Hot Apps for Hot Weather?

It's official!  We have beaten the record of 69 days in a row of 100 degree or better weather in Austin, Texas. It looks like we will have no problem adding on more days through this weekend to the current streak.

So, how can we take advantage of this authentic learning experience?  One easy way is to use the new All-in-one desktop computers (Manda Pro or 'that really wide black computer) that most campuses received last year.  Each computer comes with a new EXOPC user interface that looks like a bunch of circles on the screen. The user can click the + sign at the top left to add new apps from the AISD EXO app store.

There are many apps already in the store waiting for you to download them.  Today, you can click in the Search box and type 'weather'.  Two apps will show up, one for the Weather Underground and a children's app called Whats the Weather.  Simply click on one and then click the Download button to install.

The Weather Underground site (also found at http://wunderground.com/ ,) has forecasts for almost every inch of the United States and many international sites.  What kind of activities can you do with a live weather site?

• A class can compare our 104 degree weather today with the weather in a desert town or mountain top town.
• Use the Local Weather tab to find a link for historical data. Using today's weather as a base, predict what the weather would be like on another day of the year, January 22nd12001  for example.
• Look at the Resources tab and use the Climate Change link to find information geared to an older student.  How are they graphing temperature anomalies on the map? What do the symbols represent?

• Pull down data that you can put into a spreadsheet that shows 'change in weather'.  Create a quick graph that shows a historical perspective on rainfall in Central Texas. Can the class make inferences based on the charts?

The district has some training videos available inside the district about the new Manda Pro desktops.  Watch the video "Add Desktop Applications..." to see how easy it is to add apps from the EXO Apps store.

How can you bring the heat into your instruction while we are still breaking records? Do you have a favorite weather app or website?

QR Codes at School?

Over the summer, I met a good number of teachers in workshops that have already been preparing to use QR codes in their classroom.  QR codes are the square bar codes that webcams (with certain software) can read and direct the user to a website, send a text, or perform various other functions.  I posted last year, and felt called to post again, about using the small netbooks that are on every campus, to read and use these special codes.

Creating a QR code is pretty easy.  The are various sites that will do this for you; http://goo.gl and http://qrcode.kaywa.com/   are two good starting points.  You simply type the website address (URL) into the box and click the button to generate the square code. (Goo.gl makes you click the details button afterward to see the code.)

What can you do with codes? Akins High School librarian, Bonnie Hauser, shared a Livebinder collection of links all about QR codes.  I saw a couple of middle schools this summer using QRs scavenger hunt or building tour signs to engage the incoming sixth graders during summer camp.  One of my favorite online resources is an Englishman named Tom Barrett, who encourages teachers to share ideas in Google Docs, (his 28 Ways to Use QR Codes is now up to 40!) Students can support the community by posting codes for informative purposes in public places.

Great ideas, but you still have to have a camera device to read them.  I found that teachers can download and install QuickMark for PC onto the small netbooks that each campus received last year. After installing the software, students can turn it on and point their computer at a QR code. The netbook will read it and preform the action stored within the code.

The following video, despite my repeated reference to Q codes ;( , shows how a large projected QR code can be seen across the room and direct student netbooks to a webpage.

QR codes can provide a functional tool that mobile devices and webcams can use to access data and preform some functions without typing complicated web addresses.

How have you used QR codes? What is another way that a QR code could play a unique in the classroom?

Oh, and you can have artistic fun with them as well!  ;)

Differentiated Instruction

Dennis Grice is an award-winning educator out of Southern California who champions technology for the classroom. He shared a blog post recently about differentiated instruction, providing a different view of how we can see our students AND teachers. It's worth the time to read it here at the beginning of the year.

As educators, we have to remember that our students learn in many different ways and we are tasked with meeting those needs all year. Technology use in the classroom must also bear the weight of differentiation since not all of our students (or teachers) have the same level of technology experience.  It is incumbent upon us to not avoid authentic opportunities for technology integration because all of our students won't be fearless with the new concept, but we can use our junior Steve Jobs in the classroom to help us scaffold a lesson so we can have that experience.

How can we provide a range of technology instruction in the classroom?

• Pre-teach a small group of your techno-fearless students a particular skill that will be used during a lesson. They can help provide leadership in small groups when you can't be everywhere at once.
• Use Science-lab procedures when working in small groups. Assign four different roles in the group that rotate for the next project.  Techno-reluctant students can observe and learn skills while still being an active part of the project.
• Just as we sometimes provide a rich assortment of student product materials for certain lessons, we can provide the opportunity for students to use technology tools that meet their capacity for showing excellence.  Some students may just be showing minimal proficiency with MS Word document creation while another may use Publisher to show the same lesson outcome.  Teacher-provided photo banks can help beginners focus on the content rather than the search for the perfect photo online, while other student may have the opportunity to take their original photos for the same exercise. 
• An beginning-level user may start a project with a teacher-provided template while a student who has a deeper understanding may be able to create their own document from scratch with more freedom.

There are just a few ideas. What ways have you found to provide multiple levels of instruction using technology in your class?   What tools do you think provide a good opportunity to differentiate during a particular lesson?

We look forward to continuing this discussion this year.

Technology Leadership on Campus

One of the people I follow online is a principal named Lyn Hilt from Pennsylvania. She provides a very enthusiastic viewpoint for her administrator peers about the role of technology in the classroom.  A post of hers was shared in my online professional circle about how the bar for technology use is being raised for administrators and how principals across the country are rising to that call.  Read her post here: http://lynhilt.com/the-bar-has-been-raised/ .

Now, I was very fortunate to provide some workshop time for many of our administrators here in Austin, right before school started, and I was impressed with the desire for appropriate use of technology that many of them shared.  We are just out of the gate now with a number of new online tools for assessment and communication and there does seem to be a general understanding that these tools can make a good difference in how we serve our kids in school.

I'd like to thank all of our AISD Principals for their service to our district and the leadership that they can bring to teachers for an advancement in authentic use of technology in AISD teaching and learning.

iPads in Education

Through the years, certain things have made their way into the classroom that have looked really cool, but in reality may not have been the best idea.  One year, a parent donated some prize box rewards for my classroom and I was very grateful. I was, however, taken aback when I realized that some of the rewards were brand new, classroom-targeted, fruit-scented glue sticks.  I was always told from a young age, "Don't sniff glue", and had to rethink that particular reward. Not everything new has a place in our classrooms.

The iPad also provides a reason to have that discussion. The money spent on an iPad just to be a centers-station reward game just isn't worth it to me. However, there are certain populations and innovative teachers in our schools that give great value to iPads and other mobile media devices.  In a July article in The Transforming Education Through Technology Journal, Peter Levy shared experiences from teachers about how their use of iPads made dramatic differences in their classroom instruction.

We don't, however, have to look past our district to find innovative teachers who are using iPads in authentic and powerful ways. I had the honor of assisting Lora Netherland, a Life Skills teacher at Clayton Elementary, as she presented her experiences to a crowd of teachers during the 2011 Texas Computer Educators Association conference.  She uses her iPad in various ways to help non-vocal students communicate and students with limited motor skills show understanding of concepts. Her video records show an amazing growth in skill and confidence in some of her students. The ease of use and multitude of specialized software available for the iPad provided great support for Netherland's already masterful teaching in the classroom.

How have you seen iPads being used in innovated or effective and authentic ways in the classroom?  What other mobile devices have you seen to be effective in ways that computers couldn't do as well?

There will be ongoing posts about the use of mobile technology in our district. Please share your experiences as we take that journey.