Patrick Higgins, Jr.

Archive for June, 2008


Daily Diigo Links 07/01/2008

In change on June 30, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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Stress, Ambiguity, and Confusion are Good for You?

In curriculum, education, writing on June 28, 2008 at 8:25 pm

You betcha.creative confusion

When I sit down to create lessons for teachers, or help them create lessons for students, one of my most frequent points is how they are creating “good stress,” within their students. Without pressing, most know what I mean inherently: there is an amount or type of mental strain that permits the mind to flex around a new issue or concept in order to overcome it and create new knowledge.

Stealing this from George Siemens (whom I have been robbing a lot from lately)

A
bit of stress, a bit of ambiguity, and a bit of confusion are healthy
contributors to learning. As long as we have a feedback loop where
learners can contribute and faculty can respond and adapt, we have the
basics in place.

Connections are the starting point of all learning. It’s so
obvious…and therefore so often overlooked. We really need to think
about types of connections learners have with each other and
content…and ways that we can extend the learning experience by
critically analyzing and forming those initial connections.

In two places in the above quote, Siemens mentions the word “connections,” and when we sat down to begin designing the additional language arts course for next year that was focused on critical thinking and writing across the curriculum, I thought back to my days at Eric Smith School in Ramsey. They had a school-wide standards system called “The Quality Standards.” It was partially a gaff among the staff at the triteness of the name, but in actuality, it was sound. The standards were:

  1. Following Directions
  2. Presentation
  3. Supporting Details
  4. Connections
  5. Higher Level Thinking
  6. Evaluation and Revision

Designing this class forced me to think back to the most effective of those standards, and by far it was connections, and the name for the class was born. In light of reading Siemens post, and in conversations with the teachers of the class, I can see that the term fits. We need students to create links, both mentally and digitally, from what they know already, to what they are trying to know. We are stressing “cognitive leaps” and learning by doing as often as we can, but there are inherent problems with that.

The last time I had the group of teachers together who will be teaching the class this fall, I stressed the first two weeks of instruction. Sure, what a shocker; however, we are asking these students in grades 6-8 to do some things that there are not going to be used to. For example, by the time they reach middle school, a good percentage of students have already perfected the question “will this be on the test?” and have figured out that there is a formula to getting good grades: find the answer the teacher wants, and give it–case closed. Now, we are going to have them walk into a classroom this fall and tell them that there is no right answer, only the answer you can defend in writing and in your ability to argue it. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

One of our group had shared with me a document (which I am trying to get a copy of at the moment) that was a letter to parents informing them of what to expect from this class. When we are trying to move students away from “schooliness” and do some in-country “unschoolingsnails and scotch” we are going to hit some rough spots, from both students who are not used to being confused or stressed about school, and their parents who haven’t seen their child struggle with school before. As always, we will deal with those situations as they arise.

Image Credits: “Creative Commons = Creative Confusion?” from Joe Pemberton’s photostream

“Confusion” from Lithoglyphic’s photostream


Daily Diigo Links 06/28/2008

In change on June 27, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/27/2008

In change on June 26, 2008 at 7:33 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/26/2008

In change on June 25, 2008 at 7:33 pm

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Ad Revenue Matters to You

In 21st Century, change, education, school 2.0 on June 24, 2008 at 10:01 pm

I’ll admit that my inner geek drives the direction of my reading lately; I tend to read Techmeme as often as I read Edutopia. However, one of my all time favorite reading topics has always been the direction and drama associated with mainstream media and its delivery to consumers. Odd, I know. Most people would say they love to read trashy novels, or scan baseball scores (which I often do), but not this guy. Give me an opinion piece about the future of participatory media, the changing of the guard in the newsroom, or something like this one from the New York Times:

For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year
is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in
advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of
some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.

and I am like the proverbial pig in…well, understood.

I don’t know if this story piques my interest for the usual reasons, but I know that it makes me begin thinking about the world that I am helping teachers prepare students for. It’s topics conjure up all kinds of reminiscences from last summer when we were all struggling to shrug off Andrew Keen’s attacks on connective writing and citizen publishing, and it calls to light the profound changes in literacy many of us have been discussing for several years.

Connection to Teaching and Learning

Often, I’ll find myself looking out at the vast expanse of my RSS reader and see similar topics being bandied about, and articles debated back and forth between individuals much smarter than me, and I’ll wonder where my connection back to the classroom teacher is–where is the correlation between George Siemens and the work he does, and the elementary teacher I work with who wants to differentiate instruction? Many times I find myself at a crossroads wondering how to find common ground for the theoretical applications I see, and the practical situations that teachers live through.

This article in the Times, amazingly, though obscurely, shows me a connection. When we look at the trends, just in the last two years (ad revenue dropped 8% last year, and is already down 12% from that number), that tells me that the sellers/advertisers are following their buyers/consumers eyes.  With that, come so many negative consequences:

  • assimilation of major newspapers or ownership groups perhaps taking away a decidedly local flavor
  • massive job losses in the printing industry
  • ink-stained elbows on Sunday mornings

The last bullet above, while in jest, does reflect some sentiment that, if you dig on Nicholas Carr, you might agree with.  We aren’t interacting with print media as often as we used to, and what effect will this have on our ability to read deeply?  Moreover, the real impetus behind my writing this tonight was to truly ask myself what are we preparing our students to consume?  Is literacy solely the manipulation of a texted page, or does it involve, as the article hinted at, the ability to decipher and decode the “vastly more choices” that online advertising offers to sellers?

So, I look at the classrooms I’ve been in this year and wonder, are we doing all that we can to prepare our students for a world with decidedly less printed paper than our own?

Positive Consequences:

Here’s another discerning thought that rises from this: how can we pull positives out of this development?  As with any technology, it’s social ramifications are natural offspring.  In this case, I see a lot of good coming out of the move to online news consumption:

  • smaller ecological footprint: fewer papers, fewer trees, fewer inks, fewer distribution trucks
  • more opportunities for connective writing
  • greater opportunity for dialogue between writer/publisher and reader through comments and forums

Erica had just reminded me of Pink’s book yesterday as she wrote about being able to finish it on her way out to San Jose for the Google Teacher Academy.  What this exemplifies is the shift away from one mode of production, to another that will involve some creative thought processes and a distinct need to train people in how to produce this new product.  It’s examples like this one that really make me analyze what we are asking our students to do in our classrooms;  are we preparing them for the classified ads of the future?


Daily Diigo Links 06/25/2008

In change on June 24, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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Trying to Get Motivated…

In 21st Century, change, education on June 24, 2008 at 8:56 am

Having one of those lack of focus days where I cannot even begin to plan what I need to do with myself.  This video doesn’t help matters as its got me thinking about bigger questions.  I am trying to form a response to Ryan Bretag’s meme, and I think this will have something to do with it.  I need to take some notes while watching it, however.  Enjoy.


We Love Meatballs!

In change on June 24, 2008 at 8:41 am


Daily Diigo Links 06/24/2008

In change on June 23, 2008 at 7:33 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/22/2008

In change on June 21, 2008 at 7:34 pm

  • Is Google Making Us Stupid? – Annotated

    this article is well worth the read, if not for anything else than for stoking your thoughts about the future of reading and thinking.

    tags: google, technology, reading

    • hen the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.
      • This shows me that new skills are necessary, or in the least, old ones need to be reconstituted. What jobs or tasks become prioritized? Can we not turn off all of our notifiers and our distractors while we indeed focus on what needs to be done? These are skills, not just simple behaviors. – post by pjhiggins

  • Mathtrain.TV

    Great examples of teachers using technology

    tags: mathtrain, math, tablet, screencasts

  • High Techpectations: Survey Results Gadgets

    tags: googledocs, education, gadgets, data, visualization


Daily Diigo Links 06/21/2008

In change on June 20, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/20/2008

In change on June 19, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/19/2008

In change on June 18, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/18/2008

In change on June 17, 2008 at 7:33 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/17/2008

In change on June 16, 2008 at 7:32 pm

  • ICT in my Classroom

    Tom’s got some great stuff on Using Google Apps in schools. Could be of use to teachers as we begin heavy phases of construction next year that limit their access to tech.

    tags: blog, edublogs, teaching


Daily Diigo Links 06/14/2008

In change on June 13, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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An Appeal for Collaboration, or at Least a Good Way to Focus your Summer Thinking

In 21st Century, curriculum, education on June 13, 2008 at 9:04 am

OK.  I’ll admit it.  I came to find all of these fabulous social media and international collaborative project opportunities at a point which I had limited access to classes, only via other teachers.  Earth, as Seen from SpaceThat being said, I often feel like I would like to sink my teeth into some hugely collaborative project, or even just be associated with one.  There’s been a lot of talk, or maybe I should say, I am reading a lot of writing about:

  • Rigor: How do we allow students to achieve flow-the right balance of challenge and stress to optimize learning in our classrooms?
  • Relevance: Are we teaching with the values, thoughts, feelings, and experiences of our students in mind?
  • Relationships: Are we respecting students’ lives and cultures?
  • Results: Do we have measurable, tangible results that represent our ideas and goals?

as they relate to individual student motivation.  A truly collaborative, either locally or globally, project stands a great chance of really getting at those four elements if done well.

So, in an effort to further my selfish aims to be associated with a collaborative project, I offer this:  one of the teachers with whom I am working on designing curriculum for our new writing and critical thinking class sent me the following email:

I am interested in incorporating the idea of a global classroom into several of my units. I know there are sites that are dedicated to hooking up educators so that they can participate in these kinds of exchanges with their classes. I just don’t remember what they are or how to get them. I kind of remember someone, it might have been you, providing us with some links that let classrooms from various corners of the world work together on a common project. I am very interested in reaching out to several teachers across the globe and linking up. At minimum, I would like to give our students access to the differing perspectives that naturally arise out of geographical differences.

She’s talented and extremely capable of pulling this off.  We worked together back in November of this year to Ustream her classes Just One Less Summit, which some of you out there were able to attend virtually.  Here are some samples of what she plans to do next year:

  • Food Wars: based on Salt and Fast Food Nation
  • Mental Fitness: How mentally fit are you?
  • Question Authority: Media Literacy: How can I identify the underlying messages in mainstream media?
  • Disconnected: I Text, Therefore I am: • How have humans communicated throughout history?
    • How and why is communication different throughout the world?
    • What is the impact of human communication on a given society?
    • What are the benefits and drawbacks to different forms of communication?
    • What might human communication be like in the future and what factors will influence these trends?

First off, you can’t imagine how jealous I am of this group of teachers to be able to teach a class that lets them answer these types of questions, but also how jealous I am of these students that they get to wrestle with such cool content.  If you are interested, or know of someone who might be interested in some form of collaborative project under these unit topics or others like them, please drop me a line in the comments below.  This is a 7th grade class (12-13 year old students).

Image Credit: “Earth, As Seen from Space,” by por2able’s photostream on Flickr

Somebody, please help me realize my dream..


Daily Diigo Links 06/13/2008

In change on June 12, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Building my Case

In change on June 10, 2008 at 8:04 pm

“Why would give students access to something that makes the classroom obsolete? What about interpersonal skills and accountability? Who would come to class if you could just get it all online?”

Feeling Fearful Today

These are paraphrased examples of responses I got from a group of teachers a few weeks back in response to showing them Moodle. Granted, this was a group of highly engaging, talented teachers who give everything they have to their careers.

In light of that fact, I am trying to use these questions as a building point for future discussions I might have as we begin to create new curriculum using Moodle and other digital methods. One, of many, things our staff fears is the lack of accountability that they believe is a by-product of online learning and online life in general. Carolyn Foote writes today about what I interpret as “what happens after you bring the horse to water” phenomenon:

In The Big Picture, Littkey points out that
learning is very personal. He also posits that the “real
learning happens after” the encounter. “It’s
what you do with it, how you integrate it, how you talk to your family,
friends, and classmates about it” that constitutes the learning
process.

Once again, I’m led to wonder if we give students enough time
for that “learning after” process. I believe that we
learn as things go on the “back burner” and we process them
in the background, but in the rush for “new” lessons each
day, do we allow enough room for reflection?

In a brief response on her post, I likened it to an experience I had while teaching a workshop to middle school teachers on using wikis as collaborative environments:

A teacher in one of my workshops last year described her “learning
later” as the “drive-home effect,” as she would always have great
discussions in her head about her graduate school classes. What was
lacking, she claimed, was the ability to take those thoughts and act
upon them in some kind of environment that would further them. For us,
that environment is now this; for our students, what do we provide?
What experiences do we offer for them to take advantage of that
“drive-home effect?”

I think what I am running into with this group of teachers is that they are seeing the two things, online environments or LMS’s and accountability, as diametrically opposed elements. I am not worried, however. What would worry me is if these people weren’t talented, intelligent and dedicated and were posing these questions. Instead, I am trying to meet with them before we break to get inside their heads and find out what they might think of something like what Carolyn wrote, or what accountability needs to look like in an online environment, or what they want students who leave their classes to be able to do well.

Another element to all this is that this summer I’d like to take a long look at the types of assignments our teachers are asking students to do via their blogs and wikis. From some feedback I’ve received in the last week or so, it seems as if there is a lot of “schooliness” in the pedagogy behind how we’ve implemented the use of social media in our classrooms. Truth be told, I would take a considerable amount of blame there; it was upon my suggestion that a good portion of these teachers began using these tools; I can’t help but feel responsible for not providing better pedagogical support for them.

Image Credit: “Feeling Fearful Today,” from hortulus photostream on Flickr


Daily Diigo Links 06/11/2008

In change on June 10, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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I Love Visualization

In change, school 2.0 on June 10, 2008 at 8:45 am

Thanks to Jenny Luca for pointing me in this direction.  She’s someone I’ve read about, but never actually gone to read for myself.  I am glad I did.

Below is a link to a quick screencast I did describing the benefits and showing how easy to use SearchMe is.  If you are a fan of visual search, which I am, this search engine does a great job of giving you results in real time and in formats that appeal to visual learners.

For me, I just love the fact that I can get a visual preview of the site before I get there.  It allows for an initial filter–a quality scan, if you will–before I decide to follow the link.  If you’ve got 2-3 minutes, go take a look.

SearchMe Screencast


Daily Diigo Links 06/10/2008

In change on June 9, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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Book Club Choices for the Summer

In curriculum, education, reflection on June 8, 2008 at 9:35 pm

A few weeks back, I pitched the idea of a summer professional book club to the administrators in our district.  Knowing that schedules are hectic and people like to travel in the summer, myself included, I didn’t expect too much of a response.  All of the building leadership is headed to BLC this summer, and we thought it might be a great idea to begin getting ourselves on the same page.  Surprisingly, and thankfully, most did and we solicited some advice for some summer reading material from the twitterverse at large. 

I put out a survey to the group with a list of titles and asked them to rate them according to preference.  Here is the original list:

When the dust settled after the survey, the group chose one clearly above the rest, and two others tied for second.  Moral Leadership will be our summer reading choice for the group, with A Whole New Mind and Failure is not an Option as stand-ins.  I’d like to thank the twitterverse, and especially Bill Ferriter and Chris Lehman for their suggestions, as the ones you recommended were all high on the choice list. 

Now, for the really serious question: format?  How do you successfully run a book discussion with administrators?  If anyone has done something like this, please chime in with some suggestions.  I would like to make it loose, but still have some group accountability.

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Using Your Best Judgment

In reflection on June 7, 2008 at 10:56 pm

We’ve often talked about choosing the right tool to use for the right setting educationally, and now we’ve got some research to back it up. Recently, Laila Weir at Edutopia wrote about the results of a study done by the Metiri Group, and commissioned by Cisco Systems. The study was aimed at understanding how and when using technology in regards to learning works best. A lot of what came out of the survey is common sense, but some it struck me as I read it because I’ve been wrestling with this in my practice lately.

Reflection

Weir writes about how the Metiri Group debunks the “Cone of Experience” theory, whereby:

each of us learns 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we
hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we hear and see, 70
percent of what we say or write, and 90 percent of what we say as we do
a thing.

The skinny behind the research here is that when teaching basic skills, like asking students to learn and memorize the chemical symbols on the Periodic Chart, the use of technology and multi-modal teaching does not raise student scores as much as a lesson that isn’t interactive (21 percentage points v. 9 percentage points). However,when more complex skills or concepts are being taught, there is a noticeable uptick in student achievement scores (32 percentile points for multi-modal learning v. 20 percentile points for non multi-modal).

During our sessions with our teachers participating in our tablet program a few weeks back, the topic of multi-tasking came up quite frequently.  Some of them had said that while having the use of portable technology made them more productive, they always felt more compelled to work on something.  That impulse often came in the middle of other aspects of their lives that didn’t include the processes involved in creative work.  One teacher stated that they couldn’t get anything done because it always seemed they had way too much going on at once.  Another teacher chimed in with a quote from an article about the fallacy of multi-tasking.  As it turns out, the Cisco study also reaches the same conclusion about multi-tasking:

“New scientific studies reveal the losses in efficiency in . . . multitasking,” the Cisco report says. “Researchers find that thinking processes happen serially, resulting in delays caused by switching from one task to another. The delays become more pronounced as the complexity of the task increases.”

I can’t speak for others, but unless I have clearly defined parameters to work and think in that center on a singular idea, I can’t accomplish much.  So, for me, I’ve always been one to shy away from multi-tasking.  And when teaching complex processes, it makes logical sense to teach them serially, at least to me.  It also follows from the study that when you present students with information in a clear, concise manner that flows logically they have a better chance at coming to grips with it.

But, perhaps the part of the article that will be most useful in my practice, is this:

if you never recognize or actually think about that audio input, you’re unlikely to remember it later. Translate that same concept to students simply letting the words of a lecture or a textbook wash over them, and the benefits of engaging a “working memory,” a deeper kind of thinking, are obvious.

Allowing for student reflection time about the lecture, and allowing for them to access various parts of their memories to create connections between this new information and the knowledge they already have has positive affects on learning.  This may seem elementary to some, but it still makes me shudder a bit at all of the workshops I have given this year and last in which I presented a whole slew of information to people, and due to time constraints, moved right into something else without giving them time to digest.

What I’d like to be doing is to build reflection directly into the classes and workshops I teach.  How do you do that successfully?

Image Credit: “Reflection,” by Guacamole Goalie on Flickr


Daily Diigo Links 06/08/2008

In change on June 7, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/07/2008

In change on June 6, 2008 at 7:33 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/06/2008

In change on June 5, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/05/2008

In change on June 4, 2008 at 7:32 pm


Daily Diigo Links 06/02/2008

In change on June 1, 2008 at 7:33 pm