A Good Day

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Today was a good day. 

I started teaching at 8:00am, and I saw half of the 5th grade class for 50 minutes.  Today, we created Glogster posters.  The students had to become residents of the original thirteen colonies and convince others not to follow or participate in the Stamp Act of 1765.  My requirements were that they had to have three to five factual statements backing their claims, and they had to embed at least one photo on their posters.  Many of the students also embedded video into their posters as well.

At 8:50am, the sixth graders came to the lab, and I showed them how to use Google Forms.  They saw the form itself, the answer form, and the resulting spreadsheet.  They were told they had to utilize at least three of the question types (for example, essay, multiple choice, checkbox, fill-in-the-blank…).  They went through Chapter 10 of their social studies books, and they created their own ten-question quizzes.  After they created the quiz, they had to send it to the sixth grade group address.  This gives each student a copy of the quiz.  With at least 30 students in the class, that will end up giving each student a 300-question study guide before their test next week.

At 9:40am, the eight graders, led by one of their classmates, began compiling their research, pictures, and scripts about how computers work.  They each researched the different parts of a computer, drew pictures, and wrote scripts about it all.  Together, they will film what they’ve learned, and it will be shown during the last week of school to the Kindergarten through seventh grade classes.  Because the computer lab is moving to a new building over summer, we’ll have no access to the computers during the last week of school as they get packed away.  The “leader” of this project is an 8th grade member of the technology club I run on Mondays after school, and he is, hands-down, a great kid who has incredible skills.

Unfortunately, 7th grade was on a field trip today, so I missed seeing them.  Students were assigned different explorers, and they’ll present (their choice of media) the information with graphics, video, and text.  I’m sure they’ll knock my socks off… They’ll finish their work on these early European explorers on Thursday.

During my prep time, I listened to the technology coordinator share about the webinar she attended on PowerSchool earlier that morning.  We discussed different scenarios, website integration, staff/teacher training, and lots of other great ideas.  I did some research for my budget next year.  I also looked at Chromebooks again; this time, I was looking at them for the faculty.

Right before lunch, I looked at my lesson for Kindergarten for tomorrow.  The teacher wanted me to help them with recognizing and identifying money (coins, mostly).  I went into Kidspiration and created an introductory activity, and I found a non-linguistic (mostly pictures) game for them to play to identify and count coins.  It will help them with their counting and adding, but most importantly, it will give them more mousing, fine-motor, and hand-eye coordination to practice.  Score!

After lunch, the first graders came to the lab.  Their teacher wanted them to work on their knowledge of comparative and superlative adjectives.  For those who aren’t familiar with the terminology, comparative is between two things (in the case of the word big, an item would be bigger than another); superlative is among many (three or more) and has -est added to the end of the word (biggest, in this case).  During lunch, I asked the primary teachers (K-4) to give me adjectives.  I wrote down as many as I could (about 40), and I took the list with me to the lab.  Each student picked a word from the list, and in Kidspiration software, they wrote the adjective in its regular form, the comparative form, and the superlative form.  One first grader blew me away with her tiny tree, a medium-sized tree, and a large tree with the labels near, nearer, and nearest. AMAZING. The first grade teacher received 30 different adjectives with comparative and superlatives in a nice unbound booklet.

This was a good day, indeed.  It’s days like this that I absolutely love my job, and fortunately, 99% of my days are like this one.  :)

Wi-fi and computer security

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“Fast Internet, stay connected in a jet. Wi-fi, podcast, blasting out an SMS. Text me and I text you back. Check me on the iChat. I’m all about that http, you’re a PC, I’m a Mac” – The Black Eyed Peas

I sent the following email last week to all staff where I work. Response from those who have read it has been very promising.

Subject: Important: Please read, about wi-fi & computer security

Recently, I have had a few people question why I have made it a “policy” that all company-owned laptop computers are issued with a mobile broadband device. After all, we’re in the budget process, we’re a nonprofit agency, and with the prevalence of (often free!) wireless networks (wi-fi), why should we pay an additional cost of up to $60 per month, per computer, for mobile broadband service? This is an excellent question, and I welcome the discussion!

The quick answer is this. Wireless networking (wi-fi) is very dangerous. It’s dangerous on several levels. It’s dangerous to your private information such as private email, banking information, identity theft, etc. It’s also dangerous to our company’s information such as client data. This is very important! As an organization that serves clients, there are times when a client’s medical information or history is discussed in email or on web-based databases. Because of this, we are required to operate to HIPAA standards (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and ensure that client data is kept secure and private. It’s also dangerous to your computer. Hackers can exploit improperly setup shared files or operating system (or web browser) vulnerabilities and install malicious programs on your computer without your knowledge. These programs can spread to your home computers or our company’s computer networks and could be very costly to eradicate.

Please note that the danger is not restricted to free hotspots at cafes or fast-food restaurants, but includes ALL wi-fi. This includes your home, your friend’s home, and other businesses too. The ONLY secure wi-fi uses WPA or WPA2 encryption and a very strong wi-fi password (not one or more dictionary words, because these can be “guessed” by computer software attacks). If you connect to wi-fi hotspots or access points that do not require a password, they are not encrypted, and they are not secure. If they use WEP encryption (the most popular, even today), they can easily be hacked and your information intercepted and decoded.

Please make the time to watch these two informative YouTube videos. All together, they run less than 15 minutes long, but they clearly show some of the dangers I mention above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5onQy6ftC8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEMFAToYRNQ

Mobile broadband, on the other hand, relies on digital encryption to connect computers to the internet through the cellular telephone network. There is no worry of what encryption levels to use, as it is all hard-coded into the devices and managed by the provider. We can use mobile broadband and be assured that our computers, our private information, and especially our client information, is secure and private.

If you’re not using the mobile broadband device that we provided with your computer, please start using it. If you have any questions or wish to discuss this further, please contact me. Thanks,

Frank

Twitter as Professional Development

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I’ve had a user account on Twitter for several years (since 2009), but it wasn’t until December of 2011 that I started actively reading and tweeting.  I think what got me back onto Twitter was the DreamForce (#DF11) cloud conference I attended in August.  The genius CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, discussed the importance of social media in networking and for collaboration.  I tweeted a couple of times while I was at #DF11 (waiting in line to watch Metallica), but I wasn’t really “getting” what I needed from Twitter.  I needed to put more thought into what I wanted.  I knew I’d need to take the time to find out who I’d want to follow and have in my “network” of Tweets to make it worthwhile for me.

Once I started scanning user profiles and found a plethora of people to follow, I was hooked.  By the time Christmas break was winding down, I was jumping into my Twitter account before I checked Facebook or Google+.  I love Google+ and Facebook; don’t get me wrong.  Twitter was different; it was basically finding what I wanted to read, connecting me to people who were passionate about the same things I was, and a treasure-trove of ideas to use in my own career.  I was inspired by these people I was “meeting” online, and I truly believe that being on Twitter makes me want to work harder and better for the students and faculty I serve.

Most of the people I currently follow are enthusiastic about educational and instructional technology, and many are what I’d consider the “rock stars” of education and technology integration.  My favorites to follow for ideas usually are people presenting at CUE, ISTE, and other educational events.  As of today, I follow approximately 700 people, with probably 650 being in the education arena, and I know this will grow exponentially.  My followers tend to be teachers and fellow technophiles, and of course, I’ll have a few inappropriate followers that pop up (and I subsequently block).  Overall, it’s a great place for me to go when I want to widen my horizons, get feedback, and embrace the ability to be a lifelong learner.

Yesterday, I happened to finally catch an #elemchat, and it was focused on social studies and pedagogy.  It was so reaffirming to be around teachers who knew how to teach, how to help other teachers, and how to engage every student each day.  So many of them mentioned people who make students regurgitate information from a textbook, wasting the time and brain cells of students who deserve better.  It was great that the consensus believed that textbooks were, for the most part, unnecessary in elementary social studies because the overarching big picture was to see the world and how it connects to our students.  Some even mentioned how sending students to a website “for research” is just as wasteful — and I couldn’t agree more, especially as it is such a terrible use of technology. Technology integration in social studies (or any subject, for that matter) should not be solely a consumption of information; it needs to be creative, collaborative, and invoke critical thinking.

I see how important Twitter has become to my craft, and I wonder how I lived without it all those years.  Working in a private school, especially one with only one teacher per grade level, it can be difficult to find people with whom to collaborate, share ideas, and learn.  Twitter really solves that problem in an environment where I can take the time to see global colleagues changing the world one student at a time.

2nd Graders & Friendly Letters

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I have to admit that our current second graders are wonderful.  They follow directions, they are eager to learn, and they are simply a bunch of sweet kids.  I was a little leery about introducing email to these young scholars, but after I finished the lesson, I realized I had nothing to worry about.

We started in the tech lab with their usual 45-minute session.  They sat down, and I told them we were going to access our email accounts for the first time.  Of course, they cheered with enthusiasm, making me feel more comfortable with their readiness.  We talked about what a domain name was, and they figured out what domain we used for our email accounts through the classroom website.  I explained to them that through Google Apps for Education, I was able to lock their accounts down so that they could only send and receive emails to and from their teachers, parents, and other students – all of them being within the same domain.  I also told them that when they get something in their inbox, their parents will also receive it.  This led to a short discussion on what is appropriate for email. We talked about .org, .com, .net, and .edu, and I gave them more reminders about internet safety. I told them that emails weren’t private, and I reminded them that if they weren’t sure about an email they received, they should show their parents, a teacher, or another responsible adult instead of deleting it.

Next, we talked about the parts of a friendly letter.  There’s an opening, a body, and a closing.  Then we moved it to email:  To whom we write an email, the subject, and the body. The kids figured out from the domain discussion the naming structure for teachers, and I said that for this first email, they’d email me.  When it came to subject, one student said, “We put technology as the subject.”  I said that subject usually means which class we’re in, but this time, it was the main idea of the letter.  In the subject area, we always put our first name (because who knows who pinkfluffyunicorns@gmail.com is), and then, we put our main idea.

Finally, we got to the body.  This is where the friendly letter lesson they learned in first grade came in handy.  How do we start a friendly letter?  “Dear so-and-so,” a student eagerly responded. Exactly!  I went on to explain the body, spacing after end punctuation, line spacing between paragraphs, and the closing with a signature. They were given 25 minutes to type their emails to me – only needing two sentences in the body of the friendly letter for this first round. In about 15 minutes, I had most of the class in my inbox.  They were eager to write another, and they did, to their wonderful homeroom teacher.  (She loved this, and she said she promptly replied to all the emails she received.)

In the end, the entire class did a great job sending email.  I need to go reply to those emails, so we can discuss receiving and responding to an email next time.  Soon, the second grade will also use Google Docs, and we’ll share documents between partners, using our email addresses.  I am hoping it will be a silent class – because they’ll be busy chatting online with their partners who sit nowhere near them.  :)

How video games got me hooked on technology

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“You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?” – The Talking Heads

Maybe I should answer the “who?” question first. I am Frank, the “his point of view” side of this blog. I am also a geek. I have had a love for technology, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember. Much of that love came with my love for science fiction as a kid. I loved robots and spaceships more than anything. I can’t recall building anything out of Lego bricks that was not either a robot or a spaceship. My early love for sci-fi started with reruns of Star Trek (the original series), Lost in Space, UFO, Battlestar Galactica, and Space: 1999. When I got a little older and my attention shifted to reading, I could not get enough of the classics like The Martian Chronicles and R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury; 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood’s End and Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke; Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein; there were so many more. These stories and the sci-fi movies of the time were filled with technology, but it was exciting, futuristic, and seemed (sadly) way out of reach.

Video games became part of my life just before my early teens. When I was around 11, my dad bought our family the Sears-branded Pong video game system. It only played the one game (no cartridges!) but we had so much fun with it! A year later, as I graduated eighth grade, I got a Mattel Intellivision console. Do you remember Astrosmash and Space Armada? I LOVED those games! One year later, I remember seeing my first real arcade video game – Space Invaders – at our local roller skating rink. I remember playing that game until my fingers and hands ached (or I ran out of quarters, which usually came first). A local arcade opened not long after and my early teen years were filled with Asteroids, Galaxian, Robotron 2084, and Defender.

To me, video games, especially sci-fi themed ones, had a certain magical quality. Yes, they still had the science fiction storylines that I loved, but I (the player) had the chance to be “IN” the game. I could interact with them and experience the story. I had to repel hordes of alien invaders, or “save the last human family” in Robotron 2084. Real technology hid behind the scenes giving us experiences that did not exist before.

Let’s fast forward to mid-1993. Previous to this time, I had graduated from high school and did not know what direction I wanted to go for my career. I opted out of college in favor of taking that “year off to work before going back to school.” That return to school did not happen for many years (topic for another post?) and I had worked many different jobs. I had worked in fast food, and did my time in retail sales. I remember buying my dad a Commodore 64 computer for his home business around 1985 and using it more than he did, to play games like Zork (1, 2, and 3) and Planetfall and Ultima II. I enjoyed working as a repair tech on the state lottery machine terminals but had to leave when my speeding tickets started to add up. I worked as a sales manager for an electronics store selling home theater and car stereo – which was really fun but there really wasn’t a career future there. That’s just about when my good friend Brian C. stepped in and changed my life’s direction.

My friend Brian had gone to college, and was working for a Fortune 100 company as an engineer. Knowing how much I had enjoyed working as a service technician for the lottery, he pushed me to apply for a service technician job at his company. I was afraid of this new career direction because I had avoided getting familiar with computers to the extent that I expected I would need in this new job. After all, when I worked for the lottery, I had been trained on their proprietary hardware, but never really worked on personal computers. I remember going over to my friend Brian’s house so he could teach me the basics of PCs. Not only did he teach me the basics of the (then) state of the art Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Office, but we played video games (imagine that!). My favorites were Doom and The 7th Guest. I recall at least 2 rushed trips to a local computer store to get RAM memory and an upgraded video card with Brian so we could play 7th Guest.

So I survived the crash course in computers (while having fun) and applied for the new job. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) the position I wanted (service technician) was on a freeze and I was encouraged to temporarily apply for the open service dispatcher position at least as a foot in the door with the company. I did, and was hired. The job was fun and I had lots of great experiences there. I quickly became the office’s “go-to guy” when others had computer problems. This was fun for me, and I realized that I had a natural aptitude for trouble shooting computers. I remember being asked to help the Network Administrator cobble together a few working IBM 386 processor computers from broken, unused parts so that the service department could be outfitted with a few PCs. We used the computers primarily for client letters but I remember creating my first Access database to manage our service agreements. I also became part of a very early group to start using email for communication with my counterparts in our other offices, using AOL’s email service. I was very successful in my job and the company soon adopted some of the ideas that I lucky enough to test (such as email and using Access to help manage our service customers).

In the years that followed, I accepted a few promotions and moved from one office in northern New Jersey to another in Philadelphia, and finally to one in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. While in the San Francisco office, I ended up being asked to back up for the Network Administrator when she was out of the office. A couple of years later, when she moved and left the company, I applied for the Network Admin position and got it. My professional career in IT had begun.

To be continued…

My current addiction: Dead Space on PS3

My First EdCamp

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My very good friend Shyra and I decided we’d trek ourselves down to CSUFresno to attend our first EdCamp.  EdCampCV was headed by Alice Keeler (@alicekeeler) on February 25, 2012.  For those of you who don’t know what EdCamp is, there’s a great video on the EdCampCV website that explains it. EdCamp is not your every day professional development seminar.  In fact, it’s not a seminar or conference at all.  Teachers gather in a main area, write down topics they’d like to discuss, and eventually, the popular topics get posted on the board, listed with time and room locations.

The first session I attended was project-based learning (PBL). The teacher who created the session basically wanted to share his ideas and gather more ideas on PBL.  He discussed a really great economy project, and Shyra shared her Monopoly/Game of Life project. (If she posts it online, I’ll gladly link it here when it’s up.)  I shared my Poverty Project, and we shared things like Grammarly, Vimeo, and Prezis to help get those projects completed.  It was a great way to start the morning, and I felt like new and experienced teachers all walked away with new ideas and reignited motivation to create projects that engage students.

The second session, I chose to go to Alice Keeler’s Google Forms group.  One special-ed teacher was wondering how he could use forms to share documentation between teachers in a confidential, easy, paperless way.  At first, he seemed a bit overwhelmed by the possibilities, but Alice seemed to calm all of us with her ideas and expertise.  We were learning how to do pivot tables and auto-fill forms.  I had played with Google Forms at a Chromebooks Classroom event at Google, and I’ve dabbled with some forms with students.  What Alice taught me about Google Forms was just one more reason to be addicted to Google Apps for Education.

Next, I sat with a group of teachers discussing the Common Core. The discussion evolved into a discussion about schools in neighborhoods of extreme poverty, where some of the teachers in the group taught.  It was heartbreaking, but it was also motivating and inspirational to know that there are teachers out there that give 110% despite the frequent knock-downs from district and state mandates. These were truly great teachers, changing lives of children and giving them a safe start in the world.

Lunch at the Dog House Grill was another highlight.  You wouldn’t think that it would be, but we sat and shared more ideas and talked about our passion for teaching.  Being from a private school where collaboration with similar teachers can be difficult, it was great to know that there are other teachers out there who want to share and grow.  I do have to mention that the lettuce-wrapped tri-tip sandwich was divine, and it reminded me that Fresno has awesome food, grown right there in the valley.

The last session I attended involved gaming principles being added to grading.  Alice Keeler is doing research on this, and I expect it to be a game-changer in the field of education.  It is innovative and genius.  You’ll have to catch Alice at the many places she’s speaking because she is another person in the edtech world that no one should miss.  In fact, I’ll be going to CVCUE at Minarets High School in April, and hopefully, I can register for the Rock Star Camp at Minarets in August.

At the end of the sessions, many of us were lucky to get a gift from the sponsor, SimpleK12 – a $297 year-long membership!

The greatest part of EdCamp is that it’s free.  It’s run by teachers who are passionate about their craft.  Some people say, “You get what you pay for,” but EdCamp’s bargain is a treasure-trove of priceless collaboration, inspiration, and ideas.  If you have the chance to go to a local EdCamp, don’t hesitate to go.  Take a friend with you if you’re shy.  It will be one of the best days you’ve ever shared in your teaching career.

 

EdTech Professional Development

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Like many private schools, our school has one teacher for each grade level.  Collaboration between teachers of the same grades is difficult, if not impossible for most of us; thus, professional development becomes an important part of our collaboration, learning, and growth.  When you mention professional development to people, most people’s eyes will glaze over, they’ll yawn, and then they’ll gripe about how boring it can be.  My advice:  Choose better professional development!

Today, I had the great pleasure of attending Cool Tools VIII by EBCUE (East Bay Computer Using Educators).  My first session was about Thinkfinity, moderated by two fabulous tech superstars, Dr. Sara Armstrong and Shauna Hawes.  They shared amazing lesson plans, games, and websites all through Thinkfinity’s site.  It was a treasure-trove of great, easy lessons that incorporate 21st century skills, critical thinking, and standards across all areas of curriculum.

My second session was by Nicole Dalesio, an amazing and talented 5th grade teacher who shared almost 100 free creativity-invoking websites to use in the classroom.  Her presentation alone was worth the $75 fee for the EBCUE Cool Tools mini-conference.  In fact, I would have easily paid that much just for the amazing list of links she shared with us!  If anyone is lucky enough to be able to attend a session that she is hosting at future conferences, don’t miss it!

After lunch, I attended a session hosted by the co-founders of LiveBinders.  LiveBinders are an amazing way to put all of your information in one spot, whether it is for an assignment, a project, a lesson plan, future reference, the list goes on and on… I quickly and easily created LiveBinders and shelves for my students (thank you, Google Apps for Education – all my students have their own school-issued email addresses).  I embedded my Poverty Project legislation-writing rubric and template into a binder, and I can’t wait for 8th grade to add their work to their binders to build a nice e-portfolio to show-off to their parents, friends, and future high school teachers.

At the end of the mini-conference, we all gathered into the auditorium, and the EBCUE board members handed out prizes, from t-shirts to gadgets, including an i-Pad.  (I won a $15 iTunes gift card – woot!)  It was truly an incredible day of learning, growing, and sharing.  I am looking forward to attending EdCampCV in a couple weeks – my first EdCamp experience.  Professional development doesn’t ever have to be boring.  Join your local CUE affiliate or find a nearby EdCamp to attend.  You might just find yourself having fun and learning something worthwhile!

The Poverty Project

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For the past few years, I have been doing a very special project with the eighth graders at our school.  It covers curriculum in religion, social studies, language arts, science, and math – and it even uses technology throughout the lesson.  For those in non-parochial schools, the religious aspect can be left out of it and replaced with character education or simple compassion and human dignity.

The Poverty Project ©2012 is a lesson I created with partial material from Catholic Campaign for Human Development – Poverty USA website

Day One.  We start the discussion on poverty.  What are common stereotypes of people living in poverty?  What do you think of people living in poverty?  Are they lazy, drug-addicted, or drunks?  Why can’t they “just get a job?”  It is here that I tell them a true story:  I was in Santa Cruz with my family.  We went to the popular boardwalk, and we were getting ready to have dinner on the wharf.  It was a breezy summer day, but we hadn’t planned on the breeze being so chilly.  I marched the kids and my husband into a store and put down $150 for brand new hoodies for the whole family.  Outside of our favorite restaurant, a stinky old bum sat with a cup asking for money.  Looking in his cup, he had several $20 bills, and I said, “He’s got more money than I do!”

My husband pulled me aside, and he looked very concerned.  “I’m going to buy you lunch,” he told the disheveled man.

“WHAT?! Are you crazy?!?!” I shrieked, “He’s got at least $200 in there.  He’s got bank!”

My husband’s face grew stern, and he looked at me embarrassingly.  “Where do you think he’s going to put that money?  Can you see him at the bank?  Where is this guy going to stay tonight?  Will you invite him into our home?  It’s the weekend right now, but come Monday, he won’t have $200 in his cup… he’ll be lucky to get $5 because all of the tourists will have gone away.  Where is your compassion?  He is a human being.  What if he was Jesus in disguise?  What if THIS was YOUR test on earth?”

Tears filled my eyes, and I felt instantly ashamed of my behavior.  The truth is, this homeless man would probably get mugged that night because beatings and murders of homeless people were on the rise.  He definitely did not have the luxury of spending $150 on stupid Beach Boardwalk sweatshirts to keep him warm, but if he decided to drop all his money on that, would they even let him into the store??  He smelled of sweat, dirt, and urine – no way.  Where would he eat tonight?  Where was his family?  How did he get here?  He didn’t deserve my insults.  He deserved dignity – he is a human, created equal, created for a reason…  Maybe it was to teach me this lesson?

The students are now intrigued by this time.  They are full of questions about what happened next.  They are captivated and engaged… What better way to start our lesson together?

“Imagine this:  You are now 25 years old.”  I announce.  They usually cheer and high-five each other, but I always have to spoil their fun.  I tell them that they are married, have two children (an 8-year-old and an 18-month-old), and they only have an 8th grade education.  They had to drop out of high school during their freshman year because their families were stuck in the cycle of poverty.

The First Assignment.  The students must find a full-time, minimum wage job in Alameda County.  They have to remember that the job must not have education requirements because they only have somewhat successfully passed 8th grade coursework.  Jobs are first-come, first-hired.  Students look at newspapers, Craigslist, and other sources and send me the job through Google Docs (thank you, date/time stamp).  I type in the comment stream and on the document itself to tell them whether or not they were hired and give them the next steps:

  1. They must find a job for their pseudo-spouse – also minimum wage, unskilled labor.
  2. They need to figure out what hours they will work during the week.
  3. They need to figure out if they will be using daycare for the 18-month-old and 8-year-old (if the 8-year-old is not in school at those hours).
  4. They need to find transportation.  (If they choose a car, it must be insured AND they need to buy it or find a payment plan they can afford.)
  5. They must have medical and dental insurance on the family.
  6. They need to find a 2-bedroom apartment (just like the jobs, first-come; first-served)
  7. They have no other family or friends that can help them.
  8. Only legal actions may be taken (i.e., no under-the-table jobs, no abandoning your children).

The Budget.  A couple of weeks into this, after everyone has jobs and housing, I start them on a budget process.  I have our school bookkeeper come in and tell them about what taxes and fees will come out of their paychecks.  She provides a handout that has all of the deductions, and she talks about what each tax and fee is – including the big healthcare costs for dependents.  The students then use Google Spreadsheet to come up with the formulas to create their budgets.  I give them set pricing for electricity, gas, water, and garbage.  We estimate how much money they can spend on groceries.  I also warn them that most of them will end up in debt by a couple hundred dollars – just for the week, and it will get worse with time. By now, they’re usually whining that this work is difficult, and they’re freaking out about how to put food on the table.  My answer:  Millions of people struggle with this daily.  Welcome to poverty.

Food.  One lesson is spent making a food list/budget.  We bring in supermarket ads, and we use online shopping ads.  We figure out a typical breakfast and price each serving.  We get snacks for the kids, figure out lunch and dinner, and some brave ones will try to get a dessert in there as well.  All the servings are priced, and we figure out what we’ll pay each day for food.  That’s when we look at what food we chose and how unhealthy it is.  They start to ponder links to childhood obesity and poverty…

Reflect Often.  We have reflection time after each major portion, and we discuss the issues that we encounter.  Some examples:  There are not enough jobs that are available for low-skilled and unskilled workers.  Rent is outrageous in the Bay Area.  The places they can afford to live can be scary and in dangerous neighborhoods.  We talk about Maslow’s Hierarchy, and how kids who are hungry or worried cannot even start to climb the ladder of success at school.  Violence in the neighborhood (and at home) can make it near impossible to concentrate at school. We talk about water and how third world countries don’t have water fountains/faucets with free, clean water. We talk about the federal poverty income limitations, and how hard it would be to make ends meet on even less money than they’ve “earned” in this project. We discuss issues that go along with being in poverty (i.e., correlation of violence and poverty).

The Movie.  After “living” in poverty for several weeks, we watch the movie The Human Experience by Grassroots Films. I saw this movie in its rough-cut version when it toured to a local theater in 2008. When it came to DVD in 2010, it became part of my project.  The students are usually astounded when they see the lack of dignity that people living in poverty experience daily. They see pain, suffering, and fear.  For at least a day, the students are silent for the rest of the day because this movie changes them, keeps them thinking… it makes them want to change the world…

Legislation.  For the next part of the project, they are no longer poverty-stricken young adults, trying to make ends meet.  They have become government officials, legislators that are going to write laws and bills that change or end poverty as we know it.  The students must write it with definitions and limitations all spelled out, so loopholes aren’t created – critical thinking at its finest.  Some past pseudo-legislation done by students included a bus that picks up homeless and needy and takes them to a plot of land purchased by private funds.  They create a mini-community with self-sustaining farms, and they learn job skills.  They are housed, fed, and educated as this village comes together to help each other.  Another idea was to create an after-school program that allows impoverished kids to have a safe haven to do homework, eat a healthy meal, and get school supplies and clothing, all funded by local merchants and large grocery stores.  I tell my students my unbreakable rule of creating legislation:  Your legislation cannot give a person a fish to eat for one day (charity).  Your legislation must give a person the education and skills to eat for the rest of his or her life (social justice).

Lots of Writing. They work on legislative writing skills – collaborating with two to three other senators in their group to create a bill that could actually get some attention from local government.  The students write persuasive letters to convince others to support their proposals.  They work on presentation skills, so they can convince the other senators to help vote it into law.  They gather signatures from adults in the real world that would be affected by such legislation (i.e., teachers, doctors, the mayor, nurses, charities).  They learn how to write letters to the media to spread the word about ending poverty and promoting dignity of the human person.

Presentations.  As the final assignment of the project, the students dress up in their finest business attire and present the legislation to their classmates, other teachers, and the Principal.  The students use Prezi, Google Presentation, Glogster, and other online applications to collaborate with their classmates on the final project.  During the final presentations, the teachers and fellow students ask tough questions about the loopholes in their bills.  (For example, if you tax the manufacturers of processed foods to fund healthier food items for the poor, are you still hurting the poor who have no time to make healthy meals?)  We debate the bills, and finally, we vote on each.

Final Reflection.  The students have one final reflection after all is said and done. They give me ideas for the next class that will do the project, they offer ways to improve and things to consider for the future, and most of all they tell me what they learned:  All humans should be treated with compassion, respect, and dignity.  Often, parents will come to me and tell me that they love what this project teaches their kids.  One parent shared with me that at Halloween, her son decided to skip having a costume.  He thought that spending $50 on a costume was ridiculous, and he thanked his mom for all her work and effort and for sending him to a good school.  Another parent told me their daughter asked her if she could have ten dollars from her allowance so she could buy food for a person who was begging for money outside of the supermarket. After the mom tried talking her out of it, the girl told her mom, “Mom, what if that’s Jesus in disguise?”  You can’t argue with that, now can you?

Email Etiquette for Students

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I teach my students e-mail etiquette as part of their first lesson in accessing their Google Apps for Education accounts. My rules are not complicated, and they work really well for our particular students.

  • Always include your name in the subject.  I don’t know who pinkfluffyunicorns1357 is.  Plus, it’s a good habit to get into because it might be a requirement in your college courses as well.  (For the record, I create very clear identification and log-in credentials for our student email accounts, but sometimes students use their personal email addresses – or a parent’s email address – to contact teachers.)
  • Do not use text-speak.  If you use text-speak, your email will go directly to my trash bin, it will not pass go, and I will definitely not respond.  Ur BFF can read it and LOL, but I won’t.
  • CUPS matter.  Capitalization, usage, punctuation, and spelling are your friends.  I expect my students to always be good writers (must be from being a middle school language arts teacher previously).
  • Include a greeting.  Everyone deserves respect and dignity, so give your reader some when you email by typing Dear [name] or Hello [name].
  • If you’re writing a teacher about a project or assignment, make sure you give some background information.  Our science teacher cannot remember what your science fair project is – she has at least 150 other students!
  • Mind your manners.  Make sure you read your email out loud to yourself before you send it.  Is there anything there that could be misinterpreted as rude, insensitive, inappropriate, condescending, or demanding?  A student once sent me an email that looked a lot like this:  Send me the worksheet from today right now.  I was absent, and I’m going to bed in 30 minutes.  My response was:  I don’t think you’re one of my students.  MY students would never write an email like this.  (And I copied her parents, without attaching the worksheet…) 
  • Do not forward jokes, games, or chain letters to your teachers or to your classmates. Unless it’s relevant to our learning, we don’t really need to share this stuff on school email.  In fact, send this to ten of your friends before midnight to avoid being cursed with bad email-writing skills for the rest of your life.
  • Be careful what you do email to others.  If you would be embarrassed to have that information out in the open, it doesn’t belong in an email.  Too many students (and teachers) think email is a confidential means of communicating, but it’s not.  It only takes one click to forward that secret to the entire school.
  • Signatures should have helpful information about you, like your name and grade.  A cute quote in your signature file is fine, but again, CUPS and manners are always important.
  • Finally, Snopes is your friend.  If you must absolutely forward something to others, please at least check Snopes to make sure that those five-legged spiders that will turn you into a zombie and that million dollar bank deposit in Zimbabwe are real before you make a fool out of yourself.
  • Want to add something to this list?  Please feel free to comment!

Google Apps for Education

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I will put a huge disclaimer up front:  I am a complete, die-hard fan of Google, but I do not have any financial gain for recommending or using (or passionately advocating for) Google products.

I started using Google in 1999, after leaving AltaVista search engine behind.  My husband told me, “You’ve gotta check out this great new search engine…”  It was love at first site (pun intended).  Ten years later, I started a classroom of students on Google Apps for Education email accounts, so they could send documents and other assignments to me electronically – allowing homework and projects to be time-stamped by Google in my inbox.  In 2011, I worked to get the entire school and our parent community onto Google Apps for Education.  Students from Kindergarten through 8th grade (and all of the parents) have Google Apps for Education accounts, and currently second grade and up use the email and Google Docs features.  It’s still early – I’ll get to Kindergarten and first grade by the end of this school year!

The things I love most about Google Apps for Education are the collaborative documents students can use at home and at school… or anywhere else they can grab an internet connection with their browsers.  Eighth graders have used Google Presentation and Google Drawing to make informative and creative slides about The Book Thief characters; Google Documents to save word processing documents for their Poverty Projects, for the annual science fair projects, and for a social studies/country project; and Google Spreadsheets for a math stock market report.  Seventh graders learned how to gather data by using Google Forms. Some students still prefer to use Microsoft Office or Apple iWork tools – and for some projects, I do like the more customizable features in those products.  But Google Apps are free, and Google Apps don’t have any operating system or version compatibility issues… the cloud is always open and updated.

Our science teacher recently had sixth, seventh, and eighth graders create all of their documents for the science fair on Google Docs, and allowing her to own, edit, and view the documents that were created.  The graphs, tables, and documents were there for the science teacher to see, and she could check the revision history to see when they were edited and who edited them.  She left comments for each student in the comment stream, including grades – which were also forwarded to each student’s parent account.  Our techno-savvy science teacher even set up “office hours” online for students to meet with her to go over particular questions via the chat feature in Documents.  Talk about increasing communication!

The way we set up our Google Apps accounts, all emails coming to the inboxes of students are also forwarded to that student’s parents’ account.  Parents can peek in during the day when we’re working on collaborative documents – when the fifth graders were working on a presentation on types of fog for science, I saw a couple of parents viewing student work at the same time.  (And the parents aren’t given permissions to edit – only to view…)

The apps available for Google accounts are incredible as well.  Blogger, Picasa, and Google Video are just a few that we’ve played with in classes and with the Technology Club (we geeks meet on Mondays after school).  Using Chrome and adding apps/add-ons from the Chrome Web Store makes Google Apps for Education even more valuable.  A word of warning:  be careful not to get sucked in at the Chrome Web Store – it’s just as bad as Pinterest where it can suddenly makes hours disappear in what seems like mere seconds.

Google Apps for Education and its offerings change quickly – and seamlessly.  The Google team is constantly updating and upgrading the features, and it continues to get better and better.  If you’re not using Google Apps for Education at your school, what are you waiting for?  Just grab the bull by the horns and get ready for the ride of your life.  Your students will amaze you, and you’ll wonder what you did all this time without all those fabulous features.