My project is the sample digital movie with garageband that I plan to use with my students at Portland High School.

     The MacComputer Class has uploaded a bonanza of information into my head. Most of the digital technology we discussed was new to me. I’ve had some experience with my own pictures on iphoto, but I still hadn’t figured out smart folders and all the ways to navigate around the program. Now I will save hours of time. Getting ideas about how to use iphoto in the classroom was a good part of the class. In particular, I liked the idea of putting a slideshow together for parents at Open House. My students’ non-English speaking parents will be able to see their kids in action, and pictures need little translation. I think they’ll really enjoy it.

Blogs were completely foreign to me. I had never really gotten beyond the weird name. I had a real breakthrough though between the article “Blogs are not the enemy” and having to create and manage my own blog. I never considered them an enemy, such much as an alien, but now I get the idea that they’re a source of communication, not a writing sample for a class, for instance. There were numerous ideas presented about how to use them in the classroom. I’d like to look at classblogmeister, learnerblogs and Weebly and set one up for my class so that students can send comments or questions to me anytime and parents can too.

Podcasts are another area I’d like to do more with.  I had no idea that itunes had so much more on its website, not just music to download.   There were tons of ESL podcasts that will be absolutely perfect for my ESL English classes. I’ve also been in a New York Writers Studio class for a couple years and I’ve always shied away from their craft class, which is podcast but I’m going to jump into it now. My son is a little leery because I’ve been eyeing his ipod, but maybe I’ll just have to get my own. Speaking of my son, both he and my husband have been so curious every night to hear what I’ve learned. They may have the Nintendo/Gamecube world down, but they seem to think I’m the Apple expert right now and it’s a fun turn of events.

At some point, soon,  I want to learn more about virtual societies and skype and RSS feed and twitter. I think I can find ways to use the communication tools to stay in better touch with some of my distant friends. Maybe I’ll even be able to help some students connect to their families and friends left behind in their countries. As the students say, that would be really sweet.

So I’ve had a great time and I’ve learned more than I can believe exists. I think the dearth of technology at the high school can only improve and maybe I can really help out now with my new “digital immigrant” skills.  And thanks for being so patient a teacher.

Well, as I’ve gone along the project has morphed. So, it’s an imovie with garageband audio. I did a demo that students will see before they do the project themselves. They’ll decide what sites they want they want to include (the main office, the library, the guidance office…) and make storyboards. Students will use digital cameras to take pictures around the school and then use iphoto and imovie. Sounds will be incorporated using garageband. The students will explain in English what the image is and then explain the image in their own native languages. This movie will be shown to newcomer students to introduce and orient them to Portland High School. Follow-up projects could have the students go out into the city and create an imovie describing key places around the city. These could also be made into video podcasts and they could share them with family members or take newcomers on a walking tour around the school or the city. I plan to turn this into a BEST BUY grant proposal, but that step is still a work in progress.

I have several ideas swirling about what to do my project on. I’d like to do it as a BEST BUY grant so I need to firm up my ideas before I ramble. The ideas I’m considering are : having my Beginner ESL English students do a podcast tour of the school for new students; this would be done with audacity or garageband to incorporate different languages; another idea is for my Advanced ESL US History class to address the question “What does democracy (or freedom or America) mean to me?”. This would be more of a class blog set up, and or a digital story as an introduction. But I need to think more and get more caffeine in me to think this through more.

Marc Prensky makes many valid points . I especially like that he says that students aren’t “little versions of us”. They definitely aren’t. And that it’s difficult, but necessary for teachers to “raise their heads above the grindstone” and see what’s going on with their students. I think it’s good that he validates that teachers are still needed to lead discussion. Part of this though is having the proper sized class, read small, to do this, whether it’s to lead discussion or to use technololgy. I feel that it is very easy for non-teachers to say the size of the class doesn’t matter that much. It does, no matter what method or technologies are being used. Behavior issues in classes nowadays are huge. Certainly, some of these negative behaviors will be mitigated by use of technologies that will engage the students more. The students are coming to classes dulled and unmotivated and increased use of these technologies, albeit, I have to disagree with him, not disruptive cell phones, in the classsroom will improve student engagement.

“Blogs are Not the Enemy” makes a good argument for blogs as conversations, not writing assignments. As a teacher, it is much better to think of them in this vein. And conversation is largely what is lacking when classes are so teacher-directed. To move the conversation forward, comments are much more helpful than compliments, though the value of these shouldn’t be ignored. The specifics on valuable comments would be key to teach to students who are going to blog as part of the class. It’s really an incredibly valuable way to teach them to listen and respect each others words and ideas. The reality is students will, both online and in person, encounter “darth commenters” unkind, bullying types. Blogging actually provides a new way to teach them how to deal with this unfortunate reality. At the same time, they’ll learn how to criticize kindly and move the conversation forward. Very helpful blurb on commenting.

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I read through them and certainly found some of the themes(?) easier to follow than others. In general, it’s hard for me to grasp the topic on a blogpage; a lot of the blogs seem not to separate topics much and I’m constantly trying to figure out what I’m reading. Is it about a conference, a book someone’s read, an idea they’re pondering? So I get it, Perensky’s point, that I’m so not native to this new blog language.

The blog “Two Cents Worth” was organized the best for my brain. It clearly separated topics, like when he was discussing a session at a conference he’d been to or a new trend. I was fascinated by one particular post which discussed the cheat code sites. He had gone to a video games conference and one woman presented on the popular cheat code sites that kids use to master their Gameboy and Nintendo DS games for instance. I’ve struggled with this myself at home and have had discussions with my own son about whether they are cheats or shortcuts and if that makes the game more fun or less, and whether it’s even right. So finding people discussing it in blog was very interesting to me. I’d like to follow that discussion.

Another intriguing blog was the Fischbowl. Where he has the cohort teacher blogs I read through McBride’s Class blog to see how he used it with a class. I don’t understand exactly who is intended audience is. Would the students be reading his thoughts about the class’s progress, or is it intended for fellow teachers? Another teacher, Kristen had some interesting posts discussing laptops, the good and the bad. It was interesting to read what a teacher who uses them says about the respect the students have for them, but also her concern that it be overused and face-to-face conversation be neglected. I’d like to go on to read the comments about that later.

So though they’re hard to navigate for me still, I’m getting a bit more comfortable and familiar with this new digital terrain.

Well, now that I’ve learned and acknowledged that I’m “predigital”, I can move on to learning how to best teach these “digital natives” that surround me at the high school.

Catching and retaining students’ attention in class is definitely a challenge, so as “Synching up” confirms, entering the computer realm with my students will definitely be welcomed by them. The different types of projects mentionned were intriguing and very applicable. Having students produce short documentaries about local history and architecture and then posting their projects on a classblog is a very appealing application.

The article also discussed the history of the personal computer, Alan Kay’s role, and Piaget’s! I appreciated the background and the sense of a timeline that this discussion provided. I’ve been aware of the pieces, like Leapfrog, Logo, but I never learned all of the history and feel much more grounded now with this info.

I want to learn how to use more computer tools in my ESL classroom. I have a computer unit I do with the ESL English Beginners. It is very, very basic; most of the students have never had any computer experience and have minimal or no literacy in English, or in any language. It is a very exciting unit, the students love it and they learn computer skills, and English very quickly. Otherwise, I require computer use with the Advanced ESL English US History class, but it is limited to students searching for information and images to do an oral presentation at the end of the year. Rather basic stuff. So, I’d like to do way more, and I suspect they would like to too.