READ Poster
I visited Richland County School District One in South Carolina in February. MaryAnn Sansonetti wrote about my 24 hours in her district. Richland One does great stuff with technology and it was such a pleasure to visit. One thing they do is make READ posters. They take photos of visitors, principals, teachers, community leaders, and even beauty pageant winners. The photos are put into a background and the word READ is spelled across the top. They have a printer that prints out large posters in full color and you can see these posters throughout the district's buildings. I have the honor of being featured on one of these READ posters!
For more about the posters, read MaryAnn's post, READ Posters...You Can Be on One Too!
Labels: presentations, tonyvincent
10 Years Later: Cheaper, Easier
I wrote an article titled 10 Years Later: Cheaper, Easier for February's StarTeaching Features for Teachers. Here it is:
In 1998 not many people could publish on the World Wide Web. Sure, big companies like Yahoo! and CNN had websites. But, the typical Internet citizen was limited to being a consumer of the Web. As a fifth grade teacher at the time, I was really excited about the possibilities of students distributing their work online. Before I had access to a classroom website I had students write book reviews and post them on Amazon.com. Students did indeed love publishing on the World Wide Web. They took their work more seriously because they weren't writing book reviews for only the teacher's eyes--they had a real-world purpose for writing.
Eventually my school district made it possible for me to have a classroom site. My students named it Planet 5th. Planet 5th was full of student writing, artwork, photos, and videos. In fact, my students and I started to think of our classroom as a Web publishing organization. We took great pride in building Planet 5th over the course of the school year.
One of my favorite year-long projects was The Daily Planet. It was our daily log of the day's events, written by a student who was the "roving reporter" for the day. The reporter's job was to write an article about that day's activities and learning. Each of my students were fortunate enough to have a Palm handheld computer with attachable keyboard so the reporter could type the article at school or at home. The next day I would get the reporter's article off the handheld and put it up on Planet 5th. I would also include photos the reporter took with a digital camera. Students loved being the roving reporter and their writing certainly improved over the course of the school year.
My fifth graders left with Planet 5th on a CD-ROM, giving them a evidence of their learning and preserving memories of their final year in elementary school. Their collection of work became a digital portfolio and each student made a page for Planet 5th to show their growth as a learner.
As much as students loved Planet 5th, they loved those Palm handhelds even more. We began using them in 2001. At that time, handhelds did not have Wi-Fi (and schools did not have wireless networks). We used the handhelds primarily for drill and practice activities, word processing, and organization. Without Internet access, the uses for the handhelds were somewhat limited.
Fast forward ten years to 2008. While I have left my own classroom to empower students and teachers with technology as an independent consultant, I am thrilled that my vision of technology in the classroom has become much easier to realize for typical teachers.
The Web has moved from being published only by companies to everyone having the ability to be online content producers. Anyone can post a video to YouTube, a podcast to iTunes, or a blog on Blogger. In fact, blogging has made the roving reporter activity a manageable one in many classrooms. Unlike years ago, blog services make publishing a snap. No knowledge of Dreamweaver, HTML, or FTP is required.
Today, almost all handheld and portable devices are Wi-Fi enabled. With access to the Internet, these devices can get to those online videos, podcasts, and blogs. And for about the same price paid for our Palm handhelds in 2001, schools can buy a complete laptop. The ASUS Eee PC and the XO are two in the growing list of ultra-small and ultra affordable laptops. Additionally, according to Apple, the iPod touch is becoming a "mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform." A bevy of applications are on their way for the iPod touch and there's no denying it has a powerful Web browser. And we mustn't forget handheld computers from the likes of Palm and HP are packing lots of useful features nowadays.
There's no denying the Internet is essential for teaching and learning. It's important that every student can access the information, tools, and social interactions the Web offers. I'm pleased that 2008 brings affordable, portable computers so the Internet can be in the hands of students. I want to see more schools invite these devices into their doors with the goal of each and every student having the educational benefits of a computer and the Web. An extraordinary classroom experience can be a reality for teachers and students!
In 1998 not many people could publish on the World Wide Web. Sure, big companies like Yahoo! and CNN had websites. But, the typical Internet citizen was limited to being a consumer of the Web. As a fifth grade teacher at the time, I was really excited about the possibilities of students distributing their work online. Before I had access to a classroom website I had students write book reviews and post them on Amazon.com. Students did indeed love publishing on the World Wide Web. They took their work more seriously because they weren't writing book reviews for only the teacher's eyes--they had a real-world purpose for writing.Eventually my school district made it possible for me to have a classroom site. My students named it Planet 5th. Planet 5th was full of student writing, artwork, photos, and videos. In fact, my students and I started to think of our classroom as a Web publishing organization. We took great pride in building Planet 5th over the course of the school year.
One of my favorite year-long projects was The Daily Planet. It was our daily log of the day's events, written by a student who was the "roving reporter" for the day. The reporter's job was to write an article about that day's activities and learning. Each of my students were fortunate enough to have a Palm handheld computer with attachable keyboard so the reporter could type the article at school or at home. The next day I would get the reporter's article off the handheld and put it up on Planet 5th. I would also include photos the reporter took with a digital camera. Students loved being the roving reporter and their writing certainly improved over the course of the school year.
My fifth graders left with Planet 5th on a CD-ROM, giving them a evidence of their learning and preserving memories of their final year in elementary school. Their collection of work became a digital portfolio and each student made a page for Planet 5th to show their growth as a learner.
As much as students loved Planet 5th, they loved those Palm handhelds even more. We began using them in 2001. At that time, handhelds did not have Wi-Fi (and schools did not have wireless networks). We used the handhelds primarily for drill and practice activities, word processing, and organization. Without Internet access, the uses for the handhelds were somewhat limited.
Fast forward ten years to 2008. While I have left my own classroom to empower students and teachers with technology as an independent consultant, I am thrilled that my vision of technology in the classroom has become much easier to realize for typical teachers.
The Web has moved from being published only by companies to everyone having the ability to be online content producers. Anyone can post a video to YouTube, a podcast to iTunes, or a blog on Blogger. In fact, blogging has made the roving reporter activity a manageable one in many classrooms. Unlike years ago, blog services make publishing a snap. No knowledge of Dreamweaver, HTML, or FTP is required.
Today, almost all handheld and portable devices are Wi-Fi enabled. With access to the Internet, these devices can get to those online videos, podcasts, and blogs. And for about the same price paid for our Palm handhelds in 2001, schools can buy a complete laptop. The ASUS Eee PC and the XO are two in the growing list of ultra-small and ultra affordable laptops. Additionally, according to Apple, the iPod touch is becoming a "mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform." A bevy of applications are on their way for the iPod touch and there's no denying it has a powerful Web browser. And we mustn't forget handheld computers from the likes of Palm and HP are packing lots of useful features nowadays.
There's no denying the Internet is essential for teaching and learning. It's important that every student can access the information, tools, and social interactions the Web offers. I'm pleased that 2008 brings affordable, portable computers so the Internet can be in the hands of students. I want to see more schools invite these devices into their doors with the goal of each and every student having the educational benefits of a computer and the Web. An extraordinary classroom experience can be a reality for teachers and students!
Labels: blogging, handhelds, tonyvincent
Announcing TonyVincent.net
TonyVincent.net is online! While learninginhand.com covers the world of learning with tools that fit in students' and teachers' hands, TonyVincent.net focuses on online and digital technologies. Here are just some of the topics TonyVincent.net will cover: online publishing, Google Earth, digital video, RSS feeds, Wikipedia, information literacy, free software, and Web 2.0 services. These "internety" topics and handheld computing will often overlap and probably give me headaches when trying to figure out on to which site to post the content.Currently, TonyVincent.net features a blog and forums. Unlike the learninginhand site where I use Dreamweaver to upload an HTML file for each page, TonyVincent.net uses a content management system (Drupal for those who want to know this kind of stuff). What does that exactly mean? With Drupal I'll be able to organize content on TonyVincent.net with just a couple of mouse clicks. Once there's more content, I will to have TonyVincent.net sorted by subject area. Posting in blog-format is a great convenience for the blogger, but it isn't so great for a reader who wants information on one topic. So watch for site organization and features to be added in the future. You can also look forward to layout changes and lots of tweaks as I improve the site.
As Dale pointed out in a blog comment, it takes some effort to keep up with all of the content I provide online. If you really want to keep up on everything I post, subscribe to my RSS feeds:
- Learning in Hand Blog: Handheld computing, podcasting, and iPods
http://feeds.feedburner.com/learninginhand - Learning in Hand Forums: Discussions about handheld computing, podcasting, and iPods
http//feeds.feedburner.com/forums - TonyVincent.net: Education & Technology for Teachers
http://tonyvincent.net/?q=rss.xml - Soft Reset Podcast: The podcast for those using handhelds in education
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SoftReset - Our City Podcast: Learn about cities from the kids who live there
http://feeds.feedburner.com/OurCity - Learning in Hand: iPods Podcast: Using iPods for teaching and learning
http://vincent.libsyn.com/rss - TonyVincent.info: My online scrapbook of what I'm finding or doing online
http://tonyvincent.info/rss
Labels: blogging, rss, tonyvincent, web2.0
