Moving Forward in Spite of Resistance

There has been resistance this semester to the idea that a snow day is not a free day any longer. With the Chromebooks and Google Sites and Docs, class goes on since the course website has all the handouts, quizzes, deadlines, etc. that any student needs for success, or to at least move forward until we meet again and have face-to-face time to answer questions.

My students know the expectation is that the work continues, the deadlines remain, and everything they need to be successful exists.  Still, a snow day is a free day in their minds. In fact, they expect ME to change lessons around, move deadlines, and make adjustments to accommodate the loss of school days even though expectations have been reminded, reinforced, and rephrased over and over.

This year, only the 6th grade have Chromebooks across the county. My classes have them as part of the initial study, but the students believe themselves out of the norm so class expectations are pliable. HOWEVER, next year when all the grade levels have Chromebooks and all the teachers have class websites, classes will continue through snow days. Is that what is needed to make the digital life real for students?  Consistent, across all classes expectations?  Probably. When the expectation to self-direct through a snow day is in only one class, it seems subjective and silly. As a school-wide expectation to return with completed work or at least questions about the unfinished work, lollygagging through a snow day is a lot less inviting, you know?

Backlash

Now we're at the place where the newness has worn off and students are devising ways to get out of doing their work. Yes, it is not enough to have a blog, and YouTube, and links to expedite learning...this semester half the students arriving to class say they do not have home internet services, or very limited at best.

It seems that now with the Google Cloud and the Chromebooks, school work proceeds with or without snow days. The students have learned that a snow day is actually a window of opportunity to work on their projects and that expectations are that the lesson continues and questions are asked/answered online. Shocking!

So, in these cases I am back to printing off hard copies of the lessons and the students are producing notebook journals and index card notes manually. I still expect to see work on snow days, and hard copies for a unit are issued all at once at the beginning of the unit. That reality has come as a surprise to some. In fact, I await today's classes to see how many suddenly decide having access to the internet is not such a problem after all since NONE of them like to hand write information. We are becoming a typing society.

http://www.typeitwritetranscription.co.uk/typing-digital-transcription/

There is no privacy...

The dark side has light, and the light can
have a dark side.

Something that has occurred and is worth considering when using Google Docs is the dark side of collaboration. Some students (oddly the younger, 6th grade ones) use Google Docs as a chat room, passing comments back and forth to each other. Because they are young and haven't yet developed a sense of appropriateness, a Chromebook can be a hurtful tool. It is important that digital citizenship be taught, encouraged, and certainly monitored. It is also helpful to explain to students that within a school domain, there is no expectation of privacy. IT can see not only what exists, but what was deleted.

This is one of those times when I wonder if it wise to put the tools of technology into the hands of young people who still haven't mastered handwriting and social boundaries.

Learning from the Kiddos

Each day, I learn more and more from the kiddos who are now working almost exclusively on the cloud. We have build a trust between us that allows failure and success without reprisals. Some things we do work, some things we do don't. The beauty part has been that the more we've learned about Chromebooks and Google, the more willing we are to try new things and not be so quick to think we've met dead ends.

In addition, the students' work is becoming more sophisticated. Along with their blogs and notes, their use of databases has increased tremendously. The days of just Googling something have waned a bit.

Fall 2014

A new school year has begun and all the 6th grade students are getting Chromebooks. My research classes still have the ones I wrote the grant to get, but now my 6th grade students will have their own. Next year, all students will have them.

Initially, I can tell some students are more savvy than others. While having to walk some through the process of getting to their Drive to start and Share a Google Doc, others have already been there, Shared it, and are asking about embedding a Google Presentation they made at home over the summer into their Doc. What a wide spread of skills!

Oh My! Thank heaven the Google Site
is ready to go1

The research class has required me to adjust and, in some cases, delete, some of the lessons I routinely teach (or a should say, USED to routinely teach!). Since everyone is traveling at a different pace, I am grateful for the Google Site where all my classroom protocols, rubrics, handouts, and lessons exist. That is allowing for self-pacing and self-direction. Once that was a theory, but now that I see how broad apart the skill sets are, I am grateful for that piece of differentiation because, Oh My!, what would I do for those sitting around while I explain to one student how to find the apps grid, and then his/her /Drive?

New approach to handouts...

This semester, I'm going to try a new approach to the information available on the handouts. Instead of relying on the students to read the handouts, I'll prepare Google Presentations (ppts) with the critical information I expect them to know along with a variety of YouTube tutorials explaining the concepts: serious to comic.

More and more I see students engaged with videos. The learning videos on Khan Academy and Alex seem to engage the students for longer periods of time. Is it the chance to repeatedly see the information? Or, being able to stop and start the video as needed? I am curious to see if by using videos to teach a concept (Active Voice, for example), the lesson is applied quicker.

Last semester the students figured out how to split the screens on their Chromebooks to have the handouts side-by-side with the quizzes. They 'learned' the lessons according to the grades, but applying the lessons were a daily reminder and when the end-of-semester review quiz came along, few knew enough to pass it as a rate comparable to the previous semester (73% vs. 86% from the previous semester).

A Moment of Clarity in a Digital World

Even though the digital format of a class can make aspects of it move faster, and more akin to the speed students like, there are times when digital technology cannot replace paper and pencil....establishing proof.

The research students have to C3B4Me...a process of having 3 people read their research papers for 1) did it answer the essential question?, 2) does it make the argument in a logical and methodical manner?, and 3) is it written in active voice with no spelling or punctuation issues?   The students use a community spreadsheet to let me know they are ready by listing the three people.

The papers I read this semester canNOT have been read by three people...even if they are peers, much less teachers and parents.  Some students forgot to tell them what to read for, or 'fudged' the names entirely.  We will be returning to the form that lists the requirements for the proofreaders and asks for their signatures.

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways, and a signature is more than a name.

Guess who wrote this signature?