Category: Parent Resources

Great question from a 1:1 Parent

At the end of my workday, I thought I’d glance at my reader and an article stood out to me immediately: Advice for Parents of 1:1 Programs by Jeff Utecht. It began with this question by a parent:

My son attends a school where MacBooks are required from grades 8-12, and students use many different assistive technology tools. I believe that 1:1 is great as a learning TOOL, but because students have their laptops with them all the time, there is no “down” time when they have to use their own initiative to think, dream, plan, create w/o a screen. He gets up and will open the laptop before breakfast to play, he will play or noodle around with his iTunes in the car on the way to school, on the way home from school, and every other time that kids used to be unplugged. He is not creating, he is consuming. It is a huge fight in our household.

What advice do you have for parents in dealing with this dark side-effect of a mandatory BYOL environment?

I like think that in the OES middle school, we are intentional about building a culture of use that aligns with our values, and Jeff’s answers resonated and validated so many of the ideas that I just blogged about. For example,

  1. Create Family Rules –> We say, “Create a Common Culture”
  2. Conversation, Conversation, Conversation –> We say, “Start the Conversation”
  3. We still know what’s best –> We say, no laptop use at lunch: run around and be social.

A couple things Jeff mentioned that I really like are,

  1. Remember that you are the parent. I think this is hard, especially when you do not understand the attraction of the game or the logistics of how to use the device. I GO THROUGH THIS, EVEN AS THE TECH COORDINATOR. Sometimes I force myself to explore games or sites (like Tumblr or FormSpring) just to stay somewhat in the loop.
  2. “Doing homework” is really just disguised mess-around time. Again, his advice is great: let there be natural consequences for not using time wisely. At OES, we have a school culture where parent-teacher communication and personalized attention is the norm, so you can set up a plan like this with the teacher. How much better that students learn the value of time management in middle school, where the stakes are fairly low, rather than waste 4 years of college because they couldn’t keep themselves off facebook and Call of Duty.
  3. What looks like consuming, isn’t always. It seems like they are just messing around on iTunes or games, but sometimes this is deeply creative. This is one reason that I’m a huge fan of Gaming to Learn with games like SimCity or Minecraft. To go further, one of the great things about a 1:1 program, in my opinion is that it develops the fluency of use to allow students to move past just consumption. In my experience, life-long learners are not satisfied with mere consumption and cannot help but give back. Hours of watching video on YouTube becomes fodder for iMovie projects or a couple months (or years) of following twitter feeds eventually turns into tweeting because of a familiarity with the medium and understanding of the social rules. Sometimes “just” consuming can also be pattern and culture recognition, such as what content or behavior allowed and rejected. And, what began today as a surf through my reader, resulted in this blog post and my very first comment on someone else’s blog.

Great question, great responses, and great affirmation of the partnership we do our best to nurture with kids and parents here at OES.

Comments?

Staying Informed: Facebook

From our counselor: Adolescents are impulsive in their actions, focused on connecting to peers and taking risks. Thank goodness! Otherwise they would never have the courage to face the very scary world we live in and eventually leave home. The challenge is that technology feeds all three of these, and the results are not always conducive to a healthy, happy childhood.

Today, when kids turn 13, it’s not just about being a teenager: it’s about Facebook. The Facebook policy requires users to be 13, and signing up for an account, with all the connectedness it offers, might be equivalent to the Quinciñera or getting to vote.

This is where you (the adults) come in. Just as we don’t give them the keys to the car and wish them luck on the highway, we wouldn’t give them access to the internet without so much as a couple hours behind the wheel.

So as a parent (or teacher), how do you talk to your kid (student) about using facebook?

  • Know it yourself – have a facebook page. The best way to understand the experience is to be a part of it. If you kid loved lacrosse, you would probably pick up a stick or watch a couple games just to get a sense of it. Friend your kid. DON’T POST ON THEIR WALL.
  • Go through the account settings. I think of these as what others see about me. There are a lot of settings – you don’t have to do it all at once.
  • Go through the privacy settings. I think of these as who sees what I post. There are a lot of settings – you don’t have to do it all at once.
  • Show your child how to use the “View As” feature to see how their profile appears to the public or to their friends.

My mantra is that everything you share is PERMANENT & PUBLIC. Even on my personal account, I pretend my boss is looking over my shoulder. You never know who might see it.

Facebook is an amazing tool for connecting with friends and family across time and space. I play Scrabble against my mother who lives very far away, and it helps me feel more connected to her. On the other, if it becomes a world absent of adult guidance, like teenage drivers without navigation, it can become a tragic pile up of hurt feelings, broken friendships, and life-haunting videos from that one party in 8th grade.

Learning to manage social networks is a skill that kids need to be taught.

The first time I sat in the driver’s seat of my mom’s Pontiac Grand Am. It was the exhilarating taste of freedom. My mom worried that I would drive with the music too loud with my friends or not look all directions in the intersection. I was impulsive, peer-driven, and ignorant of the risks, but she sat next to me.

Maybe that’s what signing in to Facebook feels like. Same teenagers, different technology.

Build a Common Culture, Stay Informed, and Start the Conversation

These three tenets are the mantra of the middle school parent-tech partnership. Adolescents will always come up with new, wonderfully inventive ways of looking at rules and situations. Thank goodness! Because if they just did the same as we did, the world would never change. As a result of this, it’s impossible to come up with a rule for every situation. I like to come back to these tenets to guide my reactions:

1. Stay Informed

2. Start the Conversation

  • Even a protest is a conversation starter

3. Build a Common Culture

  • Setting boundaries on connectivity for all devices
  • Set family rules, like all technology used in common spaces
  • Model good technology behaviors, like not texting at the dinner table if you don’t want others texting then.
  • It’s about trust and respect, not technology
What does this look like in practice?
  • Your son wants to use his iPod touch to listen to music to fall asleep at night. You agree, but then begin to notice he’s having trouble getting up in the morning and seems more tired than usual.
  • Before you take it away or assume your child is using it all night,
    • Stay Informed: What things are possible on an iPod touch other than music? The most important thing is that it is possible to connect to the internet, so might he be messaging with friends or facebooking late? What do other parents do?
    • Start the Conversation: Ask him why he might be more tired. Ask him what else he uses his iPod touch for (during any time of day – leave it open). Ask what kind of music is he listening to and maybe listen along.
    • Build a Common Culture: What do you do with your technology at night? Do you listen to music to fall asleep? How can we work together to get more restful sleep?
These tenets help me get to the issue before jumping to conclusions. I realize that these may not be straightforward or easy issues, but they are important conversations and life habits to instill in adolescents.  We are invested in growing healthy, tech-balanced kids who can eventually manage their devices independently as adults. As your tech coordinator, I am here for you as a resource.

Technology in Spanish

This is our first GUEST POST from Charley Adams. Thank you to Charley for sharing the program he and Tessa have created both at this conference and on the blog. (If you would like to contribute, let me know!)

From Charley:

It was a kick to present with Tessa at the fall COFLT (Confederation in Oregon for Language Teaching) conference in October. Since we began to develop our own curriculum for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Spanish four years ago, we’ve developed ideas and identified resources that we felt could be useful to our colleagues from other schools. Thanks to OES’s amazing technology department and the laptop program, many of the most exciting things we’ve done in the last four years are, in one way or another, anchored by technology. We presented to an audience of 40-50 educators, who teach of a range of foreign languages, for a little under an hour. Some had useful tips to add (like uploading pictures to quizlet), while others are just getting started using technology both in and out of the classroom. All (I hope) took away at least one idea that they can use to enhance their teaching.

Google Apps Suite:

Shared documents, from simple vocabulary lists to student-generated visual/virtual flashcards using the presentation format, have opened up a new universe of how we look at our teaching resources. Allowing students to access and submit work electronically saves paper and prevents the “I lost/forgot my homework sheet” excuse. Websites and calendars provide hubs for lots of our class material and student resources, including handouts, lessons, photos, links, and more. Blogs are great for general parent communication (like on language trips!).

Garageband:

Great for creating our own music in Spanish, as well as for recording Spanish dialogues. These are some of the most fun and successful comprehension activities, especially when kids hear teachers of other subjects speaking Spanish.

Jing:

Awesome for on-screen grammar explanations, which kids can access from home whenever they want. Really helpful if students have a hard time recalling the in-class lesson when they sit down to do their homework.

Quia + Quizlet:

Lots of free, ready-to-play games that cover everything from simple vocabulary to complex grammar concepts. We’ve also made our own games on quia through setting up a subscription account. It’s free to set up a quizlet account and make your own vocabulary sets, which students can do easily. They can then share the fruits of their labor with their peers, keep scores if they want, and enjoy easy access and quick practice.

Audio Dropbox:

Excellent free resource from clear.msu.edu that allows students to record their voices online. The teacher streams their recorded answers for evaluation, saving lots of time from the now-outdated method of attaching and downloading audio files.

iMovie and Youtube:

Great for creating and sharing kid-generated movies in Spanish.

Questions I am Living

At the Klingenstein Summer Institute, we talked about “questions I am living.” What I love about this idea is that these are questions that we are constantly seeking answers to. This can feel absurd (and mildy frustrating) for a pragmatic person like myself, but it holds me in the process of living rather than focusing on a finish line.

The Questions I’m Living

1. What is “enough”? When is enough enough?

Do I give enough love, enough time, enough motivation, enough dedication, enough devotion to my life, my family, my job, myself?

2. How can some things be the same as they have always been and yet the world is always changing?

Adolescents have always rebelled against the institutions of the older generation and the older generation has always grappled with how to guide them.
Technology is changing how we live in this world, yet technology has ALWAYS changed how we live.

Side note: Scott McLeod wrote a great post about the attitude that “We didn’t have technology as a kid and I turned out okay.” I love the way Scott takes buzzwords or phrases that you feel comfortable with and picks apart the embedded issues. Technology has ALWAYS changed how we live. That doesn’t mean all technology is good or better, but it will change, and we need to adapt to it.

The Questions that Guide my Professional Development
For the OES Technology website, I wrote a short version of my educational philsophy, framing it with questions:
1. Why teach?
Learning comes from experiencing new information, skills, emotions, perspectives, connections, and relationships. Being immersed in this process, as a student or as a facilitator, is stimulating, challenging, and rewarding work.
2. Why technology?
Technology situates students (of all ages) in an environment of exploration, connection, creativity, and collaboration, during which learning opportunities are expanded. Additionally, the ubiquity and mobility of devices is changing how we function, learn, and work, and thus learning to navigate this rapidly changing, digital world is imperative.
3. Why middle school?
This is a critical age, when abstract thinking blossoms and perspectives shift; when life habits and values are formed; when capacities for empathy, creativity, and energy explode. The changes I see in students from when they enter as sixth graders to when they leave as eighth graders is a testament to the amazing growth that takes place in a short three years. I am humbled to be a part of the community that guides young people through this formative stage of their life.

Rescuing Time, Part 3: Personal Sustainability and Sabbath

We often think of sustainability only in terms of solar panels, plastic, and carpooling. As we reflect on stressed out and over scheduled lives, we may need to step back and think about how we keep our lives (and jobs) sustainable.

1. Pre-Whelmed

At a tech meeting, I was introduced to the idea of being “pre-whelmed,” i.e. feeling like you are buried under the mountain of work before it actually starts.

  • Case in point: I’ve started using Twitter more, and, as I tuned in to #edchat on a Tuesday night, I was pre-whelmed by the conversation. It was like standing in a crowded gym and trying to understand what every single person was saying and sharing.
But I want to be an intentional, CONNECTED teacher! The key is YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ IT ALL.
  • Twitter: select the hashtags or people you want to follow and enjoy what tweets you see. This is the beauty of just-in-time instead of just-in-case professional development.
  • Reader: follow a few blogs, only read interesting posts, and use the “mark all as read” button.
  • Conferences: take a session off to debrief with someone (a colleague or another participant) or write a blog post or journal entry. It doesn’t make you lazy or less committed and may even deepen what you can bring back to your school.
  • School day: think of the 10-minute casual conversations that keep you connected to colleagues, or the quick game of Bejeweled, or the 1-minute scan of facebook to watch a funny video… These distractions can also calm us, allowing us to be more productive afterwards. (And if this is true for us, when do we allow it for our students?)
2. Boundaries
  • Tweeting during a concert, speech, or presentation: Is it distracting or enhancing? For some, this might seem like whispering or passing notes, traditionally frowned upon. And that was my first reaction, but the more I thought about it, I think it actually ENHANCES my connection to the event:
    1. I get to share in someone else’s thoughts, making it a conversation rather than a one-way flow of information.
    2. They often pick up ideas or quotes that I missed, making my experience richer.
  • Technology. Sometimes I watch tv, work on my laptop, and text with my mom at the same time. The uber-connectedness feels stimulating and engaging, but screens can also be an incredible time-suck. On my honeymoon in Hawaii sans computer, the days seemed to stretch on forever. Last spring, we heard about periodically taking a Tech Sabbath, and I wanted to comment on the first two:
    1. Avoid technology. (More specifically, screens.)
    2. Connect with loved ones. (But if you need a screen to do this, that’s okay. My Saturday morning skype with my mom is important to me.)
Sabbaths don’t have to be on Saturdays, and they don’t have to be a full day. But taking time to disconnect can rescue us from an unsustainable life. Make the technology work for you:
  • connect with family and friends on skype and facebook,
  • explore new resources to keep yourself organized like rescue time and StayFocused,
  • create a PLN with reader and twitter,
  • and commit to a personal and professional practice that is intentional, balanced, and healthy.
And don’t think anyone who gives advice on this has it all figured out.

Rescuing Time, Part 2: Productivity Tools

I love me some organization!

Though I’m not always neat, I like things to be where they should be. The tools listed below are an odd assortment of ways I manage my computer, my work, and my classroom.

Resource share of productivity tools:

For your Mac

  1. Rescue Time: This downloads onto your computer, and you preset what applications and websites are deemed productive or distracting, then it monitors your usage. You can set productivity goals or alerts that let you know when you’ve been too distracted.
  2. WebDesktop: This allows you to put a website on the background of your desktop. I use it to show my Google Calendar, which keeps me organized for appointments and meetings.
  3. Good old Stickies: Application that comes on your OS X. They save automatically, you can collapse and organize them, and it gives you a place to put random notes (that you would have previously put on an actual sticky).

In Google Apps

  1. Calendars. I’d be lost without mine.
  2. Self Grading forms: script-based Flubaroo, array formulas (happy to share how to do this).
  3. Collections = automatic sharing: share a collection and then just drop your docs in rather than having to go to each document and share it.

iPhone

  1. CalenGoo ($6.99) or GooCal (Free): I personally use CalenGoo, but they both work. Or you can link the native iOS Calendar app to all your Google Calendars by using this link.
  2. WunderList (Free): You can share lists, check off items, put attach items to dates.
Please leave comments with YOUR suggestions – what do you use?

Rescuing Time, Part 1: Advice from parents

Everyone is stressed. Everyone needs more sleep.  Everyone is going faster, stronger, better, or harder than you are. We strive to write everything down, record everything we say, document every movement. We watch concerts and games through the video camera rather than enjoying it in the moment.

If you don’t subscribe to this attitude, well then you are clearly not doing it right.

At the 6th grade PAL meeting this week, parents offered advice:

  • Be present, remain calm
  • Pause and watch the magic of this stage  – step back and looks for connections
  • Get your rest, you never know when life will be challenging and you will need patience, etc.
  • Don’t rush – take your time
  • Be the best you can be
  • Be a witness to this amazing time of transformation in your kids
What is your advice?

NO MORE BOOKMARKS BARS!

Now we do everything in our web-browsers: compose email, write papers, make presentations, shop, read, even monitor our own use. If you are like me, the bookmarks bar always felt like it was cluttering up the space and yet I NEEDED it.

Enter Google Bookmarks.

Now, I go to my iGoogle and have my list of bookmarks in the form of a gadget.

You can customize your bookmarks, make labels so that you can have your OES links, your personal links, shopping links, etc. Unfortunately, for now, you have to add them manually.

And it is just one more reason to get an iGoogle page (see other reasons why and an explanation of how to make one here).

Welcome Parents!

Here are some links that you might find useful:

https://sites.google.com/a/go.oes.edu/oes-technology/parent-resources:

  • OES internal website for parents

NetSmartz:

  • choose your issue (Cell phones, sexting, blogging, webcams, social networking, etc.) then you can watch the video or read an article.
  • Mary Heston, WiredMom: “technology is a part of our kids lives and navigating these technologies will be an important part of their success in school and beyond.”
  • Good source for articles about online safety.