The teachers and students are on winter break and the 12 month employees are working through the 23rd. I am taking the time to clean ActivBoard filters, catch up on some cleaning and other basic housekeeping. We sent information on what to turn off for the two week break so as I’ve been walking the campus for the filters, I’ve been checking on those technology items that needed to be turned off.

I’ve found that the worst offender of not being turned off in a room is the printer, followed by the monitor. According to the Office Equipment Energy Savings Calculator, LBL the following table shows that you can save $30 per printer annually by turning them off at night and logically more if you turn them off during breaks and on weekends. You can save an amazing $42 per monitor!

So lets just take these numbers and not consider that they are turned off for 2 weeks during the winter break and the 2 months of summer because they are usually left on during the weekends for the duration of the 10 month school year that teachers are here. Now, I’m going to use my school which is above 700 students but below 1000. With 4 computers per classroom with approximately 50 instructional rooms, 89 lab computers and 25 miscellaneous desktops on campus that would be 314 monitors and a savings of $13,188.00/year. As for the printers, we have 1 team printer per grade level, 1 per classroom, 3 in the labs and 25 for other staff. These numbers are approximate, which leads to a savings of $2,550.00/year for 85 printers.

Okay, my school is smaller and of course the high schools will be a lot larger, but I am going to just use my figures for our whole district. Lets take the total savings of $15,738.00 times the 43 elementary, middle and high schools we have and that is a savings of: $676,734.00 annually. That is on the low side because most of the other schools are larger than my school, especially the middle and high schools. But, if you look at that number you can see how saving that amount on just monitors and printers could be spent on something else in our currently tight fiscal situation as a district.

Think about it…

It’s been almost a year since we got our first 18 ActivBoards. In that time 50 more ActivBoards have been installed, making it one in every classroom. We’ve had the expected growing pains, but also a great leap in teacher and student interactive learning. As I wander the halls on my way to fix some technology I see every class using their ActivBoard in some way.

We are now into intermediate training on integrating other technology and lessons into the ActivClassroom. The latest ActivTechnology training class that our teachers have been working on is integrating streaming video into a flipchart lesson. I like using gadgets in lessons because I see the students as gadget lovers. The students are already using digital technology, iPods, xBox, play stations, computers and the internet so why not use what they use and like to teach them?

I see them more involved in the classroom, but we also need to watch that we don’t just use the ActivBoards as a replacement for the whiteboard. The key word here is INVOLVED. Students need to be involved in the class, interact with the ActivBoard, not just answer questions or read to ActivBoard. All the items that I mentioned above that students use like the iPod are interactive, which is why they like them. I wouldn’t want to just sit and listen to a lecture anymore than a child likes to.

• I want to interact
• I want to have fun
• I want to learn without feeling it’s a chore

Don’t you think our children are the same way?

We have received ActiVotes for the classrooms, which will increase the student interaction. I can’t wait to see the students faces when they get to use the ActiVotes, (I call them eggs because that’s what they look like).

• Congratulations to Tes Powell for passing her National Board Certification!
• Lastly, I’ve been having a ball getting 165 new HP Short Form desktops ready for deployment into our classrooms. I know the students and teachers will see the difference between these computers and the ones that I will be replacing. This is another step toward an advanced, up to date ActivClassroom.

Technorati tags: Promethean, ActivBoard, K-12 Education

I’ve been working on this post for a month with a teacher at my school. Together we’ve started a blog for his 5th grade class (click here). The idea is to engage the students on the computer in a way that gets them interested in their work, while teaching them how to communicate. We also want to get the parents involved with their children together outside the classroom in an environment that the kids feel comfortable. The blog has been up for two days and in that time the students have already started asking questions about assignments with over 25 comments.

The blog consists of the main entrance page that contains the Upcoming Events post, pages that contain weekly class Lesson Plans in Math & Science, a Homework page and an Online Resource page.

• The Upcoming Events post is static, sort of; Keith will change it depending on events as they change each month. We decided that instead of making new posts, then having the posts scroll down as in a typical blog, that Keith would just write the upcoming events in the text editor and save the update. He will also change the time stamp to reflect the new age of the post.
• The weekly Lesson Plans are short basic overviews on what the students are doing that week, if there is a test and what is expected. It is not a detailed lesson plan, but something that gives a parent an idea about what their child is working on.
• The Homework page gives the students a homework assignment due later in the week. The student can ask questions by using the comments section of the page. The comments are moderated by Keith so that nothing inappropriate gets on the blog.
• The Online Resources page will change, be added to as time goes on and Keith finds sites that he wants his students and Parents to visit.

The Blogroll has basic links to our school page, the county school page and eharcourtschools, which is one of our main math sites. As I mentioned above, the Pages have comments allowed so that the parents and students can communicate with Keith after hours when Keith is online at home. It is also a help to the parents that cannot contact Keith during the school day. They leave a comment and Keith can email them a personal reply or leave a comment of his own if appropriate.

I personally believe a blog is an easy method of communicating your class goals than maintaining a web site. The quickness of editing a post or page is much faster than using FrontPage, DreamWeaver or another HTML program. The manipulation of the pages is easier and you can add video, pictures and other multimedia much easier. Lastly, you can communicate in faster and better with your students and their parents.

Check out Keith’s blog: Mr. Thompson’s 5th Grade Class

Technorati tags: Educational Technology, k12 Education, Blogging, Elementary Education

I experienced some weird signal loss with a few of our ActivBoards that I could only reproduce on the teachers laptops that used those ActivBoards. I took my known good laptop with me to test the board to verify that it was the teachers laptop, not the ActivBoard. I also took the teachers laptop to another ActivBoard, which would then reproduce the error without fail. This led me to start looking at what was installed on the laptop for conflicts.

In each case, 8 total, the laptop either had the AOL client installed or a Google product that had installed the Google Updater. After removing or actually first disabling these programs, I found these laptops worked without any further trouble with any ActivBoard. I let the laptops run for a week with the updater or AOL disabled before I then re-enabled the offending software for a final proof of theory. Bingo, the systems started losing signal with the ActivBoards within an hour, sometimes within 30 seconds.

Our district does not condone the use of Google products such as Google Desktop or toolbar and does not support them, ditto for AOL. I personally consider the AOL client software a poor piece of programming that takes over your system without any regard to your wishes or what else is installed.

I’ll be warning teachers more often about Google and AOL so that I don’t have to make a service call that could have been avoided.

Technorati tags: Educational Technology, k12 Education, ActivBoard, Promethean, Google, AOL

The 2007 FCAT scores and School Grades are out. Both show a decrease from last year, but the county I work in did quite well. In fact all but one of 25 elementary schools got an A, while the other got a B. The high schools need work as 3 out of the six high schools dropped one letter grade, with one dropping to a D.

The FCAT has been around since 1999, and the kids from the elementary grades 3, 4, 5 should be 10th, 11th and 12th grade high school students. Why, if the elementary schools have been doing so well are the high schools lagging behind?

Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Lack of standardization in teaching from elementary to high school.
2. Kids get older, are given more choices both in school and at home. They are not mature enough yet to know how to process those choices.
3. Outside of school the kids are more and more on their own with both parents working or a single parent household.

Here are some thoughts on how to correct them:

1. Standardize classes with reading, writing and science blocks.
2. Limit choices at school to 4 major topics of study and fewer elective classes in those major topics of study.
3. Segregate the freshmen classes in high schools to a certain building for most of the day. Allowing only grade intermingling during lunch, study hall and at school events.
4. Require more parent involvement.

One other thing that I don’t think some of the community understands or gets to see is that the high schools need to be the most up to date facilities that we have. Students cannot learn as well in a run down 40 year old school with exposed pipes as they can in a modern, clean, well maintained school.

Want FCAT results? We need to change, we need to follow new directions in our teaching.

Technorati tags: FCAT, Education, K12 Education, Standardized Testing, Florida, No Child Left Behind

Here’s a quote about the newly passed tax reform in Florida:

The cuts would also require up to $1.5 billion in cuts for 2008-09 education funding, though GOP lawmakers promised that they would use state revenue from the sales tax and other sources to make it up.

Source Sarasota HeraldTribune: Legislature OK’s tax-cut plan with choices

Do you really think that the Florida Legislators are going to make up the funds with promises? Lets get real, if it’s not written down, it’s not going to happen. Extrapolation give us, with the current property tax reform proposal, a reduction in public education’s tax base by more than $7.5 billion over 5 years.

So, the kids still need to pass the FCAT with $7.5 billion less in funds to help them learn with? Doesn’t sound like Florida cares about it’s youth.

Technorati tags: Education, Tax Reform, Florida

I strongly believe in technology as a tool in education. Of course I’m bias because I’m in IT in our school system, but today’s world is technology and multimedia. That being said, technology is not “THE ONE” solution to increasing our children’s knowledge or giving them the best education they can get. To the point, it takes a lot of things to make an education system work and here are my thoughts on what some of them are. These are in no particular order or a complete list, just some things to peak thoughts and discussion.

Parent involvement….This I believe, is crucial to the success of any child’s education. Active participation by parents creates a better view of school for a child, no matter the age of the child. Being in technology support I get to see all the classes, in all the elementary grades. I also get to see a lot of the parent involvement as I walk the campus and through classes. You wouldn’t believe what I hear as I walk by parents talking to their children; but I can tell you that the students that I see getting positive feedback are the one’s that I also see at the Student of the Month or Principal List awards presentations.

Teacher involvement….Boy this is a big can of worms because there are many different ways that a teacher can be involved and every teacher thinks their way is the right one. Well, I’m going to only give you one way that, in my opinion, is one of the best. At 8:20 am students are allowed into their classrooms at our school, which normally means the door is unlocked and the kids come in, the teacher says “hi” while directing the students in the daily start up routine. There is one teacher though, who stands at his door to greet each child by name, with a handshake, a “Good Morning” and a “How are you today?”. To me this shows the children that this teacher cares about them. It might take 10 minutes to do this, but he gets feedback and can take the extra time to work with or talk with anyone who might not be doing well or who has a problem.

Administration Involvement….Administration that walks the classrooms, sits in on a class, participates in lead teacher meetings helps with the students learning experience in more than one way. A principal that will go to a classroom to help teach a lesson is valuable. One that is able to lead, or more to the point to instill the want to follow by their staff is invaluable in shaping the way students learn. Our principal, Michelle Henderson made a deal with the students of her school that if they read enough books to earn 50,000 points she would jump out of a plane onto the PE field. Those points were earned through passing tests about those books they read. Well, those kids read a lot of books, over 2,500 and scored 57,000 points by passing those tests. Ms. Henderson jumped out of that plane last week to a cheering crowd of students.

I’ve purposely left technology off this list because there are a lot of things that don’t get noticed while we are pushing the technology. This post is meant to highlight some of the small things that happen that make our children want to learn, make them feel that someone cares.

The title of this post “It’s all about the kids” came from Ms. Henderson. I’ve heard her say it more than once and I know that she means it. It’s a joy to work at the school I do because the person at the top inspires her staff to keep their eye on the goal……the kids.

Technorati tags: K12, K12 Education, Elementary Education, Educational Technology, Education, PTO, PTA

There is a test that our first and second graders take each year. During the math portion of the test the teacher is reading the question out loud to them. It is not written anywhere on the test and the teacher can only read the question once. Yes, you read that right, they can only read the question ONCE.

My question is the same as the topic of this blog, “Is this a math test or a listening test?”

How does this test a child’s knowledge of math? What if they don’t hear the question clearly, or they don’t understand it? Being able to read the question themselves after the teach reads it out loud isn’t cheating, it’s letting them understand the problem. These are first & second graders, they are 6 to 8 years old and we are expecting them to be able to understand a question read out loud only once. Who came up with this idea? Have they seen the attention span of this age group, or how they actually learn?

I know adults that can’t answer questions without asking for the question to be repeated or reading it themselves. Could we give these test writers a test commensurate with their ability, but only read them the question once, no exceptions. I don’t think they would do as well as they think.

Technorati tags: Math, K12 Education, Elementary Education, Standardized Testing, Education

Our school district has invested $14 million dollars into putting Promethean ActivBoards into every classroom and Media Center in the district. This ambitious project has been an ever changing work in progress. The first phase of installs has been 15% of the classrooms. The teachers that have gotten ActivBoards in there classrooms have primarily been receptive to their new teaching partner, while the kids have just loved it.

Let me explain what an ActivBoard is so you can better understand how it changes the way a teacher has to teach. Watch an Overview here to see it in action. The ActivBoard is a large “Interactive Whiteboard” that you don’t use dry erase markers on. But as you can see it is much more, it is a PC, a VCR, a flipchart, a PowerPoint, a DVD player, an interactive lesson with your students, a center during class, the Internet, a TV for special events and more. An ActivBoard can be attached to a PC, either a laptop or a desktop running ActivStudio Professional or ActivPrimary for Elementary Schools K-2. Also standard with our ActivBoards are speakers with an Amplifier and a DVD/VCR. Along the line we will be adding a document camera, but you can also attach an ELMO and other devices to the ActivBoard.

Can you imagine showing a video or DVD of Martin Luther King, pausing the DVD during “I Have a Dream”, changing to the PC in two clicks where you have flipchart or a web page showing something that you want to focus on at that point in the speech, then switching back to the DVD to continue where you stopped? You can even have the students use the ActivBoard to answer questions about the DVD and the Flipchart lesson afterwards using the ActiVote personal response system that captures student responses by asking students to make a choice on the hand held voters by clicking a button. A mini quiz without the students knowing it. The kids think it’s a game, answer the question right and be the first or get the most questions correct.

I want to stress how much the kids really love the ActivBoard. It’s interactive, it’s entertaining, they get to use it and most important, they listen to the lesson. From my life experiences, when someone enjoys doing something they tend to pay better attention, learn more and retain it better. I have no statistical proof, but this would lead me to think that the kids will improve in grade point average and to some degree on the standardized tests that the lawmakers seem to think are needed to show Yearly Progress. The ActivBoards are by no means the only way we should teach, not at all. We should be doing some things the old fashioned way, like writing and reading. We shouldn’t stop going on field trips just because the ActivBoard can go just about anywhere, while it doesn’t have to move from the room. We shouldn’t stop going outside, sitting at a set of lunch benches and reading out loud with our students.

ActivBoards are a good advancement in teaching methods, they should be used in conjunction with current teaching methods. Some day the ActivBoard will break, you’ll need a backup lesson plan to do it the old way. Don’t replace the car when you are just adding a new coat of paint.

I think the ActivBoards are a great addition, take a look at Promethean World and Promethean Planet.

Technorati tags: Education, Technology, Promethean, ActivBoard, WhiteBoard, Teaching, K12, Educational Technology

I was reading the Wall Street Journal online tonight and came across an article that makes an argument that teachers are overpaid. I was shocked with the comparisons and the idea that you can compare the work a teacher does to the work an architect or economists does. The other thing I was astonished to read was that the author was basing his premise on an hourly wage.

Who, on average, is better paid — public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker. [snip]…..

In the popular imagination, however, public school teachers are underpaid. “Salaries are too low. We all know that,” noted First Lady Laura Bush, expressing the consensus view. “[snip]…. time per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has more than doubled; overall we now annually spend more than $500 billion on public education. [snip]….

It would be beneficial if the debate focused on the actual salaries teachers are already paid.

It would also be beneficial if the debate touched on the correlation between teacher pay and actual results. [snip]…. In fact, the urban areas with the highest teacher pay are famous for their abysmal outcomes.

Source: Is $34.06 Per Hour ‘Underpaid’? – WSJ.com

Teachers have contracts and a set number of hours they are required to work each day in our school district, but as anyone who has spent any time in a k12 school knows that teachers do not work the set hours and get their job done. 7.5 hours is not enough time to prepare lessons, prepare for the requirements of the state and federal “No Child Left Behind” standards or in the case of Florida the FCAT test. If a teacher just worked their 7.5 hours they would be woefully unprepared.

The author uses a poor logic for the annual differences in salaries stating that:

But comparing earnings on an annual basis would be inappropriate when teachers work significantly fewer hours than do other workers. Teachers can use that time to be with family, to engage in activities that they enjoy, or to earn additional money from other employment. That time off is worth money and cannot simply be ignored when comparing earnings. [snip]….

Moreover, the earnings data reported here, which are taken directly from the National Compensation Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, do not include retirement and health benefits, which tend to be quite generous for public school teachers relative to other workers.

Source: Is $34.06 Per Hour ‘Underpaid’? – WSJ.com

Now, nowhere in the article does the author link to his sources, he quotes them and tells us where they supposedly came from, but we have no easy way to check his facts. So, because a teacher can spend time with their family that’s compensation? Has the author tried to get a summer job? I don’t think so, especially when he is a higher education professor with the University of Arkansas and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He doesn’t explain how the time off is worth money, it’s just a statement with no facts to back it up.

As for the benefits and retirement, if the data he quotes does not include these items for teachers, then they don’t include them for the other jobs he uses in comparison. How does he know the benefit packages for k12 teachers and economist? He again shows no facts, so how are we to believe his words.

I work with the k12 teachers, I know the benefits packages for these people. K12 teachers are underpaid for what they have to do, which is teach our kids how to read, write, count, be prepared for higher education and be a productive member of society if they don’t go onto higher education.

Technorati tags: Education, K12