Disappointment is the theme of the week

I have to admit my project this week brought extreme disappointment to me as I went around my school looking for teachers to help me out with what I wanted to accomplish.

I set out wanting to have just five teachers fill out the rubrics for me about an app they use in the classroom to enhance student learning. Sounds pretty easy right? There are over 30 teachers in my building. Two traveling sets of 33 iPads as well as some rooms that have permanent  sets like the resource rooms as well as mine.

Well I went to school on Monday and I immediately looked into who had checked out the traveling iPads before and I sent all of those people emails asking if they would be willing to take less than ten minutes to fill out a rubric about an app they use.

I had three people say they would! Great, I only had to find two more. Instead of just leaving it to the email, I wanted to get out in the school and talk to people about what they were doing with the iPads. This is where I became extremely disappointed.

I talked to probably 5 teachers who had checked out the iPads and all of them used them to practice math problems or do research online. Not teach new concepts using the thousands of apps out there in almost all subjects. They were using it for the same thing over and over again (things, I might add, that don't NEED to be done on the iPads).

To further add to my disappointment, besides these maybe 10 people I had talked to, nobody else had even checked out the iPads this WHOLE year.

We are completely wasting our opportunities to use these resources!

I want to scream from the rooftop- YOU'RE MISSING OUT!

I talked with my technology teacher about this and she agrees, we could be doing so much more. I am hoping that next year I can possibly be on our technology committee and help my principal brainstorm ways to get our teachers more involved.

This class has taught me so much about how to use technology in education and it drives me crazy to see my school waste such an opportunity simply because most teachers are probably too afraid to take the leap!

So in the end I only got those three teachers to fill out the rubric and I filled one out myself as well. I will continue to use rubrics to evaluate apps in the future as I select more apps to use in my classroom.

Digital Resource Selection

As I looked through the information I found about resource selection, I found myself nodding my head quite often. I feel as though I have learned so much in this class already that the information I was reading already has been drilled as “right” into my brain. All of the resources I found talked about how important it is to make sure that resources have a purpose and aren’t being used just to be used. This is something I learned in week one when I did my technology integration module. I even read an article that referenced the SAMR model which Dr. Mausbach had me apply to my first project and I felt so smart for already knowing what it was all about.

I use rubrics to grade the artwork in my classroom. It is the easiest, most objective way to put a grade on something that is a personal expression of someone. It isn’t fair to grade young students on talent, but they have to be graded on something. I use rubrics to define directions and expectations. Even with the face that I use rubrics in my classroom on a regular basis, I never though of using a rubric to evaluate an iPad app.

Not only is this an amazing way to see if an app meets my standards, I also have a great way to evaluate it AND STORE THAT EVALUATION for future reference. I don’t know about you, but from year to year sometimes I forget how things went for a certain lesson or program that I used. I try to do the best I can to take notes for next time, but that doesn’t always work out. (I am only in my second year teaching too so you know its bad). This is perfect to evaluate an app you use with your students then file it away. Then, next year when you go to use that app again (or next week or next month) you can pull out the file and see what it was lacking. Maybe you can do a quick search and see if there is an app on the market now that can meet all of your criteria.

One article that I read from the list of recommended resources was about rubrics and had a link to a website that I really found to like. It is:

http://www.ipads4teaching.net/ipads-in-the-classroom.html 

The page that I linked to above has TONS of resources:

Links to blooms taxonomy information

Links to iPad app evaluations

Ipad Professional Development activities

IBook creation tutorials

Tons of lessons that use apps and more

This is an awesome resource. Let me know if you find anything in there that is just TOO AWESOME to pass.

This week for my application project I have selected a rubric that I would like at least five of the teachers at my school to fill out about an app and I would like to share them with you but other teachers at my school as well!

Application Project: Branding Your School

My application project this week took WAY longer than I expected. I set out to investigate each school in the Omaha Archdiocese. I went to each school's website and tried to find links to Facebook and Twitter pages, then I gathered information from those pages if they existed. I wanted to see which pages had the most likes, what types of posts received the most likes, how long the school had the Facebook page, how often the posted, and also if I had to search for the Facebook or Twitter or if there was an easy link right from the website. It took so much time to go through all of this, and I think the results were pretty interesting, so I am actually going to post my list here. PLEASE comment if you see your school below and the information is incorrect (I couldn't find a Facebook/Twitter but you know there is one) and I will update. I did the best I could with what I could find.

All Saints Catholic School (Omaha) 309 likes

Most liked post was 34 likes on a post about one of their winning volleyball teams

Posts are updated often, almost every day. Posts started in 2009.

Their website has links to multiple Facebooks (Alumni, different groups, etc.) as well as Instagram and Twitter

@cuesallsaintscs 78 followers

Archbishop Bergan Catholic School (Fremont) 730 likes

Almost every post has more than 15 likes, up to 90 on some about sports scores and winning.

Posts are updated every few days, starting in 2009.

Their website has a link to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

@bergancatholic 224 followers

Archbishop Bergan Elementary School (Fremont)

Same facebook and website as the High School

Christ the King (Omaha) 211 likes

Most posts have 2-10 likes, a post about staff attending a Bishop-elect’s ordination service has 35 likes, which is the most for any one post.

Posts are updated every few days to every week, starting in July/August 2014.

Their website has a button that says “Like us on Facebook”

I could not find a Twitter for them

Creighton Catholic Preparatory School (Omaha) 1,148 Likes

Most posts have 2-80 likes. The post about the boys winning state basketball has 252 likes.

Posts are updated almost every day, starting in August 2011.

Their website has buttons for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr

@CreightonPrep 2,095 followers

Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart (Omaha) 843 likes

Most posts have more than 20 likes, with an Academic Decathlon winning post reaching 86 likes.

They post every couple of weeks or so, sometimes more often, starting in August 2011.

Their website has buttons for Facebook and Twitter.

@DuchesneAcademy 699 followers

Gross Catholic High School (Omaha) 1,978 likes

Most posts have 2-50 likes, with the most likes on a post about a former student who scored 18 points in the Division II National Championship Basketball Game (104 likes).

Posts are updated every couple of days, starting in July 2010.

Their website has a link to their Facebook and Twitter, as well as a link to their hashtag #gccougars

@GCHSCougars 1,137 followers

Holy Cross Catholic School (Omaha) 202 likes

Most posts have more than 20 likes. The post about the 100^th day of school with a video has 92 likes.

Posts are updated every couple of weeks, starting in October 2013.

Their website did not have a link to Facebook or Twitter, I had to search Facebook for them.

I could not find a Twitter for them

Holy Name School (Omaha) 578 likes

Most posts have more than 20 likes and a video post of students dancing on Rambler day has 80 likes.

Page is posted to every few days starting in April 2011.

Their website has a link to their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages.

@HNSchool 99 followers

Jesuit Academy (Omaha) 548 likes

Most posts have at least a few likes, and the most likes (78) is on a post about and eighth grade student who received a scholarship to Creighton Prep.

The posts are updated every few days to every few weeks since December 2013.

Their website has information about their Twitter, but I had to search for their Facebook.

@JesuitAcademy 196 followers

Madonna School (Omaha) 240 Likes

Most posts have 5-10 likes, a link to an article about a woman who gave her life working for special needs students has 68 likes.

The posts are updated every week or so starting in January 2012.

If you do a little digging, you can find a page with their Facebook and Twitter links.

@MadonnaSchool 25 followers

Marian High School (Omaha) 2,976 likes

Most posts have anywhere from 5-100 likes, with the most I could find being on a post about choosing Field Day colors with 270 likes.

Posts are updated every couple of days beginning in December 2009.

Their website has buttons that link to their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages.

@Omahamarian 1,088 followers

Mary Our Queen Catholic School (Omaha) 301 likes

Most posts have at least a couple of likes, and a post about one of their teachers becoming elementary educator of the year has 122 likes.

Posts are updated multiple times a day, especially lately, with posts beginning in October 2014.

Their website has a link to their Facewbook page. Their twitter seems to be for both their church and school and I had to look it up.

@Mary_Our_Queen 110 followers

Mercy High School (Omaha) 2,154 likes

Most posts have 2-20 likes, with the most likes being on a post about the St. Patricks Day mass (106 likes).

Posts are updated every few days starting in January 2012.

Their website has a link to their Facebook and Twitter.

@MercyHighSchool 627 followers

Mt. Michael Benedictine High School  (Omaha) 973 likes

Most posts have at least two likes with 41 likes on a link to information about the winners of an engineering competition.

Posts are updated every few days starting in June 2012.

Their website has a link to their Facebook and Twitter.

@Mount_Michael 675 followers

Our Lady of Lourdes (Omaha) 743 likes

Most posts have 2-10 likes, the post with the most likes (31) is about their pastors at a Chrism mass.

Posts are updated about every week starting in March 2011.

Their website has a link to their Facebook, Twitter, and Vine pages.

@OmahaOLL 144 followers

Roncalli Catholic High School (Omaha) 935 likes

Most posts have at least 5 likes with a post about swimmers who qualified for state getting 56 likes.

Posts are updated from a few times a day to every couple of weeks, starting in February 2011.

Their website does not have links to any social media other than one video that links to their YouTube. I had to search for their Facebook and Twitter.

@RCHSPride 111 followers

Sacred Heart School (Omaha) 136 likes

Most posts have a few likes and a post about 4^th grade girls winning a championship got 26 likes.

Posts are updated every week or two starting in September 2014.

Their website has a link to their Facebook. I could not find a Twitter for their school.

St. Bernadette School (Omaha) 290 likes

Most posts have a few likes, the posts with the most likes all tied at around 30 likes and had to do with students who were achieving high grades or scores in academics.

The page is updated almost every day, starting in October 2013.

Their website has links to Twitter and Facebook right at the top.

@ocscbernadette 35 followers

St. Bernard Catholic School (Omaha)

I could not find a school facebook page, the only one I found was the St. Bernard Catholic Community-Omaha page, which had more church information.

St. Cecelia Cathedral School (Omaha) 383 likes

Most posts have a few likes, but a post of the 4^th grade winner of the school geography bee had 37 likes.

Posts are updated pretty much every day beginning in April 2011.

The school website has a link to Facebook and Twitter.

@StCeceliaOMA 157 followers

St. Columbkille (Papillion) 218 likes

Most posts have at least one like and one post about a teacher becoming Star 104.5 Teacher of the Week got 57 likes.

Posts are updated about once a month, starting in August 2013.

Their school website has a link to the Facebook page.

I could not find an official twitter for St. Columbkille

St. Gerald Catholic School (Ralston)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. James/Seton School (Omaha)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. Joan of Arc School (Omaha) 213 likes

Most posts have a couple likes, a post about 8^th graders experiencing a traditional Seder meal has 20 likes.

Posts are updated daily to weekly beginning in March 2013.

Their school website has a link to their Facebook page.

I did not find an official St. Joan of Arc Twitter page.

St. Margaret Mary School (Omaha)

St. Margaret Mary is not set up like a normal Facebook page, so I cannot see how many likes they have. They are set up as a profile of a person. The page is not updated often, and is mostly photos.

Most of the posts are since 2012.

Their website does link to this Facebook page, as well as a Twitter.

@s_margaret_mary 232 followers

St. Matthew School (Bellevue)

This school’s website has a link at the bottom to “Share” their website on Facebook or Twitter, but I could not find an official page on either site representing this school.

St. Patrick’s School (Elkhorn)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. Peter & Paul (Omaha) 250 likes

Most posts have a few likes, one post about St. Peter & Paul students visiting with students from St. Patrick’s has 37 likes.

Posts are  updated every few days, beginning in November 2013.

Their website links to the Facebook and Twitter page.

@SPPSaints 34 followers

St. Philip Neri School (Omaha)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. Pius X/St. Leo School (Omaha)

The page I found for this school is unofficial. It is not ran by school officials it is updated with status’s where it is “mentioned”.  I did not find an official Twitter.

St. Robert Bellarmine School (Omaha) 321 likes

Most posts have 5-15 likes. The most popular post has about 33 likes and is about Kindergarten students praying at the outdoor Stations of The Cross.

The page is posted to almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day, with posts just starting in February 2015.

The school does not have a Twitter page.

St. Stephen the Martyr School (Omaha)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. Thomas More (Omaha)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. Vincent De Paul (Omaha)

I could not locate an official Facebook or Twitter page for this school.

St. Wenceslaus School (Omaha) 456 likes

Most posts have a few likes but one post about Fr. Jim Sichko which has 94 likes.

The page is posted to every few days or once a week. Posts started in December 2012.

The school website links to the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels.

@StWenceslaus 135 followers

VJ & Angela Skutt Catholic High School (Omaha) 1,158 likes

Most posts have at least 20 likes, but a post  about the speech team winning state four times in a row has 161 likes.

The page is posted to very often, usually multiple times a day. The posts began in September 2011.

The school website links to Facebook and Twitter.

@SkuttCatholic 1,170 followers

I was pleasantly surprised to see that almost every Catholic school in Omaha at least had a Facebook page, and it seemed that the ones that didn't were much smaller schools. As you can see from the list above, the high school's have a LOT more "likes" than the elementary schools. This is probably because the students at these schools probably have a Facebook and can like them vs. just parents. 

You also may notice that most school's have the most "likes" on sports related posts, but I do want to point out that these aren't the only things being posted, this is just what people seem to notice the most (sad, isn't it?). Most schools have a variety of postings. I learned a lot about the variety of schools we have here in Omaha by doing this. 

If your school doesn't have a link to your Facebook or Twitter page on your website, push your principal to make that happen. It was MUCH easier to find and I'm assuming more parents would join in if they had easy access.