Patty Papers

My students have published their first round of mathcasts this year. My Algebra 2 classes recorded portions of their cup lab in which they find a linear function that approximates the height of stacked cups, and our Pre Calculus mathcasts show and explain how to graph a sinusoid. You can view these projects at our school site under Mathcasts at http://www.woodlandschools.org/index.php?q=node/741 .

With less than one week left in the first Interwrite Makeover™ video contest, Interwrite Learning is announcing today the five judges who will evaluate the submitted videos for the contest. The selected judges represent internet communities, education blogs and social networks. You can learn more at http://pattyoflynn.edublogs.org/2007/09/23/interwrite-learning-teachertube-contest/#comments .

Each judge will solicit feedback from within their communities to help them select which videos best meet the contest criteria:

· Effectiveness of demonstrating use of technology in the classroom

· The extent to which the entry demonstrates collaboration between the student(s) and teacher(s) in creating the video

· Overall creativity and spirit of the entry

Fifteen finalists will be announced on Friday, October 26, 2007, and the one final winner from each grade segment will later be announced on Tuesday, November 27, 2007. Each interactive makeover is valued at approximately $15,000, with a total of more than $50,000 in prizes to be awarded. Included in that is a celebration party for each winning entry’s entire school.

In Teching Out H.S. Math, Ben Licciardi has described Patty Papers as a “forward-thinking site” in ASCD’s EdBlog Watch. Ben is an information resource coordinator in ASCD’s Information Resource Center. Thanks, Ben!

I have posted a video that shows how to create a mathcast:

I created this video using my Hitachi Starboard software and BT-G2 Bluetooth tablet, but it’s a very similar process if you’ve got a SMARTboard.

Waking the Dead describes the initial research by Rand Cuthrie and Anna Carlin of Cal Poly Pomona on the effectiveness of SRSs in higher education as they introduced student response systems to engage passive listeners in their college classes. What a great title! It certainly sums up one of the most powerful features of this technology, waking the dead. It’s definitely much more difficult for a kid to slide by and go unnoticed when their every response is noted and recorded (which DOES NOT mean graded, but that’s a different discussion).

When I began using my CPS student response system two years ago as a participant in the Sustainable Classroom Grant and have fallen in love with it. I started by writing 2-3 questions that I started class with each day. That was it, just 2-3 questions for each class period so that I made sure I was using it every day but yet it wasn’t too overwhelming with all the other technology I was learning to use at the same time. Times have certainly changed since then. Now I use it every day throughout the class period, I know how to import questions from Examview, and I feel so comfortable using it that I regularly use it to ask unplanned questions that come up during class.

In my constant search for new and better ways to use this technology, I have come across a few other sites all about asking good questions. Some focus on using student response systems in particular, but others are really just about asking great questions which I think this is a better way to learn to integrate technology – tech should SUPPORT GOOD TEACHING first and foremost.

Vanderbilt Center For Teaching: Student Response Systems discusses types of questions and activities that lend themselves to this technology. Great resource for all subjects and grade levels to get teachers thinking about how and why they ask questions.

The GoodQuestions Project at Cornell University has questions and preclass warmups for introductory calculus on their materials page

Asking good questions in the mathematics classroom by Maria Terrell of Cornell University is a great personal case study.

Math247.jot.com has good questions for calculus in both Examview and pdf formats.

Transforming Student Learning with Classroom Communication Systems describes how student response systems can transform the learning process and includes advice drawn from lessons learned through a decade of experience in teaching physics.

Enjoy!

The image above is licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Italy” Licence.

At Call For Data: Technologically Literate, Ken Pruitt posted three questions for his action research project:

1.  What are the 21^st century skills we want our teachers to model?

2.  How can we provide consistent and relevant training to 200 teachers?

3.  Will adequate resources encourage teachers to integrate technology into their curriculum? 

 Here are my responses:

1. What are the 21st century skills we want our teachers to model?

If we want our students to take charge of their own learning, be open to new ideas, and be willing to experiment, then we need to model these skills ourselves! Teachers also need to model a certain amount of persistence or as I like to call it, “stick-with-it-ness”.

Jim Gates’s comment above is right on, a one-day workshop will not work, but I think that teachers as well as administrators need to realize this. It is not a one-day or even a one-year event. I participated in the Sustainable Classroom Grant ( http://pattyoflynn.edublogs.org/sustainable-classroom/ ) two years ago and am still learning and improving the ways in which I integrate interactive technology. I expect this to continue indefinitely because there is always something new to learn about technology. How exciting!

2. How can we provide consistent and relevant training to 200 teachers?

That’s a difficult task! Keeping it small works better in my experience, so for 200 I would definitely use a professional learning team model which would enable subgroups to find their own focus which is most relevant to their needs. Teachers will come in with different levels of technology experience and comfort levels, and we need to meet them where they are if it’s going to work. Teaching teachers is all that different than teaching kids.

3. Will adequate resources encourage teachers to integrate technology into their curriculum?

The key to effective integration of technology is to focus on best practices and effective teaching strategies rather than on using “cool tools” for their own sake. The use of nonlinguistic representations is proven to increase student achievement, and my interactive whiteboard helps me use this strategy in my classroom. Effective formative assessment has been shown to increase student achievement, and my student response system helps me integrate this into every lesson. I use these technologies because they support good teaching, not just because they look cool (although they do).

A great starting point would be the book Classroom Instruction That Works by Marzano et al which focuses on using nine particular research-based strategies in the classroom. We spent a year reading and discussing this book during 2005-2006 as part of our SCG training and focused on how we could use our new technology to implement the strategies presented. This put our focus on good teaching rather than on the technology, which is exactly where it needed to be IMO.

Another thing to consider is release time to visit each other’s classrooms – I’ve learned more from getting into other classrooms and talking with teachers than I ever have from any professional training. When teachers see how others are using technology, it will get their wheels turning.

If you are familiar with Marzano’s book, Classroom Instruction That Works, soon there will be a spin-off that incoporates technology into the mix. It’s called Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works and is published by ASCD. I have been working with Marzano’s text for the past two years and am anxious to see what new strategies I can pick up for using my classroom technology more effectively.

I’ve updated the Mathcasts, The Sustainable Classroom, and About Patty pages.

Mathcasts: I’ve included links to student projects and to some of my own videos, directions for creating your own mathcast, and links to other mathcast resources on the web.

The Sustainable Classroom: I have included a link to a video created by ESD 112 of my students and I using and discussing the technology we received through our participation in the Sustainable Classroom Grant.

About Patty: I’ve updated this page with information about technology grants that I have or am currently participating in, presentations I have given, and articles and press releases about our classroom and projects.

You can either click on these links or use the menu at the top of each page to visit these pages. Enjoy!

I’ve just completed Year Two of this project and when I think back to how I taught two years ago compared to now, I barely recognize that teacher. I’ve been involved in several technology grants through the years but this one by far has done more to change the way I teach than any other project.

Kash VanCleef and I made a joint presentation at the year-end Sustainable Classroom Project Celebration on June 27th. We shared our experiences using technology in our classes, described our mathcast project, and shared our plans for our 2007 Qwest Foundation Learning Technology Grant. Our presentation wasn’t recorded live, but I hope to have a Camtasia recording of our presentation to share soon.

After our presentation, we were presented with some new toys – brand new Hitachi BT-2G Bluetooth tablets! I’d like to give a special thanks to Nicole Rausch of Hitachi America and to Bob Berry of Troxell Communications for our new toys.