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  • September 2009
  • August 2009

I’ll just let the Wordle’s of President Reagan’s speech to students in November, 1988 and President Obama’s speech on September 8, 2009 to the talking…

Reagan, 1988

Obama, 2009

We started school much earlier than many parts of the country. In fact, my district received a special waiver from the State of Florida to start the year earlier by a week to ensure that our 2nd quarter is not split into two by Christmas vacation. That meant a week less this summer to prepare for the changes. What changes? Well…at the end of last year, I found out that my technology specialist position, I had been in for the last four years, was going to be eliminated due to budget issues. This meant that I would need to go into the classroom, for at least part of the day.

My schedule is as follows: Blocks 1 and 2, teaching World Geography and blocks 3 and 4, technology specialist/integrationist. As most of you know, the first few weeks are hectic, CRAZY hectic. This is especially true for the guy responsible for making sure all of the teachers are able to use their computers to prepare for their classes, that student computers are re-imaged and functional and that all systems are up to date and working properly. This was all my responsibility. All of this, in addition to preparing for two World Geography classes.

To say it’s been a busy couple of weeks would be a huge understatement. At times, this week especially, I felt as though I didn’t even have time to breathe. The technology requests piled up daily, which left me zero time to prepare for my Geography classes the way I would have really liked. I did not let this, however, keep me from doing the absolute best job I could to prepare. I saw at least midnight on the clock each night. I couldn’t NOT prepare for my students just for a few extra minutes (hours) of sleep each night. I plugged away and was excited to greet my students on the first day of classes.

Technology woes aside, I feel truly lucky to be in the position I am currently in. In between the frustrations of having to run myself ragged to ensure all of the school’s technology needs are met, I quickly realized that I could not have hand-picked a better group of students than the ones that have been registered in my classes.

These young adults have been the most attentive, most respectful, and most willing students a teacher could ever ask for. Many of the things we will be doing in this class are things that they have never done before. Heck, many of the things we’ll be doing in this class are things that have never been done in the district before! We’ll be using mobile technologies in class. We’ll be using Twitter in class. We’ll have backchannel chats during videos and class discussions to add that additional layer to their learning that many of them have not experienced before.

Our first activity was an interview session with another classmate, chosen at random. They were then asked to create an Animoto video from the interview to introduce that student to the class. One of the things that really surprised me during this activity, was their inability to be creative…not because they couldn’t be, but because no one had ever let them be creative before. Most students asked me “Is this OK the way I did it?” or “Does this look OK?” and even more often “Is this what you want us to do?” At one point, I stopped the class and explained to them that “in my classroom, it is not about pleasing me, the teacher. It is all about you being happy with the product you’ve created and being comfortable presenting this to the world, not simply doing what you think the teacher wants you to do.” I explained, “I don’t even want you to think of me as a teacher. Think of me as a person that is available to guide you in YOUR learning. I expect to learn many things from you as well.”

I found it sad that these kids have not had the opportunities to express their creativity in this manner before. I am excited to see, once they become comfortable with this concept, the amazing things they will come up with. My hope is that, at the end of my 18 weeks with them, they will take these ideas, their new found power to be creative, and convince the rest of their teachers to allow them to do the same.

It’s going to be a great year…

Here in my county in Florida, we’ve just wrapped up the first week of school. It has been a very exciting, fun and productive week. This week, we learned that the study of Geography is not just learning about rivers, mountains, volcanoes and the like, it’s about making connections. These connections can be made with people from all over the world or simply made inside our classroom. Since most of my students are freshman, coming from multiple middle schools, I thought it was important to first begin making those connections between one another.

Each of my students were given a number. Two students were given each number and were asked to pair up. Their first task was to interview each other to find out as many interesting things as they could about one another. They were each given 5 minutes to conduct these interviews. Once the interview answers were compiled, students were asked to find Creative Commons images, mostly using compfight,  that best reflected the answers to each of their questions. With these images, they created Animoto videos about the person they interviewed. Instead of them introducing themselves to the class, they would use these videos to introduce their partner to the class.

The project went very smoothly. One of the things I found a bit surprising was how many students had difficulty being creative. This was not because they did not have any creative talent, but a result of them having so few opportunities to express their creativity throughout their school career to this point. Many of them kept asking for my approval even though I told them the only requirement of the project was to make it at least one minute in length. When asked for my opinion, my answer to them was consistently, “This video belongs to you. Use your imagination. When you are happy with the way it looks and sounds, then I’ll be happy with it.”

The end results were excellent. I was fascinated and intrigued by many of the images they chose to represent the answers to the interview questions. This was the first time any of my students had even heard of Animoto. I was shocked that none of my 48 students had ever heard of this amazing creativity tool. I hope they urge their other teachers to use it in their classes…I think they will.

Here are a couple examples of the videos they created:

Ahhh…the first day of school, a time of excitement, anticipation, and yes, a few nerves. Today we spoke extensively about the Student Code of Conduct and the Class Syllabus. One of the main points we discussed was my requirement for all of my students to use their imagination and be creative. However, with this creativity, comes responsibility. All students in my class must be respectful of others. Because we will be discussing the cultures, ethnicity, and religions of many different people throughout the world, it is possible we will discuss topics with which you do not agree. You are entitled to your opinion and we will discuss these points, but we will do so in a respectful manner. It is expected that you will treat everyone with respect and never make fun of anyone.

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