School Computer Security

One of my biggest frustrations while teaching in Central Florida over the past few years was the students' inaccessibility to school computers. Our School was woefully short of units upon which they might work. Also, although the county and school tech support staff would have liked to believe that the few computers available to the students were impenetrable regarding safeguards and security measures in place, the kids absolutely had the jump on the staff. Although web-filtering was set, access to usb drives was limited and controlled, and restrictions to the wifi network were in place, students were able to use the system as they saw fit.

Being an English Language Arts class, we would often visit the school media center to gather information, either from the hard-copy materials to be found there, or from the Internet. We were reading, To Kill a Mockingbird, so we were researching race relations in the 1920's and 1930's. The students were asked to search for information about segregation, Jim Crow Laws, and the Ku Klux Klan. Unfortunately, much of the information the students needed to access was "blocked" by web filtering. The blocked information was not very difficult to access. All the kids needed to do was repeatedly attempt to log onto the web site. After the fourth or fifth try, the web filter would fail, and the students would be granted access to the forbidden site!

One of the ways that the school media specialists tried to avoid the upload of malware onto the school network was to disable the USB ports on the library computers. Unfortunately, the students would be required to pay twenty-cents-per-page to print any of their work, so it became necessary to enable the USB ports, so the kids might save their work onto their own or my flash, thumb drive.

Restrictions to the wifi network were the most laughable. Apparently, the system was initially set up to handle a load of six-hundred users. Needless to say, a school full of ipod touches and iphones exceeded that number of users within minutes. Then the system administrators set up complex methods of signing onto the network. I needed my tech support person to authorize the first laptop I purchased, which was a Gateway. She did not want to divulge the passwords to me! Later, I saved up to purchase a MacBook, as I am more comfortable working with Macs. I called the same tech support individual, and was told that our wifi did not support Macs.?????????????? Two hours later, I was recounting my wifi woes to one of my former students. He promptly grabbed by laptop and had me online in ten minutes. I gladly wrote him a pass to his next class!!

Week Seven--Classroom Software

For the past two years, my ninth-grade students have been using a system called, “Word Within the Word” to learn Greek and Latin word stems. When I was in High School, many students took Latin as a course. It was understood that learning Latin would aid in college and beyond with identifying and understanding scientific terms and vocabulary foreign to the student. Unfortunately, Latin is no longer offered at most High Schools. That is why the “Word Within the Word” system was developed, to introduce and reinforce Greek and Latin word stem acquisition for the student.

An unfortunate reality of learning word stems is the need for rote memorization. Of course, students may opt to create flashcards as a study tool. Fortunately, I discovered a website, named studystack.com where the word stem lists associated with the program have been uploaded for student study aid. The software found on studystack allows the student to use virtual flashcards that are presented at random. The kids really prefer using the digital flashcards, rather than the traditional, cardstock ones. More interestingly, the student may choose to play one of several games found on the website. One game requires the student to navigate a hungry caterpillar toward the correct word stem. A version of hangman is also available for use.

Unfortunately, I have only been able to utilize the studystack software on a limited basis. I have primarily encouraged the students to use the virtual flashcards at home. This is because my classroom only had two computers; the desktop provided by the county, and my personal laptop. In addition to English sections, I also teach a class called AVID, where weekly tutorials are built into the students’ schedules. My two computers were sufficient for tutorial use by four to eight students, but insufficient to be used by an English class of twenty-five. I often considered requesting the use of the school media center to access studystack, but access to the media cent computers was very limited, as very few classrooms at our school contained computers for student use. Needless to say, the library computers stayed pretty booked up!

Perhaps I might ask a colleague fortunate to have several computers in his or her classroom to “swap” classrooms for the day, so my students might be able to access the wonderful studystack software. The journalism and health classrooms both have fifteen to twenty computers. I probably need to start baking cookies for those teachers!

Week Six--Webquests

I am not necessarily the most “computer savvy” individual you are likely to meet. However, I have found myself slightly exasperated by the somewhat basic and outdated information presented in this course. Chapter nine of the textbook was the source of considerable annoyance and vexation for me as a reader. Chapter nine concerns itself with the basics of the internet and email. Seriously? My eighty-plus year old papa uses the email to read the newspaper back in Massachusetts and floods my inbox with garbage forwarded emails!! I don’t think that the chapter provided much edification for many of the students in the class.

On a more positive note, I thought that the wiki I encountered last week would be the sole jem mined from the course study that I might readily incorporate into my teaching. I am happy to report that I was dead wrong! Before this week, I had never heard of a webquest. The thing that I really like about webquests is their structure. No longer are we giving the kids ambiguous instructions like, “go to the media center to research the adverse effects of global warming”. Instead, the students are provided assignment instructions bundled together with a number of links that can be clicked to access the necessary information. Another advantage to providing the links to the students is you ensure that the class members are not inadvertently coming across unacceptable material on the web. All materials have been previewed by the instructor.

The assignment this week required that we research the concept of webquest, and then seek out one that might work well for the students we are teaching. Next, we were asked to create a webquest of our own. I am currently “guest teaching” at the local high school to keep my pedagogical skills honed, as well as make myself known in my new community. I am teaching the gothic novel, “Frankenstein”, to a group of tenth-grade honors students. At http://www.huffenglish.com/webquests/frankenstein/Home.html I found a great website that I am going to use starting next Wednesday with the class. It is incredible! The webquest contains tabs for each of the assigned roles of the webquest, as well as over twenty-five links to usable articles and websites concerned with cloning and stem cell research.

I did create a webquest of my own. My webquest can be viewed at http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=125586

What can I say? It’s okay, but pales in comparison to the one I found at huffenglish. One difficulty I had with the assignment was setting up a free trial at the questgarden site. I tried to register about five or six times, and each time my username failed to register. I sent an error report to the web host, but received no reply. That is why I opted to use the zunal webquest creator. Although I may not use the webquest I designed for the gothic novel, I will be sure to create webquests for use with future works of literature I will be teaching.

Week 5--Web 2.0 Tools

Like most classroom teachers, the bulk of my exposure to and familiarity with online communication revolves around the use of email. It is an undisputable assertion that email has now overtaken the telephone and voicemail as the primary communication device of the modern teacher.

The first thing I do is checking my email upon arrival at my classroom each morning. Our administrators use school email to inform the staff of any procedural issues or special events taking place on that day. A quick and amusing anecdote: for the past several years, Orange County, Florida has employed a peculiarly vigilant fir marshal. She is famous for cutting contraband extension cords in two, and is also responsible for a countywide ban on coffee makers. When the fire marshal appears for one of her many, unannounced visits, an email invariably appears in my inbox, which reads simply, “SHE is on campus”! Also, there are departmental email lists, used to inform group members of meetings and pertinent information on a daily basis.

Of course, communication with students and parents is the most important use of email. On my syllabus, I encourage these individuals to contact me via email regarding any questions or problems. At one time, absent students or concerned parents would call the teacher on the telephone, interrupting the lesson. Any teacher who has experienced twenty five inquisitive faces staring while a parent on the phone drones on and on will agree that email is a far superior and less intrusive mode of communication for the teacher.

This week, we were asked to consider the usefulness of web 2.0 tools. Web 2.o tools, also known as “social software”, consist of blogs (like the one you are reading), podcasts, and wiki. It is interesting that the latter is the form of social software with which I had the least familiarity, yet, seems the most readily applicable in my teaching of high school English. A wiki is a collaborative site where content can be edited by visitors, thus enabling groups of users to generate the content collaboratively.

I am very fond of employing cooperative learning in my classroom. I believe that the strong personal and community identity that emerges as a result is indispensible in creating a positive learning atmosphere. Also, the collaborative skills that are honed as students work together toward a larger goal will be of great use to the members of the class, both in academics and their future professional lives.

There are many ways that I may be able to utilize wiki software in the future. Perhaps I will have the students use wiki as they develop a research project, using the class wiki site to document the research process. I am also considering a student created annotated bibliography, compiled on the wiki to accompany the reading of a novel. The most interesting use of the wiki might be group authoring. On a wiki site, there is no need to email and compile digital contributions from class members. The site allows all users to contribute and edit each other’s work as the student sees fit. We might likely compose a group story or a collection of poetry in this way.

Week Four-PowerPoint

The assignment to produce a PowerPoint presentation for the Educational Technology class at the University of the Cumberlands could not have come at a more opportune time. I am currently guest teaching to keep my pedagogical skills finely honed at Lyon County High School. I have been asked to lead a sophomore English II Honors section in their reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Of course, the first thing I wanted to do at the outset of the novel is introduce thematic, background, and other informational elements to the students to whom I will be teaching the book. For the purpose of introduction of material and brief discussion, the Microsoft PowerPoint works quite elegantly. The first part of the presentation introduces the author. I then go on to introduce the gothic novel and romanticism. Finally, I use the slides to explain the writing assignment I will be assigning to the students.

The element I am most proud of is the way I seamlessly tied in the assignment at the end of the PowerPoint presentation. I have done this many times in the past as a full-time teacher. I am asking the students to write a 1-3 page “scary” story of their own. We will then break into small groups to conduct a “playoff” to see just who is the scariest storyteller in the class. One of the best features of integrating the lesson and assignment into the presentation comes into play when you might like to reteach or revisit the assignment at a later date. When you might like to reteach the lesson, all one needs to do is open a single file and teach from there! Also, in the event that a student missed the class when the assignment and explanation was given, one can just open the file and print a copy of the entire presentation to give to the student. If the parent or student contacts the instructor to inquire what was missed on a given day, the entire presentation may be sent via email as well!

The next time I introduce the novel using the Microsoft PowerPoint file I have created, I will likely present the introduction at a bit slower pace, as several students asked me to skip back a slide or two to review the information. I have a tendency to gloss over material a little too quickly. Pace is something I need to work toward improving in the future.

Assistive Technology-Cognitive Prostheses

We were asked to reflect upon this week’s learning exercises. The words shared by one man stood head and shoulders above the rest, as far as I’m concerned. I found myself nodding at the computer while he spoke. At the end of the eight-minute video clip, I believe that I may have even shouted, “testify”!

The gentleman’s name is Dave L. Edyburn, he was an Associate Professor at The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. I use the past tense here because it is quite evident to me that all the videos we have been asked to view are over ten years old. I have been able to ascertain this fact because the videos concern themselves with the use of technology in the classroom, and the IMac G3 is ubiquitous throughout the videos. The ironic thing is, the IMac G3 came out in 1998, and I hardly think that the video material is on the cutting edge of technology. I watched a video about the classroom application of a Palm Pilot, for heaven’s sake!

I digress; Mr. Edyburn was talking about the process of making school materials and facilities accessible for students with disabilities. According to the professor, there is a three-stage process to making school improvements for those with various impairments. The first stage is advocacy, where a staff member brings a need to the attention of others on the behalf of someone with a disability, physical or cognitive. Next, an action takes place, where assistive technology is employed. Finally, the accommodation is made, to ensure that all individuals have equal access to school facilities and curriculum, regardless of impairment.

You may be saying to yourself, “how does this help me? I don’t have a physical or cognitive impairment.” Dave Edyburn claims, good design for disability is really good design for all”. He offers two examples. First, “curb cuts” were first placed on the campus, so that those utilizing wheelchairs might have equal access to campus sidewalks. Today, cyclists and people with strollers enjoy the curb cuts also. Secondly, the ability to magnify text within a word document was originally engineered to help those with visual impairments view a word document. Right now, I am typing with my text set at 150% zoom. Testify!

We were also asked to post a flyer we have made in the process of our teaching. The image above is from a parent night I hosted last year. I have spruced it up by adding the Boone Brave head, as well as the AVID logo. I think that those images, the various colors, and the chosen font make the flyer visually appealing. My one gripe with the flyer would be the, “who, what. when, and why” statements before the colon. Perhaps those items should have been in black bold. They don’t seem to “pop” as those important signifiers should.

Lesson 2 Blog--Databases

As an English teacher, I am not naturally drawn toward the use of databases and spreadsheets. I am. however, keenly aware of their usefulness in the school environment. My tendency in the past has been to let my administrators and the "number crunching" faction of the staff deal with them. Well, I resolutely able to say that my previous aversion to spreadsheets and databases has been reduced by the materials I have come into contact with in my recent studies.

Today, I came across Greg Stiffler's Online Teaching Portfolio, where he demonstrates how he has used MS Access to create personalized letters using a template and a database. After entering all the needed contact information, the software automatically composes a letter with the student, parent, and address information plugged into the required field. Pretty cool! If you would like to check out Stiffler's page, it is at- http://tiger.towson.edu/~gstiff1/database.htm

I was reading chapter three of our textbook today as well. I happened upon a surprising use of a spreadsheet that might be readily applied in the classroom. The use is called, quite simply, the "what if?" function. Later on, I was able to suggest this use to a classmate on her discussion posting. Let me use her scenario to explain. Let's say that your class has determined that there is a significant correlation that can be established between class absence and lower student grades. For the safe of our discussion, we'll estimate that the difference is 1.2 percentage points for every day missed during a nine-week marking period. Using a spreadsheet, the students can instantly view the impact of missing four, six, or nine days of school by simply changing the field designated to indicate number of school days missed. Not bad!

Regardless of my general avoidance of spreadsheets in the past, I have used a program called, "Filemaker Pro" in the past. In our school district, Filemaker Pro was used to examine and retrieve student scores on the Language Arts Benchmark Test. I used the student information to ensure that my classroom instruction was specifically tailored to target the areas of most need for the particular group of students to be found in a particular class section. Also, I reviewed the second set of benchmark scores at the end of the year to assist in the recommendation process to English II.