Surprise!

After discovering changes in filtering policies that prevented my class from doing any work on their blogs or portfolios, I had a wonderful surprise. I spoke to our IT people who passed the word to the superintendent and the local service center. Within a few hours the man who manages the filtering software was working to create some policy exceptions for my students. Apparently, creating exceptions is not quite as simple as it may seem. It has taken quite a bit of communication and several trys to complete the unblocking process. I am confident that we will complete it today.

While it is frustrating to go through all of this, I count it as growing pains. It takes teachers requesting full functionality of their resources to get the message to the policy makers. I am very pleased to see the administrators and policy makers being so cooperative and supportive!

Support for Technology Integration

On the yearly PDAS appraisal, teachers are evaluated on a number of things. Two of those things are technology integration and also professional communication. Often teachers are advised to incorporate technology into their lessons and to use cutting-edge research based strategies within their instruction.

In practice, this becomes very difficult for the teacher and student due to the policies set in place by the same administrative structure that requires the use of technology. For instance, at almost every campus, YouTube is blocked. YouTube happens to be the most popular video host. Sites such as Khan Academy and others use YouTube to host their instructional videos. Another example is social networking. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook can be very useful to the creative instructor, yet, in most circumstances they are blocked. Recently, a policy change at the region level has lumped blogs into the social networking category. Blogs are now blocked in many schools.

To further confuse things, many schools are now using C-Scope. C-Scope in its intended function is a wonderful tool, but as it grows it is flourishing into a monster. Take this document for instance: Link. This is C-Scope's "principal tool." An innocuous document at first glance, it becomes sinister when viewed from the lens of an innovative educator. The document presupposes a traditional classroom structure. This is evident primarily in the focus on teacher questioning and also the 5-E model. In a traditional didactic classroom, Socratic questioning will be abundant and apparent. However, in a classroom where students are working independently and engaged in a project, this type of questioning may not be as visible. Furthermore, there are many good methods other than the 5-E model. Perhaps a teacher is using a current lesson format from an online-source or scholarly journal. Will that teacher be downgraded on their performance because their methods did not line up with the "principal tool" expectations?

Their are a lot of question to be answered when it comes to technology integration, current policy and current administrative practices.

Awesomeness

According to Kung Fu panda, there is no charge for awesomeness. Today, I agree with such a philosophy. In the past I worked myself silly trying to teach the students how to work physics problems. This year, in the spirit of change I decided to try a different approach.

In the past I would work some example problems and the students would ask questions and complete a problem set in class or for homework. The result was dependent students who could not pursue a solution on their own.

This year, with the impending threats from C-Scope scope and sequence, I decided to assign weekly problem set with no instructions. To recieve credit for the problems, the students have to work the problems, check the problems and correct the problems.

Many students have mastered some of the problems, the tough ones I work during a problem solving session before or after school. Amazingly, my students are learning and learning well!

Video as an extension of the classroom

Check out these videos. I have posted several videos to my classroom website to help my students work their weekly problem set and to keep up with what's going on in the case of their absence. Video Page

General Impressions of Technology in the Classroom

I have been told over and over again that this is the generation of the digital native. While I agree that my students are indeed digital natives, I must disagree with the experts who tell us that all students are computer and technologically savvy.

As I implement digital technology in my classroom, I have been very careful to use it in a manner that is consistent with what I am teaching...so it will make sense... However, I have found that the majority of the students are resistant to the unfamiliar format instead of embracing it as I had anticipated. In this third week, I have had many complaints from the students about using the computers so much. Some even requested paperwork.

I discussed this phenomenon with a colleague and we came to several conclusions about creating online portfolios, lab reports and using the technology to analyze data.

1. Students are most familiar with and express the most enthusiasm for social and communicative media and primarily use their native digital skills for entertainment.
2. Student are forced to think critically with their own minds when required to produce digital artifacts. 
3. There is no good way to cheat on these types of assignments. 

Thus, students must do their own honest work. This is terribly difficult to many students who have either cheated their way through school or depended on hand-holding to get it all done.

I fear the parental repercussions of my new strategy. I fear that parents and students will rise up against it and try to force a change to the format of the class. I plan to be proactive in the defense of my pedagogy by enlisting the support of my department head and principal.

Can I endure, will my students buy in... we shall see!

Triumphs With Bugs

No one commonly associates bugs with physics. However, take a Hexbug Nano and record it with a mobile device then you have the makings of an excellent motion lab!

I had my students prepare a box with a grid on the bottom. They then turned on the bug and let it run while videoing it with their smart phone or iPod. The students then uploaded their videos to whatever online host they used in order to analyze the motion of the bug.

We used Tracker from the open source physics project to analyze the video. The students advanced the video frame by frame and recorded the x and y distance of each movement. From these frame by frame measurements, the were able to find the speed and average velocity in the x and y directions.

A few students grumbled about the project. Their complaint was that they did not appreciate the technology. I figure as they become familiar with the processes and technology they will appreciate the use of it. Even with grumblers, the bug project was a success in terms of engagement, excitements and learning the concept. As the lab reports com in, I share some links of those that are excellent.

In the beginning

I started this year with an unusual amount of enthusiasm. I am excited to begin to apply the knowledge gained from my graduate studies to actual teaching within my classroom.

In the spring semester, I learned of cognitive dissonance and discovered that I had a severe case of it. No longer would I stand idly by and watch as my teaching and my student's learning lagged further into obsolescence. It was time for action!

I knew that industry must be interested in the education of our children as this is where their future employees come from. So I began to solicit grants from our local industries. American Electric Power graciously committed $1500 to my physics classes to purchase laptop computers. In some classes I now have a 1 to 1 computing ratio. I have no class with less than 1 to 2. This may not be a perfect set up, but it is good enough to begin integrating digital portfolios, web 2.0 tools and social tools into the physics curriculum.

During the summer session I gained skills and ideas for using different types of technology in the classroom. I was able to get an idea of what would work and what would not. 

At this point, all of my students have established Twitter accounts which I will use to give timely feed back and information. They have also created Google accounts for Google documents and G mail. No more lost documents on the hard drive! In addition to these, my students have created accounts with Mind42 which is a collaborative graphic organizer we will be using for our portfolios.

As the school year progress, I will keep you all informed of the successes, failures, trials and glories of the process. If nothing else, it will be an adventure!