Experimenting with Technology: My Real-Life Oregon Trail

Monday, February 15, 2016 No comments
Check out my post for the Indiana Department of Education's Digital Learning Month Blog!  I am so excited to get to be a part of this and their webinar on Tuesday, February 16th.

I remember 5th grade like it was yesterday. My family and I were in our cart. We had very little food. My sister had died of a broken arm. My brother had a snake bite and I had dysentery, yet my family persevered on to Williamette Valley. When we reached it, I felt like I had won.
Even back in 1995 in a rural community, my teachers recognized how the right technology can aide, engage, and inspire student learning. I was raised on the Oregon Trail. Well, not literally. I actually grew up in Small Town, Indiana, but my 5th grade world revolved around escaping to the high-ability room and knowing that if I had to die on the Oregon Trail, I needed to at least die by dysentery rather than a fever, because, let’s face it, dysentery was way cooler than an ordinary fever. As a 6th grader, I got to show 5th grade students which key was the spacebar so they could continue their journey on the Oregon Trail, and how to save medicine for a snake bite. I was allowed to teach them the things that I had learned while playing the game.
I live this same philosophy now with my 7th graders. We try new technology to aide in our learning of extremely challenging standards. As a teacher, I am trying to engage my students with technology in the same way that Oregon Trail engaged me, just with more relevant technology. Because I use technology with every student, every day, lots can go wrong.
Yes, lessons always turn out differently than planned, but when you add more moving parts to a lesson, there are more things that can go wrong. Wi-fi is down, the battery on a device won’t stay charged, kids show up without their device. The best thing we can do as teachers, though, is probably the most uncomfortable for us - do not solve the problems for them.
One of the classes I teach is our school newspaper. We recently added a poll to our paper to feature more students each week. We wanted to make this section visually appealing, so we searched and found piktochart.com, a website specializing in infographics. The two students working on this new feature were struggling with how to add pictures from their phones to the infographic on their Chromebook. Almost immediately, my instinct was to save them, to take the Chromebook and the phone from their hands and email the pictures to myself to open and save to the computer, and then import the images to their design. It would have taken a matter of minutes for me to finish the infographic. I knew exactly what steps needed to be completed, so it would have been easy for me to do it for them.
But, I didn’t. I didn’t learn how to survive the Oregon Trail because someone did it for. In fact, I learned because my teacher walked away, making me ask myself some important questions, so that’s what I did for my students. “Okay, so we have some issues. What should we do now?” By asking that simple question, I became the sounding-board for their discussion, not the leader of it. I put the learning, experimenting - and maybe even failing - experience back on them. After 5 minutes or so, they had a plan. I asked them, “Why do you think that’s the best way to do it?” Asking them to think about their thinking showed me how they eliminated other options. I know they were processing through information. Once they completed their assignment, I asked them to show the rest of the staff how to use this website for future issues. This assignment took much longer than needed to complete, but I know they learned not only how to use the website, but they also learned how to be persistent and problem-solve.

Technology is changing. A teacher’s desire for her students to be creative, analytical thinkers does not. Think about technology in the classroom as the Oregon Trail - lots of things will go wrong in the beginning, but don’t get discouraged. By asking the right questions, teachers will see how technology revolutionizes the type of thinking students will do and that will be like the teacher-version of making it to Willamette Valley.

Love and Sparkle,



Are you a Ms. Hill?

Sunday, January 24, 2016 No comments
Steve Jobs quote courtesy of awaken.com
I'm very blessed to be able to answer yes to this every day.
     One of my favorite units I use with my seventh graders is an informational reading and writing unit "What makes someone successful?"  In this unit, we look at the definition of success, read the biography Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different, and research an inventor (my pre-AP kiddos will make a simple machine and present it in a how-to format to the class).  I love this unit - I cannot say it enough.  The kids are engaged, excited because it is someone who is relevant to them, and of course, they have a lot to say about success.  My favorite reason, though, for this unit happens in Chapter 1 of the biography.
     Chapter 1 discusses Jobs's childhood, and specifically what school was like for him.  Jobs hated school because it simply wasn't interesting to him.  So, to make school interesting, he often caused trouble, like letting a snake loose in a classro
om and making an explosion under a teacher's chair.  His father defended him, often saying, "If you can't keep him interested, its your own fault."
     That all changed for Jobs in fourth grade when he met Imogene "Teddy" Hill, his teacher.  Ms. Hill started off the year by bribing, er, I mean, motivating Jobs to complete work ("Complete the math workbook and get at least 80 percent right, and I'll give you $5 and a giant lollipop.")  But before long, he just respected and admired her enough to complete his work.  Jobs credited Ms. Hill for the beginning of his success, stating, "I'm one hundred percent sure that if it hadn't been for Ms. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would have absolutely ended up in jail."
     Ms. Hill showered Jobs with much needed attention, and did not see him as a troublemaker, but has a gifted kid who needed more.

     Are you a Ms. Hill?

     By this, I mean, we each have that student sitting in class that no one seems to understand - the one that puts his head down constantly, or the girl that seems to not be listening to a word you say, or the group of kiddos that seem more interested in the computer game trend of the week than anything you are teaching?  Are you trying?  Are you trying to understand that student's behaviors?  Are you trying to figure out what motivates him?  Are you trying to build a relationship?  Yes, it will be difficult.  And yes, it will be challenging, but isn't that student worth it?  A student will never learn from a teacher they don't respect.  No, a student doesn't have to like you, but they do have to respect you enough to listen to you.
     Ms. Hill thought so.  She had no idea that Jobs would go on and be a creator of so many things we use today, but she did see something special in a kid that others only identified as "trouble."  Find that student in your class, and make an effort in the following weeks to figure out how you can make this student interested - do it a day at a time, or an assignment at a time.
     Build a relationship.  Be a Ms. Hill.

Love and Sparkle,