Evernote Online Workshop with The Principal Center

Hello everyone! I wanted to let you know that I'm doing a Webinar on how to use Evernote in Education with The Principal Center in November. All of the details are below. If you are interested in registering, follow this link.

This is going to be a great 3-hour workshop where I will cover all of the different ways that Evernote can impact your life as an educator. I have spent countless hours working on the ins and outs of Evernote and developed a system that makes my life easier every day. Isn't that what every teacher is looking for in a web tool? If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a tweet (@TheNerdyTeacher), an email (onenerdyteacher@gmail.com) or visit the site.

Here is the information from The Principal Center

November 13 & 15, 2012
3-4:30 PM Pacific/6-7:30 PM Eastern (Two 90-minute sessions)

Both live sessions will also be recorded and sent to participants afterward

What can Evernote do for your classroom?

We've heard for decades about the paperless world that was supposedly coming. Paper may be here to stay, but the digital tools we've been waiting for are here, and they're more powerful than we could have imagined. Learn about the 21st century tool that's changing the way educators manage their information, from lesson plans to student work to class newsletters. 

Nicholas Provenzano, a high school English teacher and instructional technology expert from Grosse Pointe Public Schools in Michigan, has fully incorporated Evernote into his professional practice, from lesson planning to managing student work to communicating with families.

Agenda

In this in-depth workshop, he will show you how using Evernote in your classroom can enable you to:

• Get more organized, without having to spend more time on organization
• Keep track of documents and notes, such as lesson plans, handouts, and access them on any device - even your phone
• Search for any text, even inside photos and handwritten documents
• Share plans, assignments, or other information with colleagues, students, or parents, wtih a single click
• Collect student work electronically and maintain secure online portfolios for each student
• Avoid the clutter and time-consuming management that comes with maintaining paper lesson materials or hundreds of electronic files from year to year
• Maximize the benefits of technology for your teaching, even if you don't have the latest gear
• Provide accommodations for students and increase communication with families
• Let students do their homework from their smartphones, wherever they are
• Use cutting-edge accessories to make your work easier

Workshop Format

This workshop consists of two 90-minute sessions, which will be held live on our online webinar/workshop platform. Participants will be able to ask Nick questions during and after each session, and the recordings will be posted for download after each live session. Participants who aren't able to join the live sessions will be able to ask questions via our online forum, where we will respond and share additional materials to support your use of the strategies in your classroom.

If you would prefer to access all three hours of content in one sitting, you can simply download the presentation recordings after the second session.

The 1:1 Dilemma #edchat

I had a chance to attend another great edcamp this weekend (EdcampOU) and I sat in a session on 1:1 computing. A district very close to mine passed a bond and will be rolling out iPads to all of their students (Grades 1-12) in the coming year. Teachers were given them first and are being trained on how to use them. It was an excellent session run by Chris Stanley(@StanleyTeach).

I have a 1:1 situation in my classroom with a class set of iPads. While it has been an amazing experience, there are limitations when five students are sharing 1 device over the course of the day. For some of my students, this is the only access they will have to a computer for the entire day. I also do not get to leverage all of the power of the iPad because some apps require storage on the tablet. Despite those issues, the 1:1 experiment has been a huge success in my opinion.

The conversation about 1:1 spilled over into Twitter and one of my district's administrators, Aaron Johnson (@i2_sing_america) and @kevinozar joined the conversation about supplying students with the devices and what do we do about teachers that are resistant to adopting the new pedagogy that comes with the new tools. These are great questions and here are my thoughts on them.

I think the one that drives me the most batty, is the reluctant teacher argument. Yes, there are teachers that do not like change. That is a fact. Are there that many reluctant teachers that an entire district should not move forward with a 1:1 program? I doubt it. Even if there are, it seems to me that the situation is an administrative issue. If an employee refuses to use a new tool despite adequate training and support, that is when the boss steps in and uses appropriate measures to get them on board.

Now, notice I said adequate training and support. That really is key. I think most teachers are reluctant to change because they have had too many new programs and tools thrust upon them without adequate training and support. I would love it if every teacher could grab and iPad and start to lesson plan like a pro, but that is not happening. I have had the iPads in my class for almost a year and I'm still on a learning curve. Worse yet, I've been supplying my own training and support through Twitter. Now, if my district were to move toward a 1:1 model, I would be in an excellent position to support students and staff. That is a bonus. One person's pain can turn into another person's salvation when it comes to technology integration. Without proper training and continues support after the training, 1:1 programs, and all new pedagogical initiatives, will fail miserably.

Should school districts pay for students to have devices? This is the question I have changed my position on at different times over the past couple of years. I believe that BYOD cannot work because of the digital divide. I also think it can't work because it now asks a teacher to have an elementary understanding of how many different devices and OSs work. That sounds like a logistical nightmare for any teacher.

Computers, iPads in this case, are starting to become the norm in the classroom. In my district, it is an accepted expectation that work is completed on a computer and submitted to teachers electronically. It has been that way for almost 10 years. As the makeup of our district has changed, that expectation has slowly changed. There are students without access to computers at home and struggle to complete work before or after school. As a teacher, I make the accommodations I need to help those students succeed, but they will have trouble all year and some teachers are not as accepting as I am. As a school, we offer supplies to students they cannot afford on their own. If a student doesn't have pen and paper, don't we offer it to them to use? Are computers entering the same category? We give all of our students email addresses, how can they use them if they don't have access? We are moving students to Google Apps for Education, what's the point if they can;t use the tools outside of class. (Yes, GAFE isn't awesome on iPads, but maybe we go laptops. Don't let that be the sticking point in this post.)

I think it is becoming the responsibility to provide access to all of the students in an effort to give them the computing skills they will need outside of the classroom. If a student is only given pencils to do their work, they will not be prepared when they go to college or have to fill out online job applications. I know funding is a nightmare and their are logistical issues that have to be dealt with, including adequate bandwidth to handle the traffic, but should these be the roadblock to providing the best education possible for our students?

What are your thoughts?

The Power of the Table #edchat

This was the type of classroom I taught in for a number of years,

I needed to be up front and all of the students had their personal desk space and were tiny little islands that I would watch over from my position in the from of the class. There were a number of reasons that students needed to be organized this way, but the one most often given was, "Kids will cheat, copy or misbehave if they are sitting so close to one another." Ugh. 

It took me many years to break from this theory. By doing away with all multiple choice exams, the fear of copying work is gone. Project based learning has eliminated that fear completely. 

I know arrange my desks in groups of 4 or 5 and I couldn't be happier. What I think some teachers fail to see is the power of the table. When students are isolated at their own desk and are asked to participate in class, they are scared. I see kids that sit at tables that act far more comfortable in class because they do not feel like they are alone. It is so funny that we encourage group work and table work at a young age, then we make a switch to an independent learning environment and we really shouldn't be surprised that some students do not adjust well to this. 

The table allows students to work together in a collaborative environment. Some teachers suggest that tables encourage talking and student can become too disruptive. That is not the fault of the table, that is the fault of the teacher and their classroom management skills. I could argue that my students are more on task at tables because they have others next to them that can help them stay focused or redirect them if they are lost. 

I tend to get more out of my struggling students when they are sitting in their groups and working at the tables. In the past, struggling kids would relish the fact they could sit quietly in their own desk and hide. Tables are not for hiding. They encourage students to collaborate and share ideas. It is the perfect remedy for students that are having a hard time connecting in class with the content. Sometimes they need to hear other students walk through the process to get it. 

Evernote has been great for the table work as well. Students have been designating notetakers and sharing the notes in a shared notebook for all of them to access as well. There is added pressure for the notetaker to get the notes right so the rest of the group doesn't suffer. This attention to detail has created a wonderful learning environment where students in a group offer support while others are taking notes. Different tables work together and share information easily as well. Table work has turned out to be more organized than the "All desks equally apart" approach to class environments. 

I advise all teachers to consider the table approach to their class. It is a great way to get your students working together. If I had the money, my classroom would look much more like this, 

How do you set up your classroom?

20/20 Technology

I always tell my students not do to what I'm about to write, but it serves an important purpose in this piece.

If I asked you these questions, would you be able to answer them?

What is the technology vision for your school district? School? Classroom?

Could your building principal answer these questions? How about your Superintendent?

If you do not know the district's or school's technology vision, how can you create one for your classroom? If the principal cannot tell you the district's vision, how can he create one for the building? These are very serious questions as teachers look to integrate technology into the classroom. What is the goal or the purpose of using these tools in the classroom. I think there are teachers that can forge their own path in using technology in their classroom, but there are many teachers out there that need guidance and they should be looking to a building technology vision that should be supporting the overall district vision of technology use.

No matter how much money your district may or may not have, a vision for the future is important to allow for planning. I'm starting to see many school districts start to make purchases without establishing a long term vision and that is a recipe for disaster and wasted dollars.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to ask the leaders in your district if there is a vision for technology use. If not, ask them when it will be ready. If they can't answer that, then you have a bigger mission to possibly undertake.

Does your district/school/classroom have a vision? Want to share it here? Leave it in the comments section.