Theme 1: Utilize all technology, don't shut down creativity by denying students. I felt this theme carried through this course work. We talked about structuring and planning for changes in technology which allows us to plan and utilize the best technology available to us. The course work of mentoring a colleague was a great example of not denying the students because of our fears. The students will pick up the technology and run with it, we just have to admit that it is okay to learn from the kids and ask for help. In the mentoring portion, we helped others become a little more comfortable and try something new.
CET 765 Leadership Technology Change
CET 765 was my first taste of technology integration into the classroom. The class had us working with a colleague to add a lesson to their class which implemented technology. Since the music teacher had Promethean boards in her room, but had not had the opportunity to learn about them, I did a little teaching and then we co-taught a lesson. She then implemented on her own. This was a good experience to learn that people have technology they need help learning to use. It was a reminder that you cannot just put the technology in the classroom, there needs to be training and ideas of how to incorporate it into lessons.
My First YouTube Video
Inspiration: Charting a Plan for Technology Change
Mentoring a Collegue
Deb Wolf- HS/MS Music Teacher
Sisseton School District
[email protected]
Mentoring idea
Incorporate technology with band class: 6th grade
Create an interactive worksheet(presentation) for the promethean board that deals with rhythms or note names or note values.
Use the pens
Set up something to use on the promethean board that is more than a screen for power point presentations.
Deb wants help figuring out how to set things up to move-animate on the promethean board. She wants the kids to be able to come in at the beginning of class and go to the board and work through some questions.
I would like to help her figure out a few different ways to do this and then have these interactive presentations set up for all three of her ideas: rhythms, note names, and note values.
Mentoring Project: 6th grade music with Mrs. Deb Wolf
February 13, 2014: Met with Mrs. Wolf to plan what we would like to do for our project. Mrs. Wolf is very good with using technology, once it is set up and she is shown what she can do with it. Coming from Browns Valley, she was very good working with smart boards. Out Promethean boards are not that different, but different software does not allow her to use what she already has created. She can’t figure out how to recreate her work. She wants to make interactive flipcharts to teach concepts like rhythm, note names, and note values. She plans to use these as bell work or opening lessons in class before moving on to playing band music.
February 18, 2014: We met again to discuss the 3 flipcharts that we will create and when and how we want to use them. We did not come up with set dates. We want to wait until after her concerts. We did decide that I would co-teach the first lesson. I would observe the second lesson and be there for help if needed. The third lesson, Deb will try on her own. I will be in the room if possible, but it requires me to find people to fill in for me.
February 19, 2014: We canceled the work session as we both had meetings after school and could not find each other when we were done.
March 15, 2014: I searched promethean planet and the help center there for ideas to make the charts interactive like Mrs. Wolf wants. I have not found exactly what I think she wants, but I do have some ideas that I will share with her.
March 31, 2014: After more research, I found some great flipcharts on making interactives. There are four lessons for teachers to work through. I will give them to Mrs. Wolf to look at and see what she thinks and what she wants to work with.
March 31, 2014: I gave the resources to Mrs. Wolf. She will take a look.
April 1, 2014: We got together to start planning lessons, but I finally caught on to what Mrs. Wolf was trying to tell me. The board and her computer are not working together. I had to go into her computer and install the software and calibrate the board. We will meet to show her how to use the basic tools on the board and then get started working on lessons.
April 7, 2014: Today didn’t even take 30 minutes that I had planned. We have everything running and she just needed a quick tutorial. She knows what she is doing, just needed a little confidence. We did discover that her resource library is empty, so I will show her where to find resources and how to put them into the library.
April 10, 2014: We found many resource packs on promethean planet and uploaded them to the library. There were a few issues along the way. Things did not upload to the shared file like they do on my computer. It may be the difference between the Windows and Mac versions of the software. We finally found them and were able to upload them to a file for her use.
April 10, 2014: We have decided that Mrs. Wolf now has the information needed to create lessons. During the next week, she will create lessons while I am gone to a training.
April 23, 2014: We taught the first lesson. Mrs. Wolf explained to the kids that they would take turns using the promethean board. We went through 3 different slides. On slide 1, students came up with words that can be spelled using the letters of the notes. On slide 2 they used the words and placed the letters on the staff where they belong. On slide 3, the students were given words and had to place the letters on the staff.
April 24, 2014: She was still having issues with some of the resources. We decided to place them on the desktop for use, and will look for another solution.
Lesson 2: At the beginning of class the students used the flipcharts to match the notes and rests with the correct names. They were to drag copies to the names. We had a little difficulty with half and whole notes until we realized that to drag them, we had to click on the note. We could not click on the whole in the middle of the note. The students mixed up a few things and Mrs. Wolf worked through fixing those with the kids.
April 28, 2014: We created lesson 3. Students will move notes onto the staff to create the first part of the song Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. They have sounds on the chart to help by listening to the note. This will be difficult as they have not done much with listening to notes, but the kids are up for the challenge.
May 2, 2014: Mrs. Wolf is going through the lessons with the kids today. I will not be able to attend as we have a track meet and Missoula and there are no subs to fill in. As this assignment is due today, I will wish her well with her lesson. This has been a good learning experience about how much planning and extra work goes into helping with a small lesson.
Overall Reflection:
The students in this class are very cooperative. There were many times when things didn’t work as we wanted them to, but the kids rolled with it and sometimes were able to fix the problem on their own.
The project took more time than I thought it would as we had issues I had not planned for. I assumed, never do that, that the software and hardware were set up as needed. I do now understand some of the frustration a teacher has when things don’t work. I haven’t had that problem as I am usually the guinea pig and we work the bugs out in my room before setting up in other rooms. This was an add on with a new building and things never got set up correctly.
Mrs. Wolf was very easy to work with. She told me what she wanted to do and then when we figured it out, she had it and could run with it. She was also very good to me as we were able to run these lessons whenever it worked best for me. Our schedules had lots of conflicts, but we worked it out and had fun with the kids.
I believe the kids loved this. They asked earlier this week when they would get to do another board lesson. I could tell they learned from the lessons and had fun at the same time. Mrs. Wolf has a book of ideas she can now recreate and use on the promethean board with her kids.
Overall, things went well. We had our bumps when the technology didn’t do what I thought it should, but we figured it out or worked around it. I think everyone learned from this project.
Sisseton School District
[email protected]
Mentoring idea
Incorporate technology with band class: 6th grade
Create an interactive worksheet(presentation) for the promethean board that deals with rhythms or note names or note values.
Use the pens
Set up something to use on the promethean board that is more than a screen for power point presentations.
Deb wants help figuring out how to set things up to move-animate on the promethean board. She wants the kids to be able to come in at the beginning of class and go to the board and work through some questions.
I would like to help her figure out a few different ways to do this and then have these interactive presentations set up for all three of her ideas: rhythms, note names, and note values.
Mentoring Project: 6th grade music with Mrs. Deb Wolf
February 13, 2014: Met with Mrs. Wolf to plan what we would like to do for our project. Mrs. Wolf is very good with using technology, once it is set up and she is shown what she can do with it. Coming from Browns Valley, she was very good working with smart boards. Out Promethean boards are not that different, but different software does not allow her to use what she already has created. She can’t figure out how to recreate her work. She wants to make interactive flipcharts to teach concepts like rhythm, note names, and note values. She plans to use these as bell work or opening lessons in class before moving on to playing band music.
February 18, 2014: We met again to discuss the 3 flipcharts that we will create and when and how we want to use them. We did not come up with set dates. We want to wait until after her concerts. We did decide that I would co-teach the first lesson. I would observe the second lesson and be there for help if needed. The third lesson, Deb will try on her own. I will be in the room if possible, but it requires me to find people to fill in for me.
February 19, 2014: We canceled the work session as we both had meetings after school and could not find each other when we were done.
March 15, 2014: I searched promethean planet and the help center there for ideas to make the charts interactive like Mrs. Wolf wants. I have not found exactly what I think she wants, but I do have some ideas that I will share with her.
March 31, 2014: After more research, I found some great flipcharts on making interactives. There are four lessons for teachers to work through. I will give them to Mrs. Wolf to look at and see what she thinks and what she wants to work with.
March 31, 2014: I gave the resources to Mrs. Wolf. She will take a look.
April 1, 2014: We got together to start planning lessons, but I finally caught on to what Mrs. Wolf was trying to tell me. The board and her computer are not working together. I had to go into her computer and install the software and calibrate the board. We will meet to show her how to use the basic tools on the board and then get started working on lessons.
April 7, 2014: Today didn’t even take 30 minutes that I had planned. We have everything running and she just needed a quick tutorial. She knows what she is doing, just needed a little confidence. We did discover that her resource library is empty, so I will show her where to find resources and how to put them into the library.
April 10, 2014: We found many resource packs on promethean planet and uploaded them to the library. There were a few issues along the way. Things did not upload to the shared file like they do on my computer. It may be the difference between the Windows and Mac versions of the software. We finally found them and were able to upload them to a file for her use.
April 10, 2014: We have decided that Mrs. Wolf now has the information needed to create lessons. During the next week, she will create lessons while I am gone to a training.
April 23, 2014: We taught the first lesson. Mrs. Wolf explained to the kids that they would take turns using the promethean board. We went through 3 different slides. On slide 1, students came up with words that can be spelled using the letters of the notes. On slide 2 they used the words and placed the letters on the staff where they belong. On slide 3, the students were given words and had to place the letters on the staff.
April 24, 2014: She was still having issues with some of the resources. We decided to place them on the desktop for use, and will look for another solution.
Lesson 2: At the beginning of class the students used the flipcharts to match the notes and rests with the correct names. They were to drag copies to the names. We had a little difficulty with half and whole notes until we realized that to drag them, we had to click on the note. We could not click on the whole in the middle of the note. The students mixed up a few things and Mrs. Wolf worked through fixing those with the kids.
April 28, 2014: We created lesson 3. Students will move notes onto the staff to create the first part of the song Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. They have sounds on the chart to help by listening to the note. This will be difficult as they have not done much with listening to notes, but the kids are up for the challenge.
May 2, 2014: Mrs. Wolf is going through the lessons with the kids today. I will not be able to attend as we have a track meet and Missoula and there are no subs to fill in. As this assignment is due today, I will wish her well with her lesson. This has been a good learning experience about how much planning and extra work goes into helping with a small lesson.
Overall Reflection:
The students in this class are very cooperative. There were many times when things didn’t work as we wanted them to, but the kids rolled with it and sometimes were able to fix the problem on their own.
The project took more time than I thought it would as we had issues I had not planned for. I assumed, never do that, that the software and hardware were set up as needed. I do now understand some of the frustration a teacher has when things don’t work. I haven’t had that problem as I am usually the guinea pig and we work the bugs out in my room before setting up in other rooms. This was an add on with a new building and things never got set up correctly.
Mrs. Wolf was very easy to work with. She told me what she wanted to do and then when we figured it out, she had it and could run with it. She was also very good to me as we were able to run these lessons whenever it worked best for me. Our schedules had lots of conflicts, but we worked it out and had fun with the kids.
I believe the kids loved this. They asked earlier this week when they would get to do another board lesson. I could tell they learned from the lessons and had fun at the same time. Mrs. Wolf has a book of ideas she can now recreate and use on the promethean board with her kids.
Overall, things went well. We had our bumps when the technology didn’t do what I thought it should, but we figured it out or worked around it. I think everyone learned from this project.