Technology in 2012

Summary of technology used this year:

As you can tell from my last 2 posts, it hasn't been a banner year. I have tried, within the limitations I have, to utilise as much tech as I can, but the students themselves have so little access, that of the time they spend trying to create a project, I spend twice as much time having to create/upload/download/convert their work that it's a major turn-off. We have had very little access this year, including a 2 week period where one teacher booked our only resource for four weeks straight for word processing, and another closed their lab for an entire term so the THREE students who put together the yearbook could have the whole lab.

Ok, enough whinging.

This year, my year 13 students have utilised Prezi (for the first time for them - so proud!) to present their oral presentations. they did a great job! what wasn't great: my laptop not connecting to the data projector, the network going down during their presentation time (several days in a row, and several times in a period) and the load-time for any embedded audio/visuals.

My year 12 students have created a film study google doc for the tv mini-series they studied. This involved me having to watch several hours out of class to rip stills for them to use to illustrate their points, which was fine by me as long as they were using them. I found using google docs for collaborative work better than a wiki, because they can all create in one place at the same time.

My year 9 students have created a film wiki. They didn't enjoy this as much because 1) they couldn't access the film shorts on youtube while working on their pages, 2) only one person per group could post at one time, and 3) they couldn't upload anything to the wiki themselves; they had to wait for me to do it. What was really cool was that we were able to ask Simon Pegg questions!

My year 10 students worked with Fakebook again this year. This will be the last time I use Fakebook in class. The site requires a number of steps to be done in a certain order before the page can be saved (and edited), and they struggled greatly with this, constantly losing their pages and having to start from scratch. The student who persevered won a coveted twinkie.

Right now, my Year 9s are working on a project that our Librarian and I collaborated on. They are creating book trailers for their chosen texts. Once completed, I have to upload them to google docs myself, then email them the link so they can create a QR Code. The code is then printed for 1) the cover of the library book and 2) a space in the library that the Librarian has prepared. We decided to do this project to increase literacy, always an issue in a boys' school, and to present to the BoT what students can do when they have access.

I've also had the boys prepare a 30-60 second speeches where they state what they expected to be doing in high school (technology-wise) and how those expections have been met. I'm going to edit these speeches into one video.

When the tasks are complete (had hoped this would be done by the end of the term, but it takes me 15 minutes on our network to upload each trailer to youtube, sigh), the Librarian and I are going to request to be on the agenda at a BoT meeting and have a 2-part presentation: 1) this great project, and 2) what's really going on at our school tech-wise and a plan for what can be done about it.

And that pretty much sums up this year.

Google Docs

after ulearn09, i've tried to take baby steps integrating some of the things i learned about. one of the most successful has been google docs.

i started using google docs before the conference, mostly as a secondary back up source, and for opening attachments and sending documents. i can tell you google docs is quick and easy, and the 1-document collaboration is terrific.

since the conference, i have created colour-coded folders and have put in all my planners, markbooks, lesson plans, and other miscellaneous items, and shared appropriate ones with my students. for example, my seniors had access to my planner for term 4 so they would know exactly what we were doing each day for the rest of the term, including homework and items to bring on each day. they also had access to my conference timetable so they could book themselves appointments rather than being called in whatever order.

my juniors have had a variety of options. in addition to worksheets, homework, etc, they have also had access to my "books read" list for our competition.  the student who:
1) reads more books than me since school started (not studied in class)
2) more total pages than me

will each win a prize on friday (end of the year). next year i will hyperlink pictures of all the book covers, and possibly reviews, and i'd like to see us all share our lists this way.

i've also used the forms option extensively, both online and embedded into our blog. once i figured out how to get back to the main form from the finalised one, it was super easy to create all kinds of surveys, quizzes, etc without having to deal with formatting.

all told, i reckon google has given me the most bang for my buck this year, and i am a real fan :O) if you haven't yet tried google docs, give it a go.  if you don't like it, no harm done!