Someone Please Stop My Feet from Dancing..

On a tip from Dean Shareski’s daily links, I found this gem to work with from the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Executive Committee Meeting:

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF 21st-CENTURY LITERACIESAdopted by the NCTE Executive Committee February 15, 2008

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and
communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As
society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has
increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the
twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide
range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These
literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in
virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in
the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life
possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups.
Twenty-first century readers and writers need to

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology

• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally

• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes

• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information

• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts

• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

The timeliness of this statement is not lost on me as I begin to craft my idea for what a 21st Century writing class should look like. “These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in
virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable.” How great is that?

Yet, somewhere within me there is the skeptic heart that tells me the same reaction I got when I proposed the idea of teaching visual literacy to our English Department will greet me with this new class as well. The same questions of time (there is not enough of it to add anything new), student apathy, and clinging to what was done in the past will be brought up.

I need the statistics and rationale to back up what this will be about. I need your success stories. How are you effectively teaching writing these days?

Technorati Tags: deanshareski, ncte, English, literacy

“Room to Grow,” from tlindenbaum’s photostream

PicLens Preview on Vimeo

Here is a quick preview video that Parker and I made tonight. It pulls images from any Flickr, Google Image, Yahoo Image, Smugmug, Photobucket, or Deviantart page and creates a 3-D view with them. Very slick.

from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod

My Writing Idea

With all credit to Bill Ferriter who posted a link to his Pageflakes page that he uses with his students, I created this iGoogle Page to begin to flesh out an idea I have for a writing class that I am thinking about for a future pet project.

Inspired by all of the work Justin and Dennis, Jeff, and Kim have done in Asia, as well as a host of the other wonderful people in my network, I’ve decided to begin to craft the vision of what I think a writing class should look like in the grade 6-12 setting. Here is my short list of adjectives/descriptive phrases for what it should look like:

• Connected: our students and their writing should be done in conjunction with some other, larger project that connects them to other classrooms and work being done in their community or another community somewhere in the world.
• Reflective: our teachers should be striving to teach their students to understand how they are learning, not just what they are learning. By asking them to discuss their learning and their progress, failures, and processes, we allow them the freedom to think out loud and open their thinking to the world.
• Archival/Portfolio-driven: students need to be shown visual representations of their improvement, and shown often. Being able to pull out writing from September to view in June and show growth and depth will change the way a student looks at their writing.
• Driven by student-interest: I keep hearing about student apathy from the teachers I work with. I want it to stop, and I want to know how you can drive student interest through the roof. Tim Tyson made Mabry Middle School “Irresistible;” why can’t I?
• Public: Hearing Chris talk about how SLA was a walled garden, yet so full of connections made me think hard about my definition of audience. Yes, I would like our students writing to be global, but I would also like it to be intensely local as well. Regardless of where it’s seen, I know it needs to be seen. Students need audience in order to shape their voice.
• Vibrant: I didn’t grab onto writing for myself until I got to college, and many people don’t ever or won’t ever. Clay speaks often about taking his high school students into the fray by helping them find their writerly voice. It’s difficult, it’s going to be marred by failures, but I want these students to find the spark, the one piece that generates interest–the one that keeps them coming back to the page to try again.

I am in the early stages of creating this class, but it’s exciting to do this. My appeal to all out there who might come across this is simple: what would you include in a writing class that spans all academic disciplines in its content?

Meme: Passion Quilt

It’s a fickle thing, our relationship to words, so when Bach tagged me for this meme, I immediately conjured up images Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. Not because of the topic, but just that word: Passion. There probably is some little known codicil of blog etiquette I am breaking here by comparing a serious topic to cheap club songs from previous topics, and I do apologize for that, but the thought process just happened. I am over it now.

This has actually been sitting on my GTD list for a few days now, moving between Today and Next depending on my level of commitment to the writing process, which has been low. We have a delayed opening due to weather this morning, and what better time to devote to this while everyone sleeps in a little.

Here are the rules:

• Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network

I’ll tag the next five people:

• Patrick Chodkiewicz
• Ben Wilkoff
• Carter Smith
• Bing Miller
• Jen Wagner
• Erica Hartman
• Michael Gregory
• Cathy Wille
• Angela Davis
• Brad Davis

Image credit: Untitled from Mirissa’s photostream

Words I have been looking for.

Here’s a quick example of how my thinking has shifted over the last few months:

While plowing through my literature the other day, I found this beauty of a post by Dennis Harter and Justin Medved, where they talk about re-designing their technology plan for the International School in Bangkok. Oh to be a fly on the wall in that place when the thinking churns out some wonderful ideas like this:

Technology is in a constant state of evolution and change. Access speeds,hardware, software, and computer capabilities all evolve and improve ona monthly basis….Is it not time that we create a curriculum model that understands this fact and works with it rather than tries to control it?

When I hear thoughts like that one, and like this one here:

Instead of asking the question “What technology skills must a student have to face in the 21st century?” should we not be asking “What thinking and literacy skills must a student have to face the 21st century?” These skills are not tied to any particular software or technology-type, but rather aim to provide students with the thinking skills and thus the opportunities to succeed no matter what their futures hold.”

I get excited that minds like these are helping to shape policy for schools somewhere in the world; the fact that it is halfway around the world is a bit unfortunate for my immediate needs, but in this ever-shrinking world, one of the graduates from that school may turn out to play a major role in my life at some point, so I am warmed by their progressive ideas.

They go further and define some essential questions, a la McTighe and Wiggins to really spell out their purpose:

From this, which would have wholly consumed me, I found myself searching for some more research on teaching thinking the thought process. Now, a few months ago, Harter and Medved would have been enough for me, but things have changed, and the world of technology has shrunken for me, so to speak. In dealing with larger numbers of teachers, I have come to realize more than ever that there use of technology has less to do with good teaching than I thought or had experienced before. If you are not convinced of this, go read the T.C. Williams debacle and its various off-shoots.

In my search for more information, I came across Marion Brady’s article in Educational Leadership “Cover the Material–Or Teach Students to Think?” in which he argues that our obsession with standardized testing is more than just irrelevant, it’s downright criminal to the upcoming generations. One of my favorite discussions in the article deals with the passing along of information from one generation to the next, which Brady describes as language of allusion, the information that allows societies to share complicated information in only a few words for the purpose of sending

students on their way with meaning attached to thousands of ideas like
those, efficient, society-sustaining dialogue is possible.

In most cases we often argue for the need for schools to socialize our children, and, while this need is apparent and real, it may be less necessary for our students to learn the language of allusion of a world whose solution sets don’t serve the future.

Now before I get all future-drunk here, the thinking and the teaching of thinking is what is critical in our schools today. Time is always an issue, as is adherence to state standards when teaching material, but I like what Brady points out near the end of the article: that teaching these skills is not as difficult as we make it out to be. Look locally. As near as your own school environment, opportunities for teaching thinking skills that draw upon the need to transfer the “” skills they have memorized and assimilated from textbooks, abound and present themselves as legitimate modes of inquiry. Some examples:

For example, at the middle or high school level, teachers can pose
myriad school-focused questions related to every field of study: What
kinds of energy power the school? How are these energy sources created
and measured? At what cost to taxpayers? At what cost to the
environment? What kind of waste does the school produce? Where does it
go and how is it processed? What could be done to decrease the school’s
carbon footprint?

Getting back to the ideas of Harter/Medved/Wiggins/McTighe, huge questions that cause learners, whether they be teacher or student, to draw upon their knowledge or ability to acquire necessary knowledge, are key. However, as Brady points out, their location geographically is irrelevant.

Technorati Tags: marionbrady, ubd, dennisharter, justinmedved, ascd, teaching, thinking, criticalthinking

Image Credits: Dennis Harter and Justin Medved

“Free Think” from pioforsky’s photostream

Exposing a Popular Myth

One of my favorite thinkers/critics out there, Barry Bachenheimer, did something last week that I have wanted to do for a while: he surveyed his high school students about their use of technology and their opinions about it. Seeing his results makes me want to do this even more so now. here is a smattering of the responses he got:

1. All kids are tech savvy and are using lots of Web 2.0 tools.

False. Based upon a recent survey at our high school, I found the following:

Do you do any of the following on a regular basis (check all that apply)

Read a blog		(21%)
Post comments to a blog		(13%)
Write a blog		( 7%)
Post to a wiki		( 1%)
Listen to a Podcast		( 9%)
Create a podcast		( 2%)
Download Music		(70%)
Upload music		(33%)
Download photos or video		(35%)
Upload photos or video		(38%)
Create videos, but don’t upload them		(11%)
Text message		(71%)
Send photos or videos I take with my phone		(29%)

And…

5. Technology is needed to students to learn in the 21st century.

I feel that learning with technology improves my achievement.

Strongly Agree		(15%)
Agree		(41%)
Neutral		(36%)
Disagree		( 6%)
Strongly Disagree		( 3%)
no answer		( 0%)

In every conversation I have with teachers and parents, I really try to stress the fact that while yes, this group of children has grown up with digital technology ingrained in their lives, their ability to use it critically and meaningfully is as raw and undeveloped as any adult figure, including their teachers and parents. Barry’s results above point to the fact that students have not been taught the value in using social technology for research and critique, of blogging for meta-cognitive analysis of yourself, or of the myriad ways to visualize complex data using simple web-based tools.

On Thursday of this week, we presented for the parents of our middle school, well the parents who decided to come, about what we are doing in regards to learning, teaching and educating with regards to technology. Our presentation, entitled “Supporting your Digital Child” was put on by Erica Hartman (6th Grade English teacher), Patrick Chodkiewicz(Technology Coordinator), Fran Schlenoff (Guidance Counselor), Brad Davis (Assistant Principal) and myself. Our intent was to open their eyes to what it is we do with technology, and the potential uses of technology in the classroom. We also gave them a brief understanding of the dangers associated with raising children in an online world. However, our intent was not to give them all the answers. We really wanted them to start asking more questions. We showed them Karl and Scott’s “Did You Know,” and at the end, I really wanted them to pick up on the questions that they lay out to parents: what is your school district doing to help prepare your students for this world? I want them to show up and ask these questions, and I can’t wait to help design the answers to them.

One of the most memorable exchanges during the evening came in my last session when a parent asked me what to do if their child asked for a Myspace or Facebook account. My reply began by telling them to assess the maturity level of their son or daughter and how well they could trust him or her, but then something clicked as I was speaking and I blurted out during their response: “You should get one yourself right now and figure out how it works. Why wait until they ask you? They might not even ask anyway.”

To wrap up a somewhat meandering thought-stream here, I would have to say that as lost as some parents might be feeling amid all of this new terminology, they can take solace in the fact that the learning curve is not steep, and that for most things that relate to school, their children will be facing the same climb. Barry’s results from the teachers are another story, but even then, if there is one thing that our teaching staff can do, it’s adapt to changing students, which is exactly what we are facing now.

Technorati Tags: education, myth, students, barrybachenheimer

Some Comment Carryover

I was responding to the fantastic comments from Bill, Carolyn, and hurricainemaine on my last post when I realized that it got a little long-winded, so I decided to post it as a legitimate entry here:

From Bill:

” Do you think that a “process v. product” message is a tough sell in an accountability driven culture?”

From Carolyn:

“Patrick, I so much agree that schools need environments where teachers feel free to innovate and to be learners themselves. And I feel we need to be having these conversations within our own buildings–because it seems it is the conversations where things can begin?”

From hurricainemaine:

“there is resistance amongst my peers for what I am doing. Is that because of the also top-down we are facing or are they truly stuck on the burning platform?”

My response:

“I have to agree with Carolyn on this one that teaching the skills that enable children to “learn how to learn,” will trump any testing situation or psychometric assessment. In that case, the process can, and does, win out over the product.

In her latest blog post, which I recommend, “Your Wild and Precious Life,” Carolyn uses the slogan from Mabry Middle School as an example of how to phrase a key principle that we all should model:
“Making Learning Irresistible for 25 Years.”

With a mindset like that, I don’t see how failure to engage is an option. How can I make this lesson/unit/curriculum so desired by our students that that they have to have it? Great questions to ask yourself.

My reasoning for writing this post was partly inquiry, but also to show how we are doing things. I want more than anything teachers in my district to come to me and say “Hey, look at this lesson I want to teach. It’s pretty out there, but look how it relates to what we have to teach, and look at the engagement level!” I don’t see it yet, but I know it is there.

Ken Robinson, in “Out of Our Minds,” talks about the battle to develop the creativity of your brightest employees or lose them to someone else, but he is talking about the corporate world. In many ways, I wish I was battling for that. As an administrator, I want to develop our staff to a point where they marketable, and then I want to do everything to keep them. That’s a culture of healthy competition.”

Writing Technology into your Curriculum: Top-Down or Bottom-Up, Does it Matter?

“In order to think outside the box, you need to know what is in the box.”
Change is a loaded word. It strikes fear into the hearts of even the most secure of professionals. In looking at the idea of change, I see it as coming from one of two directions: either top-down, where those in charge of your program, your superintendent, building administrator, or your supervisor bring it about, or bottom-up, also termed “organic, or “grass-roots,” where change comes from the classrooms and spreads throughout a school building or district based on the practices of teachers and the work of students.

What I am seeing
When I started the process if looking at pedagogy rather than looking at tools as ways to help engage students, the world of technology became small. Granted, I really began this process in earnest about 5 months ago, so the sample size here is small, but nonetheless, what I see is what Chris Lehmann so aptly termed in his session at EduCon: “It’s not the product, it’s the process.” Learning experience matters infinitely more than the end result. Focusing on that process rather than the final paper or diorama or wiki is a difficult thing to do when the tools that take us there are so unbelievably slick.

Our situation in regards to change
Our process of change that is occurring has been and continues to be top-down, where we as administrators and tech coordinators are introducing teachers to tools and pedagogies that are transformative and engaging, but we are relying on their trust and their willingness to open themselves to developing expertise. How well will this continue to work? It remains to be seen whether or not it is a model for systemic change with our staff. We are working within 5 buildings, each with varying levels of both adoption and readiness. When that is the case, your strategy involves as much trust-building as it does introduction to new ideas. We have worked hard on that, but there are elements that are lacking in our design:

• overarching curricular goals that are written directly into our curriculum plans at the start. Technology and the pedagogy to use it transformatively is often left out of that process.

• teacher’s as vocal advocates for change a building-level plan for helping teachers teach with these adapted methodologies (notice I said adapted methodologies because we are not re-inventing the wheel here; the methods we advocate are still the same we have been touting for years: differentiating, cooperative learning, co-teaching, questioning skills, etc. Only now we are truly elevating their effectiveness through the use of social, collaborative and expressive technologies.)
• An environment that allows teachers to be free from the fear of failure and it’s supposed administrative repercussions. If we expect our students to learn, unlearn, and re-learn, then we must give our teachers the freedom to create, experiment and play with content and its delivery to students.

I sat in Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez’s session about creating lasting change within a school district using the Future Search Process, and I remember thinking about all the ideas that were flying about the room in terms of gathering the necessary parties needed for creating change. The one that keeps sticking with me is the reference they made to something called “The Burning Platform,” whereby an individual is placed in a situation (a burning oil platform) where they must choose either certain death (staying on the platform) or the likelihood of death (jumping into the water). The analogy to education is that there is a situation whereby the outcome of staying still is obvious: student apathy and loss of engagement, but the outcome of changing and moving is less obvious but possibly a salvation.

I am looking at a situation where I don’t know if teachers understand that the platform is burning. They don’t know whether to jump, stay still, or get marshmallows. I want to create a community that is not afraid of change, that feels like they have a stake in the change process, and is willing to help create that change even if makes their role in the classroom change to one that is better capable of creating methods to solve rather than providing answers.