For my final project I decided to use Bee Bots to integrate technology into our math unit on measurement:

We got our first iPads for kindergarten this year. We had 5 ipads allotted to each kindergarten classroom. I was excited to use them with my students, and they were super excited to use them. It was also made clear to us that our school had invested a lot of money in these devices and they expected them to be used, and used often. The problem is that I have 17 students and only 5 iPads. When I put students in pairs to do a project everything seems to go well enough. But any time I tried to do a “whole class” activity and put 3 students to an iPad it just didn’t work. Inevitably the 1 or 2 students that were not directly interacting with the iPad would end of off task or turning cartwheels. Therefore, the best way I found to use the iPads this year was to divide my class into small groups and rotate the students through an iPad station. This helped keep everyone engaged but it made every iPad lesson drag out over a couple of days or more.
Despite the less than idea student to iPad ratio we were able to create some cool stuff like this:

We got more good news this year. The school is so pleased with what we’ve done with the iPads already, that next year we will have 10 per classroom. YES! Now we can all work on a project together without have off task kids practicing their pirouettes or hand stands… well a lot less any way

My school has taken on a big robotics initiative. We have been working with Bee Bots in my kindergarten classroom, and it has me thinking about the future of “personal” robots. As my 5-6 year old students are learning to program today. What kind of robots will they be working with in 10 years?

I just watched a TED talk by Keller Rinaudo. Mr. Rinaudo thinks that we are in for massive advances in robotics and in a much shorter time frame than 10 years! His company have created a personal robot named Romo.

The main point I took away from Mr. Rinaudo’s presentation is that open source programming is the key to robotic advancements. I believe that he is 100% correct. By allowing anyone to write and modify the code that these robots use the possibilities are endless. The developers say that “Romo gets smarter over time through app updates and behaviors created by people like you!”

I think my students would LOVE to have a Romo in our classroom!

• I think this unit might work well because currently it involves a lot of drawing, or pasting photos. We could integrate the iPads into this unit for taking photos, videos, and editing/sequencing.
• I am concerned that some of the activities would require parents to send in digital photos, or possibly take photos/videos at home. What if one or two parents don;t come through?
• This would be an opportunity to semi-flip my classroom. I could give assignments to do at home, then we could work on editing them in class.
• This redesigned unit will require iPad proficiency and carrying out learning at home

In the beginning of the year I introduce my students to using the Smart Board through our morning meeting routine and calendar time. I facilitate and call students to the board to let them move, select, and manipulate the activities I have created for them. Most of my students have never used a Smart Board before and need to learn how to use it. After a couple of weeks I turn the morning meeting over to a different student each week. It’s their job to “be the teacher”. This has worked very well and my students really enjoy it. Before Christmas they know how to create and manipulate shapes, objects, and text.

This has been our first year using iPads in the classroom. I have 5 which works out to be about a 1:3 ratio so what I do is when I introduce a new app I make partners and teach them in groups of 4. Partners has worked better than 1:1 for introducing a new app because they help each other. Once they are familiar with an app they gain more independence and they can now (nearly) independently use apps like skitch, show me, and little speller. As well as take pictures and record themselves.

When we began using the iPads I asked my class to help me come up with a set of rules for using them. We decided on these 4 simple rules:
1. Wash your hands before using an iPad. (This helps keep play-dough, glitter, and buggers off the screen.)
2. When you carry an iPad use two hands. (To reduce the chances of dropping and breaking one.)
3. Don’t change to a different app without permission. (To keep the “I have an iPad at home and I know everything” kids from quickly jumping off task and into a game.)

So far my students have done a great job using the Smart Board and iPads responsibly!

What is the future of education?

Well, the first thing that came to my mind was this cool video by Corning call “A Day Made of Glass” you’ve probably seen it, but if you haven’t I highly recommend taking 6 minutes and watching the video!

A Day Made of Glass

I don’t think I will be teaching in a classroom like the one in the video above. But I do believe that someday children will. Education in the future has the potential to be very technology based.

The changes I expect to see at my own school include computers being put in the hands of younger learners 1 to 1 more and more. I can imagine first and second grade students using tablet computers at school and at home for math, reading, and science. 3rd and 4th grade students and older will have 1 to 1 net-books , and 5th grade and up will be 1 to 1 on laptops. However, that would be just riding our currently technology development wave… Perhaps the future will be everyone using tablets. No more net-books/laptops. I think that’s a bolder vision of the future.

My own teaching will be affected in more ways. I’m already using a smart-board, a document camera, and iPads (1 to 3) networked with Apple TV. I can imagine more math and literacy instruction being carried out using the iPads. In fact the iPads might be the doom of my smartboard. I am sure that technology integration will become more and more an expected part of every teachers job.

In 15 years will my newest crop of kindergartner’s snicker if I begin teaching them to read using a “paper book”?!

The theory of it is sound, and I believe that with motivated students it can produce some amazing results. However I have two problems with it. First, every student in your classroom has to be responsible enough to carry out the outside of the classroom learning e.g. log on the blog and watch a video you’ve made. Second, your students should have the technical ability to carry out this learning so it’s just not going to work in Kindergarten. Let’s reflect of these two points.

First, in a traditional classroom model you can be sure that the students have had the content they need to know, because you are there with them to deliver it. If they don’t do their homework they may not understand as well as they could have, but at least they’ve been exposed to the crux of the lesson. When you flip that and students don’t do the learning required at home it seems like it would completely screw you teaching that day. You would either have to re-teach the lesson anyway, or have them watch the lesson in class which kind of defeats the whole purpose doesn’t it?

Second, students should be able to carry out the learning on their own. If I made videos of my mini-lessons and told my 5 years old students to make sure they log on to the blog and watch lesson 12 when they get home. It just wouldn’t happen. These little guys can’t remember what they had for breakfast by the time they get to school. It would become the parents homework. The only learning we require at my kindergarten is that the parents read with their child for 15 minutes every night, and record it on a tracking sheet. At least half my class in unable to do this small task consistently!

So, is it impossible? No, but I think it needs quite a bit of modification for my young learners. I found one example of youtube where this (kind of hot) kindergarten teacher has made an attempt to flip a lesson for her students:

This isn’t great. But I do think it’s a great start. Bravo to “Pepstep2012″ for giving this a shot. What I take away from this is that maybe I could do something once a week where I speak to not only the child but also the parent’s and give them a learning task for that week. I think it would be very well received, keep the parents more in the instructional loop, and be fun for the students as well.

First of all here we go with more acronyms and initialism: the TIM and the SAMR. I feel like I’m in that scene with Robin Williams in the movie Good Morning Vietnam.

Anyway, both the TIM and the SAMR are ways for educators to measure their technology integration in the classroom. In a previous workshop I took with Jeff we learned about the SAMR model and discussed how we could use it to try take our use of technology to the next level. Therefore I will use this model to reflect on my own integration of technology into the classroom:

The primary avenues for technology integration in my kindergarten classroom are the smartboard and iPads. In both cases the activities that my students do with this technology is either a substitution or Augmentation level. I feel like my students are doing great things with these tools but we haven’t stepped it up to a Modification level yet.

When you have a classroom of 5-6 year old’s it’s easy to underestimate their abilities. The only way they have been using technology is the way I have taught taught them. When I think about this I have to wonder if maybe I’ve been holding them back. I think the best way for me to “Take it to the next level” is to put let my students take more control. Now that they have learned how to use a few programs on the iPads, can they come up with new and different ways to use them? It’s certainly possible. I’d like to see where their ideas can take us! I think they might just surprise me

So let’s talk about the “ISTE NETS“. First of all what the heck does that stand for? Well ISTE is the “International Society for Technology in Education” and NETSare the “National Educational Technology Standards”. They are the “standards for evaluating the skills and knowledge students need to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly global and digital world”.

Second, who’s job is it to teach the “NETS”? Honestly my first thought for kindergarten at my school is that this would definitely be the job of the IT specialist. My students only have access to computers and the internet once a week when we have “computer lab”. After reading more about them I have modified my opinion. I think it should be a joint effort. It’s certainly an important part of the specialists job, but since my students are also using computers at home, it’s part of my job too.

I know my students are using the internet at home. Their parents have told me “they know how to get to “whatever site” all by themselves! Also, I am integrating iPads into more and more subject areas in my classroom. And the NETS aren’t just about the internet. They are about using technology in general.  There are 6 NET standard areas: 1. Creativity and Innovation, 2. Communication and Collaboration, 3. Research and Information Fluency, 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, 5. Digital Citizenship, 6. Technology Operations and Concepts. We’re doing all of these things in kindergarten with the exception of area 3. So how can we meet these standards in our classrooms, using an integrated model?

I think we need to take 2 steps toward meeting the ISTE NETS at my school. First, we need to have a school-wide PD to educate everyone on the NETS and discuss them. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Secondly, the NETS need to be adopted into the curriculum and included on the report card. This is the best way to keep teachers accountable for using them.

Jeff wrote “This performance task is designed to offer you a chance to dip your toes in the murky waters of video editing and digital storytelling. All too often teacher ask students to “create a video” and yet perhaps have not taken the time to develop their own skills in this area. Now is your chance!”

So, with a new mindset of “Exactly what kind of video I made wasn’t really important. What was important, was to just do the d*mn thing and learn from the process!”

My students enjoy the web site Story Line Online and the way stories are turned into video with a celebrity reader. So, I gave myself the task of creating my own video of a classroom favorite “Knuffle Buffy”. I chose to use the program that my school provided on my computer “Corel Video Studio Pro” to create and edit the video.

The first thing I did was take a picture of each page. This wasn’t quite as easy as I thought it should have been. I kept getting reflections on the pages. Getting the lighting just right and getting the shots lined up took about half an hour. Next I imported all the shots into Picasa to crop them and correct the color balance. This took about another half hour. Then I imported the pictures into Corel. Next, I needed to record myself reading the text. I used the sound recorder in Windows. This was simple to do (just took a few re-tries to correct mistakes or background noise) and it recorded in an easy to use format. This only took about 15 minutes. After recording my voice I imported it to Corel as my “voice track”.

Then came the bulk of the work. Making the picture duration match my reading speed, and adding “pan and zoom” effects to the pictures. This part took a a more than 2 hours, but it was fun.

In the end I did learn a lot, and I’m now comfortable enough to use Corel again in the future. Without further a due here is what I created: