Leaving your mark

It's interesting that sometimes one will see the same theme in statements from totally different places. That's what happened to me recently.

First, I received a note from my father mentioning this quote. "Every man is either making a mark or leaving a scar. We need to make sure we leave the mark God desires." (Freddie Scott) I found this very insightful and moving, repeated it to a few people and Twittered it to my "network." Didn't think much about it again for a week or so.

Then, I noticed this theme again in, of all places, an introduction to the Oct/Nov 2009 edition of "Handy" magazine, published by Handyman Club or America. In it, Larry Okrend, Executive Director of HCA says (page 6) "In a world where so much is soullessly churned out in factories, it might be good practice for all of us to sign our work in some fashion. If you derive a sense of accomplishment from your projects, leave a maker's mark as a small reminder of your creativity, productivity, and dedication to a job well done."

Even though neither of these quotes were intended as guides to us as educators, they can be directly applied. Replace "man" with "teacher" in the first quote, and re-read it. It emphasizes the awesome responsibility we have to shape young minds in a positive manner, or risk damaging them if we do it wrong. I don't know about you, but to me that's a very sobering thought, one that none of us should take lightly.

Then, think of being proud enough of your work in the classroom to "sign" it. Is it just "...good enough for Government work..." or a real work or art? Are you bringing energy into the classroom, or simply going through the motions to get through the day/week/quarter/career? Are your students better for having been in your class today/this week/year?

We should make this an "objective" in every lesson plan taught in every classroom every day. What type of mark will you leave in YOUR classroom this week?

Google Forms & an iPod Touch

As a Technology Integrator for our Middle School, I've been "playing" (isn't that what us GEEKS do?) with an iPod Touch and Google Docs to see how they can support each other. Most of all, I'm trying to see how the "forms" part of the spreadsheet can help in a classroom.

Here's what I've come up with so far - First tried forms with a simple survey to the teachers about what type of computer they want when the capital outlay process rolls out next year - desktop or laptop, and any special considerations for that machine. Initial experience very promising, but not perfect. Biggest mistake was that, not wanting to send it from my gmail account, I mailed the form to myself and then distributed from there on my school account. The form was in the forwarded email, so after staff filled out the form, but when they "submitted," it took them to the "real" form on the web, so they had to do it all again. Next time, I'll simply include the link and save them some time and effort. Glad it was a simple form.

Next experiment is with classroom observation and the iPod Touch. Created a form for observing student posture in 6th keyboarding class, and sent it to myself on my gmail account, which comes up on my "Touch." What I wanted was to walk around the room, enter info into the form and have it automatically fill out the spreadsheet with my observations. Then, enter grades at the end of the class, print for documentation, and be done with it.

The first form had "drop down" choices which, in theory, are good, but don't play well with a "Touch" because it will automatically submit the form before you are ready. So I went back and changed to check boxes with one required box that simply says "done." That gave me control of when it actually was submitted. That worked well, except that I had to keep going back to the email, click the link, and go to the form each time. Haven't tried embedding in a webpage yet - that's still to come. That may make it easier.

Note to Google Docs folks - Don't bury the published form so far into the document - make the finished form come up as maybe a subset of the document itself so it will show up on mobile sync applications for easy access. Or, maybe an application specifically for forms that support a Google Doc. This would really help.

If you have any suggestions for me, please chime in. I'd love to hear them. Thanks.