XO Upgrades and Updates

Today the second solar panel arrived for my classroom XO laptops. This one came directly from China. It is so amazing to me that I can order something from a small company in China, and it will be delivered to my doorstep.

Anyway, it's here, and now the goal of powering one laptop by solar power all year long will change. We'll hopefully be able to say that half our laptops are solar powered. We shall see... I designated "Mark Ahlness @roomtwelve.com" to be our second solar XO. It is the one I bought last November in the G1G1 program, and it is the one that has been used the most. It'll be interesting to see how the battery charges, holds, and so on. The other solar powered XO is "Jude @roomtwelve.com" - the newest and least used XO over the past year.

All four XO's have been upgraded to OS 8.2 - which my kids are really loving. So many new activities - and the interface is really, really improved. My classroom XO's, all with names ending in "@roomtwelve.com", connect to xo1share.org Head there if you'd like to chat, etc. with my third graders.

Technorati - xo olpc roomtwelve solar

Letting go of things

You know, our attachment to things can be so surprising. A child of the 60's, I've always done my best to distance myself from things. But we can be surprised, even those of us who believe things don't matter that much.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I should sell my 1967 Vespa 125 Sprint. We needed the money, and with the energy/oil crunch, I figured a scooter getting 80 mpg might be sellable right now...

A hunch and a lucky alignment of events have my Vespa probably going to the family of one of my third graders this year. They are opening an Italian restaurant in our part of town. They already have one Vespa....

So yesterday found me working hard in our garage, getting all the piled up stuff off my Vespa, inflating the tires, and then giving her a good wash. I have not ridden her in 15 years. I rolled her out into the front yard for a last photo-shoot, getting a little sentimental - and I acknowledged the importance of things. I will certainly post something here when she is hopefully parked in front of her new home. I do have a good, though wistful, feeling about it.

Ciao, mia bella!

Long Shots

It's been a flurry of long shots lately:

• Proposal in to NECC
• Proposal in to NCCE
• Grant proposal in to Best Buy

All last minute of course, and all with about an equal chance of happening - like real small. But there was still something good about doing this anyway.

Some are forced into taking long shots, for their very survival. Take this juvenile American Golden-Plover, for instance. A first record in our county says this guy is a little lost here. But he's hung out in a field for several days. Will he get to his wintering ground? A long shot, certainly, but he has no choice. Northern Canada to southern South America (map) is a long ways.

So what's the charge, the rush, the goodness, in taking a long shot when you don't need to? For me,

• I learn more about what truly matters to me when I'm willing to invest a big chunk of time I really don't have.
• I stretch my learning, by clearly defining my beliefs and passions, and putting them into words that are understandable to others.
• I get to experience caring deeply about something, and then have to let go of it all. And I'm still standing at the end. It's kind of a character building thing.
• Of course if any of the long shots comes to pass, the resultant joy is pretty tough to top.

So I wish the the little plover a safe journey the rest of the way. If I could somehow transfer any of my karmic long shot chances over to increasing his odds of making it, I would. Actually, I just did.

Landslide coming?

Landslide coming?
Originally uploaded by mahlness

Today my third graders cut out this little ballot from their Weekly Reader, and they voted. They were pretty excited about doing this - after all, they have been blogging about the election (yes, even in third grade).

As always, I'll send in our results to the Weekly Reader, to be a part of their national poll, results released days before the election.

Maybe we live in a bubble, way out here in liberal Seattle - or maybe we are a true predictor of things to come. I only know that this is the FIFTH presidential election my third grade classrooms have participated in via the Weekly Reader (yikes!) - and there has never been a landslide vote like this:

McCain - 1
Obama - 20

Solar XO Update

Solar Update
Originally uploaded by mahlness

I've been bringing my classroom's XO laptops home one at a time to do an update to build 711 in the evenings. Now, you have to be plugged in to a power source to do this. Jude, in order to stick to our goal of being exclusively powered by a solar panel this year, had to be done at school.

Even if connected directly to our solar panel while operating, the battery still shows a discharge (very slow), so I was not at all sure this would work.

Today we were blessed with a very sunny afternoon, so I went for it. Worked just fine. A solar powered OLPC build update. Wonder if it's a first?

Solar Hope

Solar Trio
Originally uploaded by mahlness

On a recent extra sunny day in my third grade classroom in Seattle, we managed to fully charge Jude (our designated solar XO - center), Earthday (L), and Lincoln (R) - on our one solar panel.

Today I ordered one more panel. It feels a little risky.

First off, we live in Seattle. Rain capitol of the US - well not really, but we do have an awful lot of rainy, overcast days in the winter.Then, there was the ordering this time directly from the manufacturer, in China, via PayPal....

My kids are finally getting a chance to use them regularly. We'll keep you posted.

Finding beauty and wonder

You know, sometimes we need to move outside where we spend most of our time, in order to find some sanity. At work, people only see that part of us. But we are all so much more than our jobs.

In my spare time I love to go birdwatching. It's so different from my teaching, and computers, and technology - well, mostly. I also subscribe to an email list called "Tweeters", an unmoderated group of about 2,000 birding enthusiasts from western Washington.

Today, a venerable voice from that group posted something off-topic, a no-no that we've had frequent list spats about. He sent a link to this article, which explains and includes the video below. Nothing about birds, but plenty about beauty and wonder. Enjoy:

Blogging, Personal Politics, and the Classroom Teacher

In my 28th year as a public school teacher, I never thought this would be a problem: keeping my mouth shut about presidential politics. Now over the years I've pretty much kept my presidential preferences to myself as most teachers do, and I have not shared them with my third grade students. I won't share them directly again this year (although they always beg to know who I'm voting for).

But things will be different this time around.

I've struggled with whether to not to express my personal political views on this blog. I am a public school employee, after all, in a fairly large school district. On the other hand, this is my own personal space, and I work on it on my own time. Four years ago, I had this blog, but I wasn't using it. What a difference four years makes.

Recently I've noticed a couple of high profile classroom teacher bloggers getting out there with politics. Doug Noon, from Alaska of all places, has been putting his view out there. Just today I noticed Clarence Fisher has a couple of political links (Canadian, of course) on his blog sidebar.

But I'm not seeing a whole lot more out there on classroom teacher blogs. Which would not be a problem for me, except that I feel this huge need, this very strong desire, to say something. Political. I read so much these days. I'm a big fan of the Huffington Post, subscribing the the news feed for all posts coming out of there - can't possibly read them all, so I cherry-pick. I've got to say a couple of my favorites recently have come from entertainers: Barbra Streisand and, of all people, Jamie Lee Curtis.

I did venture into this a couple of days ago, with Power and Politics. My students will eventually figure it out, when they walk by the teacher lounge and see the Obama/Biden car magnet on my bicycle (arriving any day now, I hope). And they may know by reading this blog, which is linked from our classroom blog, our school web-wiki, and they can get to just by typing in ahlness.com. I did all this to make getting here easier.

But I've got to make it worthwhile, getting here. I'm not going to go over the top with banners, ads and tasteless rants, but if I have even a small group in a corner of a very large room, I will not let the opportunity to make a difference pass me by. Not this time. The stakes are way too high.

So, dear readers...

I would very much like to hear what you think. What's your opinion on blogging, personal politics, and the classroom teacher? If you have examples of teachers writing about this, expressing political views on blogs, in forums, or any other arena - please share them in a comment here. I'll add links to this post as appropriate - yes, from both political sides :) Many thanks.

technorati tags: politics classroom blogging

Power and Politics

It is a very intense time, for everyone in the US, and also for my classroom.

Yesterday I brought in a solar panel to power one of our four XO laptops for the year. I chose Jude to be our solar XO, for a couple of reasons. First, because it is the newest XO we have, in terms of power on/off cycles, so the battery is the freshest. Second, because it came from a place where there is a lot of sunshine, Colorado. Lots more sun than Washington, for sure.

I felt so very happy, riding my bike in to school yesterday, with a solar panel tied on to my backpack. I wish somebody had a picture of that. I would have looked like a solar powered cyclist or something...

The solar panel is now set up in my classroom, and my kids get it.

I had three of our XO's plugged in to AC power via their classy green power adapter cords. I pointed this out to my class and then walked across the classroom to our fourth XO. I noted that it had a black power cord. Then I picked that cord up, traced it back through the plants and other computer wires, until it ended up at a 15 1/2" by 20" board. I held it up and asked if anybody knew what it was. Three or four hands shot up immediately, and told me it was a solar panel.

They are 8 and 9 year olds, the ones who recognized that solar panel. They knew the power came from the sun. They knew that power would recharge the XO battery. They looked at per cent battery life left display, and they began to understand percentage. How cool will it be if we can use only solar energy to power a computer in our classroom this year?

This arrives amidst a firestorm of fear and lies in the US presidential race. As I experiment with, learn about, and teach about an alternative energy source, a couple of recent posts from Tom Hoffman struck a chord:

• Alaska: Battery of the Nation
• Energy = Oil

So much written and read, hopefully. Therein is my hope for our future - that people fully understand what my third graders see so clearly.

technorati tags:
xo olpc roomtwelve solar

XO Solar

XO Solar 1
Originally uploaded by mahlness

A solar panel arrived today for the XO laptops in my classroom. How many packages come to your home held together with GREEN packaging tape? Testing over the weekend at home, to school next week.




technorati tags: xo olpc roomtwelve solar

Too much, too fast, too soon?

Time will tell.

Today was day three of the 2008-09 school year in my third grade classroom. Every year I see kids coming in with more computer skills, and this year is no exception.

On day one, we started using Type to Learn, a touch typing program. The kids did great, several of them making it through the first three lessons in a 20 minute session.

A time out, to explain our situation. We have 12 high end computers in class. Five wireless laptops and four xo laptops round it out, and we have not even touched them.

On day two we continued with another Type to Learn session, and I showed the class a little Internet stuff - i.e., their classroom blog.

Day three was the bite that night have been too big. After Type to Learn, day three, I talked more about blogging, introduced the Blogger's Contract and safety, gave them their individual passwords, showed them how to log in - and name their blogs.

So we made it - an entire classroom, not going to a computer lab, just using what we had in our classroom of eight year olds.

As I planned these days, I had wondered if I would be asking too much. A couple of years ago the skills required of the kids to do what they did just now would have taken several days longer. Right now, no sweat.

Beyond words and understanding

Free 1.0
Originally uploaded by mahlness

In less than 6 hours, every one of the 40 year old dictionaries I had offered for free outside my classroom door was gone. I am beyond words and understanding.

Free!

Free!
Originally uploaded by mahlness

Casualties of the need for more space and years of non-use, these dinosaur dictionaries are now an extinct sub species in my classroom. (I saved one of each for our Book Museum).

Gearing up for 08-09

With two weeks to go until the kids walk in the classroom door, I have started preparations. Having done this a few times before, these days I accept and understand that I absolutely cannot effectively do anything until the kids' computers are set up and I know they are ready to roll. I'm about halfway done. The only tech unknown, thankfully, is where to put the solar panel for our XO's. Now, that will be fun to work on...

Then there's all the other stuff. I was so disgusted with the manipulative clutter from last year's math adoption, that I finally cleared out hundreds of manila file folders from a file cabinet, looking for storage space. Those files had been there for years. Somebody gave them to me, and I had never used them. Unfortunately, the manipulatives I put in those drawers reflect a pedagogy that is so outdated, it's hard (for me) to see any progress in the process. Exchanging one outdated way of doing things with another... Oh well. Less clutter is something.

Technorati tags: xo olpc xoclassroom roomtwelve everydaymath

XO Pics

Thanks to Alan Levine for his mention of this cool tool:

XO in the classroom - the whole story

I've written frequently about the XO Laptop here, and I thought it would be useful to try and organize all those writings in one place. I certainly did not start out the 2007-08 school year imagining any of this. Here is a chronoligical listing of all my writing about the XO in the last few months.

• OLPC (Nov 15, 2007) - I had just ordered an XO in the G1G1 program - found a video demo...
• OLPC - Merry Christmas! (Dec. 19, 2007) - my XO laptop arrives!
• The Three Amigos (Dec. 27, 2007) - comparison of my three laptops.
• Leaving town to find the neighborhood (Dec. 29, 2007) - first connection to xochat.org, the jabber server (amazing number of XO's there), success on Opera install
• OLPC in the classroom (Jan. 20, 2008) - I bring the XO into class, can't access the wireless network, do my first build upgrade, get connected, thoughts about how to use in the classroom...
• Seattle XO Users (Jan. 27, 2008) - meeting with the Seattle XO users group. Intimidating and exciting, this will open many doors, real soon...
• Our XO Laptop (Feb 2, 2008) - crosspost to my classroom blog, a formal introduction to our classroom - picture documenting first blog post from an XO.
• A Tale of Two XO's (Feb. 9, 2008) - a second XO arrives - a donation! I take them both to Writer's Night out at local coffeehouse, and kids read to the crowd from their blogs - from XO laptops!
• XO Joy (Feb. 17, 2008) - another XO is donated, so we now have three! Overwhelming, difficult to manage. Teacher pours water on keyboard so kids can use pic in PowerPoint presos they are doing on the XO laptop. Kids post short first impression of the XO articles on their blogs, compiled on the classroom blog.
• An XO Tale (Feb 20, 2008) - a voicethead on the XO.
• Note to Room Twelve (Feb. 28, 2008) - crosspost to classroom blog, during my absence from class to present at NCCE in Seattle. Picture shows our fourth XO laptop!
• Tomorrow, tomorrow... (Mar. 13, 2008) - reality of four XO's starting to settle in. Experience first classroom chat w/somebody - in Texas, video sharing....
• XO Users - Connect! (Mar. 26, 2008) - discover a new jabber server near Seattle!
• Year of the XO, part 1 (May 16, 2008) - title indicates my feeling that I should be somehow organizing all that's happening with the XO in my class. But this is a big moment, the beginning of a too cool XO collaboration...
• Instincts (May 21, 2008) - highlight of the year, describing the incredible experience with four University of Washington students, trying out a new piece of software they've developed for the XO. Amazing, unforgettable.
• Year of the XO, part 2: Memorial Day (May 24, 2008) - reflections from my backyard on the impact of the XO on my class, as the school year nears an end...
• A large neighborhood walkabout (May 27, 2008) - reflecting on the year, joining in jabber-enabled chats with folks far and near...
• How do you say Thank You (June 10, 2008) - as we prepare to return one of our XO's (on loan to us), the kids say thanks, in one of their final blog writing assignments.
• Report Cards, 2.XO (June 15, 2008) - I do report cards, aided by an XO.

The school year ends, but writing about the XO does not:

• Another XO chapter (June 25, 2008) - another XO laptop is donated to us! Shaking head and thinking about the year just ended, I begin to plot and plan XO use next year...
• XO chat/video share at NECC (June 28, 2008) - trying to get XO's in San Antonio at NECC hooked up to same jabber server - never happens...
• NECC 08 Live, via XO (June 30, 2008) - live multimedia on the XO is pretty exciting.
• xoclassroom (July 20, 2008) - start up a wiki in hopes of connecting other classrooms with XO laptops.
• Johnny One Note news... (July 30, 2008) - local jabber server going down soon, I get beautiful XO laptop stamps from Uruguay.
• XO Classroom Video (Aug, 7, 2008) - I put together a few pics from my Flicker olpc set and "create" a short Animoto video.

technorati tags: olpc xo roomtwelve xoclassroom

XO Classroom Video

A few images of the XO Laptop in http://roomtwelve.com

Neighborhood Block Watch

On August 5, 2008, our neighborhood in West Seattle got together for our annual "Night Out", or Block Watch Party:

School home, 2.0?

A few hours ago I handed off my school web site. To my school - well actually, to my school community.

For 14 years I've been the webmaster for one of the very first elementary school websites on the Internet. It is certainly the oldest elementary (and possibly the oldest secondary) school website still operating out of the same URL. August 14, 1994 was launch day.

The school site is now a wiki. It is not a web site. Let me clarify a little. The web site will live on - but it will not be added to. As I said earlier today in a post the the PTSA email list and the district allstaff list, the school site (now a wiki) is a hybrid blend:

with wiki links on the left side, live rss feeds on the right, and our school information in the center…. Scroll down and you’ll see the familiar little icons from the old school home page – they still connect to the same web pages.

So we can't call it a web site anymore. Wiki sounds so out there and scary for a school home on the Internet. Even using the words web page brings up the wrong connotation. I guess it's a school home, 2.0.

The wiki has been wide open for over two years. Anyone could edit it. The vast majority of the content has been added by 2 parents and me. We had a few minor vandalism incidents, which we took care of in short order. I had hoped for a much faster buy-in by staff and parents. It just never happened - people weren't ready.

So this summer I started reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. This (plus just the end of reasonable patience) was the tipping point. Well, actually, the tipping point was some vandalism that prompted me to lock the wiki down just as summer started. I had fought really hard to keep the wiki wide open - mostly, to encourage contributions from our school stakeholders, to make it ever so easy to add/edit.... Well, that never happened. What did happen was this....

• I locked the wiki, and I let staff and parents know
• I individually invited all staff members to join the wiki
• I came up with a way to include our old homepage in the wiki (imagemap was the big hurdle)
• I changed the domain forwarding of arborheights.com to point to the wiki, and not the web site

My biggest immediate hope is to get enough active stakeholders so that we can open up the wiki to anyone.

This will then truly be a School home, 2.0.

Here it is, Arbor Heights Elementary School

technorati: arbor heights wiki home page

Johnny One Note news...

Just when I thought I was about ready to break out from being an OLPC Johnny One Note on this blog, I got a letter in the mail a couple of days ago. I had heard about the OLPC stamp out of Uruguay, and ordered a couple without hesitation several weeks ago.

They arrived, delivered via registered mail, in an envelope with several beautiful canceled stamps on it - including the OLPC stamp. From Ebay. How very cool and beautiful.

But yesterday I got a body blow that took the wind out of my XO sails. The jabber server I've been using - and promoting to other educators as a good place for students to collaborate - is going to shut down:

I will be moving soon, and the school.letschange.org server will be going down for at least a few weeks.

This will happen within the next two weeks. If anyone has a server that I can put the jabber server on, that would be great. Otherwise, we'll be down while the server takes the slow boat.

I replied on the Forum:

Oh man, I am so very sorry to hear this! Your jabber server has been absolutely rock solid, and I thank you VERY much for putting it up there and sharing it. It has made some fantastic connections!

I started a wiki a bit ago (xoclassroom.com), in part hoping to connect classrooms via jabber server (yours, primarily) - so I'll be looking for an alternate server for a while... if anybody has a suggestion, please share....

We'll see. Now back to some other notes...

Technorati tags: xo olpc roomtwelve jabber xoclassroom

Summer Blog To Do List

In the next week (ha!) I hope to post here on these topics:

1. My kids' summer blogging - and a bit about the past school year, at roomtwelve.com
2. An update on SSR 2.0 - the tipping point for this long overdue post being Will Richardson's recent post about the NY Times article...
3. Tech professional development 2.0 - in my head for over a year, this finally has jelled a little. A throw the baby out with the bathwater post.

technorati tags: ssr roomtwelve "professional development"

xoclassroom

In an attempt to connect classrooms using XO laptops, I've started up a wiki. Please spread the word:

1. tag any posts, pictures, media havng to do with XO laptops being used in classrooms - with xoclassroom
2. contribute to the wiki:
   xoclassroom.wikispaces.com/

There is of course a Ning, yet embryonic, and maybe there ought to be more... suggestions appreciated!

Domain: xoclassroom.com

technorati tag: xoclassroom

Ednet is now Ednet2

A few weeks ago I wrote Another list is gone, almost - bemoaning the impending loss of Ednet, which I consider the grandaddy of all Internet edtech lists. Here's what happened after that post.

It really broke me up.

To the point that I volunteered to take over the list.

I'll spare you the process, but the deed is now done.

Ednet is now Ednet2

At several points along the way I wondered if I had lost my mind. Hadn't I just written about the email list being a thing of the past? In the end I had no choice, for these reasons:

• I cut my internet teeth on Ednet. I learned so much there, and I felt so grateful for all the advice and guidance offered from the list, and individuals on it. It was a way to pay it back. The feeling of wanting to help was undeniable, and strong.
• I knew how to do it. I've started and moderated Yahoo!Groups lists for several years. It's not that hard. Plus I figured if it got real active again, there were a few list members I could hit up to take over moderator duties :)
• Finally, I'm a saver. I think many things increase in value and credibility with time - if you start with a quality product, of course. That's certainly the case with Ednet - quality. You don't just throw something like that away - or allow it to disappear, if you can help it.

So here I sit, loosely holding the reins on this venerable piece of Internet edtech history. I hope it continues to grow and expand in scope. That will be up to its membership. I believe it still has a lot to offer. Below is my first post to the list. Feel free to join!

Hello Ednet Subscribers,

Ednet is now at a new home. You all should have received an email saying you
were on Ednet2. There was a bunch of information in that email, which I'll
try and consolidate here:

- To send a message to the list: ednet2@yahoogroups.com
- Note that replies to Ednet2 messages go to the list, not the poster.
- Unsubscribe: send a blank email to ednet2-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
- Home on the Web: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ednet2/
- There you can set your email preferences, post, get the rss feed, etc...
- Or send me an email if you want anything changed.

Please feel free to post messages to the list. Here's the Mission Statement
from the original Ednet:

EdNet@UMass is intended as a forum for the exchange of ideas among those
interested in exploring the educational possibilities of this new medium,
and beyond.

EdNet@UMass should serve to:
* link educators with similar or overlapping interests on the "Information
Superhighway".
* introduce students, educators, and interested others to current concerns
and actual work in a number of possible fields, as well as to local and net
sources of information.
* provide informed but informal criticism of, or suggestions for, projects,
proposals, articles, trends, etc.
* to act for all as a community where their educational ideas or questions
will, at least, be taken seriously-- whether in friendly opposition or eager
collaboration.

I think that's a great foundation from which to go forward. - moderator Mark

NECC 08 Live, via XO

NECC 08 Live, via XO
Originally uploaded by mahlness

On the picnic table in the back yard in Seattle, watching/listening to NECC 08 from San Antonio. This was a Ustream session setup by Jeff Utecht on Sunday, June 29th. Twitter going in another browser, shared chat also running...

Any XO users in San Antonio (or elsewhere), be sure to tune in to the OLPC Birds of a Feather Session at 4:45 on June 30th.

tags: olpc xo NECC08 NECC

XO chat/video share at NECC

If anyone is interested in joining in an XO chat or video share while at NECC, I'll be keeping a chat invitation out there and open for you to join. Often. And occasionally a video/photo share.

To connect, you need to set your XO to the same jabber server: school.letschange.org - don't you love it? Here's how:

In Terminal, type:sugar-control-panel -s jabber school.letschange.org

hit enter

hit control/alt/erase to restart sugar

Once you get your Internet connection started up again, check the Neighborhood button - and look for a chat icon. Click on it, and you're in! Or it might be a Record button - we can share pictures/video.

All realtime, instantaneous.

See you out there! - Mark

technorati tags - xo olpc NECC08

Another XO chapter

Regular readers of this blog may shake their heads about yet another XO post. Man, I'm sorry, I guess I have gone off the deep end. I can't help it. I didn't plan what has happened. But I would not have missed a moment of this ride.

I've tried to come up with catchy post titles so I could put this story in a logical order, like "Year of the XO, Part 1". Problem was, there was no logical order to what happened in my classroom this year with the XO laptop. As soon as I thought I knew where we were going with them, things changed. So the news has been pretty scattered. I'm not going to retell it just yet. It would be much too long, and frankly, the story is still being written.

Yesterday, the fourth member of my classroom XO family arrived! Like the second and third, it was a donation. I'm absolutely blown away by the generosity and good will that has prompted people to do this. I'm so grateful for the chance to give my third graders the opportunity to expand their worlds and their thinking with these little green computers.

Most people who bought an XO in the G1G1 program have one laptop. I was thrilled when I got mine. But I had no idea of its power and potential until I had more than one. They were designed to be used in groups. The next time you see somebody slamming the XO for being too slow, too user unfriendly, too underpowered - please keep this in mind. The built in collaborative potential is phenomenal, and many people just don't see that. You have to look them as a group. You need to use them in a group to really get it. I like to think of that group as a family. OLPC has called it The Neighborhood.

This fall, we'll start the year with 4 XO laptops. I can't wait. Last year I brought mine in to school in January, got a donation a couple of weeks later, another a month later, and a loaner in late February. So we kind of made up our "xo program" as we went along. While we were figuring out how to work them and what to do with them, more appeared. Things were hit and miss, until late May when we participated in a pilot of a new piece of software for the XO with some UW students. That was for sure the cherry on top of the sundae.

This summer I'll work on upgrades, try out new "builds" and "activities". And of course I'll come up with a way to teach my kids how to use them and show them what they can do with them. It'll be nice to have some time to work on the planning. One of the things I'm most excited about is using them as e-book readers. They are designed to be used in tablet form for this, and are super - a relatively large screen and excellent color display. I'm thinking a flash drive library of books, with several flash drives holding hundreds of books.... We'll see.

I feel extremely lucky to have a chance work on creating new and unique learning environments for my kids that will challenge them in creative ways. Once again, to those who have donated and loaned their XO's to my classroom, I send you many, many thanks.

technorati tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

Happy 85th, Dad!

My dad was born 85 years ago today, in Miles City, Montana. It would have been Lemmon, SD, but Miles City had the closest hospital. Tonight I spoke with him in Ithaca, NY, where he lives in assisted living, close to my mom and sister. 

Happy Birthday, Dad! 

(picture taken and uploaded from an XO laptop, and blog posted from one)

Hummer Solstice

Solstice Hummer
Originally uploaded by mahlness

A few feet away from this frenzy of energy from a hummingbird, I'm about as far away from it as I can be, in terms of resources. It is the summer solstice. This young fellow ( a juvie Anna's) has been a persistent visitor lately.

School is out. The tank is empty. It feels good.

Last Day Bittersweet

No technology piece here - this is just about teaching...

Most northern hemisphere classrooms are over for the year by now. Today was the last day with my third graders for me in Seattle. It was out of control chaotic - in the best sense, a great way to end the year.

I did my usual last day of school rendition of Mark Twain's The Glorious Whitewasher - a 10 minute one man skit where I play Aunt Polly, Tom Sawyer, and Ben. The tie came off, my shirt got untucked, and my sleeves got partly rolled up. It went pretty well, one of my better performances, I'd say. It's nice to give the kids a piece of me that they never get to see, on the last day.

I can't tell you how many times people came up to me today and mentioned my supposed relief and exultation.

Far, far from exultation were the feelings I went through today. I'll miss my kids. I wish I had done a better job with them in so many areas.

Teacher angst. It's the part of the job that drives better instruction "next year" way more than any other summer course or inservice.

(Image from http://www.studiobtheater.info/audition_info.php)

Report Cards, 2.XO

It's become a little bit of a tradition for me to post a picture of my report card table mess - which includes my laptop connected to a student blog. This year , with the addition of 4 XO laptops to my life and classroom, there was a twist. I had an extra fine time reviewing student blog articles to help determine their grades in writing for this marking period - connected via an XO, in blazing sunshine in my backyard (a very big deal in Seattle lately).

I do not have manilla folders with writing samples to send home to parents or to pass on to next year's teacher. The fate for both of those folders would likely have been the same - eventual recycling material.

The writing on my kids' blogs will live on, for a very long time - available to anyone. Even if the site closes down someday, there will be digital footprints of their writing, in many places. Tomorrow night I burn 25 CD's after school, one for each of my third graders. There will be tons of Word docs and PowerPoint presentations, several videos, hundreds of pictures - and each student will get a local version of his/her blog.



Technorati tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

How do you say Thank You

Well, online of course, and if you have a blog, you do it there - because it's even more powerful when others can see your thanks. I remember so well the lessons taught me by my parents about sending thank you notes - mostly for birthday presents and Christmas presents. You just had to do it - and quick. As a grown up, I'm really bad about it anymore. But when the opportunity comes up in class, well, we do it - but now, without the cards, the pencils, the postage stamps, and the trip to the post office. Here's what I just posted on my classroom blog:

This post is a thank you to two people. First up is Mr. Glenn Malone, who loaned us "Tami", our fourth XO Laptop. Here's what the students in Room Twelve had to say during Tami's last two days in our classroom:

Thanks For Tami- Jade
Letter - Kayla
Tami - Katherine
Thank you Mr. Malone - Chris
Dear Mr. Malone - Zareya
Tami - Noelle
Thanks for Tami - Ryder
Tami!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Kaitlin
Thank you For Tami - Adam
Thanks for Tami - Suad
Tami - Bryce
Mr. Malone - Dalila
Thanks for Tami - Emily
XO Laptop - Sonny
Thank you - Alec
Thank You - Laurel
Thanks For Tami - Marcela
Thank you note - Gabrielle
Thanks for Tami - Gwendalin
Thanks Mr. Malone - William
Thank You - Colton
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Malone - Lillie
(the three remaining are in final edit
mode)

The second thank you goes to Mr. David Warlick, who recently upgraded our blog by adding a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editor to make it easy for students to add links, format text, and add pictures! Many, many thanks! - Mr. Ahlness

Looking back, it was a good excercise in writing - with a little social responsibility thrown in for good measure. I found it interesting in a couple of ways. It was real easy for my kids to write about this. Their thank yous were genuine - and it was interesting to note their different approaches.

I was also tickled that several used this short assignment to play with the new graphical blogging tool. Many played with fonts and colors, of course. But several also were very interested in including hyperlinks to people and places in their writing. Showing them how was a snap. One trial learning, I do love it. Powerful stuff.

tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

Take Two Giant Steps

Take two giant steps. Mother may I?

Classblogmeister has just entered a new dimension - wysiwyg editing!

1. Allowing students, even at a very young age, to hyperlink and in other ways format their writing is very big. My 8 and 9 year old third graders get it. They understand that kind of expression. They read it easily, and now they can write in that way as well. Art Wolinsky was one of the first guys I remember reading who talked about writing needing to be three dimensional, at a very young age.
2. Allowing teachers to teach writing in this new medium is, for me at least, huge. Now, I've of course got kids who will go nuts over fonts, colors, pictures, links, etc, etc - because they look so cool. Some teachers see this as a nightmare. OMG, the kids are just going to waste their time, etc, etc. Well, get a grip and teach them, I say. To me this is a dream come true - a chance to teach my kids that, as much as content, design matters - to borrow a phrase from Dean Shareski. And content does indeed come first, yes it does.

Background, a little:

• Classblogmeister, the blogging tool developed by David Warlick (and offered for FREE to teachers for the last 5 years) has always been text only, for any blog publishing - teacher or student. Html is accepted, but you gotta know how, and type in raw html code. As a result, 99% of student blog articles have been text only, w/o hyperlinks or any html formatting.
• A couple of days ago David announced on the YahooGroups list for Classblogmeister that he had found a way to incorporate a wysiwyg editor into classblogmeister. This came with an apology from David for taking so long, it would be at the end of the year for N. hemisphere teachers and so on. Well, I look on this as a perfect opportunity for me to think about the new possibilities over the next two months without kids. And I still have a couple of weeks to try it out with my third graders who know what they are doing on their blogs. Today one of my kids posted a blog article using the new "graphical" interface, then another... Tomorrow the teaching starts for all, and it will be different, because the tool has changed.
• You know, teaching writing is SO different now. Any teacher NOT teaching writing in a web 2.0 environment like a blog or wiki is shortchanging his or her students. It is that clear in my mind.

So anyway, this is really exciting. I see doors opening everywhere, leading in many different directions. Thank you, David!

technorati tags: classblogmeister roomtwelve blogs html

A large neighborhood walkabout

An OLPC Neighborhood
Originally uploaded by mahlness

I was eating lunch today at my desk, as I often do when I'm way far behind in my classroom. Regular laptop at the right, XO on the left. When I clicked on the XO neighborhood, I did not see anything like this picture, when the xochat.org jabber server was going full steam last December.

Today I saw our 4 XO's, as usual - but there was this chat icon showing as well. Unusual, lately. So I clicked on it, and soon I was in a chat conversation with a guy fron Zagreb, Croatia. Nice guy, has a couple of kids, etc.

It's amazing to me that this can happen at all. And it happens so easily. This fellow had connected to the jabber server near Seattle. All four of our classroom XO's connect there.

I'm especially grateful to have these XO's right now in a district where any kind of chat, Skype, IM and so on is forbidden. This is definitely under the radar. So it's nice to get out once in a while. (grin)

This is one of those times at the end of the school year when I wish I had more time with my kids. There is so much more to teach and share, and I can't possibly get it all in. Here is a smattering of things I want to get to in the next three weeks (ha):
- connecting my class with kids/adults elsewhere via these XO's in chat, video, or Classroom Presenter.
- getting a collection of books for kids ready to roll on our XO's, so silent reading choices will include using our 4 XO's as e-book readers (I'm close on this!)
- doing at least ONE VoiceThread with my class!

(while writing this in the evening at home, the xo on my left showed a chat invitation, and I joined of course - this time a couple of people, one from Seattle)

lost my train of thought here, but never mind...

I find this sort of connection extremely exciting. We all know the world is so huge, and we are all just grains of sand on one of many beaches. I think this every time I fly across the US and look down at the vast expanse ("there a million stories in the Naked City") out the window - which goes on for hour after hour...

So when you get a chance to reach out and make contact with one of those grains of sand, it is extraordinary. If you're from different beaches, well how cool! We are meeting with a few variables in common of course, but still... the randomness is stunning, the opportunity is unprecedented, and the potential for GOOD is so enormous.

To Davor and Julien: it was nice to meet you today. Let's connect again soon.

End of an era

I just posted the following on the blog of The Earth Day Groceries Project. This was not an easy decision:

---

Wow! An amazing 197 schools sent in pictures of their efforts on the Earth Day Groceries Project in 2008. And 35 0f them were from Romania - go figure... If anybody knows what happened in Romania to cause this big spike, please let me know.

Anyway, all pictures sent in have been placed on new web pages. We'll probably top 200 school submissions by the end of May, a record by a long shot.

Unfortunately, The Earth Day Groceries Project will not be able to host pictures for schools from now on. We will certainly add links to other web pages and collections with pictures, but...

The issue is time. It takes an average of 10 minutes to convert and archive an email with picture attachments into a web page for a school. For 200 web pages, that's a lot of minutes - and way too many hours to add to my teaching life, even if I got paid for it :) Many thanks to all the teachers and group leaders who have sent in their pictures over the years - they are incredible! They will always remain on the website as testimony to the comittment of millions of schoolchildren to saving our Earth.

I'll close this chapter in the project by sharng the very first picture from another school ever sent in to the web site. From 1996, Royston Elementary in Royston, BC, Canada - thanks, Kelsey!

tags: earthday earthdaybags

Another list is gone, almost

Change is hard, and some (of us, myself included) find it hard to deal with. This one is more of a loss, but it struck me as a big deal.

I just got an email from Ernie Anderson, the moderator of Ednet, one of the longest running educational technology lists out there. He's been in the hospital, apologized for the list silence lately - and asked if anybody wanted to take over the list - now at "slightly less than 200 subscribers".

This made me real sad, for a couple of reasons:

• Ednet has been there since 1992. There is a lot of important history and good work that has come out of that list, a couple of particular interest to me - I posted the first invitation to join in The Earth Day Groceries Project on Ednet. It has carried Louis Schmier's Random Thoughts since he began writing them in 1993. And many fine moments and conversations over the years. I will never forget Prescott Smith, moderator in the mid-nineties, sending a note to the list where he mentioned me and Bonnie Bracey in the same sentence, in a complimentary way. I printed that one out, and you better believe I still have it.
• It triggered in me the thought of how far we have to go in schools to get out of the world of lists. Yes, I'm sad to see Ednet on its last legs, but even sadder when it reminds me of just how far the education community has to go to move beyond this web 1.0 list technology. It's just not where we should be, right now. I cringe when I think about a comment (I think) I left for Will Richardson, taking him to task for not being more involved in the educational list community. Yeesh. He responded very nicely and apologetically. Will, I'm, sorry. The list is dead - or will be, soon.
• It reminded me of my own struggles moderating a list for educators in Seattle for many years, tictech. It was very successful for many years, but this past January I closed it down, fed up with getting slammed off list by folks for things I said on the list - and also feeling it was time to MOVE ON, for goodness sake. I started a Tictech 2.0 Ning site, a group on Diigo... we'll see where it goes. It was an extremely hard decision to terminate that list. Although I owned/moderated it for 7 or 8 years, it was not founded by me. In my opinion it leaves a void in Seattle that has not been filled.

There are, of course, thousands of Internet lists that are doing amazing and useful things. A couple I'm on that I love:

• Our PTSA list at my school. It's extremely useful and provides an additional dimension to our school community.
• Tweeters, an (unmoderated) list for birders in the Pac NW. At over 2,000 subscribers, I think, this list amazes me. There are online tiffs, of course, but to have such civility on a wide open list with so many members - well, I think it's a tribute to all its members, and to a strong list owner.

Then there are education lists that I just go ho-hum over, these days - because I get my information about technology in education other ways. I don't have time to read through every post like I used to, but I stay subscribed .... Edtech - a biggie, dealing with many technical questions, and Andy Carvin's wwwedu, - the one that is closest to home for my leanings and politics - but I rarely post there any more. I've done a few guest moderator stints for Andy over the years. In its heyday, it was one jumpin' list.

But people are moving on. I think.

• How many people in their 20's and 30's check out a social networking site with their morning coffee before they check their email? How many educators (of any age) do that?
• How many educators check a news aggregator like Bloglines or Netvibes, etc - before they check their email? Does the percentage who do reflect that of the general public?

As I said, I'm sad to hear about Ednet. It may live on with a new moderator, but its number of subscribers has dwindled. I am incredibly grateful for the things I learned on Ednet, for the encouragement I got, and for the people who stretched my thinking. A list message from Bonnie Bracey came in while I was writing this...

Year of the XO, part 2: Memorial Day

Memorial Day relaxing 2
Originally uploaded by mahlness

Made it to this benchmark in the school year, one more time - yippee skippee! While other teachers have hung it up for the year, I'm looking at 3+ weeks to go. I'm not complaining, though. The end of a school year is always very sweet and intense - kind of like the dessert so incredible you can only handle it once a year...

I am writing this from my backyard, on XO laptop #2 (Earthday). I just took the picture of me sitting here with it- and uploaded it to Flickr. There simply is no better laptop for the outdoors than this little guy... no worries about spilling on it, dropping it, overheating, etc - and it's so easy to tote around. Plus, it's great in sunlight (not always an issue in Seattle - but today is awfully nice).

When I first heard about the xo laptop, nearly two years ago, I was very skeptical. But I bought one in November anyway, because I thought it might be a good thing in my classroom. So here I sit, running an experimental "build" (703, it's on all 4 of them), because I needed to upgrade to run a program we were going to demo in my classsroom for some university students. Nothing could have been further from my mind back in November... and now I'm planning/plotting sharing that activity with others, via jabber server - I know it will work :)

I'll write more here about the XO experience in my classroom, but for now I'll just enjoy the rest of the afternoon with Earthday - hanging out, batching it, while my wife is with her family, dodging tornadoes in Kansas.

Instincts

I have not had an hour like this - ever.

Yesterday in my third grade classroom I was at a teacher computer. I invited the whole class, in seven student computer groups, to join me in an activity, a series of questions about our recent field trip to Seattle's Pike Place Market.

The medium was a series of "slides", as you might see in PowerPoint. The questions were written on the slides, which were a series of pictures we took at the Market. The kids were to draw directly on their computer screens or enter text to answer the questions. Then they were to "submit" them to me.

I saw their submissions immediately. I could share any group's answers instantly on all the computers, with a couple of clicks. I moved them all to a different slide when it was time, and they worked on a new task - then they sent in answers, changed their answers even, resubmitted, etc, etc. Amazing and mind boggling, truly.

I circulated, laptop cradled in my arm, chatting with groups at their computers, clicking on this or that to focus the learning, asking for more, congratulating, and so on. Finally, I turned them loose, unlocking their computers, so they could navigate from slide to slide, to finish the rest of the slides - and to go back and change their submissions on previous ones.

We were all on XO laptops. Eight of them.

Sometimes when you follow your instincts, you get lucky.

What these four University of Washington students developed is amazing. They worked on it for four months, I think. They had vision, saw a need, and came up with a possible solution. I think what they developed is remarkable. The program was stable and robust, working almost perfectly in a classroom of third graders who certainly did give it a good run...

In the midst of the excitement and chaos I took a few pictures - and I kicked myself for not taking any video.

Instincts - it's important to trust and follow them. I bought an XO laptop because it felt right, and I thought it would be great with the kids I teach. I ended up with FOUR in my classroom. I replied to a group of university students in a forum setting because they were working on a program for the XO, were looking for a classroom, and were in our neighborhood. It felt right - and look where we ended up.

To think that this program could run in a remote village anywhere in the world, even one without electricity - well, that really excites me. I think a few of my kids got that as well.

tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

Year of the XO, part 1

I imagine I will write more along these lines as the school year ends, hence the post title. I simply must, because of the impact these little green and white laptops have had in my classroom, and my life. When the school year started last September, nothing was further from my mind.

I'll start from the (almost) end. After school today I met for the third time with University of Washington students who have developed an innovative piece of software for the XO. This was the dry run - it went pretty well, I think. In a few days we'll try it out with my third graders. They'll be working like crazy in the meantime to iron out bugs.

Several things strike me right now.

• It's great to have the chance to work with university students in my classroom. Oh, I've had student teachers before, but this is different. These guys are in the computer science program, and they're about to graduate.
• It surprises me how little I hear about direct collaboration between public elementary schools and universities - in any field. But in computer science especially - good grief, if those departments started looking at preparing their graduates for successful careers that included a little more recognition of societal need...

• This comes at a time when OLPC is fraught with political posturing and battles over development and future vision. Heck, I'm so excited about the potential of these things in my classroom, I can hardly stand it... I want to scream at the doubters, critics, and power grabbers, "Hey, hold on. LOOK at this!"
• But last, I am encouraged - by the vision, innovation, and determination of the young men I've just met. I'm hoping there are a lot more out there like these guys. They are our future of course...

tags: xo olpc roomtwelve

Project Athena

In the mid-nineties I wrote and collaborated with some very talented people who thought the Internet might be a good thing to use in education...

Today I got an email from a teacher who mentioned a colleague had been using some of my instructional materials for years - but they thought the site they came from was down, and did I know where those materials were now? They are/were called "Task Cards". What a flashback.

Those task cards are on Project Athena, funded by a NASA grant. Man, those were heady times. The fact that the site endures, and is used, over a dozen years later, astounds me. It speaks to the quality and vision of the project creators - and to the capability that we have to keep ANYthing of value - forever.

The image here is one I developed in response to what I (and a couple of others) thought was a less than adequate design for the home page. Aaack, politics are here forever. The page lives on in my school's website here.

I haven't used the site (or the materials I developed for it) in my third grade classroom for 6 or 7 years.

Serious personal and educational whiplash.

Silent Running

I loved the 1972 sci-fi movie on space exploration with Bruce Dern. This is where many classroom teachers are right now - under the radar, behind the sonar... running silently in classrooms, working hard to wrap up another school year - and still keep exploring.

This blog has been very silent lately. Here's what's running in one classroom:

• My third graders blog regularly, and they do so very easily - to post a blog article is just a couple more (easy) steps they take independently when they finish writing.
• Counting our 4 XO laptops, we have 21 computers in my classroom of 25 third graders. None of them is a donated junker.
• We just finished coordinating the largest educational activity coordinated on the Internet, for the 15th year.
• In a few days, we will have 8 XO laptops in our classroom, to demo a project developed by some U. of Washington students - an exciting new XO program.

Some of this may be news to readers here, but it is definitely news to my school and district colleagues.

I encourage school district leaders, tech administrators, tech integration spcialists - anyone who cares about technology in our schools - to visit as many classrooms as possible as the school year winds down. Check out what's happening first hand. What's under the surface may well surprise you.

For me right now, it's good to run silent, run deep. It is quiet, the water is very cold - but it is oh so exciting.

Coming up for air

It's not that I've given up on this blog - far from it. I am pitifully backlogged with ideas and partially written drafts. But Earth Day was a couple of weeks ago...


The Earth Day Groceries Project now has a record 174 pages on Pictures for 2008 - and there are 5 more that came in today. Last weekend I caught up. At an average of 10 minutes to transform each of them from an email with picture attachments to a school web page - well, it was a big task.

This is certainly the last year I will continue picture inclusion the way I have for the last 14 years. From now on, it'll have to be "links only" - where pictures will have to be on a school server or Flickr or something.... This is not an easy decision, as I know it means so much for so many schools to have their pictures "on" the site.... I just cannot do it anymore - because of the time it takes.


In the meantime, what or who lit a fire under Romania this year?!! Nearly 30 reports from schools who participated - and nearly that many picture submissions from those schools. Man, I wish I spoke the language...


Anyway, it feels very good to pull even and come up for air - temporarily. I look forward to getting back into the web 2.0 mix again, real soon.

Swamped, but Saved

I am swamped, overwhelmed in the midst of dealing with a massive deluge of email (pictures) and database entries (reports) for The Earth Day Groceries Project. Now, this kind of thing happens every year, this huge spike in activity, but this year seems different. Here's what's happening:

• there are way more people sending in pictures to be put on the web site
• people are sending in multiple, huge image files - like emails with three - 2MB images. I had several of those today - a total of 75 MB (so far) of images via email, yikes
• there are currently 81 reports waiting to be individually edited and approved for addition to the website database
• this all happened in one day. Way more than this has come in already. MUCH more will come in in the next few days...
• I'm looking at 15 hours of work that landed in my lap today - hard, intense, coding...
• Tomorrow that total will be added to... more the next, etc. It is that time of year.

Swamped, I am.

On the other hand, today there was a first in my third grade classroom. I gave a writing assignment this morning (Earth Day), and by the end of the day, every single student had posted an article to his/her blog, and they were all approved. To the non-teacher, this may not seem like any big whoops, but for the teacher who understands the differences in ability and individual motivation in each and every child in today's classrooms, well....

I'm saved.

Maybe part of their sucess in writing had to do with the fact that they saw themselves on a video on the Internet for the first time. If so, I'm getting a new video camera and filming every day!

Anyway, they ALL wrote, and many wrote very well. They had like 15 minutes, and they wrote off the tops of their heads. Check their posts on 4/22 on the left side of roomtwelve.com. One more time I say thank goodness for the kids.

Live event - Earthcast 2008 - join in!

On Earthday, April 22nd, there will be a 24 hour webcast about the health of our planet, planned and implemented by educators. I'm very honored to be participating as an invited guest, talking about The Earth Day Groceries Project. I hope other project participants will join in the conversation!

The event is called Earthcast 2008, and it will be broadcast/shared in a variety of ways for 24 hours. Be sure to tune in and participate, if you want, on Earthday. It begins at 12:00 AM GMT on Earthday. (that's 9 PM April 21 on the East Coast of the US, 6 PM on the West Coast, etc)

I'll be there on April 21st, from 6 to 7 PM, West Coast time.

"If you can't say something nice..."

"If you can't say something nice... don't say nothing at all."
- Thumper, quoting advice from his dad, when admonished for being critical, in Bambi.

So I have been very quiet here lately. I've been trying to put together a single positive sentence about my experiences with technology and education right now - and I just can't.

I will be able soon, I hope - but for now, I had to go to a different place to leave something nice. Here's a sweet love song from Alison Krauss that brightened my day: