First, we came up with a general scope and sequence of what things we wanted to teach our students throughout the year regarding technology. We identified skills and topics in the areas of:

1. Basic Intro to our hardware, software, rules and expectations

a. Procedures & Routines regarding the iBooks (every 4 teachers has a cart of 30 to share between them)
b. The Anatomy of the iBook

2. Mavis Beacon (the keyboarding program we use)
3. Safari (using a web browser)
4. Renaissance Place (including Accelerated Reader)
5. Basic research (web and otherwise)
6. World Book Encyclopedia
7. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint

Then, we split into a couple of smaller groups to concentrate on our areas of interest and expertise. We created various supports for teachers to teach the above skills and topics. Depending on the topic and need, these supports took the form of:
1. Lesson plans
2. “Kits” of documents for students to manipulate as lessons are followed
3. Templates for students to start from when doing activities
4. PowerPoint presentations to guide teachers through teaching some of these skills
5. Videos (made with SnapzPro) of us modeling some of these skills
6. A video podcast containing these videos in an RSS feed

As several of us said throughout the course of the week, this was a wonderful opportunity to do some things that we just never found the time to do during the regular school year. It never made it to the top of the priority list. It was great to have some time to really do it right, so we know that:

• when we want to teach these things, we’ll really be ready,
• our students will be much more technologically literate, and
• we’ll be ready to take our students to the next level, using our technology tools to foster further engagement and retention with our curriculum, and pushing students above and beyond what we or they can imagine right now!

It was a very stimulating time, and we made a lot of significant progress, which shows a lot of promise.

And finally, it was just an awful lot of fun! Much of our time was spent with us in the same room, each on our computers, sometimes talking/collaborating/discussing, but other times working quietly. At these times, we all seemed to get the same song in our head:
We happened to watch this YouTube video toward the beginning of the week, and we were never able to completely get this song out of our heads, and weren’t able to quit enjoying making each other laugh. There’s definitely something to be said for enjoying where you work, and who you work with.

This is what happened to me recently. However, this one was significantly different! It was so exciting, I had to share it with you here. My student was to be gone for 2 additional weeks just after the Christmas vacation. She went to India! (This is especially exciting for our class because later in the year, we will be studying ancient India!)
More common plan vs. This one
replaced activities,
activities that didn’t change,activities added to the list

1. Read as many books as you can get permission to check out, and take the Accelerated Reader test for each of them when you get back. as soon as you finish the book.
2. Write a “Response to Literature” in your notebook on your blog for every 2 points worth of your books.
3. Write a page in your notebook blog article for each day you are gone about each of the following prompts: How is India different from where you live? [several specific ideas about what to write about]. We will comment on your blog articles with questions and comments.
4. Science – Read the textbook [pgs], complete workbook pages [pgs]. Blog at least 2 articles, about things in the reading that you have questions about, and things in the reading that you hope to see and experience at Scicon. [That's our 6th grade Science camp. We'll be going up to Scicon for a week the day my student gets back.]
5. Social Studies -Read the textbook [pgs], answer questions [pgs]. Blog at least one article about what you read. [some specific prompts] OR Go to our class wiki and write a summary of what you read/learned.
6. I gave my email address, so that is there were any questions, my student could contact me…

This was all possible because my student:

1. had an internet connection where whe was,
2. is responsible enough to handle the technical skills necessary to accomplish the assignments,
3. is advanced enough to deal with the more advanced nature of the assignments

I was excited about this because it resembles distance learning, where there might be some face-to-face interaction, but a lot of the learning happens using internet tools, allowing direct interaction in various ways.

When my student wants to publish a blog article, the work will come to me via email. I will then be able to write comments and/or instructions for revision, and students will be able to read and comment on the work as well. This is possible using a tool called ClassBlogmeister.

To a remarkable degree, it will be as if my student never left!

I’m excited to see how this all turns out… I will blog again about how this turns out. I thought about publishing an article about this only after it works well. However, the more I thought about it, it made sense to share the beginning of the experiment, and then later share how it turned out. (That will be Part 2 – stay tuned!)