Disaster Brings a Reality Check

As a resident of San Diego County I, like many others, was evacuated from my home. Unlike many others, I have a home to go back to. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those impacted by the fires. I also want to thank the firefighters, law enforcement personnel, and relief workers who are working so hard during this difficult time.

Throughout the county, schools are closed for the week and students won't return in my district won't return until at least Wednesday, October 31. Many staff members have been effected and air quality is very poor. All schools will have to the cleaned and air filters replaced before students can return.

I volunteered with other teachers at Qualcomm Stadium to help children who were evacuated with their families spend a little time with art, books and other activities. As we were walking through the corridors of the stadium, we stopped frequently to check the television monitors for news coverage. People, especially teenagers, were using laptop computers to check news and communicate with friends and family. Back at home, television, cell phones, and computers were (and still are) critical tools to keep up-to-date on news, family, friends, etc.

Because the fires have been changing so frequently the news has scrambled to keep up. As a result, some news has been at least temporarily inaccurate. I also found different information when searching online. I was reminded how important it is to teach students how to evaluate the information technology brings. They need to know how to check multiple sources, how to look for "official" information, and how to evaluate what they find. It isn't enough to have access to information, you have to know how to think through that information.

We're Off and Running

The fourth week of school is about to end, our state test scores have arrived, and a new focus on technology has begun. The good news is that our scores are up. We met benchmarks thanks to significant instructional changes, and we're adjusting those changes in hopes of making further progress this year.

I've been fortunate enough to spend 1/2 of my day in the classroom this year, and the other 1/2 day working on instructional technology integration. One of my key tasks is to locate technology resources to support our Science and Social Studies curriculum. To address our students' needs, we teach those subjects using English Language Development (ELD) strategies.

1) Will the resources be used?
2) Will they be effective?
3) Will it justify my 1/2 time out of the classroom?
4) Is there a way to really know?

The pressure is on.

When is New Ready for Now?

When is it appropriate to use something "new"? In several discussions on Classroom 2.0 (Ning), there has been a lot debate over the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Twitter inspired a particularly interesting debate.

I spent a lot of time this summer learning about various "new" tools and trying them out. Some I'll use personally, some I'll recommend to colleagues for professional use, a few I'll use with students and some are just not for me right now.

As educators with a large number of standards to teach and a relatively brief amount of time to teach them in, we have make careful decisions. The standards and the needs of our students have to come first. A good tech tool can help students learn and think in an engaging manner, that is effective and efficient in terms of time and money.

Some tools though aren't appropriate for classroom use and others are only appropriate in some cases. We won't really know until we try. It isn't about jumping on the bandwagon for everything new. I'm not going to use Second Life or Twitter in the classroom just because the are currently hot topics. I am though going to keep investigating, discussing, and testing these tools and others. Just because there is no clear need now, doesn't mean there never will be. Just because I can't think of an appropriate use, doesn't mean someone else won't come up with a way to use that tool that is engaging, effective, and efficient.

Thanks to all those who keep the debate and ideas flowing. Thanks also to those who remind us that standards and needs come first. Together we can help make educational tech decisions that are best for facilitating the learning of all students.

Using dotSub.com can help connect oral to written language

I've been hearing a a lot about the video site dotSUB.com where user volunteers translate uploaded videos into subtitles in any of about two dozen languages.

I see this as a great tool for classrooms with even just the English subtitles. For English speaking students and second-language learners, it adds that connection between oral and written speech. A speaker at the Computer Using Educators (CUE) conference this year (I wish I could remember who) discussed a study showing how much better non-hearing impaired children read in households where there were hearing-impaired family members thanks to television subtitles.

Subtitled videos could also be used in other languages in parent education settings where some parents speak English and others do not.

I'm excited to try this out this year.

How do we make sure they can get to it?

I love the fact that so many people blog about education to keep us thinking.

This morning I read a post on 2¢ Worth from David Warlick which was a response to a Twitter from John Pederson about ccLearn which has a mission to "minimize barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials — legal barriers, technical barriers, and social barriers."

The post and and comments reflected the feeling many of us have that publishers need to get on board with the fact that people are making valuable educational information available online.

My comment was "I would love to see the textbook publishers catch on this issue and the fact that they don’t control educational information as much as they used to. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to one day solve the issue of how to handle those students (almost all of mine) who have no computer or Internet access at home. For the use of Creative Commons & Open Source web content to be truly equitable, we have to do a better job of helping students to gain access to it outside of school as well."

Maybe this is an argument for parent education. Even if those students don't have a computer at home, all (or nearly all) have televisions and telephones. If we can convince the parents of the value of the Internet and all that is available on it (in multiple languages) then maybe we can convince them to invest in a computer and basic Internet access.

"Assume"...You Know What They Say

The assumption is that today's kids are surrounded by and are familiar with technology. They are using MP3 players, texting, instant messaging and spending all their time pimping out their MySpace or Facebook page.


Those aren't the students I work with. There are a few who have access to those technologies, but most others have only heard about them. They are from low-income families, and most are learning English as a second language.


Educators all over the world (and I'm one of them) are looking at how we can incorporate technology tools of all types into education in an effective and efficient manner in order to facilitate learning and a love of learning. As we do this, we need to keep in mind that some kids are starting from the very beginning. We can't "assume" that all kids have prerquisite technology knowledge, skills, or experience.


When considering technology integration, we can't just include those who already "have", we also have to think about those who "have not". They deserve the option to one day "have" also.