Littleton Public Schools are subscribers to the Discovery Network of Educational Videos, and our teachers and students make great use of the high quality, student-friendly resources.  Teachers tell us that they find the video and audio library robust, and the content is easy to integrate into their lesson plans.  Increasingly, teachers are asking the students themselves to browse the Discovery Library to find multi-media resources for research units.  Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting a couple of fourth grade teachers at Lenski Elementary.

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...

Hello Morgridge Family Foundation Winners!  Congratulations on receiving this grant!  This is more than just an infusion of technology into your classroom; it is an investment in your ability to meet the diverse needs of today's "digital natives."  So, to get the ball rolling, please respond to the following question:  What are the unique challenges and opportunities that the 21st century learner brings to your classroom?  

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.

...