Bulldog Byte students helping out at Tech PDs

The Technology Professional Development held at the High School on Wednesday, October 26 was the first professional development that the Bulldog Byte team (HS technology students) were invited to speak, participate and assist.  Yes, that is what I said assist.  2 Bulldog Byte students volunteered to assist me during the Tech PD which focused on SchoolFusion, staff finding 1 web site to use personally, with students or both, and to better understand the Iowa AEA Online web site and its resources.

For the very first time, that the Bulldog Byte students were invited to participate with teachers, outside of the school working hours, it was AWESOME.  These students were shown the agenda for the Tech PD that day, and then they just hit the ground running.  They assisted with typing in the answer to the teachers questions that were projected through a LCD projector onto the screen, when the teachers were given time to find 1 beneficial education web site the students helped the teachers explore the web site(s), bookmark the web site(s), and add them to their SchoolFusion page(s) and the students showcased why they use certain web sites from the Iowa AEA Online web site and for what purposes.

These students did an awesome job helping out the teachers, and this experience will definitely be something that will be filtered down to each Bulldog Byte student having the opportunity to do.

So what if students know more then teachers do.  Use the students as a resource and a guide for your teaching and learning.  Let them help you out and problem-solve.  This is how we learned.  Being able to problem-solve certain situations for success or failure but in both cases real-world experiences were obtained.

Helping out Teachers

The best reward people appreciate after helping someone out, is seeing the response, facial expression, and emotions from that person as to how they are thankful for the help.  This is the best reward I can get from students and staff, and I have been getting more and more of them.  I appreciate the opportunity to help students and staff out and I appreciate their thankful responses after they have been helped.  I appreciate being able to go into the classrooms and teach to the students and the staff.  I appreciate meeting with staff members just to give them 1 more aspect of technology that could spark their interest and their student's knowledge.  I appreciate the opportunity to just come into the classrooms for a few minutes, just to get ideas to better help teachers integrate technology into another part of their learning.  And I appreciate the opportunity to get staff members to become comfortable with just 1 new technology integration concept.

I guess what I am trying to say is don't be afraid to ask for help, keep on getting help and learning, and start to become more comfortable with asking others, including your students for help.  Providing students with real-world experiences of helping and problem solving is what generates their learning and sparks their excitement for learning.  Allowing them to feel they are wanted and needed dispenses a different type of energy that drives them to search more, problem solve more and help more.

This is what the Bulldog Byte team at Hampton-Dumont High School is striving towards.  Being the go to personnel for students and staff, being able to problem solve a situation yet knowing that it can not always be solved, and becoming comfortable with helping out staff and especially their peers.

Please keep on using myself as the Technology Integrationist and the Bulldog Byte team at the High School for your technology needs.

ITEC Conference-Monday Sessions

On Monday, Oct. 17 the whole technology department at Hampton-Dumont CSD had the chance to attend the ITEC Conference in Des Moines.  It was a great experience full of awesome sessions to get ideas on how technology is used in other schools, how to integrate technology, why technology pd is essential and much, much more.  Here are a few of the sessions I attended and some of the material/information I gathered from them.

Integrating for Technology Into the Classroom
2 classroom teachers showcased the tools they use in their classroom, with 3rd and 4th grade students, to integrate technology into the student's everyday learning.  Here a couple of the web sites that would seem proactive and effective with students.

Fun 4 the Brain
All my Faves
TodaysMeet
Class Tools

Introducing BookFlix to 1st Graders

I have had the opportunity to introduce BookFlix to a three 1st grade classrooms during the month of October and it has been a blast.  Students are able to use this AEA267 web site both at school and at home as a parent newsletter was sent home with students to provide them with the username and password needed to get on the web site.  Students have easily learned how to use this web site to enhance their reading and allow them to become more effective readers by listening and seeing how words are read in some of their favorite stories.  This web site even goes a step further in providing puzzlers (games) for the students based on the books, meet the author activities, and web sites related to the concepts introduced and involved in the story.  Take a look at some of the pictures below.

Moving along with the Bulldog Byte Team

The Bulldog Byte Team (10-12 grade technology students) is moving quite along.  We have had a total of 3 meetings since the beginning of the school year and since that time we have showcased 2 Tech Tuesdays and have met to establish Team Guidelines related to expectations, Tech Tuesday responsibilities, Experts in an Application, Printer Cartridge Recycling program, Tech Store ideas and information related to the Student Tech Fair.  The expectations and Tech Tuesday responsibilities are set and we are going to vigorously work to get the Experts in an Application, Printer Cartridge Recycling program and Tech Store ideas up and running soon.

The Bulldog Byte team has only be in effect for the 2nd year, so allowing these students to better understand how they are setting the foundation for future Bulldog Byte team members is essential, and hopefully we jump more into the technology aspects of the meetings soon.

Another Interest of Mine-Local Meetings

I finally get the chance to discuss Technology ideas and practice with educators from around the State of Iowa.  I have 2 AEA 267 meetings this week.  On Tuesday, at the Clear Lake AEA, I have a meeting with other Instructional Coaches from around the AEA 267 area.  This meeting provides the opportunity to share and provide ideas, but more importantly to gather ideas from other local school districts in relationship to technology and its uses in school with the students and with the teachers.  This is my first meeting with this group of educators, so it should be interesting to see if I know anyone, to see if I have met anyone previously and to hear what discussion topics we explore on, related to educational technology.
On Wednesday, at the Marshalltown AEA, I have a InfoTech Advisory Committee meeting that meets just 3 times a year.  Based on the agenda some of the items will be new to me in the area of technology, some of the items will be things I initiated while at Waukee, and some of the items will be things I have gathered and deployed while at Hampton-Dumont.  Again this will be an awesome experience to meet with this group of educators to see if I know anyone, to see if I have met anyone previously and to hear what discussion topics we explore on, related to educational technology.

Gotta Chance to Teach Students Again

On Friday I was able to visit a few Middle School classrooms and a few Elementary classrooms, and I even had the chance in a 3rd grade classroom to teach the students again.
I first had the chance to show some assistive devices to a legally blind student's associate to better help him stay on track with the information, ideas and handouts his teacher was providing to the rest of the class.  I am still trying to figure out the braille printer but I was able to download Natural Reader to provide the student and his associate an opportunity to highlight words from reproduced worksheets and have them read to him.  Hopefully this better helps the student, as I am still in search of finding more assistive devices to better help accommodate his needs.
I then got a chance to work with a small group of Middle School students to help assist them in getting logged onto the laptops and into Skills Tutor which is a part of Skills Iowa that provides the students with extended activities to keep them on track and/or to advance them.
In the afternoon I was able to work with a 3rd grade classroom and actually taught the group of students, with the use of the laptops on the laptop cart, how to use BookFlix, which is a reading web site that is a part of the IowaAEAOnline web sites.  It was awesome getting to know the students in the classroom, seeing how excited their faces were when I introduced the web site to them, and how eager they were to be able to use and explore the web site on their own.  Once I finished showcasing BookFlix and allowed them to work with BookFlix on their own for about 15 minutes, the students were as quiet as a mouse and focused on reading a book online to themselves or better yet having the book read to them while they followed along with the highlighted words from the story.
To finish out the day I was able to watch HS students in a WebPage Development class showcase their web pages through the use of iWeb.  The students had a few requirements they had to fill and you could see their passion with using the WebPage Development application and their passion with the information they were showcasing through the iWeb web pages.

Having a chance to explore all of theses opportunities really exhibits to me the excitement and dedication the teachers have in providing the students with the possibilities of exploring technology.

Helping HD Teachers is Awesome

I had the chance to visit South Side Elementary this morning and the Middle School in the afternoon.  Both visits provided an amplitude of opportunities to help out teachers and to get to know them better personally and with their comfortability with using technology.  For both schools, I have been trying to resolve their Gmail issues since Google transitioned some stuff on August 31.  1 thing teachers are starting to remember is that they need to type in their full address with the @hdcsd.org when logging into the Gmail, Google Docs and//or Google Calendar accounts online.  Google made a transition where we have to tell them the @hdcsd.org to let them know it is a group account and not a personal account.
Specifically at South Side Elementary I had the chance to help a teacher to use her wireless LCD projector, a teacher to better use her TwoUp application and finally located 1 of the missing 2 power adapters for a laptop on the laptop carts.  Helping problem solve the wireless issue with the teacher's LCD projector was an awesome experience to work at something, and to finally resolve the problem after many trials and errors. Tried a variety of things and finally got it figure out before I left.
Specifically at the Middle School I helped some teachers transition into using the MS Laptop Google Calendar instead of using a hard copy paper calendar.  The purpose of providing a MS Laptop Google Calendar instead of a hard copy paper calendar is to provide the teachers an opportunity to login and signup for the laptops during present and future events, and most importantly to see the other teachers that have the carts checked out presently and in the future, instead of having to hunt the carts down and find the hard copy calendar.
Hopefully this transition for the Middle School teaches will be a successful one as my hopes is for the South Side teachers to transition into using a SS Laptop Google Calendar during the beginning portion of October.

The Day of Tech Tuesday

Tech Tuesday was awesome, but was a work in progress to get it ready for the first time this school year.  Tech Tuesday is provided to the 9-12 grade students in their advisories at the end of the day on the 1st Tuesday of each month to better help them learn a little bit more about using technology in the classrooms with their laptops (I am looking more into how to provide this to students at the Middle School).
Last year this was provided to the HS students through videos displayed on all of the TVs in the classroom.  Well this year, there are no TVs in the HS teachers' classrooms, but each teacher has a laptop that connects to their mounted LCD projector.  So I came up with the idea of using Jing, which is an application located in your Applications folder to screencast with video and audio how to use different technology applications such as their SchoolFusion personal calendar and TwoUp.  The teachers then received my videos online and were able to showcase them online to the students through their LCD projectors, while I and the Bulldog Byte team members (10-12 grade technology students) assisted their advisory and other students.

As far as I know it worked well for the teachers and the students enjoyed it.  Definitely a process I will keep working on.

The Day of Technology Professional Development

Wednesday was a busy day full of fixing technology, setting up and showcasing technology, and professionally developing the High School teachers to learn and reapply technology.

At the Middle School I had opportunities to fix a light bulb in a LCD projector and to wirelessly connect a LCD projector for teachers to effectively use.  I also had the opportunity to setup 2 Elmo document cameras for 4 teachers to share.  Document cameras allow teachers to set aside the old technology of overhead transparency projectors and replace them with document cameras hooked up to already mounted LCD projectors to be able to show transparency copies, paper copies, books, pencils, manipulative s, flash cards, hand-written stories and so much more.

In the afternoon I visited North Side Elementary and was able to discuss technology needs to more than half the teachers within the building.  Teachers were interested in learning more about Pages through the use of Atomic Learning (need AEA username and password), and about purchasing LCD projectors to share and Promethean SmartBoards and/or MimioTeach to use to make their instruction more effective and differentiated.

While the students dismissed early, the High School teachers had a chance to learn more about effective Technology through their first Technology Professional Development session of the year.  The theme was, "how to/forgot how to" to make sure the teachers' laptops and their resources were ready for the school year and to showcase effective tools for them to use throughout the whole school year.

Showcased to the teachers was:
How to use the LCD projector/remote effectively
How to access the online HS library catalog
Making sure each laptop was connected to the correct printer driver
Proper care of the laptop
Online copyright information
Seeing if Google Notifier should be installed for effective uses
Iowa AEA Online Student/Teacher web sites
Understanding Google Docs
Checking login into SchoolFusion