Gnets Project Begins Two

One of the teachers was not there for the meetings because of circumstances outside of her control. The other teachers were kind enough to give me some background information about Mrs. C. She is the other middle school teacher and teaches Math. Her class is focusing on area, perimeter, integers, algebra, and measurements right now. I will need to spend actual time with her to gauge her level of comfort with the technology and to discover exactly what she wants the technology to help with in the classroom. I want to not only cover the teacher's content but also to encourage her to enjoy the technology and further the student learning in the classroom.

Next I met with Mr. W. who is a 3rd and 4th grade teacher of all subjects. His situation is very different because he does not have access to the Smartboard in his classroom. I asked about his access to a computer in order to be able to create the Smartboard lessons, and he does has his own personal laptop, but the screen does not work. He connects his laptop up to the classroom computer in order to see the screen from his laptop. Mr. W has had experience with Smartboard technology a little bit from playing with the one in his wife's classroom. i would say that his skills are where he could quickly be proficient with level 2 of the technology with an introduction and refresher course. He also introduced me to the idea of using the Wii Remote as a piece of Smartboard technology, which I am going to further research. The lesson he wants to create is one about geometry where he can have his students manipulate and build something on the Smartboard to get the students engaged.

The final teacher I met with was Mr. C, who wants to create a lesson for social studies. His 3rd and 4th grade class is learning about the Native Americans, colonies, and the United States Government today. This is a part of their citizenship learning. He does not have much experience at all with technology and does not consider himself comfortable at all with using technology, but he is more than willing to learn. Like Mr. W, he is excited and sees the potential of the Smartboard as a learning and behavior tool in the classroom. I would rate his level to be below 1 because he does not have a clue about the technology as far as how it works or what it is capable of as far as enhancing his classroom. I want to make him more aware of other great websites and games on the Internet that he could project onto the Smartboard and allow his class to participate together in the activity.

At the regular computer class at the library, we had the most people that we have ever had come. Dawn and I actually had to split the class, so that I could walk through setting up email addresses while she worked with our regular group about archiving and organizing emails. Everyone seemed to have a great time and learned a lot. Our regular group has come a long way and really works hard to master the concepts that we teach before returning to class the next week. Dawn set up two private lessons for later on the week because one woman had a particular set of computer problems that could not be answered adequately in the classroom setting. A nurse also brought in a special needs man who wanted to learn more about how to work a computer, so we scheduled him a separate class in order for him to get the most out of his learning experience.

I came to help Dawn with the class for the man with special needs because that is my field of study. I only wish that his helper could have or would have given me more background information about this mans abilities because I could not very well gauge his strengths and weaknesses for the class. I just kind of had to fly blind about what we were going to learn and try with him. He has a great capacity for learning technology and its difficult concepts. His touch pad skills improved drastically over the course of the lesson. He also understood the concepts of closing, enlarging, and minimizing the page on the screen using the Macintosh formatting. One great challenge with him was that I do not believe that he can read, so finding what he wants on the Internet is going to have to be accomplished through visual cues like pictures. He really enjoyed our lesson and talked more and more as the lesson progressed.

As you can see, a lot of my time was also spent blogging and make connections. This was a very productive and successful week on the project!

(10 hours)

Gnets Project Begins

I went and did my initial evaluations of the teachers on Monday at GNETS. The whole experience was very positive. I got to meet with four of the five teachers that I was scheduled to meet with. One seemed slightly reluctant, one was overjoyed, one was interested, and one was grateful for the help with technology. I am very excited to be a part of this project. We talked about their subject content and how I could help integrate the Smartboard into their classrooms. Now my responsibility will be to help them begin creating lessons and ideas for the parent breakfast presentations in May.

For Mrs. B, I will be creating a lesson about geography focussing in central or south america and/or Europe. Mrs. B brought up the interesting issues about how these students will not read or do homework, so powerpoints and technology cut out a lot of the fluff and excess that just confuse these students and do not increase their understanding of the concepts. She has also found that the Smartboard technology that is available is geered towards the elementary level of entertainment. I am going to work to make the lesson appropriate for middle schoolers, and I am going to look into the pre-made lessons that I found the other day to see what is available on the internet for 6th grade curriculum. The pre-made lessons would also fight the teacher's fear of the Smartboard taking too much time out of her day in planning.
On my initial evaluation, this teacher can turn on and preform the basic concepts (level 1). I do not believe that she is at a point where she is capable of using the Smart Notebook technology to its full extent. So we will be working for Mrs. B to be on level 2 very soon. I actually could see her going beyond level two very quickly and becoming a media rich teacher at level 3.


For Mrs. J, I will be working with her on a science lesson. She teaches life science, earth science, and physical science. I am going to look into dissection programs for her to use in her classroom. One idea she had was to have her students build a machine on the Smartboard. Her 5th graders are also learning about the solar system right now. I found and showed her a solar system program that came with the Smartboard technology. She is surprisingly just a beginner on the technology. I was very upset to learn that she is one of only two teachers in the building who has access to the Smartboard in her classroom but did not have the software on her computer to use to plan lessons. She had no idea how the Smartboard actually worked except for as a projector. Her Smartboard was not actually in her room but placed in a side room. She is also interested in learning other technology programs like webquests. I would also love to introduce her to the idea of Webspiration which would be so cool on a Smartboard! I took the time to load the software onto her computer and show her how to run a few basics. I asked her to play around with the programming at home some this week so that she will be more familiar with the technology next time we meet. As for her level rating, she is truly going to need a lot of help to get to level 1. We need to start with the basics with Mrs. J. She was so excited about everything I showed her and we talked about during our time together. She hugged me, told me that I was the best, and said that she loved me. I definitely won her over for sure.

(8 hrs, 10 min)

Computer Classes and Spring Plans

I am helping Dawn to teach introduction to computer classes on Tuesday nights from 5:15 until 6:30. In December, we had a slower time getting people to come, but now we have a nice following that come every week and are improving on their computer skills. I love being able to help these people learn more about computers and technology. They are so sweet and eager to learn. It has been an interesting challenge to learn about English Language Learners and cultural differences in dealing with different backgrounds when it comes to technology.

The next project is on its way with a proposal written about the Smart Boards. I have also been trained on the Smart Board technology and have the software on my computer to work with and make new projects to help the teachers. I will be meeting the teachers in 30 minute increments over the next two weeks at GNETS. I will be assessing each teacher's level of comfort with the technology and what their overall classroom goals are. Then we will begin to make lessons for each teacher to present to the school on parent day in May. I will be gaging the success of the project based on the improvement in the teacher abilities and whether or not the Smart Board adds to the overall goals of the teacher's classroom.

Right now I am working on coming up with initial evaluation questions and ways to gage each teachers proficiency on the Smart Board. I will be asking the teachers to turn on the machine, set up the machine, calibrate the machine and write on the board for their basic level of understanding. Then I will move on to gage the teacher's abilities to use the programs the are provided through Smart Board. The final level of ability is going to be if the teachers can take outside media and integrate this into the daily classroom and the Smart Board.

I am also preparing for speaking at two conferences this spring on the topic of Smart boards in the classrooms. In the near future, I will also be working as a receptionist in the Digital Bridges Center when it opens for a few hours a week.

This is just a quick overview of what is going on right now.

(11 hrs 50 min)