Do you hear what I hear?

When I first sat through the sales pitch on "sound distribution systems" I thought I was on an infomercial.  It seemed ridiculous that schools would spend money on this -  I have my teacher voice, after all.  I pride myself in that voice, that voice that I worked so hard to get after a childhood full of "Speak up!  I can't hear you!" and "Don't mumble!" and "Repeat it again so the back row can hear you!"  I fought for years for that voice.  And then I heard it.

In the demo, the teacher turned his back to me to write on the board and I heard no difference in sound quality.  And then he walked to the back of the room, still giving directions, to practice the age old technique of proximity with a student who needed a reminder to get back on task.  I heard no difference in sound quality.  This isn't a speaker system that blows out the kids sitting close to the speaker and is quieter for those sitting farther away.  It distributes sound evenly throughout the space.  

My favorite anecdote features a very active 7th grader I'll call Colby.  He liked to move, so I let him pace inside a rectangle outline I'd taped to the floor in the back of the class.  After a few days of his new space he said, "I don't like it back there!  I can always hear you, no matter where I go.  It's like you're always sitting right on my shoulder talking right to me."  Thank you, sound dispersement system, for letting me be that little voice on Colby's shoulder no matter where he roamed.

Neighboring districts are starting to purchase these systems as well.  West St. Paul, Minnetonka, Bloomington, Anoka Hennepin and others have significant numbers of these units in classrooms.  In an article in the Star Tribune on September 1, a teacher from Anoka Hennepin talked about the difference it had made in classrooms.

"Monroe Elementary School teacher Nathan Elliott began using a similar system in his second-grade classroom last year.

"I had 29 kids in my class," Elliott said. "The room is really small and when we're all crammed in here trying to do several different things at the same time, the noise just gets louder and louder and louder. It escalates because the kids need to be heard, too."

When he started using the system, he found "it almost instantly makes the whole environment calm."

Amplification isn't the point, he said.

"It's less about amplification and more about even distribution," he said. "I can lower the volume of my voice and kind of slow it down, and it doesn't have to feel so intense. ...

"There's just a sense of focus; they don't have to strain so hard to hear, to understand what I'm saying. I end up sounding clearer to them without necessarily sounding louder."

The student microphone also has focused classroom discussions and helped shy and soft-voiced children participate."  - Excerpt from Technology levies pay for tools to help kids learn from Star Tribune

Some buildings in St. Paul are choosing to spend their dollars on sound dispersement systems as well, including Obama Elementary and the Farnsworth Campuses.  Principal Hamilton Bell of Farnsworth has seen the difference it makes himself.  He calls this simple, low learning curve technology "a game-changer."     

For more information about the benefits and research on sound distribution, click here.      

Just What I Needed

It's hard keeping up with all the reading I want to keep up with.  I have a couple of inspiring blogs I really like to read.....and I never really remember to check them to see if there is something new.  But I'd sure like to know if there was.

When there is a new Real Simple it arrives in my mailbox and makes me smile.  When there is a news about SPPS, it arrives in my inbox and makes me aware.  But blogs?  I have to check the blog or my RSS feed reader for new content, fingers crossed that today there will be something new.  

Or do I?  (Picture a superhero whooshing in with a cape here...)

Enter www.feedmyinbox.com.  Enter the URL of the blog, your inbox.  Verify your email by checking your email.  Now every time there is something new on the blog there is something new in your inbox. No more checking, hoping, sighing when there's nothing new.  

Hip hip hooray for simple technical solutions to annoying everyday problems!

(And now you could get each new Giga Squad blog post in your inbox instantly!)

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to a new year!  It's an exciting time of year in the cycle of schools.  It's like New Year's Eve; the promise of a fresh start is inspiring and energizing.  The hope that year will be even better than the last - what can feel better than that?

Indeed, this year will be even better than the last.  You'll notice some changes around St. Paul Public Schools in terms of the integrated learning environment.  Technology moves fast and St. Paul is moving fast too.  

image from Apple

The presence of iPads is increasing in St. Paul Public schools.  Some buildings are working towards saturation of certain grade levels to ensure that each child has the opportunity to work in a fully integrated environment as they go through their education in St. Paul.  Other buildings are planning for carts for teachers to use on an as needed basis.

Nooks are will be used at several sites as access points for Achieve3000, research, and increased variety in classroom reading material.

Schools will have more money in site budgets than last year; we expect this trend toward mobile devices to continue to increase, furthering the pervasiveness of the integrated environment here in SPPS.   

image from Stevee at userlogos.org

The Moodle system was upgraded over the summer.  Moodle, now found at elearn.spps.org,  has even more potential to individualize education for our students.  Some of the new features include:

• Conditional Release:  You can't do this activity until you complete this other one, or maybe complete it with at least an 80%.  Or if you get less than 70% on this, then a remediation activity becomes part of your course work.  You can create learning paths.
• Mobile Themes:  This version of Moodle is designed to work with iPad, phones, and more. Think learning anywhere, anytime.
• Rubric Assignment Grading
• Activity Roles:  Make a student a teacher for a particular activity or let the Principal act as the rater in a brainstorming forum.
• Integration with Google Doc: The file picker allows you to submit a Google Doc as an assignment submission or link to a Google Doc easily.

You may also remember that YouTube was opened for staff last Spring. SPPS Apps (Google Apps for Education) is being enhanced to make account creation and use more streamlined. St. Paul Public Schools is opening the environment to create barrier free access to learning tools and we know the students can't wait!

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!