Today, I visited the 5th grade classrooms at East Elementary School.  These classes have taken EeePC laptops and have officially blown the doors of learning old-school.  Scott Murphy (our Superintendent) and I watched as students accessed online videos and tutorials on the circulatory system, then marveled as they wrote in their cognitive framework (not sure if I'm using the right term here... one of the 5th graders tried to explain this to me [;-).  They use wikis and blogs for their writing.  Blogs are their publishing medium like a news service.  Wikis are their online document workspace.  And the wealth of the Internet and subscribed databases are their information source.  And did I mention that these classrooms have students with disabilities and students who don't speak English as their first language... no matter!  The traditional labels don't mean much anymore.  These are students... scholars... writers... intellectuals... the NEW 5th graders.

Here are some pictures I took today (I won't show kids...

First, I have to again note that I have not been a prolific blogger this year.  I think this is because we are dealing with some really unpleasant issues at the ESC and they have taken lots of my thinking time... and such matters don't lend themselves well to blogging.  On to my thoughts for this post...

Last summer, I posted a blog item about a wireless challenge I observed at another venue outside LPS.  The experience made me really appreciate Mike Zehner and his network team for the high quality wifi services we enjoy and utilize in the district.  My post was intended to send some kudos his way and to use the experience to highlight how challenging wireless really is.  However, my message was not as well crafted as I hoped and I got a comment back from a member of the organization hosting the event noting that I seemed happy to comment on other people's failures and not explore our own.  Since it was not my intent to bash anyone, I took the post down.

At this time, I will indeed report on my own...

Recently, I stopped by Randy Stall's desk when he shared some survey results of an online course he helped deliver on web 2.0 in the classroom...

Teens have always thought that adults just don't understand them.  Today's teens are growing up in a world which is so totally different than what we adults had, this age-old truism may be an even bigger divide today than ever.  I spend quite a bit of time interacting with students, teachers, administrators and parents and being charged with technology leadership in the district, my conversations are always about this difference.  The struggle to understand and connect is at the core of these conversations and sometimes I find it helpful to use an old language arts activity to bridge the gap: similes.  By comparing something you don't understand with something you do, it is possible to gain an insight that you would otherwise miss.  Here are a few I've recently come across in speaking today's youth:

"Not having text messaging today is like growing up without a bike in the 20th Century."  For us, the bicycle was the means of socialization.  If you had a bike, you could meetup with your friends and participate...

I just got a tip that the next TIMMS (Trends in International Mathmatics and Science Study) report is due out next week and will tell some compelling stories...

On our visit to China last spring, we stopped at a beautiful high school in Tianjin city.  This blog posting is for our friends at Haihe High School!

In this first video of my school visits with Briggs, we see how Field Elementary School is exploring the mimio interactive white board...

Fileway is our web-front end for network files. Using this tool, you can login to a web page and access the file folders we provide on our network. I've posted an email from a staff member who has just set up Fileway access for elementary students...

I'd like to share with you a great bit of blogging by 5th grade students at East Elementary school...

In the coming weeks, I will post a series of videos made on school visits with our ETC Chair...