Thursday, November 29, 2012

3 Steps to Keeping Classroom Technology Safe


Hello Educators,

Having technology in the classroom enhances curriculum and engages students.  Many educators today have one classroom iPad or small sets of iPads, iPods or other mobile devices. When technology is lost or stolen students miss out on important learning opportunities.  Here are some important safety measures to keep technology in the classroom for students.

1.  When storing technology in the classroom it is critical to take precautions against theft.  Devices such as video cameras, iPads, and laptops should be put away in a locked and secured place such as a file cabinet or cupboard when not in use.  Even syncing trays or carts should be locked out of site.

2.  Always establish and enforce classroom protocols for student use of technology.  Develop a clear check out and check in process so equipment is accounted for and does not "walk out the door".  Here is an example of a Del Norte County Unified School District developed iPad Classroom Use Protocol that can be used or adapted for your site.  You can also read about developing a responsible use policy and establishing classroom management procedures on the Edutopia blog post, Mobile Learning Support for New Teachers, by Lisa Dabbs.

3.  If you have an iPad, iPod or other iOS device in your classroom please review the information below about installing the Find My iPhone app on your device in case it is ever lost or stolen.  Find My iPhone is an app that lets you remotely track an iOS device and lock it or you can even erase it's data.  This information may also be useful to you for personal iPhones or iOS devices.  

Please note - this must be setup BEFORE a device is lost or stolen.




Watch this video tutorial of how to use the Find My iPhone app:



Hopefully, this information is helpful to you.  I've shared this with my district after four iPads went missing in a classroom.  I would love to hear from other schools about how they manage and track mobile devices not in a 1:1 program.  If you have suggestions or use protocols that have worked for you please share in the comments.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Celebrating Success from Data Driven Instruction

My school district recently implemented Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) and the data teams process for incorporating data driven instruction.  In the first three months of school we have had many successes as we focus on improving student learning.  Liz Calleja is one of our new data coaches for the school district and recently shared in a district newsletter some successes her data team had experienced.  I wanted to share this on my blog because you can feel the excitement in her post.  Schools implementing PLC's know it is hard work.  Our teachers are putting in many ours of deep reflection and learning to improve their practice and learning outcomes for all students.  They deserve to be celebrated and so I am posting this one success here, but there are many other successes occurring every day.  Thank you to the teachers of Del Norte County Unified School District for jumping in to this intensive and important work.

Guest post from Liz Calleja, Data Coach:

Celebrating Successes by Liz Calleja, Data Coach
There has been much success in our Data Teams.  Vertical teams present their own unique challenges and rewards.  Kindergarten and 1st grade have elected to work together to form a data team.  To start the year K/1 had the largest variety of baseline assessments to work from out of the K-8 groups.  We were amazed to analyze not just the deficits within the assessments, but a major deficit of assessment was also found.  There was no reading comprehension assessment in the K/1 DPA.  This team decided that because learning to read is one of the main charges of K-2 we needed to craft a new assessment.  We unpacked alike K and 1st reading comprehension standards.  From this we created a Common Formative Assessment (CFA) on Key Details of reading comprehension for stories.  We were blown away when the results came back and we had the majority of students Far Below Basic (FBB)!!!  In the five weeks that we spent on the first cycle of this goal we improved the proficiency from an average of FBB in 1st grade to an average of proficient.  Kindergarten went from FBB to Basic on this first grade standard!  From doing the pre-assessment it shed some light on our instructional work.  All the teachers on the team in October agreed - kids understand character!  They know Spiderman and Princesses.  We were shocked to see that most our students scored FBB on character.  The academic vocabulary tripped them up!  Our instructional strategies changed knowing this information.  During Step 6 (Monitor and Evaluate), in November, we created another CFA based on informational text key details.  We had to really go deep when unpacking standards the standards again, to clearly define the two types of reading students need to recognize text structure of, fiction and nonfiction.  This is implicit not explicit in the standards.

Another great success is shown with the flexibility of the teachers to get a CFA that fits the learning need.  The 4/5/6 team was working on itembank to adjust the CFA.  The goal is based on identifying structural patterns found in text.  The first CFA we created assessed the multiple types of text structures.  Upon evaluation we decided to narrow the focus to just compare/contrast.  This is more specific and attainable.  Itembank, however, didn't have enough options to create an appropriate assessment on that one piece of the standard.  (The answer to every related question was compare/contrast!)  We ended up deciding to use a Study Island test and a teacher on the team put it in Illuminate Education [our data management system] so we could easily access reports.  This creative collaboration among our teachers is what will facilitate the best student learning.

Lastly, I would like to point out the importance of analyzing the performance bands on Illuminate Education.  One team was struggling to create an instructional plan for the FBB group.  When we looked closely, the range within this group was too broad.  There were kids ranging from 0-59% all lumped into the FBB group.  We have decided to adjust the performance bands; 90-100% Advanced, 70-89% Proficient, 60-69% Basic, 40-59% Below Basic, 0-39% Far Below Basic.  This will allow for a more accurate instructional plan based on student performance bands.

K/1 Comprehension (Key Details) Baseline/Results Indicator SR & MK Combined Data

Early October 2012
Group
# Students
Character (1)
Setting (2)
Problem (1)
Solution (1)
Total (5)
School 1- Kindergarten
14
0
0
0
0
0/70
School 1-1st grade
16
0
1
7
6
14/80
School 2- Kindergarten
25
3
0
14
2
19/125
School 2- 1st grade
24
1
0
16
11
28120
Totals
79 scores
4/79
1/158
37/79
19/79
61/395

Early Nov 2012
Group
# Students
Character (1)
Setting (2)
Problem (1)
Solution (1)
Total (5)
School 1- Kindergarten
11
8
9
5
6
28/55
School 1- 1st grade
13
13
14
12
6
45/65
School 2- Kindergarten
27
18
16
16
24
74/135
School 2- 1st grade
25
22
36
20
12
90/125
Totals
76 scores
61/76
75/152
53/76
48/76
237/380


Enjoy the small successes!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

10 Things You Need to Know About Google Docs/Drive


I recently completed my first Google Docs/Drive training for my school district and plan to offer it again in a few weeks.  It is an intro workshop that I did for a one hour session. I plan to extend the next session to an hour and a half. Take a look, I hope you find it helpful.  If you have comments or suggestions please share.




You can also checkout this awesome Introduction to Google Drive for Educators from @friEDTechnology