Blocked Sites...Blocked No More! (for adults...)

Did you hear the good news?  The Bridge announced this week that high level filter access has been granted for staff.  Any staff member can now access most filtered sites, including YouTube.

Now what?  To whom much is given much is expected, that's what.  This new development raises two new expectations.  One is to continue to use the tools available to meet the needs of students.  If a student learns through a multimedia option, help them do so.  If students need repetition, let them watch the video again and again.  The second expectation is to monitor student activity on the internet.  The best filter is a two fold human filter: educating students around internet expectations and monitoring their activity.  While the filter is still in place for students, staff need to be aware of where they are using their credentials, where they are logging in, and who is on that computer next.

See the full Bridge announcement below:

Information for staff

The Information Technology (IT) Department announces access to blocked websites

The IT Department has enabled a technology measure that will allow SPPS staff to use instructional websites, such as YouTube, which are currently blocked by the district's content filter. When staff encounter a blocked website, log-in with your complete SPPS email address and web mail password to initiate a 90-minute session. All access will be tracked through the filter appliance, and staff use must comply with the district's Technology Use Policy 520 and Guidelines for Acceptable Use. Misuse or abuse of high-level filter access will result in termination of access for the individual. Network performance will be monitored, and on occasion, high-level filter access may be suspended for all users during periods of high network demand, such as online testing.

Click here to see the Guidelines for Acceptable Use.

Three cheers for safely removing barriers to resources!  Hip hip hooray!

The Times, They Are a Changing.

Or maybe better said, times have already changed.

At the start of the 2011-2012 school year there were 85 iPads in St. Paul Public Schools.  This fall there will be 550 iPads with another 550 possible through EdMN grants.  This former math teacher is ready to declare exponential growth!!!  There will be close to 13x as many iPads next fall.  If we keep this up there could be 14,300 iPads by the fall of 2013!!!  Before I make any grand predictions,  I would be remiss if I didn't step back and ask why these devices are here and how will they impact learning?


Increased presence of devices in our schools is exciting.  It shows that the 21st Century is busting down the doors to our classrooms.  The excitement will wear off though, and these shiny machines will get lots of tiny fingerprints on them (we hope!).  And then what?  What will the students be doing with these new tools?  How will they impact learning?


The answer is not simple.  I can't just tell you "Download that app.  Give it to a kid.  Now they'll learn better."  What I can tell you is that the iPad has a myriad of uses, because after all, there is an app for that.  No matter what "that" is.  Our task as educators is to figure out what learning do we want to impact?  Are our students struggling with decoding words?  Perhaps there's an app for that.  Is Donald struggling with the concept of measurement?  Perhaps there is an app for that.  Is Lee struggling with following multi-step directions?  Perhaps there's an app for that.

As with all technology the learning needs to drive use.  It is nice to have this extremely flexible tool, the iPad, in the educational arsenal.  Now it is time to figure out when to use it and how.  Match the tool to the task.  Need a nail pounded in?  Grab the hammer, not the screwdriver, or worse, the chain saw.  You'll have a mess on your hands before you can say "App".

Watch for upcoming news about user groups, planning sessions, and good apps lists.  The welcome side effect of hitting this critical point of saturation is the potential for collaboration, and there's no app that will take the place of that.

Free & Accessible Educational PBS Video

TPT (Twin Cities Public Television) is the local  PBS station in the Minneapolis St. Paul. Like with many of large media outlets they have made much of their content available online.

Check out tpt.pbslearningmedia.org for an vast selection of PBS video and interactive content.  Everything from pre-K early literacy clips (like SuperWhy and WordGirl), primary documents from the National Archives, and ever expanding collections of PBS and partner video.  All resources are free and educational.  

You will create an account to browse and save your content.  All this content is available for a low low price - free!  

Use this content to reach visual and auditory learners, to evaluate media bias, to encourage kids to research.  Video is a "digital native's" medium.  This asset is a perfect educational storm: a trusted source, varied media, searchable, archive-able, and free!

Interface in Your Hands

The buzz about the SPPS Interface has been around for a while now.  The RFP went out, 7 vendors responded, a committee vetted the 7 vendors down to 3, and has since narrowed it further to 2 vendors:  Dell and Desire 2 Learn.

Finally the time to see it, touch it, click it, question it is here!  Please join your colleagues...

May 18th (Dell)  @ The Center 

&

May 31st (Desire2Learn) @ 360 Colbourne, Room A .  

There will be four 90 minute sessions each day that include a little explanation, a lot of exploration, and of course, Q & A on each interface proposal.

Four Sessions—90 minutes for purposeful and participatory demonstrations

            Proposed Times                                                                        Specific Groups

8:30-10:00	Session I	Students—Middle & High School
10:30-12:00	Session II	*District-wide Staff and Leaders
1:00-2:30	Session III	*Teachers—All Levels
3:00-4:30	Session IV	*Building Administrators—All Levels

*These sessions are not restricted to the focus group defined. They can be mixed, but the general message for the group will be oriented to identified group on the chart

This Interface is designed to bring all of a teacher's tools to their fingertips, one-click away, to facilitate data-driven decision making, aligned learning, differentiation and more.  This is an important point in the learning timeline at St. Paul Public Schools - come click around and give us your perspective.

Hope to see you there!

A Bring Your Own Pencil Initiative???? That's crazy talk!!!!  

creattor.com

Several articles have popped up about tech integration using the pencil allegory.  The idea?  Substitute the word pencil for tech integration and see how the comment sounds.   

At some point pencils didn't exist; they were a "new technology" too.  And I'm sure some educators saw the potential of pencils to be used as a tool in the classroom.  And I'm sure they carefully tested the waters... the teacher tried the pencil for a year or two to get used to it, and when the were comfortable, got one pencil for the classroom to share.  If one pencil made a significant impact, they increased it to 2 pencils the next year.  Next came a whole lab of pencils the teachers could sign up for!  Or maybe not.

So as we consider tech integration and you hear comments or make statements yourself, substitute tech or tech integration with "pencil."  See how it sounds.  Will we laugh at this one day?...soon?

For example . . .

• "Kids can't take those iPads pencils home!  Other people at home will USE them!"
• "Our students use technology pencils really well. They have a technology pencil class 30 minutes a week."
• "There's no time to teach kids to use computers pencils.  They need to learn the content!"
• "We have a couple of teachers who use technology pencils with their classes regularly."
• "I hate that the students use technology pencils so much better than me."

Want more?  Check out Steve Wheeler's blog post, the #pencilchat hashtag on Twitter, or this You Tube video.