Patrick Higgins, Jr.

Archive for December, 2008

Daily Diigo Links 01/01/2009

In Uncategorized on December 31, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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New Voice, For Me at Least

In students, teaching on December 31, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Today I have been searching for subject area teachers who use twitter, especially those who teach in the disciplines I am concerned with.  In doing so, I came across Brad Ovenell-Carter, who teaches in British Columbia.  His remix of Will Farren’s graphics from his “Insulat-Ed” post is fantastic.  Below is a copy of the message I sent to my Connections teachers:

Hope you all are preparing for a great New Year’s Eve Celebration.  I wanted to pass this along to all of you to see what you make of it:

schools-2

  • What is networked learning?
  • How can we help our student create their own networks?

Over the last year or so, the network I have set up teaches me more and leads me in more interesting directions than I ever could have found on my own.  It’ not just about resources and websites, but rather ideas and learning when I want, and where I want.  Our students deserve this.  You deserve this.

Image Credit: Brad Ovenell-Carter

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Year End, Part II

In change, reflection on December 31, 2008 at 12:21 am

Yes, there is a Part II this time.  I’ve been thinking about some of the lists flying around, some of the reflections from the past year, and obviously the predictions people are making about the upcoming year.  Working in schools automatically puts me at an odd place when looking at chronology; our year begins in September and ends in June, so this midpoint that occurs in January is almost anti-climactic for us teacher-folk.  For those in the world that exists outside of education, it’s epochal and much is said about the before and after of December 31st.

I read this the other day from Gina Bianchini about how she judged her efforts in creating Ning with Marc Andreessen:

Before Ning started, Marc and I decided that we would judge our success
by the diversity of networks on the platform. Today we have more than
600,000 and counting. It seems as if there is one for every hobby,
school, language or interest you can think of. I’ve seen networks
for everything from raw-food enthusiasts to fans of Britney Spears.

and I thought about judging the value of what I do here.  In a conversation with my brother-in-law the other day, I noted how difficult it is now that I am out of the classroom to get feedback on what I do.  The results of my efforts are not so immediately visible as they were when standing among students.  But what can I take as feedback?  Last year at this time, I wrote about what I had done the year before that I was proud of.  Looking back at this year, it’s so different.  It’s much less tangible.  Looking at this quote from Bianchini, I am thinking that my validation criteria needs to change–I need new indicators.

Perhaps there is a bigger shift to look at, not just for me, but for all of us.  In surveying these end of year brain dumps, I caught Fred Wilson’s over at A VC in his “Bits of Destruction,” post.  This part jumped out at me:

I’m typing this on my blackberry in a hotel lobby in Berlin, I’ll hit
send, and it will be published and read by roughly 5,000 people today.
Compare that to what it takes to get the Tom Friedman column ‘Time To Reboot America‘
which is sitting in front of me in the International Herald Tribune
newspaper printed and delivered to me. Printing and distribution
infrastructure cannot compete with bits on a wire and we are going to
see that infrastructure end up in in bankruptcy a lot in the next 12
months.

then this line from a comment drove it home:

I have long said that the only way an independent bookstore can survive is to not be a bookstore.

What if I framed it out that way when looking at what it is I do?  The only way to make significant differences in student learning at the curriculum planning and implementation level is to not be in curriculum planning and implementation.  It’s more than that.  In my limited experience, what I most represent to people is change, and I’ve discussed the idea that change ruffles the feathers of competence and causes cognitive dissonance.  From the bookstore example, if I show up at an independent bookstore I am most likely not just showing up for the books, but rather the smells, the characters, the possibility of channeling some far off Bohemian writer and probably that crazy weird tea they have brewing somewhere in the cafe section.

I am not about to start trying to win people over by promising this or that, but rather trying to represent real opportunity within the creation of curriculum and the re-examining of classroom practices.  It doesn’t have to come from me.  Small booksellers have to do more than sell books, they have to conjure ideas and feelings.  I don’t have to bring change, but I do have to create opportunities that maximize student learning and engagement, derive from the passions of teachers, and save time.  To echo a quote used today by a respected colleague, Robin Ellis (quoting Laura Sipes):

we are all so busy, so (innovation)technology can’t be added to your life, but must take the place of something you already do.

Ideas and innovation must make what we do easier and more efficient, otherwise they don’t stick.  So when I look back at this time next year, I don’t expect to marvel at the lack of feedback, but instead see a trail of indicators like new course design, more systems to gather student and teacher feedback, flexible and on-demand professional development, and a developing culture of innovation.

Pass the tea and Kafka, please.

Image Credit: “Forced Reflection” from shareski’s photostream

Daily Diigo Links 12/31/2008

In Uncategorized on December 30, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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AP Art History: You Choose

In curriculum, teaching on December 30, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Which would you rather teach (think 60-90 students)?  Then tell me why.  Please.

ap-art-history-lecture-format001

or

ap-art-history-small-class-section-format002

Daily Diigo Links 12/30/2008

In Uncategorized on December 29, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Digital Book Talk

In change on December 29, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Attempting to set up cross-posting with Blip.tv. This is a resource that was passed to me via the Diigo Group English Teachers.

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by pjhiggins with a No license (All rights reserved) license.

Daily Diigo Links 12/29/2008

In Uncategorized on December 28, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Year-end, Part I.

In reflection on December 27, 2008 at 11:11 pm

I don’t know why I would conclude a post name with “Part I,” when due to the schedule I am keeping these days, there is no guarantee there will be a “Part II,” but I guess it’s wishful writing.  Unless you are living in solitary confinement or have taken a holiday break job as a fire lookout, you’ve seen the onslaught of year-end posts that have been funneling through your mailbox, reader, or inbox.  For me, it’s a great lesson in how to deal with information overload.  Every one of these year-end recaps always points to some future point where the ills we’ve either created or ignored in the previous year can be righted.  This from Tom Friedman in the 12/23 NYT:

That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot.
We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover.
That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S.
history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the
bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make
certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our
kids’ future, is spent wisely.

Earlier in the article, he alluded to the many ills that plague our great nation, taking a stab at our livelihood in stating that we have “…public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating…”  and as Clay so rightly put it in his comment on this via Twitter:

burelltwit

It’s context, I understand, and Friedman as making a point about the state of innovation in America–all things I agree with him on here.  But I know that standards as we’ve come to expect them from the federal government are not ones I want placed upon me or the students I work for.

I’ve got this statement stuck in my mind this week, and it’s one that has appeared in various forms over the years:

“the most important skill of the future may be the ability to forget what you’ve learned, and learn something new.” —by Patrick Tucker, Senior Editor, THE FUTURIST

The feedback I’ve gotten on this one so far has been slightly comical, but let’s break it down over the next few days.  What does it mean for us if what we know, what we are competent in, no longer makes our livelihoods stable?  In education, we tend to feel immune to the fluctuations of the job market.  But what if we are not?  What if the profound changes that the futurists are predicting, these disruptive innovations, happen sooner rather than later?  This is something I’d like to look into over the course of the next few days, time permitting…

Daily Diigo Links 12/28/2008

In Uncategorized on December 27, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/25/2008

In Uncategorized on December 24, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/24/2008

In Uncategorized on December 23, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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On Being Prolific

In leadership, teaching on December 22, 2008 at 11:32 pm

From a long forgotten resource I just pulled up while getting ready for a meeting:

Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many “bad” ones. They weren’t afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

In short, when pulling together ideas, go for quantity first.  Assessing for quality comes much later in the process. There are those in this network of mine whose productivity I marvel at, and whose quantity of great ideas and inspirational thoughts appear ceaseless.  In fact, I feel like people like Miguel, Angela, and Kevin should be given a stipend for the resources they’ve given me over the last year or so–so many times people have commented something along the lines of “where do you find all of this stuff?”  In actuality, it truly finds me.  That is due to two elements: the fact that I have opened my learning up to a network, and the fact that that network is as prolific as it is. 

I have been accused, most recently by my wife of coming up with bad ideas when we are looking for a solution.  I’ve been known to spew out near gibberish in brainstorming sessions, and I’ve wasted many a meeting figuring out several ways how not to solve a problem.  But I’m OK with all of that.  I am fine if you think I’m irrelevant at times, or slightly off-center.  Because sometimes, in all that randomness, I might just hit the mark.

The same can be said for what we are teaching our students to do now: here is all of the randomness, love the madness and embrace it, but be able to recognize that gem when it comes through.

Our networks are becoming our genius, depending on how well we set them up.  Countless ideas, some duplicate, and others unquestionably unique, stream to us through the various channels we select.  Edison’s ideas that never left the lab, our bad ideas that turn people’s heads in meetings, lessons that should have taken off but tanked–all of these serve the greater good.  We keep moving forward and we keep having that next idea.  Culture being what it is, and accountability being as high-stakes as it is, it still leaves us room to allow for failure.  Not horrible, career-ending failure, but reflective and constructive failure  in a culture that promotes risk-taking.  Is your classroom set up to encourage that?  Is your school set up to encourage that? Are YOU set up to encourage that?

Daily Diigo Links 12/23/2008

In Uncategorized on December 22, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/22/2008

In Uncategorized on December 21, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/20/2008

In Uncategorized on December 19, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Warning: Think Alouds to Follow over the Next Few Months

In change, curriculum on December 19, 2008 at 4:19 pm

This being my first full year in this position, there were some things that I have not yet experienced.  For one, the yearly construction of the high school course of studies.  Every year there is a race to beat the deadline for any changes we are making to what we offer to our high schoolers.  This year my departments are undergoing some significant change, and our course choices are expanding.  It was a rush, to be blunt.

We are adding AP Art History, History of Genocide/Holocaust Studies, Contemporary Issues, and Philosophy to the History Department.  We have completely overhauled our Visual Art classes to include more full year classes instead of semester courses, and we have added AP Art Studio as an option for our Juniors and Seniors.  We also made some changes to the prerequisites for our Music Theory students.

What does this all mean for me?  It means that I have no less than 11 new classes to coordinate the creation and curriculum writing for.  Truly, this is what I call an opportunity to create something dynamic, lasting, and important for the students in our district.  Hence the title of this post.  There will be heavy reliance on this network over the course of the next few months.  I know you are up for it.

Also, this means that there are fundamental questions that must be answered in December about classes that are (or are not depending on student choice) going to run in September.  The biggest of all of those questions is undoubtedly my budget.  Traditionally, when a course is created and curriculum is written textbook selection and review is a huge part of that process.  This article by Jay Matthews of the Washington Post on 12/15/08 spoke to an idea that has been bandied about the educational intertubes before: do we spend money on textbooks?

From the article:

In the classrooms I visit, it is often a good sign that the textbooks
are stacked on a corner bookshelf or window sill, gathering dust. The
best teachers have an ongoing conversation with their class, calling on
every student, challenging sloth, praising fresh ideas, moving the
group beyond the text, which covers only the state’s or the school’s
curricular requirements.

and

If teachers can write their own textbooks, why not students? It would
make a fine group project, with each kid doing a chapter. Debate the
fine points, put them on the Web and pass them around, irresistible
preparation for the final exam.

I look at the classes above, and aside from the AP classes, is there a need for a textual resource for every student?  Financially speaking, for the price of textbooks for one departments’ classes, I can purchase the “Internet accessing device of the moment” as well as subscriptions to any database on earth.  What I am going to struggle with is creating classes in that light with stakeholders that will not see the logic in leaving textbooks out of the equation.

Over the course of the next few months, I’ll be lurking on your posts looking for ways to gain access to teachers you know that are creating classes in this manner, that are, as Matthews described his history teacher, Mr. Ladendorff, using “our U.S. history text like a bull’s-eye on a firing range.”  This should be good.

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Returning the Favor

In teaching on December 19, 2008 at 12:38 am

Over a year ago, I wrote about a unit I designed at the first public school I worked at.  It was a unit on Burma and the struggle for democracy being led by Aung San Suu Kyi.  The post was originally aimed at recognizing a call to the blogosphere to write about Burma on a particular day.  What ended up coming through was the lessons  I learned while planning it.

I was a second year teacher in an assignment that had me teaching several different subjects in several different grade levels.  Our building principal had this informal practice he like to employ with his second year teachers, a year he viewed as pivotal in a teachers development within a school.  He picked one each year to work with on creating a unit of study for whatever curriculum they were teaching.  For me, it was social studies, world geography most specifically.  He spent the better part of two weeks with me in class and out of class designing and helping me carry out the implementation.  I learned about essential questions, timing of resources within a unit, and, my favorite, cognitive dissonance.  Being a new teacher, I had little understanding of what running a building entailed, I just thought he had time on his hands because he was shirking some of his discipline responsibilities off to his VP.  It turns out that he was staying until all hours to complete his normal duties so that he could work with me.

To make a long story much shorter than it could be, I’ve taken that example and decided to pass it on to the teachers I work with.  The experience of having someone give you feedback continuously while you plan and implement a lesson truly changed how I looked at my students needs and my ability as a teacher.  It did matter when and where resources were delivered, and it did matter that they left my class wondering what was going to happen tomorrow.  I met with a teacher in one of our buildings last week and asked if he’d be interested in a similar project.  He agreed to give it a go.  It’s a non-evaluative situation, and we’ve already been bouncing ideas off of each other.

What am I hoping for out of this?  I hope that this becomes a tradition for me as well.  I gained so much from an experienced educator taking an interest in my career and my craft that to be able to even provide some modest feedback to a teacher who is still finding their way would be rewarding enough for me.  I’ll let you know.

Daily Diigo Links 12/19/2008

In Uncategorized on December 18, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Links 12/18/2008

In Uncategorized on December 17, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Big Ideas, Like Minds

In curriculum, pedagogy on December 16, 2008 at 10:22 pm

A few days back, Alex Ragone posted this via twitter (I just don’t feel comfortable saying “tweeted”):

Working on technology vision for students and faculty. We really need to look big picture and design curric to match that. Not so now.

I’ve never met Alex face-to-face, only through a twitter request that landed me in his professional development workshop last year, but his thinking in 140 characters or less gave me an idea: Alex lives in New Jersey, so do I.  His thought made me think about what we’ve been working on in our locale regarding the same issues.  How do you design curriculum so that your pedagogy and technology are in harmony to the point where we don’t talk about technology as an isolated event that happens in the lab or is viewed as a separate bullet point in a curriculum document?

My response was simple

@alexragone would love to get a skype session about curricular vision with a few of us from NJ.

Those simple connections led us to including Bill Stites, Dan Sutherland, and Barry Bachenheimer in the conversation via a collaborative planning document and a skype conversation.  In our daily jobs as administrators, tech coordinators, and teachers, we often get mired in the issues that bog us down: supplies that don’t arrive, inter-departmental squabbles, crab-bucket culture, etc.  Having the opportunity to engage our minds in this form of big-picture play keeps us free, keeps us from the feeling that we are running through mud.

We hatched a plan and pitched the idea to the annual NJECC Conference on March 17-20 at Montclair State University.  Here’s the plan:

This conversation will address the following essential questions:  What does the student experience in a classroom look like when the curriculum is integrated with technology that they use?  What support structures need to be in place for this classroom to exist?  For the experiences to exist?
Bring your curriculum design question and we’ll help you develop it for the dynamic needs of today’s and tomorrow’s students.
We’ll demonstrate successful classroom practices using social networking, online course management systems, global and local collaboration,  and online writing to create audience for your students.

It hasn’t been accepted as of yet, but if it does, and you are in the tri-state area, please come join us.  There will be four of us leading this workshop in a hands-on format.  We are hoping for a lot of small group discussion and creation of solutions for participants.  One phrase I remember uttering during our skype planning session was that I wanted each of us to remember the key elements from the best conference workshop we’ve ever been to, and I want us to re-create them here.  We need to teach this one in the manner with which we would want to learn it.  For me, that’s conversation and sharing among participants.

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Validation Movie from SCC – Brightcove

In reflection on December 16, 2008 at 8:03 pm

This came through today, and I had to pass it along here.  We all need this guy in our lives from time to time.

more about “Validation Movie from SCC – Brightcove“, posted with vodpod

Daily Diigo Links 12/17/2008

In Uncategorized on December 16, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/16/2008

In Uncategorized on December 15, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/15/2008

In Uncategorized on December 14, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Links 12/14/2008

In Uncategorized on December 13, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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This Rut We’re In

In 21st Century, leadership on December 13, 2008 at 11:57 am

Yesterday I found the “Quotes” Flickr Group that was put together by Dean Shareski, Scott McLeod, Darren Draper, et al.  The power of the image to change and inspire is a tool that I need to use more of in my work with teachers.  In looking through the offerings and the work of the 11 members of the group on Flickr, you see the passion with which a great majority of us in education act with on a daily basis.  That passion, I must admit, has been missing from what I’ve been doing lately.  Not to sound trite, but it’s as if I’d lost my mojo, and with it any of the passion I was attacking my work with.

As usual, my wife sat me down and straightened me out.  She told me some very basic things:

“If you can’t find someone to buy into your ideas, look somewhere else. They are good ideas, backed by someone who is passionate about what they do.”

From that conversation, I’ve noticed an uptick in both productivity, and focus.  The WTF attitude is starting to return, and ideas are beginning to grow legs. I love that woman.

From shareskis photostream on Flickr

From shareski's photostream on Flickr

In that light, I found this item from George Siemens to be of significant import in my thinking lately:

The challenge many educators face today in trying to improve learning
is not one of technology or information access. The most significant
need is to begin envisioning a future reflective of the affordances of
technology now broadly available.

The biggest problem we face is not lack of access or technology or filtering, but rather lack of imagination and vision.  What can we do with what is available to us?  What can our students do?  A word I heard at Jim Burke’s englishcompanion Ning site (which if you are interested in helping build community with anyone in your English department, you should visit and invite them to it), is “withitness,” and that what every teacher needs to possess is the drive not to be cool, but to do cool things–things that make your students say something in response.  Whether they loved you or hated you, you want them talking about what they did in your room on any given day.

I think we are stuck, at least in my locale, on imagining the same things we’ve always done because we haven’t been brave enough to imagine what it might look like in the future.  I, for one, am going to start using my hands and my brain to create this vision.

MIT students build mobile applications in 13 weeks – elearnspace

Daily Diigo Links 12/13/2008

In Uncategorized on December 12, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/12/2008

In Uncategorized on December 11, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/11/2008

In Uncategorized on December 10, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/10/2008

In Uncategorized on December 9, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/06/2008

In Uncategorized on December 5, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Who is Who: Interview with Mike Wesch

In pedagogy on December 4, 2008 at 3:04 pm

This video came across the twitstream last week and has been making the rounds among my network.  It’s short enough to squeeze into a prep period for a quick PD session.  One of the things I would listen for, if you are so inclined, is Wesch’s definition of anti-teaching.  For me, the idea of anti-teaching, or as we’ve called it here in the past, Unschooling, is almost anti-thetical.  Sound teaching requires that you question assumptions both of your students and yourself.  Is this not what Wesch is doing?  If so, what is the need in the new moniker for good teaching?

more about “Who is Who: Interview with Mike Wesch“, posted with vodpod

Daily Diigo Links 12/04/2008

In Uncategorized on December 3, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/03/2008

In Uncategorized on December 2, 2008 at 7:32 pm

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Daily Diigo Links 12/02/2008

In Uncategorized on December 1, 2008 at 7:31 pm

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