For lack of a better title....Monday...

I am working on becoming more familiar with ActivStudio so I can build better lesson materials that engage my students. I signed up to take the Level 1 Foundation course from PrometheanLearning.com, best of all the foundation course is free. I might sign up for more courses depending on the price. The tutorials are short and interactive with assessments to chart my progress. I even get a little diploma when I complete the course, which should look nice for my personal development plan. So far I am finding the ActivStudio software easier than programming with Adobe Flash and it actually looks like I might be able to use both programs together which would be a great combination. I feel like I am going through withdrawal of flash programming as it has been four weeks since my last program.

Outside of the classroom I find myself very tired when I get home lately, which is weird since I am getting way more sleep than I ever got in college. I averaged 3-4 hours of sleep per night and I feel more tired now with 7-8 hours of sleep. I am hoping it is only temporary as I feel like I am a lot less productive lately. I am constantly playing catch up rather than getting ahead like I want to. It could be worse, right now I am breaking even rather than falling behind or racing ahead.

Friday the Half Day

Friday was a great day and not just because we got paid, but also due to the fact that it was a half day with parent teacher conferences. I looked forward to meeting parents and was hoping to get some visitors, though I only received one and that was because the student wanted to show her mom the computer lab.

The day was easy, only three classes and two were shortened to 15 minutes so they could get to lunch before dismissal. The best part about Friday was when one of the first grade teachers told me that a student started to cry when their parent came to pick them up. When they asked the student why they were so upset he simply said "It's not fair, I am going to miss technology!" So the parent left the student and came back to pick them up after my class. I thought that was cool, I try to make the lessons engaging for my students but I am not always successful. The headphones have served as a great way to pull my students into our lessons. They enjoy hearing my voice more through those tiny speakers than in real life, maybe I sound better through wireless transmission? What they really enjoy is when I play music from my iPod whenever they can work respectfully at their stations.

I would like to develop a group project for my students to work on but I am not sure which idea to try, I hate when a lesson flops after so much preparation. I have already made two lessons that I spent many hours developing the materials and when it came time to execute the plan with my students...well...it didn't go nearly as planned. I tend to get ahead of myself and have to remember that we are still developing our core skills. My students are getting much better at using the mouse and the keyboard, even my little Kindergartners are starting to get the hang of how to hold the mouse. This year is going by so quickly I fear that I will not cover all of the material that I want before school ends.

All quiet on the Technology Lab front...

My first post using my new computer! I have finally bought my new computer after several months using a loaner from a generous family member. Between setting up all of my software and trying to implement some new material into my classroom I have not managed to post in quite a while. I have to find a way to make it part of my normal routine.

I have been given access to United Streaming(Discovery Channel Video Archive) and can't wait to use some of those. I plan on showing a short video clip tomorrow to introduce the next lesson material about computers, where they came from and where they are at now.

I have also found a way to use a Bluetooth headset to talk to my students so they can hear me using their headphones. This is turning into a great classroom management technique, my students are so excited to hear me in their headphones they are following directions faster and with less mistakes and best of all I do not have to shout over the class or repeat myself a million times. When they are working well and following directions I play music to each computer from my iPod, they really enjoy this feature and even my most rowdy classes are working hard to follow directions and procedures.

Overall, I would have to say I am becoming more comfortable in my classroom and in working with other teachers/aids. I am developing a positive and professional relationship with my co-workers. I have become the "go-to" guy for technical support in the building, it feels good to be needed!

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

It surprises me how I seem to have so little backbone lately; I have never been fond of controversy especially when I am still acclimating myself. I find myself in a sticky situation. I am becoming increasingly unhappy with the attitudes and actions of some of my colleagues. I was told coming into this urban teaching environment that I shouldn't smile for the first 10 weeks and that I would need to be tough to get through to "these" kids. This does not bode well with my style as a teacher. I smile because I enjoy what I do, I can be stern but not angry, I refuse to yell but I will raise my voice, and I will never humiliate one of my students by insulting them in front of their peers. I am not sure how many details I want to give but basically I am getting fed up with hearing aids yell at students in my class and make insulting remarks. It is completely unprofessional the manner in which I sometimes hear statements being made to or about students. Who am I to say anything though, I feel like if I were to make a comment I would be disregarded because I am a first year teacher, a resource teacher to top it off. What is the chain of command when a classroom aid follows the students to their resource class? I am the one teaching, it is my classroom, my lesson, but do I have the right to tell them how to talk to their students? I am extremely disappointed with myself for not saying something to the teachers who are causing me concern. I do not want to accost them openly in front of their class but I feel like I should talk them in private at the very least; yet, the thought of bringing it up seems incredibly difficult.

My brain is a mess right now; I am trying to decide how to work this out with my colleagues while trying to get my emergency plans finished for my principal. I am supposed to develop three emergency lesson plans and I pushed it off while I was trying to get everything else worked out like my 23 class rosters that change every time I have a class. Three lesson plans normally would not be a problem, except that I am supposed to be planning for when I am unexpectedly absent and when you have 23 classes each in various grades it is not easy to make just three generic review lessons that meet all of the abilities/demands of those students.

Despite all of this I still feel like I had a great day with my students. I have modified my keyboarding lessons without creating a program from scratch and I feel like it is far more effective and efficient for me as well as the students. I am uplifted by my students accomplishments, especially students who are still learning English and from another country. I love that technology can be a universal language that transcends the oral language barrier. It was so great to see the excitement emanating from my students as they completed an activity while moments before they were frustrated but what seemed to be impossible. I keep telling my students that we are in training, like athletes, working to improve our skills and be professionals. They seem to like that analogy, even if it is just learning to type, I might just have to create a type-athalon.

Win some, Lose some

It amazes me how each of my classes has such a wide variety of skills and abilities. The tricky part has been adapting my lessons to meet the wide variety of needs especially with the oh so exciting topic of keyboarding. My activity this week was a flop for the most part. It was too frustrating for the majority of my students. I found myself frustrated as I tried to come up with new ideas to make it an easier concept and now it is back to the drawing board as I try to develop a computer program in the next 4 days that will engage my students while providing a chance for them to develop their keyboarding skills.

I would like to have an intensive focus for the beginning of the year on developing keyboarding and mouse skills so that we all have the right foundation for all these ideas I have racing around in my head. I have been pouring over the state standards as well as the National Education Technology Standards and I think I finally have a timeline/curriculum hammered out for the year, now all I have to do is try and get the lesson plans formally typed up and printed as well as all of my materials together.

I was uplifted when I was leaving on Friday, one of the 4th grade teachers commented that she thought it was great that I was trying to teach the students how to type and to see that we were actually doing activities based on standards. It made me feel like I am headed in the right direction and I just have to refine my efforts a bit more. Don't get me wrong I did have classes and groups of students that enjoyed the lesson and were doing really well, but it still gets me down when even just a few have a hard time or are not interested. I encourage my students to provide constructive feedback and I have received numerous suggestions on ways to make my activities more interesting. I wish I had more time with each class, they end so quickly and I feel like we always have so much more to do. It was very uplifting to hear students call my name so I could see that they passed the required level and were moving on to the next stage. I think I will save this activity for an assessment rather than a teaching resource. I have a great deal of work ahead of me to turn it around into a successful set of lessons for next week.

Keyboarding....and stuff

I keep waiting for my optimism to run out but unfortunately for all of you pessimists out there I do not see that happening any time soon. Each day I am finding myself trying to solve new problems and I LOVE problem solving. I thrive on it, it feels so good to take a situation that others have given up on or turned their backs to and say...WAIT this might work. My current challenge is to find a way to make keyboarding a more engaging and invigorating activity than it really is. We had our first go with an activity today and I was not impressed, it makes me want to design my own application because I feel I could adapt it to be more engaging for my students, but this would take a great deal of time that I currently do not have.

I am thinking about creating a program that would act as my evaluation of keyboarding skills so that we would work through these tougher activities and have a motivating activity to look forward too. The truth of the matter is that my strategy is to create meaningful lessons that feel like games for my students, I had success with this during student teaching and last weeks activity was a hit but they take so darn long to make. I am working on a program that will act as a review game for classroom teachers and I want to get a classroom Web site created before too long as well. I wish I knew how to slow down and take everything in stride but my head is constantly racing with new ideas and I want to try them all now.

The Promethean ActivBoard is proving to be a great tool though it will take getting used to after having a SMART Board. The students love using it and if I can find a way to keep an entire class from getting too excited and noisy it will be even better. I have a higher tolerance for classroom noise than most teachers as long as it is stemming from the activity and the students are just excited, but its borderline ruckus and I don't want any administrators getting the idea that I can't control my classroom. I have decided that the best way to avoid students causing problems in line is to work until their teacher comes to pick them up. I managed to time it well today and was even able to finish my class summary before they were whisked away. I'll keep trying this and see if it becomes too hard to get the room ready for the next class, so far so good.

And then there was rain...

The most interesting happening today was when the school had a fire drill and as soon as we began to walk outside the skies opened with a down pour of rain...man did I feel stupid. We were told to come back into the building and that we would try again tomorrow but the damage was done, my students and I were soaked by the time we made it back into the building. I can laugh now but at the time it was not very funny, though my students thought it was great.

My search online has found a great resource for teachers using the Promethean ActivBoards and software. You may want to check out PrometheanPlanet it offers a wide variety of free materials for teachers to use covering lessons in almost every subject area. The free materials are offered by other teachers who have submitted their materials for download. There is a collection of materials that can be bought as well, though I havn't really explored that area much, I love free stuff.

I am making my first activity with the software for lessons this week. The best way I can describe it is that it reminds me of powerpoint but much more interactive and dynamic. The students can click and drag any of the things I place on the screen plus we can use the pen tool to mark up the page or highlight important ideas. I am excited to explore the capabilities of these tools together, what many of my students do not realize is that this can be just as exciting for me as we find new tools.


I am going to need to try some new strategies this week when I dismiss my students to line up at the door because so far this is when I see the worst student behavior. I end the activity for the day and suddenly they think it is time to fight over who stands where in line. Each teacher has their own way of lining up their class which makes it difficult for me because when I try to line up my students they are arguing with me about where they are supposed to stand, maybe I should just keep them working until the teacher calls them? Time will tell what my solution will be.