It’s not the tools. It’s how to you use them.

I was biking along the coast of Block Island and I came across this sign at the end of a driveway.

I studied it for a second and realized it said O’Toole spelled out in tools. I got such a kick out of this sign and that I stopped to snap a picture despite my rush to make the ferry. I was thinking about this sign as I set up my classroom today.

It’s not about the tools. It’s how you use them. This year I am going to let this photograph serve as a reminder. I plan to learn from the O’Toole family’s example and use the tools in that I have always had in my classroom in new creative ways that push the boundaries of the classroom walls.

What inspired you this summer?

A Word About Wordles

I just showed my sister wordle.net. She loved it and is excited to frame her first worlde to decorate her daughter’s new room. Then she asked me how I use wordle.

Hmmm… although I love worlde and I have played with wordle, I have never used worlde in my classroom. I began to think about how I can use wordle in my classroom and ideas that other teachers have shared with me.

For those of you who have never heard of wordle. It’s a simple website that allows you to enter a series words. Then the stie organizes your words into a unique, colorful word splash. If you don’t like the layout of your wordle simply click the randomize button, and the site creates a new one. The more times you enter a specific word, the larger it appears in your wordle.

Through ChrisLAtkinson,who is part of my twitter network, I found a great blog called the wordle blog. It’s written by Jonathan Feinberg, the creator of worlde. One of his posts explains how to use wordle safely in your classroom. (Sometimes inappropriate wordles pop up in the gallery.) In other posts, he describes some unique uses of worlde. For example, he used it to compare inaugural addresses. It was interesting to see which buzzwords remain popular over the years.

This reminded me of a suggestion I heard from another teacher at the BLC Conference. She uses wordle when teaching students about overusing words in their writing. She simply copies and pastes a student’s composition into wordle. The student can clearly see that some words are larger than others, which means that the writer used them over and over, and over again. Wordle gives the students a nice visual and teaches them about overused words in a fun way.

I’ve heard of teachers using wordles to kick of a lesson or build background knowledge before reading a text. I was thinking about using wordle in the beginning of the year. I might have my students interview their classmates and then create a wordle about them. What are some ways you use wordle in your classroom or your own life?

The image was created on wordle.net

Why I Need a Writing Tablet in My Classroom

Screencasts are a great way to teach students 21^st century skills. They require the students to move beyond the 3 Rs reading, writing, and arithmetic and incorporate the 3 Cs: creating, communicating and collaborating.

When producing screencasts, the students have to work in teams to plan, write and create the final product. They have to think of creative ways to capture the attention of their audience and have to explain new math concepts in their own words. In today’s world, it is no longer acceptable for students to acquire new knowledge and keep it to themselves. It is their responsibility to move beyond the walls of the classroom and share their knowledge with the world.

We want our students to become life long learners which doesn’t mean that they will sign up for class after class. It means that they will have the ability to find resources and educate themselves and teach others. Two years ago my principal and I saw Alan November speak at the MASS Cue conference. He talked about transferring the responsibility of learning to the learners through classroom jobs. I was going to copy the notes I made but I found Gail Desler’s blog and feel she explained it adequately. One of the classroom jobs mentioned by November was screencasting.

Last year I spent a lot of time working on the jobs in isolation: blogging, podcasting, screencasting and more. This year my goal is to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, so I can transfer the control of learning to my students.

I found that my students loved making and watching each other’s screencasts. As I’m sure you all know, students hate explaining their thinking when performing math problems, but because screencasting is an authentic experience, my students wrote eagerly. They got a lot out of the experience, but it was hard to manage and eventually I was forced to phase out screencasting.

The problem was that I had one group of students at a time working on screencasts. Students needed the SMART Board to write out the math problems. The rest of the class was suppose to be doing independent work while the group used the headset and SMART Board at the front of the room As you can imagine, nobody could take their eyes of the screen. It was very distracting to the other students. Although I thought the process of having my students work together to explain math concepts to their peers was amazing, I was forced to give up production until now…

The writing tablet is the perfect solution to my problem. Students will be able to create screencasts without disrupting the learning of the peers and the control of learning will shift to the students.