I am afraid!

I often wonder why more teachers aren’t using 21st century technologies with their classes, but then I have a reality check and realize that most teachers have little or no formal training with 21st century technologies or the time to learn them. I was fortunate enough last year to be a part of the 21st Century Learning Initiative through a Microsoft grant tied to the Alabama Best Practices Center and I learned a great deal about these technologies. Unfortunately, we are not participating this year because the 21st Century Initiative lost its Microsoft funding. As for the ABPC meetings they were useful, but not as useful from my perspective as the 21st Century Initiative.

The 21st Century Initiative didn’t really teach me that much at the meetings per se, but it did provide me with an avenue where I could take the initiative and learn on my own. This is what I am all about. I love technology and I love learning. I love thinking of new ways of using technology with my classes and other classes. Last year after school, I would come home and spend hours researching other blogs, wikis, and new free open source software. I hate that the Initiative lost its funding because I believe that a number of schools benefited from the process. That is the thing with Initiatives, they don’t last. This is what scares me about School2.0 and Classroom2.0. How long will these movements stay alive? I hope that both will make it for the long haul, but only time will tell.

Personally, I plan to continue to promote and use 21st century technologies in my classroom while I am a teacher and then later in what ever position I end up in. I also hope that other individuals will also keep the initiative alive. If we don't keep them alive, then who will?

I’m getting a slow start this year due to all of my other endeavors, but I started trying to fix Moodle today for my classes. Also, our new tech staff got it loaded online for my students and I am looking forward to seeing how this works out. Nevertheless, I know that using Moodle in combination with other 21st Century technologies will help my less tech savvy students improve their Spanish skills and their tech skills at the same time. As the old saying goes, it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

As for the really tech savvy students, they are already ahead of the game. However, don’t take my word for it. Go and visit Sheryl N. Beach and read her post “Be afraid...Very afraid.” Maybe, posts like hers will get more individuals involved with these technologies. Nonetheless, it is a very cool post and worth reading!

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: 21st_Century_Initiative, Technology, K12, APBC, School2.0, Classroom2.0, Sheryl_Beach, 21st_Century_Learning, Lost_Johns, William_Bishop, Bill_Bishop

Google Sky

Vicki A. Davis beats me to the punch again in her blog post entitled "Take your class sky high... Oh well, I don’t really have time to blog right now anyway so I will direct you to a really great blog and blogger (CoolCatTeacher Blog)

“Ok, teachers of science. Go to Google and download the latest version of Google Earth and you will have a super cool new feature called Google Sky! View Google's mini tour to the left (which they handily posted to youtube.)This lets you turn heavenward to look at constellations and all sorts of things! You can explore: planets, constellations, the moon, galaxies, the life of a star, and the atmosphere.I'm also fascinated by the Google Earth Community which allows you to make and share these files.”

I use Google Earth to highlight the 21 Spanish speaking countries with my Spanish classes. I also show them our school and my house for fun. I’m not sure how I will use Google Sky with my classes, but I will introduce them to it for fun.

Vickie suggests using Google Sky in the following ways…

Ideas for use:

• Use it in junior high for earth science to interactively explore the sky.
• Discuss the life of a star.
• Use it on your smartboard to explore, zoom in, and discuss things.
• The Hubble Telescope images are available to you and your students!
  

Too bad I’m not a Science teacher. Well, maybe in the next life!

Thanks for the great post Vicki!

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Being busy is a blessing

I consider myself blessed, but busy. I am currently taking six hours of post graduate work for my Ph. D. at two different institutions. I am taking an intermediate quantitative stats course at UAB and a computer networking course at UA. I am the chairperson for my High School’s Jostens Renaissance program, one of the senior play directors, head of the English department, and I teach over 150 students Spanish on a daily basis.

I teach traditional classes, IVC classes, and web-based classes. I teach 128 students on campus, 16 IVC students, and 12 web-based students. My IVC students and web-based students are part of Alabama’s distance learning program ACCESS. Additionally, I am a husband, father, friend, leader, and avid user of technology. Plus football season is starting. Life is busy, but good!

So if I don't get around to blogging as much as usual you’ll have to forgive me. I’m too busy to blog. Nevertheless, I still plan on having my students using technology when appropriate. We will be blogging, updating our wiki, and using moodle when we can fit it in with our lessons. Also, I plan on having my students create some photo stories in Spanish to help them and future students learn and retain the language.

Nonetheless, if you need my help with anything let me know. I’m sure I can find some time to help somewhere. Being busy is a blessing…That’s my new motto!

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: busy, Spanish, blogs, wikis, life, students, distance_learning, k12, william_bishop

Interactive Video Conferencing Classes

I am fortunate enough this year to have the opportunity to teach some students on the other side of the state via IVC. We are just now getting all of the bugs worked out with our network, lab, and polycom IVC unit, but this type of instruction looks promising. Our new lab was funded by a grant and I am teaching as an ACCESS teacher.

Now, I just have to work the bugs out of my teaching and figure out how to best serve the students in my local classroom and the students in the classrooms on the other side of the state at the same time. My local students keep watching me on the televisions rather than watching me. Imagine that! A generation of students more interested in the video monitor than the real thing.

If you’re not familiar with IVC process then you are missing out. Our lab is set up with a polycom unit, which has two cameras. One of the cameras is dedicated to the instructor and the other is dedicated to my students. In the lab three plasma screen televisions, a computer, document camera, and LCD projector are connected to the polycom unit. Additionally, two very sensitive microphones are mounted in the class. Like the cameras, one is dedicated to the instructor and the other is dedicated to the students.

Connecting to the remote schools requires imputing the external IP addresses for the IVC units there and pressing call on a remote. Once connected with the remote schools I can see both of my remote classes and communicate with them. The lag time of our connection is less than one second and the IT people in my school are working diligently to decrease it even more. However, this will require a new dedicated switch for the lab. In laymen terms, the switch will create a almost direct route to our new lab and IVC unit. The new switch should almost entirely eliminate the lag time and make the process more efficient.

At the remote schools each lab has a facilitator to supervise and help with the classes there. Also, Alabama Super Computer Authority keeps the connections between the schools flowing at a sufficient rate. All in all, this is a very high tech setup and it is indeed the wave of the future. I’m just happy to be a part of the process now.

What does all of this mean? Well, in the intelligent words of Karl Fisch, “Shift Happens!” If you don’t understand the term then you should visit one of my old posts featuring his informative video. It can be found HERE.

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: ACCESS, Alabama, IVC, polycom, technology, k12, school2.0, William_Bishop

Words of Support!

Our Superintedent was nice enough to send everyone an opening message and I thought that I'd share some of it here. I don't think that he would mind. Furthermore, it says a lot!

Effective teachers also understand the importance of a name. You realize that personal attention begins with a personal salutation. To you, students are not anonymous entities. You seek to affirm the student for his/her individual worth and by doing so, you let them know that they truly belong – that they are more than eight-to-three residents in some netherworld of
a small desk. To paraphrase Thomas Carlyle, “Great teachers show their greatness by the way they treat their students.” You are teachers that have come to realize that a pat on the back has enough force to propel a student toward excellence.

I thank you and congratulate you for the successful start and
for being an effective teacher leader sending the message that [our schools] are “CARING, COMMUNITY SCHOOLS PROVIDING EVERY CHILD EVERY CHANCE
FOR SUCCESS!”

Keep-on-Keeping-on throughout this year and beyond…

Thanks Dr. Baggett for the kind words of support!

This is exactly what our Renaissance process is all about. It is about recognizing every student for his/her individual worth and letting them know that they truly belong in our schools. It’s the pat on the back that Carlyle and you speak of and more…

Once again, thanks for the kind words of support and thanks for supporting the Renaissance process…I am going to post this at our Haleyville Renaissance Blog as well. What encouraging words…

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: teaching, support, renaissance, students, excellence, william_bishop, dr_baggett

Correction about Durff

Mrs. Durff isn’t an English teacher per se. She was nice enough to drop back by the blog and leave another comment and correct my first assumption. Mrs. Durff is like many of the wonderful teachers out there she is busy wearing a variety of hats. In actuality, she is a library media specialist with emphasis on the word specialist due to all of the roles she has to fill within her local school setting.

Mrs. Durff referred to herself as a “gopher,” but based on her blog as well as other entities it was easy for me to ascertain that she was just being modest. She was also nice enough to leave the URL to her professional blog in her comment. It is http://durffsblog.blogspot.com/. She has great quote there by Mr. Lewis. "The next best thing to be wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are" CS Lewis. Based on her blog role she not only believes in this creed, but she lives by it.

The more than impressive video that I plugged from teachertube about student blogging into my last post is from a teacher in New Zealand according to Mrs. Durff. Unfortunately, I haven’t taken the time to research the video, but I love it nonetheless. It presents student blogging in a positive light. What a great video!

Warm regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: teaching, Durff, teachertube, educational_technology, william_bishop, lostjohns,

Blogging requires passion an emotion which leaves out most people!

Durff was nice enough to drop by this blog and leave a comment about my last posting. As such, I found myself wanting to know who exactly Durff is. Well, it’s Mrs. Durff and she is an English teacher and blogger. I actually got the title of this post and the cartoon strip picture from her blog. I borrowed it and used it for this post. I hope she doesn’t mind. The URL for her blog is http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=54610

My favorite thing about her blog is the quote by Alvin Toffler under the heading “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. Alvin Toffler.” Inspiring! I also found this video at teacher tube as a result of Mrs. Durff's website. Enjoy!



Warm regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Digital Directions, Education Week, & Michelle Davis

I am very excited because I got an email today from Michelle Davis from Education Week asking me for an interview for an upcoming article on wikis in the classroom. The article will be featured in Education Week’s new technology magazine Digital Directions.

I called her this afternoon after school and had a very meaningful conversation with her about my classes and our Spanish wiki. I also spoke with her about other ways that we are implementing technology in our schools and student safety. It was an honor having the opportunity to interview with Michelle Davis and I look forward to reading her article in what I believe will be the second issue of Digital Directions. According to her, the next issue should be out sometime in September.

If you love educational technology, then I suggest checking out the first copy of Digital Directions. There is a lot of useful information for educational tech enthusiasts in the new publication. One of my favorite articles is the article entitled "Digital Tools Push Math and Science to New Levels." Ironically, the article was written by non other than Michelle Davis. Not only does this lady write well and cover all of the bases, but she does it with style. These are the type of articles that I enjoy reading. Looks like I will have to keep a closer eye on Education Week, their new publication, and articles by Michelle Davis. By the way, if you are interested in other articles by Michelle Davis at Education Week, they can be found HERE.

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)

Technorati Tags: interview, education_week, technology, wikis, digital_directions, new_magazine, Michelle_Davis, William_Bishop, educational_technology

Back to School

The school year is back in full swing and as usual this has been an eventful week. On Monday we had our institute day and I was fortuitous enough to be ask to develop a short video highlighting our High School’s Renaissance program. I used Microsoft Movie Maker along with some pictures from the Jostens’ National Renaissance Conference to complete the video. I received a lot of thoughtful comments from a number of the faculty and staff at my school regarding the video and that always makes one feel good.

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to teach three short sessions about blogs and wikis for our first ever school wide technology fair. Various sessions took place at the fair that covered a wide range of subjects. We had the blog/wiki session that I conducted, a moodle session, a clicker session, a riverdeep session, a library media session and the list goes on. I heard a few complaints from teachers about not having enough time to work in their classrooms before the start of school, but most of the teachers were excited about being introduced to these 21st century technologies. Of course, my system is very blessed with thoughtful and caring teachers who want to implement technology to help the teaching and learning process. As such, many of the teachers are currently working diligently on learning and implementing some of the technologies from our technology fair.
Wednesday we worked in our classrooms and had meetings with our departments and today the students returned. As a result of the Renaissance process, our Principal decided to have a school wide assembly to honor our student body, teachers, and new students. I will blog about this when I have a chance at the new blog that I developed for our Renaissance program. The URL for the blog is http://haleyvillerenaissance.blogspot.com/.

I created the blog at the beginning of the week to highlight some of the great things our school is doing to promote academic excellence. Currently, there is only one post there and it is about the Renaissance National Conference that we attended this summer. I hope to move forward and improve the blog as the year progresses.

Technorati Tags: renaissance, blog, blogging, wikis, school, lost johns

Blogging

Back to school: Back to blogging…

I am getting ready to teach some short sessions for a technology fair that we are having at our school on Tuesday. The fair and my presentation as well as the presentations of others are the result of the Alabama Best Practices Center and the 21 Century Learning Initiative.

Anyway, I am currently putting the final touches on a presentation for the sessions. I am using many of the slides that Patrick Crispen used in his blogging 101 presentation at the Alabama Educational Technology conference this summer. As such, special thanks go out to Patrick for all of his hard work.

Luckily, I was able to sit in on a couple of Patrick's presentations at the conference before making my own presentation about School 2.0. My presentation is currently online if you're interested in School 2.0. It is entitled Plunge into School 2.0... The exact URL to download the presentation is HERE.

Enough said!

Warm Regards,

William Bishop (Bill)