Using QR Codes to Make an Interactive Yearbook

About a year ago, I wrote a post proclaiming my excitement about QR codes in the classroom. Since that time, the little square anomalies have blown up and now appear pretty much everywhere (last weekend I even spotted one taped to the door of the place where I go to get my hair cut).

My school, too, has made strides in using QR codes. One now appears on our official school letterhead, and one is prominently displayed in the main lobby that links to a supplemental video for our online book clubs. Most notably, however, is the sudden appearance of them in this year's student yearbook.

I have worked with our art teacher and yearbook coordinator to include embedded videos in QR code form that correspond with the events that are memorialized on the pages of the yearbook. It's a way to make the yearbook a more accurate snapshot of what life was like throughout the year.

Our efforts did not go unnoticed. Local news channel, WIVB, heard about our yearbooks and did a quick segment on our use of technology to connect the physical and digital worlds. You can read their news story here or watch the story below.

 

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5 Awesome Things You Can Do With an IPad and an LCD Projector

I've always wanted a document camera in my classroom, so yesterday I made my own - using my iPad. Here's a quick rundown of how to do this:

• Purchase a VGA Adapter Cable. You can pick one up online for around 20 bucks.
• Create your iPad stand. For mine, I borrowed a ring stand from the science department and clamped it to a clipboard. It was sturdy and could safely accommodate the weight of my iPad.
  
• Use a VGA cable to connect the adapter to the projector. You now have a fully functioning document camera!

Why might someone want to do this, you ask? I've only been experimenting with mine for two days, and I've already stumbled on five mind-blowing uses.

1. Use it as a document camera
Once the iPad is connected to the projector and "mounted" onto the ring stand, the most basic use of this set up is as a document camera. Simply open the camera app and you're ready to go. As an English teacher, this is a natural fit in my classroom. Today, for example, while students worked on rough drafts essays on examples of irony in O. Henry's The Ransom of Red Chief, I circulated the room and occasionally scooped up a paper and slid it under the iPad. It projected nicely onto the screen and I was then able to use these student papers to give suggestions as well as to have the group peer edit. It was far more efficient that having students line up at my desk to individually edit with me.

2. Record demonstrations
Switch the camera app to video mode, hit record, and you now have a work area capable of recording demonstrations and voice narration. This is an effortless way for teachers to kill two birds with one stone- while providing instruction in class, they are simultaneously creating a video "study guide" that can be posted on the class website or blog for students to review.

3. Real-time Kahn Academy
If you're not familiar with the wildly popular Khan Academy videos, click here to see what you've been missing. If you're already aware of the instructional potential behind the Flipped Classroom concept, then give it a try using your iPad. Similar to recording demonstrations, apps like Show Me and ScreenChomp allow the user to create a video that captures finger strokes as well as voice narration. Again, these videos can be recorded live in class and then used later as asynchronous review for students.

4. Hands-on mind mapping
I've always considered mind mapping to be a natural fit for tablet devices because brainstorming tends to work best when ideas can be easily manipulated, moved, and reorganized. Apps like Popplet and MindMash are great for doing just that, and the addition of a projector makes it possible for mind mapping on the iPad to become a group process rather than an individual or small group task.

5. Annotating Student Work
Let's take a closer look at using the iPad as a document camera. In addition to simply viewing student work, the iPad can also very easily snap pictures. From there, teachers can quickly load that image into an app like Doodle Buddy or Show Me to create an environment where the work can be easily annotated, highlighted, or otherwise marked up by either the teacher or other participating students.

I'm sure I'm missing all kind of fantastic ideas. What are your thoughts?

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Public Relations Idea

Almost every weekend, my wife and I pack up the kids and head to Buffalo's Elmwood-Bidwell Farmer's Market. We enjoy the fresh produce and it gives us an excuse to roam the city afterward in search of a local spot to grab lunch.

Today, I was intrigued by a new stand with a sign promoting the Wisteria Charter School initiative. Based on the conversations I heard while loitering nearby the stand and the flyer they handed me, the initiative is comprised of a group of teachers looking to establish a new Waldorf-inspired charter school in the city. Regardless of your opinion of charter schools, you have to admit that setting up a stand in a public and highly trafficked place in order to raise awareness is a pretty good idea.

It made me think. What if public schools did this too? What if they set up stands at local supermarkets, libraries, or malls as a means to connect with the community and share exciting things that are happening in the district? The social perception of education is quite negative lately, so I'm sure teachers would be willing to donate a few hours to staff the booth and help improve the district's public image. What an excellent opportunity to share upcoming events, highlight student work, and reinforce the district's commitment to the community.

Just a thought.

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Using Edmodo in the Classroom

This year my school decided to implement a summer reading program, and I think it’s a fantastic idea. I’d like to naively assume that all my students read on their own during the summer, but the annual September regression suggests otherwise. The summer reading program is simple – students read two books, one from a list of “required” readings and a second of their choosing. Then, they complete a brief assignment for each book as proof of reading. It’s not a punitive program, so I do think it actually encourages reading outside of school.

My only concern, however, is that once the students leave school for the last time before break, I will have no opportunity to engage them in conversation about what they are reading. So I had an idea.

Several years ago, I discovered the educational social networking site called Edmodo. It functioned similar to Facebook, but had a lot of education-specific features and teacher controls that made it an excellent tool for online discussion and facilitation. At the time, I had no use for it, and the biggest mistake with technology is to use it just for the sake of using it, so I quietly tucked the site into my mental suitcase. But I thought of Edmodo while mulling over ways to promote the new reading club. What if I set up groups for each required book and then used it to facilitate online discussion over the summer? It’s just crazy enough to work.

I’m sure I’ll be posting on this more throughout the summer. It could be a tremendous success or an abysmal failure (although my suspicion is that the project will land somewhere in between), but itll be an interesting experiment in the ways students learn online and how teachers can further extend the school day beyond the agrarian calendar.

Here is the quick how-to I used with my students to get them set up and logged in to Edmodo. Feel free to use it with your own classes.


Edmodo Tutorial

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10 Ways to Use QR Codes in the Classroom

QR codes are 2 dimensional computer-generated codes that can be scanned and read by mobile devices or webcams. The first time a colleague showed me QR codes, I was literally giddy with excitement. I immediately recognized the potential for QR codes in my classroom.

Creating the QR code is surprisingly easy. I use QRstuff.com - simply type in the text or url of whatever content you want the code to direct toward, and you're good to go. It's literally that easy. From there, the QR code can be downloaded, added to worksheets, emailed, etc. It can even be scanned directly from an LCD projector or computer screen!

Here are my top ten ways to use QR codes in the classroom.



1. Add a QR code to school letterhead that points to the school website.

2. Use an interactive whiteboard to record notes/math equations/brainstorming/etc. Host the video online and add a QR code to a homework assignment so students can be retaught from home.

3. Hide the answers to a study guide behind a QR code. Copy the code onto the study guide so students can check their answers.

4. Have students write children's books and then record them reading their work. Upload the audio online and add a QR code linking to the audio for each page of the book to create an interactive reading experience.

5. For open house/parent night, have each teacher in the building create a brief video introducing him/herself. Upload the videos and create QR codes that they can hang on their doors. This way parents can take a self tour of the building and get a feel for the quality teachers working in the building.

6. Have students record book reviews and attach the QR code to the inside cover of the book.

7. Create a survey using Google Forms. Print multiple codes (one for each choice in the survey) and then use it to poll the class in anonymous surveys. You'll be able to see immediately how many times a particular code was scanned.

8. Print QR codes that point to your classroom homework/events calendar. Have students attach them to their agendas or daily planners .

9. Create QR codes that link to supplemental materials and add them to the teacher edition of textbooks. This way valuable resources don't get lost in endless network folders on a forgotten flash drive.

10. During a field trip, give students a handout with multiple QR codes that provide supplemental information coinciding with different locations on the trip. Students will have a guided tour even if they are not with the teacher.

Bonus - 11. QR codes are a great way to play pranks (see below, if you dare).

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Do Typewriters Produce Better Writing Than Computers?

About a year ago, I found a used 1960s portable typewriter for sale. I thought it would be an interesting novelty to share with my students, so I purchased it and brought it in to my classroom. I figured it may peak some interest, but my students’ responses were truly memorable. Several simply had no idea what a typewriter even was; nearly all admitted to never having used one. This was evident when I began to let them experiment on the machine. There were baffled by the missing ability to delete and correct mistakes. One student even apologized after the carriage return bell sounded. He thought he had broken the typewriter!

I was a bit intrigued by the dinosaur as well; I am 29 years old, so other than pounding on my mother’s electric typewriter as a kid, I had no experience with this medium. As a novelty, I decided to write a few blog posts on the typewriter (I later learned this was a niche form of blogging called typecasting). I found that my writing and thought process changed considerably – I was more cautious about syntax and word choice because I was unable to go back and edit, and the length of time it took to write each passage increased simply because my finger dexterity forced me to take my time and firmly strike each key. In the end, my efforts produced a well-thought piece of writing.

I began to wonder how typewriters would affect my students’ writing. After all, a common complaint by teachers is that students rush through writing assignments and are usually hasty when it comes to planning quality responses. I wondered if my district could learn something about teaching the writing process from these archaic machines.

For the past year, I have been slowly accumulating typewriters from community members and friends so that I can use them with my students. I have almost 20 manual typewriters dating from the 1930s to the early 1980s.

This Spring I am planning a writing project to determine the affects of manual typewriters on demand writing tasks. Judging by my own experiences, I predict that the quality and depth of the responses will be better for students who type using a manual typewriter rather than a laptop.

By no means am I suggesting schools abandon computers for typewriters; rather I feel that a lot can be learned by examining how students write using these devices. As more schools move toward a 1:1 environment, this information will become invaluable.

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Should Schools look to Corporate Sponsorship to Ease Financial Woes?

We are in an economy where surplus budgets simply don’t exist. Because of this, school districts are forced to balance their budgets by trimming fat; sometimes in the form of important educational services or personnel positions. Unfortunately, this kind of action is often unavoidable and results in few if any positive outcomes - students suffer because of lack of services, supplies, or technology, and the morale and overall building atmosphere among faculty and staff is negatively affected as well. A balanced budget is a must, and many districts simply don’t have any other option but to make the necessary cuts. What else can they possibly do?

When the well runs dry, searching for water in new places is always an option.

That was one line of thinking that arose from a survey of mayoral candidates in Chicago, Illinois. One candidate, William Walls III suggested easing Chicago schools’ financial woes by allowing larger corporations an opportunity to purchase naming rights for schools. This may not be a new idea, but with the struggling economic recovery it’s an idea that is beginning to look more like a possibility than a crackpot scheme.

Pro
The New York Times article Name that School, Trim that Deficit describes a possible deal between communication giant Sprint and Chicago’s largest city high school, Lane Tech where rights to apply Sprint’s namesake to the school could bring in $600,000 annually. Furthermore, sponsorship of individual classrooms by other companies could bring in more cash making the physical school buildings worth millions in yearly revenue that districts simply don’t have access to currently. The potential (and solution to current financial burdens) is almost blinding.

Con
Any corporation willing to invest that much money in a school is going to expect more than just their logo above the main entrance. This is where it gets dangerous. Will schools begin making decisions based on the best interest of their sponsor and not their students? Also, what happens when a sponsor chooses to allow a contract to lapse, leaving a school with a far less money and a budget that is used to a healthy pocketbook?

Conclusion
The bottom line is that schools are in desperate need of financial support. The immediate result of corporation-sponsored schools would be an lessening of tensions for students, school personnel, tax payers, etc. but allowing large corporations to have a hand in public education could drastically change the way decisions are made. These dangers are hypothetical at this point, but by no means are the possible negative side effects limited to those mentioned here. What awaits to be seen is if the reward is worth the risk.

Not all sponsorship is good idea.

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Can Online Courses Enhance High School?

I haven't written much about this, but last Winter I was accepted into the Educational Leadership program at Niagara University. The degree will certify me to hold both administrative building and district leadership positions. I love my job as a teacher, but no one knows what the future may hold and I like the idea that I have the option to advance if that is something I one day choose to pursue.

Currently, I have the pleasure of attending classes taught by former New York Regents Chancellor, Robert Bennett. He is still active in Regents decisions which means I get the chance to hear weekly from someone at the top of the ladder when it comes to educational policy-making in New York State. It's like getting a behind-the-scenes look at education.

Tonight's topic in class was high school graduation requirements. Chancellor Bennett warned us that it was an area the the Regents Board was investigating, and would ultimately be changing in the reletive near future. These changes would most likely involve the credit hours needed to graduated and required seat time in class, but neither of these things will be quick or easy to implement. Both would require either hiring more teachers or increasing the pay of those who are already employed, and this seems improbable considering the state of New York laid off 58,000 teachers this September.

So how do we make high school more rigorous and expansive without further crippling the state budget?

I read an article the other day about a school district in Ohio experimenting with the idea of moving classes online in the event of a snow day. This idea is not without some serious flaws (what happens to kids without Internet access, for example?), but it has potential nonetheless.

Would it be possible to extend seat time, so to speak, without extending the school day?

How can this be mandated?

What will it look like?

What happens to students who do not have Internet access?

How will we prepare teachers?

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Using MP3 Players in the Classroom

I received a box in the mail today containing 15 Coby 1GB MP3 players.

They're no iPod, but you know what? I'm okay with that. And in some cases, they may actually be better than an iPod – at least for the purpose I'm looking for them to serve. They only cost $23; far cheaper than, say, an 8GB iPod Touch. Cheap means disposable, which is a good quality to have when being handled daily by middle schoolers. Also, cheap means fewer features. While limiting in potential, it makes using the players more manageable. For example, I purposely ordered an mp3 player without a radio feature. Now when I load material and hand it over to a student, I know that is the only thing he/she will be listening to.

I had an idea exactly 362 days ago – just short of a full year. It has mutated and expanded a bit since then, but now that I have the tools, I'm ready to make my idea a reality.

Here are 3 ways I plan to use my new MP3 players in the classroom:

Audio Books – Not only is there a wealth of free audio books available through sites such as Project Gutenberg and Librivox, but students can also record books as part of a classroom audio library. If students choose to record a title that is within the public domain, it can be hosted online and shared with the world – talk about authentic audience! I currently have two students who spend their lunch period each day recording an audio book version of the famous Jack London book, Call of the Wild.

Lecture/Guided Notes – One problem that I have found with running learning centers in my middle school classroom is that the teacher turns into a living pinball, constantly bouncing between raised hands. I have yet to try it, but I plan on using the mp3 players as a station in my class. I can record a listening passage, or even a selection from whatever novel we may be studying. Included with this recording can be comprehension questions, clarifications, etc. – in short, what I would have to explain and re-explain to that station throughout the day. Students would be able to replay things they may have missed, and it will allow me to focus on other stations in the room that may need closer attention. It's about as close to cloning myself as I will ever get!

Review – Our team has a problem this year with chatty study halls. It's not all of the kids, but a few disruptive ones are all it takes to light the fuse. I mentioned the mp3 players to my Social Studies teacher, and she volunteered to record review questions and answers for her upcoming unit test. We're going to load them onto the mp3 players and hand them out to select kids during study hall. The result should be twofold – they'll be quiet, and may actually learn something in the process!

What am I missing? How else can I get the most bang for the 23 bucks spent on each of these little gadgets?

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All Typewriters are not Created Equal

Below is the 2nd of my series of posts exploring the use of old manual typewriters. Read the first post, here.

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Using Typewriters in the Classroom

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Grammar Enthusiasts VS. Dunkin' Donuts

When did society decide to stop following even the most basic rules of grammar and punctuation? Take this sign, for example. I passed two Dunkin' Donuts restaurants on the way home from work today and both had these taped to the windows. Presumably they were professionally made and distributed to the franchises by the corporation. How did the glaring grammatical error go unnoticed?

Maybe I'm being extreme, but this isn't the first time I've caught a problem with a sign at Dunkin' Donuts.

So I wrote a letter. You can read it in its entirely down below. Wouldn't it be cool if you wrote a similar letter to Dunkin' Donuts (or copied and pasted mine) stressing the importance of grammar in promotional documents? The corporation can be contacted here. If you do, leave me a note in the comments. You never know - maybe Dunkin' Donuts will be compelled to send monetary compensation!

I am writing to alert you of a serious problem that I noticed while visiting one of your Dunkin' Donuts locations. Taped to the front window of your restaurant was an advertisement for an upcoming promotional offer. It stated “Were opening at 3am on Black Friday.” From a marketing standpoint, this seems like a great idea, however it was not the strategy that alarmed me – it was the blatant grammatical error. The spelling difference between “were” and “we're” are subtle, but the meanings of these words are quite different. It is alarming to me that such a well-known restaurant chain would make such a silly error on a sign that is undoubtedly hanging in every franchise window. I am skeptical of ingesting food and drink from a restaurant that cannot catch simple mistakes that are easily detectable by the average 4^th grade student.

UPDATE: (11/17/09) - Dunkin' Donuts contacted me about 12 hours after this was posted. Read about it here.

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3 Reasons Why Teachers Should Blog

A blog is better than a resume


I’ve been chosen several times to sit on a hiring committee for my school. After each applicant leaves the formal interview, the informal one begins. I Google his/her name, email address, former place of employment – anything that may bring up something that will help us make the best possible decision for our students. Most times I find a password-protected Facebook account (at least they know how to stay discreet), but occasionally I find some comments on a message board, or even a blog.

These things give us a better picture of who the candidate is. The formal interview shows us that they know how to dress nicely and can (hopefully) proofread their resume, but a blog tells the whole story. You want to know a teacher’s educational philosophy? Have them write a dozen or so posts, and it will naturally emerge. The results will be more insightful than any pre-practiced interview question response.

Practice what you preach

Teachers not writing regularly is the same as a child being scolded to eat his vegetables while his mother dumps hers into the garbage disposal.

But there’s more to it than just the obligation to write.

Ideally, every student graduating from high school with have the ability to write. They learn how to write opinion pieces, compare/contrast expositions, research papers. We teach them the skills, but we don’t make them enjoy using them. They learn writing, but rarely feel writing. Shouldn’t teachers model the idea of writing for personal enjoyment rather than how to write to a rubric or complete a graphic organizer?

Reflection

Much of the teaching experience happens after the lesson. For most, it’s during the car ride home from work when we think about what went on in our classes – what went well, what flopped, what can be done better next time, how we can build on the experience. Putting these ideas into a blog makes them more substantial.

Take, for example, this blog post right now. I’m sitting here sifting through all the reasons why I enjoy keeping a blog. By doing so, I’m getting more out of the experience than if I were to just be thinking about it to myself. Meta-reflecting, I suppose. By putting it into my blog, I am responsible for it – and responsible for holding myself to whatever conclusion I arrive at.

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Using Storybird.com in the classroom

Do you remember that scene in Forest Gump where Lieutenant Dan appears on the dock as Gump sails his shrimping boat through the bay? Forest is so overcome by the excitement of seeing his old war buddy that he jumps overboard to swim to shore, leaving his boat to become a temporary analog of the famous Flying Dutchman ghost ship.

That’s usually how I react to new bits of technology. I don’t look back or anticipate potential problems – I blindly jump in. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I haven’t decided if using Storybird with my students is going to be a success, or one of my ideas that are prone to devastating failure. Storybird is a free service where users can create (collaboratively, if desired) their own stories using a collection of illustrations provided by the site.

Here’s my idea: We are finishing up a reading of Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon. The big question that keeps resurfacing throughout the unit is Is is better not to know? The kids seem to understand its meaning in the context of Charlie Gordon, but they’re having a hard time connecting it to their own lives.

I got to thinking – wouldn’t it be cool if they had to write a story that focused on that same essential question? Beginning next week students will begin working on writing a brief tale – a children’s story, perhaps – that centers around a character discovering something he/she perhaps would have been better off not knowing.

The project will get a bit trickier when they realize that Storybird does not allow a user to upload their own images. Students will have to choose a set of illustrations and fashion their story around the images available.

Having two variables – a required theme and a specific set of illustrations – may be too much for them. But I’ve already jumped off the dock with this one, so all there’s left to do is see who sinks and who swims.

Below is a sample story Songbird created to explain their vision as well as the handout I’m planning on using with students to explain how to use the site.


About us: a peek inside Storybird on Storybird


How to Use Storybird.com

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Audio Books in the Classroom

Last night @nbteacher sent out a tweet alerting his followers to Lit2Go – an audio book repository created and maintained by the University of Southern Florida. It's a collection of famous poems, short stories, and larger works that have fallen into the public domain and therefore free to use and share without the fear of copyright infringement. Lit2Go took these works and had them recorded as downloadable MP3 audio books.
I find audio books to be much less interesting than real books. It’s just not the same, like having someone retell a movie. Sure, you’d know what the movie was about, but few will dispute that it’s not the same thing as experiencing the feet-sticking-to-the-floor, greasy-popcorn-fingers joy of really being there first-hand.

Regardless, I can't help but think audio books have a place in the classroom. But where?

The mp3 recordings found on Lit2Go can be readily downloaded in printable, PDF format from popular public domain sites like Gutenberg.org. I spent much of the summer browsing this site and found a few good titles, but I wasn't sure what to do with them. Lit2Go gave me an idea.

Wouldn’t it be cool if students created their own repository of audio books similar to what USF has accomplished with Lit2Go. Not only would this transfer a sense of ownership to students, but it would give them real, authentic cause to practice reading fluency.

Good idea?

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