As The New Year Approaches

As the new year approaches I am excited.  I have updated both my professional and classroom webistes.  I have created blogs for both of my classes and created LiveBinders for both.  I will be "flipping" my classes.  I will be conducting a two hour hands on workshop at MACUL12 in March.   I will be leading PD on Monday to our HS staff.  I will updating this blog regularly, learning from my PLN on Twitter.  I will also be finishing my MERIT11 requirements.  Finally, this February I will be making a major decision about my career.  So here's to looking forward to a very productive new year for my students, my colleagues and myself.  If you want to follow some interesting people on Twitter check out @colonelb, @Dowbiggin, @gcouros, @wfryer, @bennettscience, @ramusallam among others.  Just go to my feed at @dprindle and check out who I am following.  Happy New Year.

My Tech Plan For My Classroom

The following is my plan for the use and integration of technology into my classroom.  The views here are not those of my employer or any associated faculty or staff.  However, it is my hope that some of my colleagues will consider doing the same.

Beginning with the new year I will begin the process of flipping and blending my classroom .  It is my hope by using this methods that I will become a better teacher and my students will become more engaged and will will enjoy coming to school and learn something new everyday.

By flip-blending my class I will use video, pod-casts, online learning activities and more hands-on and in depth classroom activities. When possible my students will use 1:1 computers in the classroom for data analysis, writing activities and assessments.  These will include the students creating and using ePortfolios (see here), blogging and responding to blogs (http://bchs-learned.blogspot.com), creating videos to explain concepts to others (www.nextvista.org), analysis of writings and crime scene (for Forensic Science).  I will use multiple tools to keep the students apprised of assignments and class materials including a class LiveBinder (www.livebinders.com), daqri (www.daqri.com) and my professional website.  Students will learn to use and leverage Google Apps for Education, Evernote, LiveBinders, daqri along with other web and mobile apps.  I will create Twitter pages for my classes for "flash" traffic.  I will use various social media sites for further communications and for use with and by students.

I will have and will create paper.li for professional and classroom use.  The trick will be to balance the use of all of these tools while at the same time not overwhelming my students.

Walt Disney once said "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."  Ready-Set Go!

Is Rigor The Right Word?

In recent years education has focused on the 4 R's.  Rigor, Relevance, Reflection and Relationships.  I can't disagree with Relevance, Reflection or Relationships.  My issue arises with Rigor.  In reading the definitions of Rigor I can't find anything that would be appealing to a teacher or student as it pertains to learning.  Words like harsh inflexibility, a condition that makes life difficult or uncomfortable, strict precision wouldn't make me want to come to class.  I think we might want to use the word engaging.  When we look at its definition it seems like this is what we are aiming for.  We can have challenging curriculum if we make it engaging rather that rigorous.  When I talk to students they don't mind being challenged if teachers make the subject interesting.  I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject.

Need Your Input

Hello all you techies.  I have a question for you.  Teachers in a brand new school have only desktop computers on their desks.  Any other tech they have to buy (including a projector if they want one).  How would you integrate technology into these classroom?  It is a K-12 school and most of the teachers are first year teachers.  It is also a school that accepts students that have been expelled from other schools.  It is also a high minority low income population.  How do we close the digital divide.  Your comments are welcomed.  Please no judgmental comments.   Thanks

What I Did On My Summer Vacation Part I

 What I did on my summer vacation.  This summer was very eventful from many standpoints.  One after a series of layoffs my district was able to bring everyone back that was laid off this year plus bring others back and hire others due to growth.  Most of the summer was spent getting ready for the marriage of my oldest daughter in August.  She is a new teacher this year too.

However, during two weeks in July I participated in the best professional development in my 25 years of teaching.  I was honored to be selected for the 2011 Cohort of MERIT.  MERIT stands for Making Education Relevant and Interactive through Technology.  It is hosted by the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothills College in Los Altos, CA.   The program director is Rushton Hurley with teacher in residence Steve McGriff.  MERIT is essentially 10 days of technology tools boot camp with excellent speakers sprinkled in along with teaching what we learned to the whole group on the closing day.

During MERIT I met over 40 excellent teachers from California, Italy, Ireland and El Salvador.   One of the highlights was when the 6 "out of towners" stayed at the hotel and we were able to drive back and forth together, east breakfast and go to the coffee house.  Made some lasting friendships with those people.

In my next installment I will describe the MERIT two weeks in more detail.

Live Binders!

I recently found a great tool.  Live Binders.  Found at LiveBinders.com it is essentially an online binder.  You can create Tabs and SubTabs.   You can fill your binder with a Google Search or on your own.  The tabs can be moved around to suit your needs.  You can embed photos, YouTube videos, Google Docs, Google Forms, Google Presentations, pdf's, websites, even blogs.  It is one of the best tools I have found.  I keep everything I do in class in one.  I also give students access to the binder.   Binders can be made public or kept private.  The neat thing about the privacy feature you can add an access key so only those you want can view it.  

Additionally, it is EASY to learn.  I have taught it to colleagues in a half an hour.   So far they have used it without problem and have asked only on or two questions.  The creators are very responsive to issues and are quick to fix any.

Finally there is the LiveBinder It tool you can add to your bookmark bar and by clicking it you can instantly add a web site to an existing binder or even create a new binder.

It is one great tool.

OK World Here We Go

Welcome to the first post of Dave's Tech World.  I will be discussing new tech tools for the classroom here and if they worked in the classroom.  Somedays will just be the rambling thoughts of the day.  I would appreciate your comments and referrals if you like it.  If you comment all I ask is your don't do it anonymously.  Some days you may not agree with what I say and thats good.  What I am looking for is good civil discourse on the use of technology in the classroom.   So here we go.  Coming up next a discussion about Live Binders.