A bit of a vent...

Class sizes aren't going to change, and neither will our technology access problems/issues change.  I was sad to hear that the Director of Technology position has been cut due to budget issues.  Who is going to champion now for better access to technology?  Who is going to ensure that teachers have equal access to computer labs...because right now, that is not the case.  Who is going to finally say that computer labs are obsolete, that we shouldn't be taking kids out of our classroom to technology, but the technology should be brought INTO the classrooms?  Our students won't be proficient in 21st century skills if we keep 21 century skills only in technology class - just like we are all teachers of reading and writing in our specific content, we should all be teachers of 21st century skills - and that won't happen until we have better and equal access to what our students need.  

Noel 

Technology Glictches...

Students are completing their final of their photo essay.  They have been working on and off between Tech class and social studies and writing class - taking pictures, downloading them, editing them into black and white, formatting Word document to our specifications, pre-planning in social studies, pre-planning in writing, rough draft, revising, typing draft, revising...and revising more.  Finally, last week, all their work was coming together into the beautiful final piece.  It's been HARD work for them, and us.  Computer issues have been many, mainly...getting students onto the server, because they couldn't.  Other problems, students working faster than other kids...so what do you do when they get done?  Or how do you support those students who are seriously behind when the number of students who don't need lab time outweigh those who do?  What happens to the student project who was almost done, and the computer just completely crashed his project, and no matter what you say, it is MONTHS of exhaustive work that has been lost, and the prospect of starting over is just too much?  I don't have the answers, and it is discouraging.  

One last question...maybe someone can help?  We want students to get onto our laptops under their server log in so that we can save their project onto a flash drive while we are in the classroom during other work.  This worked for us well last year. We can move on, without having to be in the lab.  However, when students have tried to login using our laptop, Microsoft Word does not exist...and they can't pull their project up.  It comes up as a text edit box thing.  Ultimately, students can't pull their projects up on our laptops...is it because we have Microsoft 2011?  

Noel

Reflections on Chapter 7 - Keeping a Project Moving

This chapter discusses the  importance of communicating with all the teachers involved in a cross-curricular project; and ensuring students are on the right track by asking the right question and becoming an observer in the classroom.  I liked the section about asking higher order questions - claiming that these types of questions are part of the everyday life of a project based classroom.  I completely agree with this, as asking these types of questions is just good teaching.  

At one point in the chapter, the authors discuss having students ask good question (for an interview, or to form a historical question to research).  I was hoping that the authors would spend time on how to teach kids to write a quality question that would drive their own research (which is one of the new Colorado Standards for history).  I am disappointed and frustrated that this was not addressed.