OMG OMG OMG

It's 10:03 and I am sitting on my couch seeing which google docs I can grade before school tomorrow since Tuesdays are super hard. As I'm perusing documents, I can see students doing homework.

And. They. Can. See. Me.

So, I start a comment in a student's Google doc, and this poor, (un)fortunate young man can see as I write it:


Me: Greetings, Bob*
Bob: Uh, this is freaking me out. I'm kinda scared.
Me: Why, Bob? Cause I can pop in and see how the homework's coming along?
Bob: Yeah.
Me: Well, make sure you don't copy and paste from Wikipedia right in front of me, ok? Have a nice night! ;)

*Names have been changed to protect the poor souls who will have to face me tomorrow.

It's easy for a teenager to lock himself in his room with his laptop, xBox, iPod, HD TV, and his phone. Mom and Dad are probably blissfully watching Modern Family not realizing just how ironic it is.

But never fear, I'm checking on the sweet, little beasts and making sure they are scared half to death of me just dropping in on their homework adventures....helping with this and clearing up that.

Technology works both ways, kiddos. The classroom is no longer just that place that has desks and lockers. It's EVERYWHERE. I'm EVERYWHERE. Night!

Just Call Me Captain Stubing - Day 5

Welcome to English class; I'm your captain. Go ahead and settle in for an enjoyable 45 minute cruise.

Amazing Things That I Noticed:

•Kids making Google Docs and sharing them with me with little help
•Kids importing Word documents into Google Docs
•Kids uploading screen shots into Google Docs
•Kids wholesomely occupying themselves while I helped other students
•Kids helping kids troubleshoot computer problems
•Kids demonstrating tips to upload, troubleshoot, created, and import (i.e. hooking themselves up to the projector and showing groups of people at a time)
•Kids not toting around binders.

Interesting Questions That I Was Asked:

•When will our textbooks be online? I think my mom paid that same amount of money for my books as she did for the iPad I got for Christmas. Would it come close to evening out if we had iPads that contained our textbooks?

(I don't know; maybe we ought to do a project on it and see what we find)

•Why do you still have those smelly paper dictionaries? You don't really need them anymore, do you?

(No, I guess I don't.)

•This desk system doesn't seem to work in here with all these computers out all the time. Wouldn't tables be safer? Can we have class in the conference room?

(Why, yes they would. AND I don't know; I'll ask.)

•How long do you think this will work?

(I don't know; I hope forever.)

•Will the other teachers go paperless?

(I have no idea. Hopefully we can work out all of the kinks for them so that if they do choose to go paperless, it will be an easy transition and YOU GUYS can help them.)

I love the questions and I love all of the awesome stuff I saw today. Literally, I stood in the back of the classroom like a cruise director, pointing to this and that letting them learn and problem solve on their own around the a short story we read today. It was amazing.

The One Question That Wasn't Asked:

•How is this gonna help me in the future?

Ponder that, my fellow educators...

Technically, There Are No PAPERS To Grade...

...but there's a crapload of digital work to go through, and grading digital work is slower for me than actual paper work.

I'm doubtful that it will get much faster.

BUT all of this is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm forced to be pointed in what I want to grade; therefore, I will probably stop giving busy work (good for everyone, right?). Secondly, the reason it takes so long is because I comment on good stuff and bad stuff. I write out the student's grade and give feedback. The final product is a thoughtfully graded exercise. It's what I would want from a teacher if I were getting graded.

Bonus Perk: It's one big electronic student portfolio. Ta-dahhhhhhhh!

How Do I...?

As you can see, this little experiment has been pretty pivotal for me. My colleagues can attest to the fact that when I'm excited about something, I can't keep my mouth shut. (Chalk that partially up to being a Southern female.)

Regardless, and for better or worse, I've gathered some of the questions I've been asked in the last 92 hours:

1) How do you do class work?

Depends on what it is. We are mastering the art of group conversation and listening, but when it comes down to handing classwork in, I have each student share a Google Doc for that chapter's classwork. They do an exercise from the book, or type the answers from a PDF or document I have on the projector, and I automatically have the end product in my Google Docs.

2) You're a language teacher right? How do the students practice vocabulary?

Quizlet flashcards. At the end of studying they take the "Test" and screen-capture the grade. Then they email it to me. Study Stack also has something similar.
There's also several iPhone/iPod apps.

3) How do you do homework?

Questions from a textbook? a shared Google Docs homework page
Questions from a PDF? see above
Open ended questions? a google doc or a blog
Mind Mapping? Mapmeister
Practice vocabulary? Quizlet and take a screen-shot of the grade. Email me.

4) How do you grade?

Like I normally would if I had a crapload of papers on my desk. Now it just looks like I'm internet shopping all day.

If the work is in a Google doc or Word document, I add a comment box with the grade. If it "accidentally gets deleted," I just add it again (and again, if necessary).
If the work is on Classmarker.com, I sit back and relax, letting the machine grade the answers for me.

5) How do you avoid kids sharing their documents with each other?

a) I can see who is collaborating (or who has collaborated in the past) on any shared document.
b) I also have them pledge each assignment in their document?

6) How are you gonna give a test?

Classmarker.com = both objective and subjective questions. The objective questions will be graded by classmarker.com; the subjectives will be graded by me personally.

7) How do you give them handouts?

I have a PDF folder of every handout I give, so I can shoot them all a group email with an attachment or I can post it on my assignment page at school. I have also experimented with livebinders.com I have all of them stored there as well, and my students can download what they need from a binder I have shared with them.

8) How do they take notes?

Evernote, Word, or the students just listen. I have actually found the latter just as effective as typing class notes.

9) How do you handle one kid having a tech problem and 20 other kids just sitting there waiting for you to fix it?

Thankfully, I'm part ninja. Middle Schoolers know how to entertain themselves without upsetting me most of the time, so it works out. In the back of their heads, they know that they could be the one having an issue and asking for help, so they are usually pretty courteous to their classmates. Some of them play a quick game of widget basketball on the dashboard of the computer. They aren't hurting a thing by keeping themselves wholesomely entertained while I help a student.

I'm Just Popping In...

Coolest part of my day: Popping in on the 8th graders' Google Docs while they were filling out my iNotes on a short story we were preparing to read. I left comments and helped them individually without talking and distracting them. It was fun for me and them because I got to help and make them smile while they were working (sometimes I typed stuff like, "WAKE UP!!" Other times I was able to type, "Why are you deleting that? It's a great answer!!" Best of all I interacted with every single student (and most of them more than once) in the span of 20 minutes. I felt like they were motivated to work knowing that I could pop in and observe their progress without tipping them off by walking towards them. The element of surprise is essential in a middle school classroom. Today, "just popping in" made my day.

Just this... - Day Four

Middle Schoolers are more flexible than people give them credit for. That's all.

Workarounds - Day Three

Can't believe it, but I still managed to avoid the copier and printers today. Students and I are running into many speed bumps but I anticipated it, so I'm much calmer and patient than I would be under most any other circumstance. This experiment has tried my patience and the kids' patience as well, but we are learning to think differently. OMG, we are constantly thinking critically. We are problem-solving!

Last night after assigning a vocabulary practice on Quizlet instead of the normal paper practice quiz to my 7th graders, I got several emails like this:

"Dear Mrs. White,
My computer shut down before I could take a picture of my grade, but I made a 100. okay, thanks."

(didn't accept that as an excuse)

and this....

"Dear Mrs. White,
I took that quiz you assigned and I promise I made a 100 on it, but I couldn't figure out how to take a screen shot. My best friend was over, and he saw me take the quiz, so if you need to verify the grade, he'll tell you I made a 100."

(didn't accept that as an excuse)

but this one made the whole dang experiment worth it....

"Dear Mrs. White,

My mom has a Dell, and I couldn't figure out how to take a screen shot, so I took a picture with my iPod and emailed that to you. I hope that's ok."

Grade: A

There were a ton of successes. But there was one poor guy who took the quiz 293847529384756 times and still couldn't get the screen shot. His mom finally emailed me and verified his grade. I felt so sorry for him, because he was trying so hard, so we talked about other ways of possibly getting the information to me without paper.

All of this to show that assignments will come to you...somehow. The kids that we teach today have phenomenal problem solving skills. They can work around just about any issue. I've seen kids who can text in the middle of class without having to take their phones out of their pockets. It goes without saying, then, that they will figure out how to send me a picture. or email their homework. or text me answers to their model sentences if their email stops working.

Kids these days aren't helpless or lazy. Give them a problem to solve, and if it involves not having to dig for a pencil, they will find an answer. I <3 Middle Schoolers.

The Gap Closes - Day Two

Up until today, I used to view the 7th graders as young and possibly unable to handle this endeavor. Today they proved me wrong. I set aside 15 minutes to allow them to share a google doc with me. The class unfolded as follows:


Me: Ok, kids, open up the computers, log in to Google Docs and take some time to figure out how to share a document with me. How many of you have used this program before?

Kid 1: I saw my brother use it one day.
Kid 2: Google what???
Kid 1: Nope, never done it.

Me: See if you can figure it out.

(insert the sound of talking and typing, laughing...)

45 seconds pass

Kid 3: I'm done
Kid 4: Me too
Kids 5-8: Yep, check. Done. Ditto, Mrs. Whizzle.

Me: Are you sure you've never done this before?


Technology bridges gaps for lots of people. Babies play with iPads. Heck, unbeknownst to me, my second grader went internet shopping and used my iphone to order a nerf capture the flag set via my amazon iPhone app. And all on the way back from a basketball game.

Without. my. knowing.

I'm pretty sure knowledge is no longer just a factor of age and grade level; it's a factor of curiosity and persistence.

Paperless - Day One

Paper-free for the first time EVER yesterday. The kids are excited, but I'm screaming on the inside because I have spent the past 15 years chained to a copy machine: stapling, hole punching collating and unjamming. For all intents and purposes, I was born with a red pen in my hand. But today, a Tuesday in January, I didn't even see my nemesis: that faxing, copying monolith downstairs in the basement that I used to sweet talk whenever it came close to overheating.

In English, I stated my case and as I was explaining why I wanted no more paper to be used in my classroom, I could have heard a pin drop. I had them! And I had thrown down the gauntlet for myself too. If I said it out loud and did this in every class today, I had to own it for the rest of the year. This is the kind of pressure I have to put on myself. Own it or look like a dummy in front of my students. I don't have a choice now...

In English we talked for a while exchanging ideas and asking questions about how this was all going to work. "No, I didn't clear this with Mr. Kvande first." "I'm not sure if it's ok for you to bring in your iPad from home." "This doesn't mean you just get to break out your phones and start texting me all day." "How are we going to take tests?" "How will we study?" "My dad is 48; he isn't going to understand this concept." "This is COOL."

After that, instead of taking notes on the computer like most do, we just talked about irony and how we use it every day when we are being sarcastic with our friends and parents,and how we see it in scary movies all the time. It was the most productive note session I have had all year. A couple of girls freaked out because they couldn't write anything down, so I think I will set them up with Evernote.com so that they can have the notes somewhere. I also gave them links to the powerpoint on my livebinder.com page.

The 7th graders were similarly interested in this endeavor. For the first paperless day, I had them access their email accounts and write some model sentences out and then send it to me.