This page is divided into two parts:
- a digital environment inventory of Boston Latin School, part of the Boston Public Schools
- "my favorite tech tools": recommended technology tools to facilitate global learning
Back in November 2015, breaking through the digital firewall that was our school's network filter was the major challenge to global learning. It was such a deterrence to doing any communicating online that I dedicated my entire ThingLink graphic to the frustration of dealing with the firewall.
I'm happy to report that there are thoughtful, sensible people manning our IT department at the Boston Public Schools. Last fall, every time you "hit a wall," you could call someone and get a little crack in that wall!
I'm happy to report that there are thoughtful, sensible people manning our IT department at the Boston Public Schools. Last fall, every time you "hit a wall," you could call someone and get a little crack in that wall!
But now there has been a sea change in thinking. We still block social media at our school (though the students get around that by using their cell phones and 4G or mobile hotspots on their smartphones) but now we can access formerly inaccessible YouTube, as well Skype, and other formats essential to global learning.
Bottom line: my ThingLink is somewhat out of date, reflecting a state of affairs last year. The good news is things have changed . . . for the better.
But I digress. Herewith, a digital learning inventory for my school. It is followed by a list of my favorite tech tools. I hope that this compendium is useful to readers.
Digital Learning Environment Inventory
December 2015, updated August 2016
This Digital Learning Environment Inventory is based on a survey of technology resources in the building. I am grateful to Patrick Hourigan, director of technology, and José Lara, technology assistant, for their help in compiling this information.
1. What tools, software, operating systems, Web 2.0 tools, e-learning sites, and equipment are available in your school and classroom? (including but not limited to: dedicated technology, personnel, tablets, smartphones, computer labs (stationary and/or mobile), videoconferencing, streaming, photos sharing sites, video sharing sites, document sharing sites, podcasts, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, etc.)
Thanks to a grant from the Boston Foundation, all teachers in the Boston Public Schools are given a 13” MacBook for their use in the classroom. These are replaced every 2-3 years (at this time). The laptops are running OSX El Capitan (version 10.11.5) operating system.
Typically, teacher laptops are connected via a cable to either a cart-mounted or ceiling-mounted projector. There are approximately 105 of these in the building. Laptops are logged into the BPS Staff Wi-Fi system, which is password protected and limited to school faculty.
We are exceedingly fortunate that there are 938 workstations (either desktops or laptops) available for use at the school by 2435+ students annually.
There are numerous options for class-based work using technology. Typical class sizes at the school range from a maximum of 28 (in grades 7 and 8) to 31 (in grades 9 and 12). Thanks to budget cuts, most classes are close to those maximum numbers. Areas where an adequate number of computers can be accessed to enable an entire class to “log on” are:
- The Keefe Library and Media Center, with Windows-based Lenovo desktop computers at the back of the library, available to classes by online reservation, first-come, first-served. (http://libguides.bls.org/content.php?pid=523046&sid=4303128)
- The Electronic Classroom in the library has a laptop cart filled with ample MacBookAir computers.
- Computer room 014 and computer room 016: one with ample Windows-based Lenovo desktops and the other with ample Apple Macintosh desktop computers.
- Music room 526 is a composing lab, with ample Macintosh desktop computers and keyboards for a classroom worth of students.
- Modern language lab (room 003), with Windows-based Lenovo desktop computers and headphone sets for every student.
- Two computer labs (rooms 306 and 206) have ample Windows-based desktops for computer programming.
- Laptop carts, equipped with MacBooks or ChromeBooks or iPads, available through the Library, the History, Classics, English, Science, and Math departments. Available by reservation through the respective program directors.
- Laptop carts are also available to each of the three “sixie” (7th grade) clusters.
Various teachers have successfully applied for grants and purchased tablets or chromebooks for their classrooms; these vary from 4 to 30 per classroom but add to the ability to integrate technology seamlessly into the classroom.
My classroom, thanks to a grant from the Seevak Family Foundation, is blessed with 17 desktops (a combination MacMinis and iMacs, all using ElCapitan OS) and an equivalent number of iPad2 tablets. Through Apple TV, what is being done on that hardware can be shared with the rest of the class through AirPlay.
There are more than 40 printers in use throughout the building, most accessible wireless via the school’s WiFi network.
The Boston Public Schools are now using the Google platform for all e-mail and, increasingly, for the sharing of files and data. Many teachers in our school use Google classroom and various elements of the Google platform, accessible off the drive. All teacher e-mail addresses are gmail addresses (even they do not feature gmail in their actual address). Students receive individual e-mail addresses through the school (in addition to whatever personal e-mail address they use) and therefore, information can be easily disseminated through Google classroom.
It is principally through the Google drive platform (Google docs, Google forms, Google sheets, YouTube) that students are sharing documents, photographs, and videos. Many teachers (including me) have YouTube channels for their students to upload video-based work. Students are generally able to access most podcasts (unless they are tied to social media sites) and can access most blogs and wikis. Many teachers use wikis as part of their classroom instruction and students access those both in the building and from their homes.
Streaming video and reliable videoconferencing, however, has been somewhat limited because reliable bandwidth—particularly at high usage times of day—has been lacking. The number one priority to improve tech-based communication beyond the building is greater bandwidth and more reliable WiFi access.
The school uses a degree of social media to connect with community members, parents and students. Our accounts are below:
Twitter: @bostonlatin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Boston-Latin-School/105921782773449?nr&nr_page_id=108791412479453
Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boston-public-schools?trk=top_nav_home
However, the school has of late faced considerable changes about student inappropriate use of social media outside of school and therefore has become increasingly cautious about encouraging the use of social media (e.g.—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) for school-related purposes.
We have one interactive SMART board accessible to any teacher in the school, housed in the Electronic classroom in the library. There are two teachers in the Science department who received grant funding to purchase their own SMART boards for their classroom-labs.
Subscription databases available through the library for staff and students may be easily found on the Library’s website: http://libguides.bls.org/databases The school community can access all Gale databases. Moreover, because the school’s card catalogue and holdings are integrated into the Boston Public Library (BPL)’s catalogue and holdings, any database that may be accessed from BPL maybe be accessed as well at Boston Latin School: http://www.bpl.org/electronic/ All faculty and students have Boston Public Library usage and borrowing privileges through the BPL’s library card system.
2. From the list of global e-learning sites and Web 2.0 tools, which are available and which are blocked by your firewall? How does your school make use of school and/or teacher websites, grade book technology, Google Apps for Education, one-to-one education technology, flipped classrooms, etc.?
(a) What's available and what is blocked by the school's firewall?
The following sites are available and accessible to all in the Boston Public Schools district:
Skype www.skype.com
iEARN www. iearn.org
ConnectAllSchools http://www.connectallschools.org
Peace Corps Speakers Match http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/speakersmatch/
ePals http://www.epals.com
Global Nomads Group www.gng.org
Omprakash http://www.omprakash.org/about
Primary Source www.primarysource.org
Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org
Global Education Conference http://www.globaleducationconference.com
Online Newspapers http://www.onlinenewspapers.com
Outreach World http://www.outreachworld.org
The UN Works http://www.un.org/works/
The following webpages are blocked for the entire school community:
Facebook www.facebook.com
Twitter www.twitter.com
Instagram www.instagram.com
Snapchat www.snapchat.com
(b) Teacher and school websites, grade-book technology
Teachers are encouraged to build websites for their classes and all teacher websites are listed alongside course descriptions and faculty listings on the school’s website, www.bls.org Historically faculty have used a variety of platforms—I use Weebly for one course and had a customized website built (by students) for my history course—but other teachers use Wikis combined with Google sites or WordPress.
Teachers generally keep their websites up-to-date because they are frequently consulted not only by students but also by parents to keep up with the pacing and assigned work in a particular course.
Some teachers are using websites to do asynchronous online posting (mine is discussions.learntoquestion.com). Others incorporate Google docs and Google classroom for the submission of student work; still others use Turnitin.com as the repository of student work with the added tool of checking for plagiarism.
Both the Boston Latin School (www.bls.org) and the Boston Public Schools (www.bostonpublicschools.org) maintain websites. The BPS website features general district-wide memos, menus, school year calendars, contact information for Central Office administration, and superintendent memos indicating various policies. The BLS website is divided to address academics, extra-curricular activities, contact information for each member of the professional staff, links to teacher websites, and information about the alumni association and financially supporting the school.
Teachers use their laptops administratively to connect to the SIS (Student information system), custom built for the Boston Public Schools. The system is used to record all grades and attendance records as well as houses student and family information and learning and special needs. The system is web-based and is dependent on reliable web access.
(c) Google Apps for Education, one-to-one education technology, flipped classrooms
As mentioned above, the Boston Public Schools have become Google platform schools. Google apps have been thoroughly integrated into our tech platform and virtually all collaborative and teacher-student-parent work is done via Google apps. It is the central element to our technology platforms and increasingly it is clear that the school is moving toward the use of the cloud via Google to replace dated servers.
A number of teachers are experimenting with flipped classrooms, in an effort to create short streamed lessons for homework watching so that in-class work becomes fully collaborative. The principal obstacle to this is the lack of reliable internet access for many of our students. Because equity and access are core values and concerns in the Boston Public Schools, efforts to move significantly toward flipped classrooms depend on the city of Boston finding a way to provide sound, affordable, and reliable internet access to every resident of the city.
3. How are you currently utilizing technology for student learning, classroom management, communcation, professional development, professional networking?
It’s long been my goal to develop a paperless classroom. I’m not quite there yet but I haven’t given up. Google classroom has become my “go to” platform that has moved me along on that goal.
To be clear: I house resources for student learning on my course website: www.learntoquestion.com , with a section on resources housing articles and sources indexed by key search terms (related to key units in my course). An area of this site also contains the blog for our annual trips to Central and Eastern Europe, though the most recent blog is on http://travels.learntoquestion.com. Students conduct online discussions as a regular part of their work for my classes on the discussion board discussions.learntoquestion.com. The website was designed by former students and relies heavily on the use of Movable Type (for much of the site) and vBulletin (as the platform for the discussion boards).
My classroom management is done on the SIS platform, as required by the Boston Public Schools. Attendance is recorded on this system, as is all grading. Parents and students have access to grades as they are inputted and parents can even set notifications so that they are informed when a student’s grades drop below a certain point. Through SIS, I can retrieve all mandated forms for issues from discipline to taking a day for Professional Development.
Communication in the school is largely through e-mail. All-school notices are posted via the SIS system. There is a Daily Bulletin that is printed but also distributed electronically (by e-mail). Professional development is typically done through Sign Up Genius and then Prezis are often used to present material. Professional networking beyond the classroom typically reaches me via e-mail or social media and, in some cases, listservs that I belong to.
4. How would you like to further evolve your use of technology in the classroom?
The skill that I feel I’m weakest on is filmmaking and I have begun to realize how important and effective a skill this is for students to have and for me to master in terms of helping them improve their filmmaking skills as well as helping me to assess student-made films. It’s clear that learning how to teach filmmaking while cognizant of the different levels of hardware and internet access my students have at home is a growing but important challenge. I’ve done some PD on this—related to iMovie and storyboarding—but I’d like to become more fluent with the technology and my own ability to teach it.
5. What sites and Web 2.0 tools are colleagues in your building using?
Colleagues in my building reported using the following tools/sites:
- Google drive (and attendant items)
- Word Processing
- Wordcloud
- Internet searches (using Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome).
- Some Apple platforms: including Pages, Numbers, and iWork
- Goobric and Doctopus
- Powerpoint or Keynote or Prezi (with Prezi increasingly preferred)
- YouTube and/or Netflix
- Adobe suite
- iMovie and/or FinalCutPro
- Wikis
- Graphing calculators
- Quizlet http://quizlet.com/
- Quiz and testing software through SIS
- Edmodo
- TED
- Remind—to facilitate communication with students and parents
- PollEverywhere
- TodaysMeet
- Dropbox
- MyLearningPlan (for tracking Professional Development)
6. Is there a system for evaluating student technology literacy in your school? If so, how effective or helpful have you found the assessment?
Our school does not have a system for evaluating student technology literacy in our school. There has been ongoing discussion through the ILT (Instructional Leadership Team) about the need to assess technology competencies. To date, students are not required to take any computer or technology course. The school does offer AP Computer Science to qualified juniors and seniors.
The school system does require that students sign a Fair-Use Policy at the start of each school year. This policy is reiterated in the student agenda book, which every student receives at the start of the year and is required to use throughout the year. Enforcement of these technology policies is difficult because we only have two IT staff and 2435 students.
7. Is there a system for evaluating educators' technology literacy to identify areas of need and match those needs to professional development programs?
Alas, not a system. It is also not a significant element in the Educator Evaluation documentation required every two years.
However, we have a very innovative and responsive IT staff and they repeatedly ask us to identify skills we would like to learn and design workshops to help support us learning it. Technology skills have not been central in our professional development programs because other issues have been much more pressing but voluntary PD in technology has been offered in response to teacher concerns and needs.
8. Describe the professional development opportunities available to properly introduce you to and train you in the use of various technologies.
Our IT staff designs workshops that are voluntary, typically before school starts (in fact, I start one on Thursday on working with students on filmmaking) and then at various intervals after school throughout the year. In addition, they do one-on-one troubleshooting and training to support individual teachers. This willingness to do this provides an excellent safety net for teachers seeking to integrate and work with more and more technology.
The Office of OIIT of the Boston Public Schools, using the MyLearningPlan software platform, offers courses regularly throughout the year (as well as in the summers) on different technology skills. They train teachers on SIS, how to use the MacBooks the district distributes, etc. I have not participated in any of these courses to date.
9. What technology tools, professional development, funding, etc. not presently available would help to achieve your district's technology objectives and your professional technology objectives?
We are not lacking tools, I think, to use technology. What we need is 100% reliable WiFi plus ample bandwidth. This we are lacking.
Finally, we desperately need more IT staffing. We need people who can troubleshoot and fix things, we need people who can maintain ongoing and responsive PD, and we need people who can advise us on the latest innovations in technology so that we can put them to good use in our classrooms. Two people for a faculty and a student body of our size is not nearly enough.
10. How does technology help you to globalize your classroom?
Technology has completely changed the playing field. I can reach anyone in the world via e-mail. I no longer have to watch the time change to coordinate a time to communicate. I no longer have to find a fax machine to send something concrete to a colleague halfway around the world.
For my students, technology breaks down boundaries. They can communicate with or read about individuals in many parts of the world virtually instantaneously, thanks to the internet and the 24/7 media cycle. I can ask them to monitor international newspapers, which thanks to the skills I learned in the autumn course, I have them now doing.
Thanks to the relationships I built while in India, I am hoping to at least do some Skype communication and some digital (asynchronous) exchanges. None of these would be possible were it not for technology and internet.
My Favorite Tech Tools Here are just a few: |
|
Today's Meet
(www.todaysmeet.org)
I use to be afraid of this software. Here's why: you essentially are setting up a backchannel forum for discussion that you can't quite control. (And teachers like control! I do!) Nevermind all that; todays' meet is great. If you want to ask students for their opinions, have them use their phones to text their thoughts. If you want to put the kids into a presentation mode and you want others to respond, use Todays Meet. The students love it because they can track the discussion on the projector screen (if you project the Todays' Meet page) and yet the participants, who have chosen their usernames, cannot easily determine whose voice is whose.
Now Today's Meet could be a terrific tool in global education. Today's Meet enables teachers to capture the ongoing conversation as well as multiple voices in a class. It enables "virtual talking," so it offers students in different parts of the world opportunities to talk with one another through an online portal. One can easily envision using it as a tool to communicate, probably asynchronously, and enhancing communication among students from multiple sites worldwide.
(www.todaysmeet.org)
I use to be afraid of this software. Here's why: you essentially are setting up a backchannel forum for discussion that you can't quite control. (And teachers like control! I do!) Nevermind all that; todays' meet is great. If you want to ask students for their opinions, have them use their phones to text their thoughts. If you want to put the kids into a presentation mode and you want others to respond, use Todays Meet. The students love it because they can track the discussion on the projector screen (if you project the Todays' Meet page) and yet the participants, who have chosen their usernames, cannot easily determine whose voice is whose.
Now Today's Meet could be a terrific tool in global education. Today's Meet enables teachers to capture the ongoing conversation as well as multiple voices in a class. It enables "virtual talking," so it offers students in different parts of the world opportunities to talk with one another through an online portal. One can easily envision using it as a tool to communicate, probably asynchronously, and enhancing communication among students from multiple sites worldwide.
Poll Everywhere
(www.pollev.com)
I want to know what my students are thinking. If I conduct a poll informally, I get mixed participation. When I do it electronically, the students are more willing to respond and it's an effective way to quickly assess anything from being sure students learned something meaningful from homework or classwork OR how they feel about a particular issue. Poll Everywhere has students text to a particular number and then the image is produced. As a result, they can produce bar charts, pie charts, or other statistical infographics to demonstrate a particular view or attitude.
Now let's take that global. The Pew Research Center often does these polls in relation to their very detailed studies and contrasts viewpoints in two different locations. We can do basic versions of such polls using Poll Everywhere. If my classroom in Boston and my colleague's classroom in India want to compare perspectives on a particular issue, Poll Everywhere will not only house the poll but it will produce infographics that diagram the results. Talk about a way to instantly make a global perspective visible.
(www.pollev.com)
I want to know what my students are thinking. If I conduct a poll informally, I get mixed participation. When I do it electronically, the students are more willing to respond and it's an effective way to quickly assess anything from being sure students learned something meaningful from homework or classwork OR how they feel about a particular issue. Poll Everywhere has students text to a particular number and then the image is produced. As a result, they can produce bar charts, pie charts, or other statistical infographics to demonstrate a particular view or attitude.
Now let's take that global. The Pew Research Center often does these polls in relation to their very detailed studies and contrasts viewpoints in two different locations. We can do basic versions of such polls using Poll Everywhere. If my classroom in Boston and my colleague's classroom in India want to compare perspectives on a particular issue, Poll Everywhere will not only house the poll but it will produce infographics that diagram the results. Talk about a way to instantly make a global perspective visible.
Padlet
https://padlet.com/
Frankly, I was introduced to Padlet via the TGC online course; I had never used it previously. I'm hooked! I wish it were free (there is a free trial for 30 days and then it's pricey: $45 per user per year. But I think you can be creative about using the platform and through collaborative work, minimize the numbers of user accounts.
Padlets live in the Cloud and are therefore accessible from virtually anywhere. What I love about them is they are in effect virtual bulletin boards. I've used them to have students quickly respond and post comments in response to a prompt. Quickly you see an array of responses--they may be written or visual. Because they exist in the cloud, Padlets are the perfect way to enlist global collaborators. Imagine collaborating on a prompt with an international colleague and, thanks to the time difference, each class wakes up to see another class already posting on that prompt. The communication can continue online 24 /7 and each individual contribution to the padlet represents the voice of a different student. So it's immediate sharing and interactivity.
https://padlet.com/
Frankly, I was introduced to Padlet via the TGC online course; I had never used it previously. I'm hooked! I wish it were free (there is a free trial for 30 days and then it's pricey: $45 per user per year. But I think you can be creative about using the platform and through collaborative work, minimize the numbers of user accounts.
Padlets live in the Cloud and are therefore accessible from virtually anywhere. What I love about them is they are in effect virtual bulletin boards. I've used them to have students quickly respond and post comments in response to a prompt. Quickly you see an array of responses--they may be written or visual. Because they exist in the cloud, Padlets are the perfect way to enlist global collaborators. Imagine collaborating on a prompt with an international colleague and, thanks to the time difference, each class wakes up to see another class already posting on that prompt. The communication can continue online 24 /7 and each individual contribution to the padlet represents the voice of a different student. So it's immediate sharing and interactivity.
Tackk
https://tackk.com/
Tackk is to "tacking" up ideas as "Haagen-Dazs" is to ice cream: a clever way of making a platform (or a product) sound exciting and cool. But what Tackk permits is the creation of online pages and the easy integration of items from Instagram, video (including YouTube) and text. Our students live on Instagram, Snapchat and a wide array of social media; Tackk allows information to be brought from those platforms into a "tack board" that lives in the Cloud and, via their Tackk Stream, can be connected in small groups to collaborators around a classroom or around the world. I like this technology; it's slightly different than Padlet and offers a bit more ease of integration of diverse platforms into this one.
https://tackk.com/
Tackk is to "tacking" up ideas as "Haagen-Dazs" is to ice cream: a clever way of making a platform (or a product) sound exciting and cool. But what Tackk permits is the creation of online pages and the easy integration of items from Instagram, video (including YouTube) and text. Our students live on Instagram, Snapchat and a wide array of social media; Tackk allows information to be brought from those platforms into a "tack board" that lives in the Cloud and, via their Tackk Stream, can be connected in small groups to collaborators around a classroom or around the world. I like this technology; it's slightly different than Padlet and offers a bit more ease of integration of diverse platforms into this one.
Edmodo
www.edmodo.com
I'm included Edmodo here not because I use the platform (we have our own student information system that links students, teachers, and parents, and online software that creates virtual communities within my classroom) but because it does all the things that our school's systems allow and is useful for a school without those supports. In Edmodo, you can set up classes, communicate information, and share work in a gated, protected online space. Edmodo allows significant control for who is admitted to a discussion and can see information and who cannot. And in this world of hacking and problems with open access, Edmodo is a reassuring platform for educators and students to use to communicate with their community.
www.edmodo.com
I'm included Edmodo here not because I use the platform (we have our own student information system that links students, teachers, and parents, and online software that creates virtual communities within my classroom) but because it does all the things that our school's systems allow and is useful for a school without those supports. In Edmodo, you can set up classes, communicate information, and share work in a gated, protected online space. Edmodo allows significant control for who is admitted to a discussion and can see information and who cannot. And in this world of hacking and problems with open access, Edmodo is a reassuring platform for educators and students to use to communicate with their community.