn’t work well. They conformed to my template, but I am not sure they owned their learning. I think it would have been better to just let them go to town on a GoogleDoc with no preset format, requiring only that they document their sources. I wonder what that would look like.

The Next Step

This was just the first step in the project. The students will now take what they learned and create a presentation. They can use any presentation tool they would like to present their learning to the class. (more about the tools in my next post) I am betting that I will see authentic learning in this stage of the project.

Getting it wrong and learning to let go…

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We Stand Beside Them and Learn

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Ann Leaness

I teach children. Our future.

I teach the young minds that need to be problem-solvers and critical-thinkers.

You see, we have left them a legacy of violence, poverty, hunger and pressing global issues that will need to be solved in the next two decades.

So now what? How do we get them there? How do we teach them what they need to know?

We teach them to ask questions. Not answer them.

We let them inquire.

We let them explore.

We let them get frustrated.

We let them fail…

and recover.

We let them create.

We share our knowledge and our faith in them.

We stand beside them and learn.

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The Paperless Classroom: Invaluable Discoveries

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Ann Leaness

Diigo Tools for Educators

For the past two weeks we have been using Diigo Tools in our Communications Technology class. Diigo is a cloud-based bookmarking and highlighting tool. Diigo also offers an education option that allows teachers to set up student groups for each class, or for smaller cooperative groups.

Getting Started

First, create a Diigo Educator account. Once you sign in with your EDU account you will see an option for the teacher’s console at the top of your screen.

Creating  a group is a quick and simple task. Just click create a group for class and name your group. You can provide a short description and choose if you want the group to be a public or private group.

Once your group is created, you are offered several options for adding students to the group. If your students already have an email, you can add them through a search for email. Another option is adding usernames one at a time. The option I used was the import from a CSV file option. I created an excel spreadsheet with student first names, last initials, usernames, and passwords and saved it as a CSV. Then I imported my entire class with one import.

After your students sign in, they will need to add the digolet to their toolbar. This can be found under tools. Students should choose the digolet for their particular web browser.

Once the digolet is installed, students just need to click on it to load the Diigo Toolbar.

Using the Tool

Diigo tools has been an effective tool in our research efforts. Students are bookmarking their sites and sharing them with the class group. Because Diigo is cloud based, they can easily access all their bookmarked articles and videos in class and from home.

It has been a huge plus in helping my students stay focused during e-reading. They are highlighting topic sentences or main ideas in one color and relevant details in another. I have asked them to only highlight short phrases for their relevant details, not complete sentences. This limits the highlights to essential information. They are then able to easily transfer those short phrases into their own ideas for a summary of the article. We are still working on perfecting this process, but you can check out the work of one student who has been struggling until this week.

Diigo also allows the students to add sticky notes, capture screenshots, and annotate the screenshots. My students and I haven’t explored the screen capture or annotation feature yet, but we have plenty of time.

Invaluable Discoveries

The most invaluable Diigo feature, that I just stumbled across by accident, is the text to speech feature. To enable this feature, just highlight the article, right click and choose speech. Students can then have the entire article read to them as they follow along. Now, all my struggling readers will have that little bit of extra support they might need while conducting research.

We are learning together…..

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