Making Teachers Nerdy

Have you heard the new buzzword - telecollaboration?  It’s honestly nothing new; it’s simply a new term for an old idea.  You’ve heard of telecommuting, television, and IP telephony, but this is a new one to add in Webster’s “tele” lineup.  Telecollaboration is simply defined as: collaborative work using the Internet for project communication. 

There are several different telecollaborative projects, but today I’m going to focus on the easiest to implement, data collection. 

Classrooms all have data to share i.e. weather, interests, customs, and photos, and some of these are posted on classroom web pages to share with parents and the community.  Now think bigger!  What if data was collected from multiple classrooms and analyzed by students?  Data on clean water perhaps?  Students from all over the world could share data on the cleanliness, accessibility, and pollution of the water in their community.  Or what about lunch programs?  Students can analyze what meals are well received in schools, which school programs are the healthiest, and how can schools encourage better food choices for their students.

The major benefit of a data collection project is the ease of implementation.  Often these projects incorporate the use of an online data collection tool such as a survey or Google Form.  You can also use a wiki for more qualitative data as surveys usually limit to text and numerical data. 

Another benefit is ANY school age student can participate.  A kindergarten project I helped organize was the Here Birdy, Birdy project.  Kindergarten students from 5 classrooms across North America collected daily data on bird feeders outside of their classrooms.  During calendar time the students recorded the number of birds at the feeder, what colors of birds they saw, and how much bird seed was eaten using an interactive white board.  At the end of the week, each teacher posted the data on the project wiki for everyone to share. 

I’ve also seen data projects on:

Temperatures at noon on the First Day of Fall, Winter, and Spring
Number of teeth first graders lose
Favorite Dr. Seuss Books on Read Across America Day
Prices of grocery items in different areas of the world
What students are eating for dinner
Hours of sunlight on winter solstice
Economic value of a Big Mac

Third benefit of data collection project is the ease of management.  Depending on how many schools you have involved, the work usually isn’t too terrible.  It generally consists of the following: Posting of project on webspace for classrooms to register, welcome letter with expectations to all classrooms, spreadsheet with classroom email contacts, data collection tool, spreadsheet or wiki with survey results, and thank you letter.  To be honest, once you have all the classrooms registered, the entire data collection process and data posting can happen in 24 hours. 

The real work with students occurs once the data is reported.  What are you going to have the students do with the data?  Graphs?  Action plans?  Web conferencing?  The sky is the limit, but remember at this point is where the higher level thinking skills should be tested.

Currently, there are data collection projects that are looking for classroom partners for all grade levels.  These are usually reoccurring annual projects, so if you enjoy them this year, consider repeating next year with a new crop of students.

CIESE Real Time Data Projects
Journey North Spring Projects
WATT’s Up Energy Conservation Project
School Yard and Classroom Investigations

I also recommend reading The Guided Tour of Data Sharing to help you get started.

More and more teachers have the opportunity to cut a slice of the Internet pie and share content with administrators, students, and parents.  Many, however, are unsure what to do with this slice or how to serve it up to waiting guests.  Fear not, I have a few suggestions that might get you started.  I’ve broken it down to “Should” and “Should Not” lists in hopes of making it easy.

SHOULD POST

• Inspirational quotes on your homepage are an excellent welcome to your parents and students.  Need help finding a quote?  Try Quote Stumbler (“find a quote” is in the top left corner), Quotiki, or The Quotations Page.
• Upcoming events that pertain to your classroom should always be posted on the site such as field trips, major project deadlines, guest speakers, themed days (I know a Chemistry teacher who has Mole Day once a year), and final tests.  As much as you love the basketball team, it simply isn’t necessary to post those games on your class site.
• Homework assignments should be posted, but I do understand the difficulty with this.  I was never one who could stone in my lesson plans two weeks in advance since my lessons seemed to alter regularly depending on classroom situations.  If your web site does not already offer an assignment calendar, my suggestion is to create an RSS type calendar at RSSCalendar or Kiko.  Students can subscribe to the feed on their own sites and even receive email reminders with Kiko.
• Weblinks that go hand in hand with current curriculum.  Honestly, this is the most important component to your web site.  The most common mistake I have seen is the posting of generic links to grammar or math games rather than the specific units the class is currently studying.  If Ancient Egypt is the topic for February, then post interactive and informational links on Ancient Egypt.  Even if you are a math teacher, put links up on current concepts, not just homework helpers.  Traffic to your webpage will increase and you will find you and the students becoming more dependent on the web page.  Plus, when you need a link for an interactive whiteboard computer lab activity, it will be there without students having to type out 12” URLs.
• Vocabulary and spelling words should be posted.  Yes, I know this seems trite, but trust me.  As parents and students visit your site more regularly, these words will be “in their face”, so to speak, and can be easily referenced.
• Student artwork is one of the best features to add to your site.  Don’t have a scanner?  No worries!  Take digital pictures of the artwork and make a slideshow.    I would update this every few weeks to keep new color and vibrancy on your page.  Even if you are a high school teacher, consider this opportunity.  When I taught language arts, I would spring an art pop quiz on the students asking them to draw the major conflict of last night’s reading in stick people.  I instantly was aware of who actually read the content and it was a wonderful way for students to be alternatively assessed.
• Photo of the day or week with a brief caption.  Have students take photos not just of what is happening in class, but of a stack of novels students are reading, the view out the classroom window, a sculpture in the library, or the dessert at lunch.  It doesn’t need to be a glamorous photo, but it gives parents unique insights to school happenings and encourages students to notice the little things.
• News from the front lines.  Use your web space as the current event news feed for your parents.  Don’t feel that this needs to be lengthy, but it should be relevant.  Include highlights of the week or student quotes. 

SHOULD NOT POST

• Images copied from other websites.  UNLESS you have posted images that you have taken yourself or are in public domain, copyright to everything does not belong to you.  Sorry darlin’.  I do have some light in this dark tunnel, however.  You can purchase royalty free images for less than $2 at many sites such as iStock Photo and StockXPert, and public domain images (aka FREE) can be found at Discovery Education Clipart Gallery,  Public Domain Photo Database, WP Clipart, Photos8, US History Images, and Karen Whimsey Public Doman Images.   There are some wonderful images that you can also use from the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, but each one has unique copyright rules, so be sure to read closely before posting on your site.
• Your weekly schedule of when you go to PE/Music/Art and recess.  This is only needed at the beginning of the school year and will clutter up your webpage.   The students know the routine fairly quickly, so save the virtual real estate for more enlightening information. 
• Anything that does not fall under district policies.  Be sure to check on rules for posting student names, photos, and work.  This will save you from a great deal of grief later.  I promise!  Oh, and if you need a quick fix for blurring student faces, try FotoFlexer, a free online image editor that has a pixilation tool for blurring.
• Nothing.  I know it takes time to post content on your web page, but you will find the more you post relevant and current information, the more traffic and successful communication you will have with your parents and students.

Good luck with your slice of the Internet pie, and be sure to save a bite for your students.

1. I worked for the Disney Company for five years.  1 year down at Walt Disney World working outdoor foods in the Magic Kingdom and just over 4 years at the Disney Store.  I loved being a part of making dreams come true and telling folks my job is to make others happy.  The best part of working for Disney was being able to interact with cultures from all over the world.  In a matter of 30 minutes, I might visit with folks from five different countries.  The parks still hold a very dear spot in my heart and would go every year, but DH isn't as gung-ho about the parks as I am.
2. I was almost in  the movie Hoosiers when I was in middle school.  The film was made just 30 minutes away from our school district in Indiana and they invited neighboring district students to be in the crowd scenes.  Since the bus would only hold so many kids to travel to the set, they were selective on who could go. Unfortunately, I missed the cut, but many of my friends did make it.  Hoosiers still one of the greatest sports movies ever made.  Go Hickory!
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