Dragons Don’t Cook Pizza

I wrote a set of guided reading questions for Dragons Don’t Cook Pizza. The questions are shared on Google Docs.

Questions for Dragons Don’t Cook Pizza by Kimberly Herbert is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

What IT does right!

I’ve been reading about the problems other people are having with their IT people in their districts. I thought I should take the time to thank our IT and Tech people for doing all the things they do.

1. Test running software in different schools before adopting it, when possible. This has stopped some software from being adopted because the teachers/administrators hated it.
2. Admitting there is a problem and explaining in plain language what is being done to fix it and a time range if possible.
3. Trainers are TEACHERS. They keep their hand in by visiting classrooms regularly and working with teachers.
4. Using Open Source Software when it fulfills our needs
5. They are available for help and rarely take more than 30 minutes to get back to me. I physical visit can take longer 24 – 48 hours.
6. They trust me. I can tell them I’ve done x, y, z trouble shooting and the listen. The flip side is they count on me and my Tech crew (4^th and 5^th graders) to do some basic things like installing some new software. The payoff is we get the new software ASAP, because we don’t have to wait till a tech can do it.
7. The administrative level people are loosening their grip on the filter. We can get to Google Docs and Gmail now. Still can’t use Wikipedia but my kids make things on wikispaces.

Using Google Forms and Project based Learning

I have decided that my 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders are going to do projects from now own. I’ve set up several wikis on wikispaces for the different projects to be posted. My big problem was being accountable for what the students are doing. So after our staff development yesterday, I decided to set up a google form. At the last part of each class, each group or individual goes to the form an fills it out. The info is 1^st name, teacher, project, what they accomplished. Then I can send a copy of each classes forms to their teacher to facilitate communication.