This being Spring break in Littleton Public Schools, I have an extra moment to do a little "house-keeping."  I've been meaning to post a link to the YourIT Magazine for 2009 but other blog posts seemed much more interesting and I have already distributed this to our staff via an email link.  YourIT Magazine is our technology guide for schools.  Since LPS is a site-based management district, we do our best to empower Principals and school leaders to make decisions that are appropriate for their local communities.  Since our school staff deal with their issues every day, they are best positioned to understand their unique needs.

However, as with any philosophy, there are pitfalls.  One problem that can arise with site-based management is the development of an unmanageable diversity of practices, expectations and tools thus creating an equity problem for the district.  Our attempt to address these...

Highland Elementary School has developed a great relationship with world traveler Dean Jacobs.  Dean maintains a blog and regularly uses the publishing tool to share his exploits with students back home.  In the link below, you will note that he has posted a picture from Highland where our kids are interacting with people in Africa.  What a great use of technology!   This school is demonstrating an important truth: Technology can enhance and extend human relationships; it cannot replace them.   Congratulations to Highland for using technology to shatter the old barriers of time and distance!

Read all about it here:

Travel 4 Life

Recently earning a "featured status," Mrs. Moody's 1st grade chicken hatching experiment is online and drawing lots of attention.  By visiting ustream.tv and scrolling through the featured shows, you'll find our students' experiment live streaming.  Be sure to look around on the site for the archive videos that record some actual hatches!

Great application of streaming video!  Thanks for bringing the world into your classroom!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mrs-moody%27s-chick-hatching

In a previous blog post, I asked students in 5 elementary schools to comment on how having laptops in their classrooms for the purpose of supporting their writing development had made them better writers.  The students also responded telling us about things they couldn't do before they had computers and what school will be like if they don't have them next year.  Finally, they shared what they thought this year's 4th graders have to look forward to.

With over 100 posts so far, we are reading the writing from the 5th graders, their parents and teachers.  A little later on, I passed the writing prompt on to some of our high school teachers who have laptops in their language arts classrooms.  Soon, the high school students began to share their thoughts about the same questions.  What a great moment to read the views of elementary students and high school students answering the same questions! 

So now for the next step... I wonder what the high school students think of the writing of the 5th graders...

The 5th grade students, parents and teachers are responding to my post last week about Writing with Laptops.  So far, 48 have left comments and they are really hitting home for me.  These are my reflections on reading the blog responses:

The 5th grade students are writing thoughtful responses.  These are not like what most people think of when they hear about "blogs."  Instead of short, choppy, poorly written comments, these 5th graders are writing with expression and purpose.   It makes me wonder; is the blogosphere smarter than these 5th graders?  Perhaps not. The teachers have done a marvelous job... in all the participating schools and across the grade levels.  We asked them to adopt a new writing program (the writer's workshop) in all 5 schools grades K-5.  AND we asked these 5th grade teachers to ALSO integrate technology using laptops to support the writing process.  These are dedicated professionals who are relentlessly pursuing student achievement.  These are can-do educational heroes. ...

Last May, we visited Fuxing High School in the port city of Tianjin, China. We were welcomed and treated to a wonderful day with the students and teachers of the newly opened public school. Our tour was cut short due to delays we suffered driving the 76 miles from Beijing in our tour bus (it took us 4.5 hours), but we were able to enjoy a wonderful visit and make good friends. I was very pleased to meet Teacher Hu, and Teacher Tsi as well as become good friends with Principal Yang. I believe the school has a new principal now and Mr. Yang has accepted a promotion. We were honored last summer when he made a Skype video call to ourCoordinating Council of the Colorado Association of School Executives to deliver a message of friendship to the other principals in Colorado. The slide show below is from our trip last summer:



I am pleased to share that our friendship with Fuxing High School continues to grow. This post is for the teachers and students at Fuxing High School to say hello to teachers and students...

Dear “Powered Up Writing” Students, Teachers, and Parents,

Across LPS, we have pilot projects of ASUS EeePCs in classrooms.  We hope that you are enjoying the new computers and are learning more than ever before.  Many people are asking about how your classroom has changed now that you have the EeePC laptops.  Can you help us tell your story?

Here are some questions we have:

How does having a laptop computer help students write better?

What happens in your classroom now that you have laptops that could not happen before?

Now that you have had laptops in your classroom, how would you feel if you didn’t have them next year?

What do next year’s 5th grade students coming to your classroom have to look forward to?

Thank you,

 Dan Maas, Chief Information Officer

...

So it is that time of year again, when we pause to remember the wonderful writings of Dr. Seuss.  For me, this author has a special importance as my mother used to read Dr. Seuss books to me every day.  The one I loved the most was the Lorax and I made her read it to me so many times that I can actually still hear her voice telling the story.  So clear is the memory that without any preparation at all I can recite it with only small mistakes.

Last year, Mrs. Salzman's East Elementary 2nd grade class welcomed me to come read the Lorax and we had such fun we decided to do it again this year.  I bring my own personal copy of the book and we put it under a document camera so all the kids can see.  Last year, we borrowed a document camera for Mrs. Salzman but today, she has her own.  This year was even more fun as Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Knowles brought their classes in too so we could all read together!  We crowded into the classroom and the students behaved themselves very well as we read the story together.

...

For a while now, I've been using MIT's posting of their class lectures online and freely available as an example of a trend I see in information: it is self-service and free.  In speaking with colleagues, I have often been asked about the impact this has on our organizations and our society.  Another example would be the Rocky Mountain News going under this week and the Tuscon paper going down the week before.  In a recent blog post, I debated with a great contributor (thanks Ava) who was worried about the loss of newspapers and the quality reporting, photography and other information services they provided.  She worried that a migration to blogs would mean that the quality of our news would deterioriate into amatuer commentary and grainy cell-phone photography.

I disagree that this is the direction and the consequence.  What is a blog entry?  It is a news article that enables people to comment back.  It is the newspaper shifting from a dissemination service to an interactive news service.  The news agencies that get that and switch their business model to blogs and web (selling advertsiing space not in tons of paper inserts, but clickable banners on blogs) will be the ones that survive.

...

I took a few minutes to review my blog and can't help but notice that there are two recipies I use to get high activity on my blog.  One technique is to use a controversial title.  A great example is the blog post where I asked about the changing role of the librarian and how I wonder if the very job title closes minds and limits people.  Wow, what a list of ideas on that one.  The other way I've had my blog stormed is to call out to a specific classroom of students.  They LOVE sharing their ideas.  And perhaps it is so rare that an adult even asks... well, more of both kinds to come [;-)