RyanCollins.org

On the Ohio Technology Coordinator’s listserv this question was posted:

We already had one case of student to teacher generated e-mail that originated on a student computer inside the school. The FIRST question I got as the Tech Director was ‘Why are you allowing students to send and receive email in school?’

And my question would be, “Why are you letting them use pencil and paper? They could be sending notes to other students or staff!”. For discipline we do not distinguish between computer generated or person generated correspondence. The punishment may change if it’s on the computer because they’d lose computer privileges due to the AUP.

You’re not going to be able to stop it. A student could simply fire up telnet and use your existing mail server to send email to whoever they want, saying anything they want.

No access to telnet on the machine? Then throw up a Java telnet client on any old web host and access it from there. Actually, if I wanted to get around a school’s filters, this is the route I’d probably go. Once I get SSH somewhere, I can get full access to the Internet, and it only requires port 80, a web browser, and Java. (This is what I use at places that have network access locked down. I open a SSH tunnel over port 443 to my home computer, and then have full access to anything on the Internet.)

Not only is email use part of the State of Ohio Technology Standards, it is our job as teachers to educate the students on the proper use of email. How to use it, what’s appropriate, etc. Part of the problem with the garbage that students send through email is that they’ve never seen anything else. It’s pretty foreign for them to see an email message with proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. (I hope I have everything correct in this post!

I bet you have students right now using a free email services, ssh tunnels, etc.

We like to think we have things locked down, but unless you’re working for the NSA, you do not have it locked down. Education of the students, punishment for inappropriate behavior is a good way to go. We as Technology Coordinators we have a habit of putting up technological road blocks instead of solving the real problems.

Thunderbird Email

Tags: 21st Century Skills, Classroom Management by Mr.Rcollins
2 Comments »

photo credit: swpermanAs we investigate ways to use mobile Internet devices in our classrooms, it hit me that they could be used as an interactive student response system (ISRS). Since current ISRSs are around $100 per person, why not invest in a more useful device such as the iPod Touch, Sony PSP, or Nintendo DS (with Opera)?

I found one company that already is thinking this way, Pocket Mobility with their Quizzler Pro product. Me on the other hand, loves the challenge of coding something up myself.

Has anyone worked with ISRSs? What did you like? What didn’t you like? Is this something I should look at as a summer project?

Tags: 21st Century Skills, Classroom Management, Hardware, Mobile Computing, Software by Mr.Rcollins
3 Comments »

Reading over at Slashdot.org and the original article at ScienceDaily it appears that film enjoyment can be contagious:

Over the course of the film, movie-watchers influence one another and gradually synchronize their emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant’s evaluation of the overall experience — the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie.

Can this research be applied to the classroom? We’ve all taught at least one lesson where it seems like everything clicked. The students were engaged, on task, and excited. Even the most prepared teacher can have a lesson go south, but it appears that a lesson might be saved by “groupthink”. By slowly bringing the class on task, it can cause a snowball effect, not only increasing the enjoyment of the students but also increasing their retention.

I’m reminded of this post by Miguel Guhlin

In my early years of working with adult learners, I facilitated a workshop that was everyone’s nightmare class–a cafeteria technology inservice. In the morning, provide inspiring words about using technology. In the afternoon, hands-on tutorial. The morning went well since we had cooperative grouping, activities, etc. The afternoon was focused on how-to, but I had some physical education coaches that whipped out newspapers. I was supremely irritated and felt powerless. It was my first solo workshop for the Education Service Center, and I wasn’t sure what to do…if I’d been working as a school district facilitator, I know exactly what I would have done–I’d asked them to leave. Instead, I put up with them.

Although a teacher can’t “fire” their students, a teacher needs to be aware of the negative influence those off-task students are having on the rest of the class.

Tags: Classroom Management by Mr.Rcollins
No Comments »

NYT Lesson Plan: Active Reading

In this lesson, students write encyclopedia articles focusing on topics in American history. They practice fact checking, assess their own ability to read actively and skeptically, and write memos that educate others on how to do so.

Tags: 21st Century Skills, Classroom Management, Language Arts by Mr.Rcollins
No Comments »