What is RTI?

As I define it, rather than simply teaching everyone the same thing and assuming that if someone doesn’t “get it” that there’s something wrong with them, RTI assumes that there will be students who do not master a concept after whole group instruction and will need additional time and intensity (interventions) to master concepts.  This, of course, is very similar to the idea of Independent Work Time.

Alice Mercer, in her CUE presentation, also addressed RTI and went into additional detail in defining it.

Part One:  Dealing with Data

It’s very important to collect and analyze data in order to target interventions to specific student need.  ”Fluency” is to vague to be an intervention.  Focusing on short vowels, long vowels, or digraphs is a better intervention because it targets a specific student need.  Using Apple’s iWork (Pages and Numbers) or even Microsoft Word’s (Office and Excel) can help you to organize data by creating a spreadsheet, graphing data, and using the word processor’s mail merge functions to create parent reports about student data.  I much prefer iWork to Office because of its ease of use and the ability to create better looking documents.

Here’s additional information on graphing in Numbers and how to use the mail merge function.  I taught both these things in the workshop.

Part Two:  Prescriptions for Success ways of using Apple technology to address student needs

Fluency

• Use Garageband to record students doing Reader’s Theater and then add photos via iMovie or Final Cut Pro

Find free Reader’s Theater scripts here

See two of my projects done this way…The City Mouse and the Country Mouse and Tales from the Yard

• Use iPods with Voice Recorders to have students record their voices or have students record their voices directly into Garageband.

Find a voice recorder

Find out more about these techniques through Escondido Unified’s iRead Project

Comprehension

• iMovie projects which focus on unit themes and non-linguistic representations (as per Marzano’s Classroom Instruction That Works)

See our example for the Look Again Camouflage Unit

Read about how vocabulary is scaffolded for such projects

Behavior

While behavior tracking software is popular among schools with large behavior problems.  I saw office referrals eliminated in my classroom simply through working on these movie projects.  I gave the example of Joseph, a student who I knew would not be quiet if I was to call “Quiet on the Set.”  Instead of playing through that scenario and getting annoyed at Joseph ruining other students’ projects, I decided to make Joseph the engineer.  He called out “Quiet on the Set!” and he pushed the red Garageband button.  The rest of the class was dead quiet and Joseph experienced being a successful and productive member of our class rather than being the one who wrecked everything.  This is a behavioral intervention…intervening to improve student behavior rather than punishing students for bad behavior.

Evidence

Here are two slides that show some evidence that these techniques are producing gains although I am the first to admit that we need to continue collecting data on the subject.

In my classroom, I saw an 18% increase in the number of students reading at benchmark 12 weeks after working on the Reader’s Theater script, The City Mouse and the Country Mouse:

In Escondido Unified, they saw average gains of about 40 words per minute after six weeks of reading with iPods whereas normal gains are about 10 words per minute:

Bonus

Here are some incidental things I mentioned in my presentation.

HandBrake for ripping movies from commercial DVDs  you own for storing on iPod.

PWN Youtube and other ways of downloading Youtube movies.

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Updated: Handouts from workshop and updated links.

Handouts

Keynote 09 Handout

Extended Keynote Handout

Pages 09 Handout

Extended Pages Handout

Extended Pages Handout #2

Technical Resources

iWork Tutorials
free movies you can watch on Apple’s web site which show you step by step how to complete tasks in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers

Keynote Remote App for iPhone

Design Resources

Newsletter First Aid

Make Captivating Graphs and Charts

Before and After Slides from Garr Reynolds

Royalty Free Images

Pics4Learning

MorgueFile.com

Flickr.com/Creative Commons

More Royalty Free Image Sites

School Purchase Info

iWork School Site License
for only $250 you can purchase a license for up to 500 computers at a school site

Bonus (Presenter Tools)

Mouse Locator
Software to make your mouse easier to view on-screen when doing software demonstrations

iPhone Keynote Remote App

iMovie ’09 bootcamp is July 20-21st and Final Cut Express is July 23-24.

As a bonus, learn Pages and Keynote from iWork ’09 on July 14th.

All classes are sponsored by the Los Angeles County Office of Education. There is a small fee to subsidize the cost of the classes.

Sign up for these classes at: http://ito.lacoe.edu/workshops/workshops_display.pl

As usual, I’ll post any links and handouts to the blog so attendees and non-attendees can view them here.

Recently, I’ve encountered several schools that in my opinion have their technology priorities in the wrong order.  For example, I don’t feel that it makes sense to purchase document cameras or SMARTBoards before

purchasing reasonably up to date computers for classrooms.  What follows are my suggestions on prioritizing technology purchases.  I invite your comments additions and suggestions for my list.

1.   A TV and a DVD player (one for at least every two classrooms).  I use this for hooking up my iPod to show movies as well as a poor man’s LCD projector.  With a $20 connector you can hook up a MacBook to a TV (many people don’t know this).  It’s much cheaper to buy a TV than to buy an LCD Projector and with a TV you do not have to factor in the replacement cost of projector bulbs.

2.  A working computer.  For my taste, I would by a Macintosh because it just works and the software to create movies, podcasts, music, and organize photos are built in and well integrated.  If you have a working PC though, that’s fine.  But if you have a computer that doesn’t turn on or is unbearably slow, hooking a projector and SMARTBoard up to it is only going to frustrate you.

3.  Another working computer.  Students need to use the computer as well as the teacher.  I always shared my computer with students but I fear that some teachers keep their one computer all to themselves.  With two comptuers, I hope there’s less of an excuse to keep kids off the computer.

4.  Software.  With the Mac you may want to purchase iWork and/or Microsoft Office and Final Cut Express. I would not purchase any subscription services or software packages that essentially take over your computer.  I don’t want to mention any names but if you use a program on your computer that means that computer is only used for students to take quizzes or to act as a portal to the internet, I believe those things tend to be a unnecessary waste of money.

5.  A digital camera.  A still camera can double as a video camera (if you don’t use it too much) but the opposite is not true.  Ideally you need a still camera and a video camera.  This is vital in terms of students creating media.

If you have all those things and you’re still swimming in dough, then I might purchase a projector (do keep in mind that replacement bulbs cost hundreds of dollars), document camera, and SMARTBoard.  I want to be clear that I have nothing against these luxury items (I’d love them in my classroom).  However, teachers sometimes want document cameras before they want computers and I suspect it’s because they’re already comfortable using a projector and have no idea to use a computer.

What are your technology priorities?

I’m doing a second session on using Keynote (Apple’s version of Powerpoint) on Friday, March 6 at 3:30 PM.

This session will be one part design tips and three parts technical how-to.  You will walk away with  concrete design tips and a good idea of what is possible and how to do it.

Download handout here.

See additional Keynote/iWork links here.

iWork Tutorials
free movies you can watch on Apple’s web site which show you step by step how to complete tasks in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers

Design Resources

Newsletter First Aid

Make Captivating Graphs and Charts

Before and After Slides from Garr Reynolds

Powerpoint Do No Harm
Powerpoint Do No Harm

Royalty Free Images

Pics4Learning

MorgueFile.com

Flickr.com/Creative Commons

More Royalty Free Image Sites

Numbers

Numbers vs. Excel

Links for Further Info

Apple One to One Membership
for those wanting unlimited one on one classes from an Apple store for a year

iWork School Site License
for only $250 you can purchase a license for up to 500 computers at a school site

Grants for Teachers
Donors Choose.org

Just for Fun

The summer technology workshop schedule at the Los Angeles County Office of Education has been announced and I’m on it.

I’ll be offering the Integrating Technology in the Open Court Reading Program that I’ve been doing for the past year in various forms.

However, I’m also offering two new courses, iMovie ’08 Bootcamp and Final Cut Express bootcamp. These classes are a a mixture of the technical and the artistic. You’ll come away able to use the software programs but also with a sense of shot composition, pacing, and the cinema techniques. I’ll teach you everything I learned before dropping out of NYU film school and from my experience as an independent (many films for no money) filmmaker.

There’s one more class too, a one day workshop on iWork ’08.

For those who’ve never taken my classes before, know that they’re always for beginners and advanced users alike. For those who have taken my classes before, come back, the news ones are going to be cool and I particularly enjoy having repeat visitors.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, Downey sounds far but it’s not. It’s one of my favorite places to teach because the participants are awesome, the technology always works, and Cathy Rodriguez rocks.

Sign up for Workshops Here