Thursdays With Turner

The Last Thursday

2005-05-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over. I'm sure going to miss everyone and all of the wonderful things we've learned. The last class was fun. I thought it may be a little stressful for me since I was in charge of dinner and I was the Roving Reporter, but everything went fine. It was actually probably the easiest class to be the Roving Reporter because we were paired off with a student. I didn't have to take extensive notes on how to do this or that.

After class I talked to Beth for a while about how she uses the handhelds in her class on an everyday basis. I came to the conclusion that since I'll have a substitute for my maternity leave the first 6 weeks (probably) of school, that the kids won't even use them until I get back. I debated whether or not to find a tech savvy sub or just wait. Are there any of those around anyway? I like to do things my way so I think that waiting will probably be a wise choice.

I'd really like to create a webpage for my classroom like Beth has done. I've never done that before, but hear it's quite easy. I've added that to my "To Do" list for the summer. Hopefully it'll get done!

I'm sure that I'll be in touch with you this next fall Tony, or maybe even sooner, for help on things that I've forgotten how to do and didn't take good enough notes for to look back at.

When you replace our blogs with your new class list of blogs, I plan on checking in once in a while to see if anything new has come up since our class. Try to keep on top of the newest information via your website.

Thanks for a wonderful class!
Until next time...(for my next blog I'll let you know if the babe was a boy or a girl. That won't be until at least August.)

Eleventh Thursday

2005-04-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

Lesson plans are over and we can all breathe again! I really enjoyed listening to everyone's ideas about how to use the handhelds in a classroom. I know I'll be using some of the lessons with my kids next year.

This has been a pretty stressful week. On Monday we were told that CAT scores were back and things didn't look all that wonderful. This school is a very data driven school and so everyone knows (or is expected to know) what the scores mean. It's Thursday and we just received our individual scores. From what I looked at, I think most of my kids did an okay job. I guess I'll find out what admin has to say about them when I have my conference with them! They may think something different! From the scores, individually we have to reflect upon what we did this year, what worked, what didn't work and what we'll do differently next year. I did not use the handhelds this year as a strategy for learning; it was mostly for publishing writing. Next year, however, I plan on using the handhelds more and to use the various applications that Tony has taught us to incorporate more content learning instead of just using them as a word processor. It will be interesting to see whether my kids next year make bigger improvements from the Pre-CAT to the actual CAT, as compared to this year's kids. And if they do, I wonder how much improvement will be because of more integration of the handhelds?

Until next time...

Tenth Thursday

2005-04-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

I've been frantically busy this week trying to get my lesson plan all figured out, as I'm sure most everyone else is doing. I decided to create an eBook as the final product of the lesson. After searching and searching for the free 30 day trial of eBook Studio and with no luck of finding it, I emailed Tony for his help. The next day he hadn't gotten back to me yet, so I decided to search again. Amazingly enough, it was right there in front of me the whole time! If it were a snake, it would've bitten me! Everything downloaded just fine and I created my eBook. There are some differences between using the Demo and using the purchased software. This is what I learned:

1. When using the purchased software, after creating your book the first step is to save it. This is where you put in a title, the author, publisher and copyright. After you save it you go to file and click make book. Well, in the Demo version, you are unable to save it. You have to go directly to make book. It will save it as a .pdb wherever you choose to save it and then when you go into the .pdb it will automatically go to install. The problem with not being able to save it to the computer is that when you get your eBook done and installed to the Handheld you would have to leave the file open in order to make any changes. If you close out the file is it only saved as a .pdb and you can't go back into a .pdb file to make changes. So...after all of the proofreading I did yesterday, my husband finds a typo when he's reading my eBook! I'd have to type everything back in and re-create the eBook if I wanted to change the typo. So unfortunately, there's a typo in my eBook.

2. Once you make the eBook and install it onto the Handheld (when using the Demo version), throughout the entire eBook it says in bold, capital letters "BUILT WITH EBOOK STUDIO DEMO". They definitely don't want you to forget that!!

3. The third thing I learned about the Demo version is that I want to purchase the real thing!

Monday night was an excellent night to use Flash Boom! I showed it to my husband and he played with it for a while. By the time I got my daughter to bed and was able to actually do Flash Boom! myself, I was so incredibly tired I couldn't stay awake between the flash and the boom.

Until next time...

Ninth Thursday

2005-04-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

The week since our last class has gone by like a whirlwind! This week after Spring Break has been so busy! Our Technology Night is scheduled for this Thursday and getting everything ready for that has been hectic because there was no school last week. The Language Arts and Science teachers are who have to have some kind of activity planned for Tech Night. The 5th grade LA teachers decided to set up our demonstration like Ms. Sanborn at Willowdale did with her class on our Technology visit day. She had the students in groups and each group shared with visitors a specific application on the handheld. I loved visiting that! The kids were excited to share what they know and it didn't seem like a whole lot of work for the teacher. Well, come to find out on Monday afternoon, out of the three teachers that said they would recruit students to stay and demonstrate on Thursday night, I was the only one following through! There was a little bit of panic because when I asked my three classes who was planning on attending, not very many raised their hands! Wednesday by lunch time I had 6 kids committed to helping out on Thursday night and a time set up for each of them so they didn't have to stay the whole 2 hours! I let them take a handheld home and gave each of them a list of things to practice for the evening. All of what they needed to practice we have already done in class, but it's been a while ago. The kids thought they were pretty special to be able to take the handheld home! I gave each of them my phone number to call me if they had questions or the handheld was acting strangely. I didn't receive any phone calls! Now I just hope they show up tonight!

Until next time. . .

Eighth Thursday

2005-04-01T10:12:00.002-08:00

This seems strange doing my blog the day after class. Usually I procrastinate but with OPS having Spring Break next week, I've to be on the ball because I don't have internet access at home so I have to get this done before I leave school today!

The graphic organizer show down was great. I'm glad that was part of class because it gives us exposure to more than one program. And although Idea Pad is free...I'm still sold on Inspiration! I like how simple the outline is to create. One of our 5th grade Language Arts CRT's is to create an outline using correct outline format and then creating a summary. And since we also have to include our building Extra Value Standards for technology into Language Arts, what better way to get two content standards done at once! Having the students create an outline on paper using the correct outline format is not an easy task. Inspiration does that for you! I believe it would be well worth the money spent!

I'm also very glad that we learned how to create an eBook. I started a project with my students last week using Margaret Wise-Brown's book called The Important Book. After doing a read aloud of the book, the students wrote their own important book. I am going to put those together by block and create an eBook for each block. I'm so excited to get that project done!

Quizzes in Quizzler. I took my own and got one question wrong! How bad is that? Instead of having the students do paper/pencil/overhead CAT practice, why not put it on the handheld in a Quizzler quiz? The students would be still learning the content but would be much more engaged in the process.

Until next time...

Eighth Thursday

2005-04-01T10:12:00.001-08:00

Eighth Thursday

2005-04-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Seventh Thursday

2005-03-31T13:05:00.000-08:00

What a week! I'm officially addicted to a new game that I downloaded last Thursday. The program is called Patience. It contains A LOT of different card games. My favorite so far is called Canfield. It's kind of like Solitaire.

This week at school is our Exploratory Week. We do one at the end of every quarter. Each teacher has developed a week long lesson plan about the topic they choose trying to incorporate some of the grade level Extra Value Standards into their unit. An example of some of the Exploratory units are: Help the Homeless, Power Point, What's in the News?, Rocket Science, and 50 Nifty United States. The students then choose their first three choices of where they would like to go for that week. The teachers try to assign the student their first choice, but depending on class size, that doesn't always happen. I co-teach 50 Nifty United States. The last two Exploratory weeks we've had the students research a certain state on the computer and then their final project is creating a poster about that state and presenting it orally. This time we decided to be brave and have the students create a Power Point presentation instead of a poster. Most of the students were quite Power Point literate. That was nice. The part that is the most time consuming on the teachers part is going back in to fix all of their conventions mistakes. We have spent most of the day fixing mistakes. I'm glad tomorrow is Friday and the last day of Exploratory!

We did incorporate the use of the handhelds into our unit just a bit. As a filler the students played Spell It. The clues for each state are its abbreviation and nickname. They had fun with that.

I'm so glad that we are learning how to create an eBook. I did a lesson with my kids a week ago using The Important Book and we are going to turn their important writing into an eBook. I'm excited to learn that!

Until next time. . .

Sixth Thursday

2005-03-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

Well...it's been a long time since our last class, I'm trying to remember what we did. Oh yes! The "Sketchy Show Down". How fun was that? I thought mine was pretty well done and then Erika shared hers! Great job Erika!

What I want to know is why it is so much more difficult to install applications from a Mac than it is from a Gateway? I recently received my new handhelds. I forgot how time consuming it was to open those human-proof plastic cases that the new handhelds come in! I charged them all and went to install Documents onto the handheld from the Mac computer and could not figure it out! So I switched to the Gateway. All I had to do on the Gateway was perform a hotsync, enter a new name, choose that I wanted to have Documents installed, perform another hotsync and ta-da! It was there!

I just got done reading Tony's blog about the Easter Eggs. I can't wait to try it out!

Another thing from Tony's blog...I was at a conference about a month ago where one of the activities was reading a list of color words that were written a different color. I'm anxious to re-learn how to download programs to the handheld because I really want to try that new program called Reflax.

Until next time...

Fifth Thursday

2005-03-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

Learning about the different word processors was interesting. I didn't realize that there were so many. My word processor of choice is Word To Go, which is under Docs To Go. My students have used that several times to type various pieces of work. It's very easy to find the document after you sync it to the desktop. Then when you bring the document up, it's converted to an actual Word document and can make changes accordingly, color, font, size, etc. The best thing about Word To Go? It was on the CD to install when the handheld was purchased.

Being in the "Hot Seat" was an experience. I had a pretty good memory for speed reading the eBook. I'm so thankful that Tony threw in the stylus pen with all of my other wonderful prizes. I love that thing! My hand doesn't get cramped up after using that stylus like it does after I've been using the other stylus. My only problem is that I can never remember where I left it! I need to create a way to attach it to my handheld!

Sketchy was a lot of fun. I am very proud of my work of art. Once the CAT Test is over with and all of our CRT's are done, I'm going to have the students write a How To paper and then illustrate it on the Sketchy. I can't wait!

ELMO is up and running. The students think it is so cool that the image comes through the T.V. We played Prize Wheel in our Advisement class yesterday. I had 8 prizes to give away. Three of the students ended up with two prizes. I explained that the only problem with Prize Wheel is that it is completely random and may end up picking the same number more than once.

Until next time. . .

Newswire eBook

2005-03-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

I created a top ten list incorporating things I learned from reading the eBook, questions I still have after reading the eBook, and the overall experience.

#1 - I'm not really understanding the term Shareware.

#2 - PiCo Map is free?

#3 - While I was reading, I thought to my self that it would be nice to be able to see parts of text that go together stay together. Then I remembered that you could auto scroll. I auto scrolled but then forgot how to make it go faster and slower.

#4 - The eBook talked about one problem with not a lot of technology being used in the classroom is because of the accessibility to it. That certainly is not a problem in the building that I'm at right now. We have 4 computer labs and two portable labs. Having the technology is not the problem. The problem is being able to get a time slot to even use the computer labs! The schedule for the labs is posted two months ahead of time, and I find it hard to plan for something so far down the road.

#5 - One of the Educational Advantages that it discussed was the price. As I said in my other blog, our school has just received 200 more handheld computers so that all language arts teachers will have a full class set to use. They are definitely more affordable than a desktop or even a laptop computer.

#6 - Is there a way to scroll through your bookmarked pages without having to go back and forth to the bookmark menu?

#7 - I checked out the handango.com website. It was a little overwhelming for me because there was so much on the site. It would be helpful if there was something specific I was looking for. I didn't find any free games. Are there any on handango.com?

#8 - After we are done with the CAT test and with all of our district assessments we are going to create our own eBook. I can't wait!

#9 - I had my first experience with purchasing an eBook a few weeks ago. I was looking for the Evan-Moor Building Spelling Skills book for 5th grade. None of the teacher stores had it, but could of course order it. I didn't want to wait for it to be shipped, I wanted it now! So I purchased the eBook and downloaded it and it's great!

#10 - I know that Tony mentioned something about the clock. I didn't realize, until reading the eBook, that the clock keeps the actual time. I did know that when playing a game you can tap the clock and the clock screen with pop up. What a revelation!!

Fourth Thursday

2005-03-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

It's been so long since I've blogged, I almost forgot what to do!
Well I tried the installing apps from the internet onto the handheld. I obviously did something wrong because it didn't work! I'll have to go back and figure out what I did, or didn't do, to make it work.
I'm excited to say that this morning I received my very own ELMO! I do have to share it with other 5th grade teachers that may want to use it, so I guess it's not my very own! It's about the size of a textbook. Little bit smaller and a little bit fatter. This ELMO does not require an LCD projector. All you have to do is plug the power cord into the wall, and connect another cord from the ELMO to the T.V. Put the T.V. on Video3 and presto! There it is projected onto the T.V. screen! I can't wait to try it out myself. Now I can show the students Prize Wheel and Name Pick.
One more thing I do have to mention...I now have enough handhelds for each of my students to use in class. Only having a class set of 9 before was workable, especially during reading groups, but now having enough for each student to use during class will make it easier because now they won't have to partner up.

Third Thursday

2005-02-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

I was so excited to come back to school on Friday after class Thursday and my Technology visit to Willowdale on Thursday also. I had it all planned out...we would take the spelling test, collect homework, determine who had missing work from the week, then beam Coconut Fern to pairs of students and let them play. Perfect Friday! Well, things don't always go as planned. I think the barometric pressure dropped significantly overnight, causing some major disturbance in the students' auras. During the first hour and a half of school, I had two office referrals, three detentions and two students on the verge of not being able to go on our next field trip (Feb. 24). Well, just as the students were affected, our handhelds were too! Only two out of my class set of 9 would accept a beam! I tried turning the beam on and off and then on again. I tried reseting. I tried beaming close. I tried beaming farther away. Nothing worked!! I borrowed two handhelds from another teacher and wouldn't you know...hers accepted a beam just like they should! How frustrating! Monday and Tuesday's plan time was consumed with me trying to figure out what is wrong with my handhelds. I was about to email Tony (I try to make that my last resort because I know he's busy) but I decided to look on the PalmOne website for some tech support first. I found the User Manual for the Zire 72 and printed off the chapter that has the answers to the most common questions. I located the information about sharing information and what to do when someone beams information to my handheld, and it doesn't receive the info. I did exactly what it suggested doing, which was make sure the beam receive is enabled and do a soft reset on both devices. Isn't that what I did the first time? Well, this time it worked!! Yeah!!! Now we can all play Coconut Fern.
One more exciting bit of information. I printed off Tony's list of Must Haves, Should Haves and Nice to Haves from his website. I made a proposal to the Magnet Coordinator for an ELMO for each grade level. I spoke with her today and she's already ordered them! That will come in very useful for teaching new applications to the students.
Until next time.....

Second Thursday

2005-01-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

It's already been a week since our last class and I am just getting to my blog. My, how time flies! My procrastinating actually worked out best for me this time. Here's why...I spent the morning at Willowdale visiting different classrooms that use the Handheld computers. Although I took the training with Tony this summer, and know some educational things that can be done with the Handheld, it was awesome to see it in action! The students are so knowledgable about the Handhelds and I love how they even use the correct terms when talking about the Handheld.
I visited Ms. Sanborn's classroom and her students were divided into groups doing technology mini-centers. The first one I visited was the Games group. A student beamed me several different games that I did not already have. He told me which ones were good strategy games! I told him that I was going to spend my evening playing games! Just kidding Tony!
Another group I visited taught me how they do their vocabulary words in Contacts. Another teacher that was visiting with me came up with a great partner idea. Put the students into partners, each with a Handheld. One Handheld would have the vocabulary words up for the week, the other would have the Tic-Tac-Toe game up. The students would take turns quizzing each other about the definitions of words. If the student got the definition correct, he/she could put up the X or the O. If he/she did not get it correct, the turn would be lost.
One activity that Ms. Sanborn's class does is the Roving Reporter. She has a class webpage set up with a link to their blogs. Also on her webpage are important dates coming up and artwork the students have completed. My goal for next year is to get a webpage established and begin the Roving Reporter at the beginning of the school year. What a great way for students to write with a purpose and a great way for the teacher to get a good writing grade!
The visit was wonderful Tony! I learned a lot and will be going back to school with some great ideas!

First Thursday

2005-01-20T13:21:00.000-08:00

I unfortunately was not able to be in class on the first Thursday. I attended a short Handheld workshop taught by Tony this summer. He went over a lot of the statistics and research then, but hearing it again would've been quite beneficial. I checked the Grad Class link through his website and found all of the assignments and rubrics. It's taken me three days to actually be able to create a Weblog! But I did it! I only had to email Tony once! I'm looking forward to the rest of the classes to refresh my memory of how many things can be done with the Handheld with the kids.