As the first week of school comes to a close in LPS, I am reflecting on our roll-out of Google Apps for Education, located online at www.lpsk12.org.  To date, we have over 12,000 accounts setup and operating.  All students and teachers from grades 4 through 12 received accounts.  The system was ready for the start of school and I am pleased with a number of the decisions we made on this effort.  These include:

This article came out in April, and deserves some space on our district blog.  We were contacted by CDW-G, which publishes this magazine, asking if they could run an article about our use of netbooks in our Inspired Writing project.  We agreed and met with a writer and photographer who prepared the story.

http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/april-may-2010/inspiring-education.html

As I observe our latest Inspired Writing training activities, I have a few minutes to reflect on our technology choice.  Namely, the netbook laptop installed with Ubuntu Linux.  We owe a debt for thanks to our colleagues in Saugus, California for their work on creating an Ubuntu image that we have tweaked for our needs.  See Jim Klein's blog here.

So why this technology?  There are a number of useful principles that are met in this tool:

1. Student-centered: While many technologies are deisgned for the teacher, there is no more empowering technology for a student than to have a computer for daily use.  In LPS, we have provided computers, projectors and powerful data systems for teachers.  So, bringing students into the digital world with their teachers presents a great opportunity.
2. Inexpensive ($300): The low cost makes it feasible to get enough for everyone.

 

For the past six weeks, I have stayed off this blog for two reasons.  First, I had to focus all my writing efforts on completion of my dissertation.  But second, I knew many of our teachers were sending kids to comment on a blog post and I didn't want to bury the posting...

As school is letting out, I will spend the next several weeks using this blog to reflect on what I've seen in the Inspired Writing classrooms.  This year, we implemented over 1,800 netbooks (or sub laptops) into our classrooms.  But our effort has been different from the usual 1:1 program in several respects. 

The first difference is the learning goal: writing.  Our district instructional leaders identified writing as the most important lever for our district to use to raise student achievement.  Every school in the district inserted writing goals into their school improvement plans and our district leadership initiated a project...

 A letter from a Goddard Middle School teacher to her colleagues:

Dear Fellow Social Studies Teachers,

 

I am very excited about having you visit my lab classroom during 4^th period on Wednesday.

 

This school year I have had two professional goals—one with PEBC to become a more reflective teacher, and the other is to become competent with my wiki and the triple e lab in my classroom.   Becoming a reflective practitioner personally in order to slow down the pace to help students reflect on the big ideas of social studies will be the focus of my lesson on Wednesday. 

Last year, students wrote on this blog sharing their experiences writing with laptops in class.  From their writing, we were able to get the money to expand the project from just a few classrooms to every 5th, 6th and 9th grade class in the district!  The students told their stories and convinced the Board and the LPS Foundation that having the triple-e laptops and giving our teachers exra training made for great learning.

Times are tough.  And while our district budget does not have the money to expand this project further, there is still hope.    We can still win grants and get donations from businesses that want great schools.  People know that the best way to make sure America's future is safe is to give the best education possible to our kids.

Would you like to help?  You can make a difference by writing!  Reply to this blog with your story about how you and your teacher have used laptops in class.

What is it like to have laptops in class?

What can you do now that you could...

Last week was Dr. Seuss's birthday and a number of us in ITS went out to read to children from the Dr. Seuss classics.  I made my now traditional trip to Ms. Salzman's class at East Elementary School where they surprised me with this Lorax stuffed toy.  My mother read the Lorax to me every day (at my behest) for years such that we both have the book memorized!  So now, I like to go to school and recite the Lorax while the students follow along reading the text from a document camera.  There are a couple spots where I get tripped up so I asked some students to come up and read for me for those sections.  The kids did really well and I had a great time... how often do you get to take 30 minutes away, wear a Dr. Seuss tie and read with kids?  Well, for me, it is a rare treat and easily the best day of the school year!  Earlier this week, I recieved a letter from...

In my visits to schools around the district, I try to drop into our Inspired Writing classrooms and see how the EeePC netbooks are being used in the writing process. 



(Here, Mr. Reiner leads an all-class discussion)

Today I had a chance to get over to Centennial Academy for the Fine Arts and visit Mr. Reiner's 5th grade.  As I walked in the classroom, the students were gathered in the front of the room discussing the different lenses they use to evaluate writing.  Mr. Reiner was showing how one student had sent a message through their wiki to the class asking for specific feedback on a piece of writing.  After the discussion, students went to their desks, the floor, even out of classroom to the media center with their EeePCs to engage in writing.  Some students wrote on paper, but most used their computers.  But even then, there were differences.  Some students were writing on their own wiki pages, others were writing in a word processor and still others were using the web cam and microphone built into the computer to record their voices or take a picture of a book cover.  After about 30 minutes, during which time students wrote, conferenced with each other and with Mr. Reiner, they came back to together to consider a nice section of writing from one of these Inspired Writers.  Mr. Reiner went to the front of the room while a student took control of the computer and made sure the writing came up on the screen.  The section of the story we heard was very descriptive as the author slowly allowed an image in our minds form as she told her narrative.  At first, I thought the narrator was a child, but after a little while, I realized she was a lion or tiger!  Nicely done.

...

Any day when I can visit a school is a good day.  I do miss my classroom (can it really be 13 years?) and having even just one hour with teachers and students is a real gift.

Yesterday, I visited Field Elementary and watched Ms. Moore's 5th grade classroom where netbooks are a part of the daily activity.  The students were totally on task and worked on the main assignement which involved drafting a thesis.  They made use of their wiki (http://moorelearning.wikispaces.com/ this is a secured site so if you want to join, you will need to identify yourself to Ms. Moore) to compose drafts and share information both with their teacher and with each other.  What really excites me about classrooms like this is how students come to really own their learning. 

Several students had been sick earlier and needed to catch up with the group.  They were working on the previous assignment and were getting help from others to catch up.  Students used the wiki, accessed...

Last night's class was a fun exploration into different ways to engage students in writing on the computer.  We looked into word processing, etherpad, and coveritlive.  We had already touched on Google Docs.  The etherpad linked below is an activity where we explored various bibliography management tools.  Thanks to everyone who joined us for the session!

http://etherpad.com/toKksS2uhW