Google Classroom Video

There is a new tool for a teacher to use called Google Classroom. Google Classroom is a new free LMS that embeds many of the Google Drive Apps. The video was created by Aubrey Harrison, a instructional technology specialist with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.

Inspiration and BYOD

This is the first post in literally years. I feel ashamed but was inspired this past spring by Kevin Honeycutt to tell my story as an educator. The stories that can come out of my school building as teachers inspire high poverty and multicultural/lingual students to strive for success would be totally invigorating to a teacher that is in a rut. One of the policies that my district has put into place that we are trying to come to grips with is BYOD or Bring Your Own Device. The primary reason that is found in the literature to move toward BYOD is to limit the cost for the school district to provide technology for students. There are several other arguments against BYOD but the one that is most relevant to me is the poverty gap. An example of the poverty gap compared to other schools is the number of students driving to school. We have a student population of almost 1800 students but less than 50 students drive to school. Our students cannot afford to drive cars to school. When they begin to look at cell phones, tablets, and laptops, they know that it is out of their family's economic reach. A school such as mine cannot effectively put a BYOD in place.

Another issue with BYOD that arises is the infrastructure that will need to be in place. Can we imagine almost 2000 devices being on the WiFi system at a school at the same time? Most schools' systems would slow to a crawl or crash completely. When the system becomes unreliable, teachers will not use it because it takes valuable instructional time that is crucial in our high stakes testing environment.

These our two of the reasons I disagree with BYOD in a school system as it relates to my current situation. I can see it working in smaller more affluent schools, but BYOD is not a panacea fix to our current shortage in education funding.

Week 4 Leadership Post

My presentation project is a collaborative research project completed by my students using various Web 2.0 tools trying to understand why disadvantaged students don't pursue higher education. I want to present my project at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education Conference in Austin, Texas. Outside of it being one of the few that fits my time window, I selected this conference because they have breakout sessions for individual teaching subjects. This is important because it increases the probability that the audience will be truly interested in implemented the ideas in the classroom.



Week 1 Leadership Post Link: Mentor to Emulate


Week 2 Leadership Post Link: Paper or Present

Week 3 Leadership Post Link:  Where to Present

Link to my leadership presentation, click on the picture below:

 

Week 4 Peer Comment #2

Joe is a talented musician that doubles as a music teacher at two elementary schools in New Jersey. He desires to pass on his love for music to the students he teach.













Here is an excerpt from a recent post in his blog:

My response:

Week 4 Peer Comment #1

For my first peer comment this week, I chose to respond to a paragraph from Mindi's blog that resonated with me. As you can see to the right, Mindi is very passionate for her students and they love her in return.

Excerpt from Mindi's blog:

My response:

Week 4 Reading Post

Chapter 9 -12 Art of Possibility by Ben and Ros Zander

These chapters, for that fact the entire book, is about humility. Humility is a concept that the United States has difficulty grasping. We have a tendency to believe that humility is allowing everyone to tread all over us. It is not that at all. The majority of the greatest leaders were humble. Humility is being able not to think of yourself higher than what you really are. The chapter on Being the Board is difficult to grasp if you are trying to play the game. If you are playing the game, then you have your own interest at heart. The board is there, evaluating and sometimes allowing consequences to happen. I think that part was missing in the book. The board has certain consequences in it in games such as Monopoly and Life. The board is the framework that the game is being played. When we play Monopoly, we evaluate were things are before we buy real estate. If we just bought several houses and hotels in hope of catching our opponent, but do not leave enough money for the dreaded street repair bill card, then we quickly downsize. Our opponent did nothing to us, but the framework of the game did. We need to continually look at the framework that surrounds our life and even become it in order to become successful and enjoy all that life has to offer.

Week 3 Leadership Post- Where to Present

Options=Limited

In all honesty, I feel like I have been caught in a downward spiral with the leadership project, but I will try not to take things too seriously:) I was wanting to present closer to my home in North Carolina, but most conferences have stopped taking proposals. I don't want to write a paper because I enjoy the interaction at conferences as people exchange ideas on more topics than those presented. So I have made my choice of conferences:

Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education in Austin, Texas first week of March. One the deadline is appropriate, January 16, but there are sessions for different disciplines that are taught in the classroom which will be beneficial to me. An added bonus would be to go see a Mavs game with Mindi if I can make a side trip to Dallas:)