A 180 Photo Project

Last fall, Frank posted the beginning of his 180 Photo Project that was meant to document his school year by taking a picture of his classroom every day. Like so many things Frank does, I was completely inspired by this idea. How amazing to be able to truly peek into someone else's classroom. I really hope he keeps this going this year.

It's kind of funny as I sit here thinking about what types of things would be post-worthy. I would like to be able to say that out of my four classes per day, surely there is something awesome enough to take a picture of every day. And then the anxiety creeps in. What if there is a day where only a normal something occurs in every class? I worry about things like this!

Maybe this will keep me honest.

I, too, am using the Posterous app. A lot easier than I thought it would be, even though is seems to crash on me every once in awhile. Even the busiest, most technologically challenged teacher could do this. Take a picture. Write some words. Post.

So here it is, my 180 project.

http://braves-180.posterous.com/

Wading into ePorfolios

I hate giving tests. I'm not good at writing them, so they don't measure what my kids know. Said kids try to cheat as much as they can in order to show me what their neighbor knows. I never know what to do while giving a test, so I kind of wander around in my squeaky shoes. Even if I use the same test I did last time, I can never find my key. Did I mention that I don't think it's a good way to measure what they know?

A couple years ago, in the interest of finding a way to alternately assess, we started blogging in a couple of my classes. At first it was mostly just a place to answer questions instead of writing on paper. That was okay, but I wanted it to expand into something more more. We did a lot, but not as much as I would have liked. I have mentioned my inability to write driving questions, but my main issue is the availability of computers at any given time. We are not a 1:1 school, but we have three computer labs available to schedule. The problem comes when I have them scheduled for Tuesday, and we end up needing them on Monday. That lag time has kind of done me in, so our blogging experience has been shaky at best.

This year, we kind of accidentally moved away from blogging by setting up websites. My plan was to have kids summarize each learning target on their sites and then link back to their blogs and other pieces of amazingness that they may have created. The kids I had this year struggled so much with the technology* that we dropped the blogs and focused on the sites. Each kid created a site and I had them create a page for each unit.

I loved the way this got set up. There was a place for everything and I didn't have to keep track of paper. I can't tell you how refreshing that is, although I will admit I did miss the practice of actually writing out comments. A little weird, I know. I ended up using pearltrees to keep all my sites in one place because I did a lot of my grading at home on my own computer. The only problem I had was where to put the comments so my kids could access them easily. We use PowerSchool and it has a comment section, but I'm not sure how much I like that. I am definitely trying out BlueHarvest this fall.

Of course, I had grand visions of kids creating their own spaces, but up until the very last week of school I had kids convinced that I wanted them to create a dictionary. A copied and pasted dictionary. It was so frustrating. I couldn't get them out of that comfort zone of regurgitating everything they could find on wikipedia. I finally got a touch of the amazingness I was looking for on their final projects when they had to correlate local rock formations and tie it all in to every unit. There was some true critical thinking going on. Again, driving questions anyone???

If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed how Terie and Chris have their classes set up and applied it to mine. There are some parallels, but I have a sneaking suspicion that their sites will come in very handy this summer when I sit down to polish up my own.

I really like this idea, especially with my earth science classes. Chemistry, I'm not so sure about, simply because I feel like they need to have that lab notebook experience. I can't decide if it would be worth the time to recreate it on the web. I think this next year, I will focus on my other classes and become more comfortable with the process before I have all my classes switch over**.

*Yes, I have kids who struggle with Google. Some days I have a hard time comprehending this.

**You have no idea how hard it was for me to write that sentence! I have never been one to ease into anything.

Struggles

Obviously, I am struggling. I haven't posted here in months. Mostly because I have been incredibly busy trying to keep ahead of my kids. Seriously, I have been making copies for classes as the bell rings.

I keep changing things.

When I took my biology teaching methods class way back in college, my professor said something that stuck with me. Actually, I think it more or less killed any chances of me having an unstressful career. Basically, he told us not to teach the same biology class for 20 years.

I have never actually taught biology (how is that for irony?), but I have taught everything else. And NEVER have I been able to simply pull out a paper from last year and go make a copy. Every year, as we move through the activity, I write notes in the margins. I cross things out. I add things in.

Now I have discovered TeachPaperless, a blog about a guy who has figured out how to not stand at the copy machine. Blogs. Diigo. Twitter. Twitter???

I am intrigued. I am stuck. I love the idea behind letting kids start to build their own PLN. But where do I start?

Well, my ocean science started with Diigo. It's been two days. And four people can't remember their user name and password. Really? I'm beginning to think it is all a ruse to waste time.

But I'm sticking with it. I am trying to look past the 68 minutes of my class and help them to see that it's not just about getting a grade. It's about learning. It's about expanding their world in to places they don't even know exists.

Here's hoping.