First Days of School in an Inspired Classroom

I am not sure exactly how many, but there will be a significant number of teachers starting the 2006-2007 school year in an Inspired Classroom for the first time. I won’t limit it to Irving ISD either, since I have heard back from several teachers that have shared this website with their friends in neighboring school districts. As much evangelizing and motivating as I have done last spring and this summer in the name of Inspired Classrooms, I don’t want to leave teachers without support once they start the school year. It is my goal to publish on a weekly basis, ideas and themes that will help sustain teachers as they take off in uncharted territory. It is also my goal to encourage those teachers to join this community and begin sharing their thoughts and experiences (good and bad) with us all. At the first days of school, let us all be reminded that we are, and will always be, students FIRST. Let the learning and sharing begin.

I would guess that your first priorities on the first days of school in an Inspired Classroom might revolve around computer procedures and student grouping. Concerning team-building, I came across a GREAT resource for K-5 Team Building Activities. Some can be done with computers, but many don’t need technology to be very effective. Building teams and getting students to work together from the very first day would be a powerful way to start the year. When students learn to cooperate, negotiate and compromise FIRST, learning to control and take care of themselves should be much easier.

As you pass out and begin to collect the volume of field trip permission slips, student ID cards, and related paperwork, don’t forget the Disctrict’s Technology Acceptable Use Policy and FERPA Notice. (I wouldn’t print these exact forms, because they may be out of date. Check with your campus principal.) In my experiences, the most common reason parents deny their child access or permission on these forms is due to the misunderstanding these forms. They are written by lawyers and are very confusing. I recommend attaching a personal note to these forms when you send them home, explaining in everyday language what they say. I would also give specific examples of how you plan to use the technology in your classroom and the safeguards you have in place for student privacy. In a lot of cases, you might have to do a little parent education, especially when you start talking about wikis, blogs and podcasting. Here’s an example of how a 2nd grade teacher handles this. A hard copy of this will also go home in the homework during the first week of school.

I wish all of you a great start to what will be a milestone year in your teaching career. We have a tremendous opportunity to share and collaborate this year through this blog and each other’s blogs. Please stay connected and serve as an inspiration, a helping hand, and a sounding board to each other. Pleas don’t hesitate to contact me if I can be of assistance.

Technology and Child Development

My wife referred me to an article today she found on the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) website that had some amazing findings that really support the concepts of Inspired Classrooms. I highly recommend that you take the time to read the whole article, but for the sake of time, here’s a few highlights:

“Computers and software can serve as catalysts for social interaction and conversations related to children’s work. A classroom set up to encourage interaction and the appropriate use of the technology will increase, not impair, language and literacy development. Strategies to build socialization into computer use include placing two seats in front of the computer to encourage children to work together, placing computers close to each other to facilitate sharing ideas, and locating computers in a central spot to invite other children to participate in the activity ”

“Technology use that is connected to what children already know and can build upon leads to greater motivation and self-direction. Loss of creativity can be a problem if children use drill-and-practice software. Open-ended software — software that provides opportunities to discover, make choices, and find out the impact of decisions — encourages exploration, imagination, and problem solving.”

“Technology offers additional ways to learn, and to demonstrate learning. For some children who have unique learning styles, computers can reveal hidden strengths. At the computer, children can approach learning from a variety of perspectives and follow various paths to a goal. The teacher’s role is to set up the environment and activities, matching technology use to the curriculum as well as to the children’s needs and interests. The teacher is less involved in directing the activities, and more involved in monitoring student activities, intervening as necessary to guide and pose questions that encourage thinking.”

If this hadn’t been in their archives from June of 2001, I would have thought that they had been reading this website. I guess they already knew what I have been busy discovering over the last year. What’s amazing is their forward thinking approach, given the limited education tools available in mid-2001. They were envisioning exactly what we are seeing today, and what they describe sounds a lot like Inspired Classrooms.