We closed the HDS Tech Summer Workshop today and eight teachers successfully completed the program with their presentations in the Main Lab. During the three days, we had over twenty staff members participate at least part of the time.
There were two comments this afternoon that I was most excited about. Donna Peck was appreciating the value of working closely with other teachers and she asked, "Do our students learn as much when they work together on projects?" Yes, they do...absolutely. And several of the teachers today commented on the high value of working with each other on their projects. During the year, teachers see each other all day long, but rarely get to learn in collaboration with their peers. When teachers are doing their primary work, teaching students, those teachers do their job in isolation from other teachers. When working directly with students, teachers are usually alone. Even if another teacher is in the room, she is usually working with another group on the other side of the room. I'm glad that everyone had the opportunity to work so collaboratively this week.
The other memorable comment was when Ernie noticed how a lot of the examples were about doing everything online and said, "I think there is a secret agenda to get us to stop using so much paper." No, Ernie...it's not a secret.
There were several interesting topics that were introduced today that I would like to comment on because I think they would help you.
Leslie told us about Pandora.com, the online music service that is FREE. Just visit Pandora to create an account and you can run it on your computer or use the iPad and iPod app. Robert commented how he uses it for background music for kids working in class. I do the same for my students at Towson and it works wonderfully well.
Kate showed us the Flashcard Machine website. People from all over share flashcard sets on nearly any topic you might need. But, you have to check them for accuracy first, of course.
Tricia and Sally showed us how they are using the Announcement feature on their class website to provide parents a weekly update. I'm disappointed I don't have any more kids to send through kindergarten. I like updates like that. (hint, hint...grades 1 and 3)
Ernie shared several websites he found. The lesson we learned from his presentation was that you do not need to spend time recreating information that is already organized on another webpage. If you find websites useful for your students, you simply paste them onto your website and let your students explore from there. Yesterday Patrick discovered the value of using Diigo for sharing websites with his students. I'm sure he would be glad to show you how it works.
Donna Peck shared her presentation about lockers for the fifth graders. She had difficulty converting a PowerPoint presentation to a Google Docs presentation. We'll figure out what the problem is and get back to you. But, her difficulty also revealed another issue. You do not have to do everything in Google Docs. Google Docs is great for online storage of documents so you have access to them anywhere and it is great for sharing documents with other without having to trade flash drives or print to paper. But, Google Docs has limited features compared to OpenOffice of MS Office (Word and PowerPoint). For most projects, those limitations are not an issue. but, if you need the full features of PowerPoint and you are the only one using your presentation on your own computer, you do not need to create it in Google Docs.
Donna also told the teachers about an article I shared with her about applying the principles of multimedia learning to making a presentation. You can get a free PDF copy of that article online.
That is a summary of what I teach in my classes at Towson University. If you like the article and want to learn more about, I'd love to do a session about for you. You can also visit Atkinson's website to learn more about Beyond Bullet Points.
Robert showed us all the changes he made to his class website. Several teachers figured out they don't like the preset theme with the notebook paper, so Robert showed us how to change it. He also showed how he embedded his Google Calendar into the body of his website without having to click to a different page. Robert also showed us the Free Rice website. If you don't already know what it is, you'll want to try it now.
Overall, I was extremely pleased with the success of the HDS Tech Summer Technology Workshop. I thank Su for providing the leadership to allow this workshop to take place and especially for providing a great lunch for everyone each day. I thank David and Tracy for supporting this project with their time and talent and for being the best team I've ever worked with. And, I mostly want to thank all the teachers who volunteered their time this week to focus on their own professional development to make Harford Day School a better place for all our students.
I had a great time working with you this week and I'm looking forward to another year of helping you in your classrooms. And, yes...I'll come help you even if Anna and Joshua aren't in your class.
Daniel
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