Deaf Ears

I went to a conference two weeks ago, and I am still sitting on my “what I learned at (insert conference name here)” post.  It’s not that I didn’t take anything away that is worth squawking about, nor that I haven’t the time to write about it, because, let’s face it, so few of us do anymore.  It’s rather that I’ve been trying to find the way to say it without ruffling the feathers of those who put on conferences all over.

There shouldn’t be any educational technology conferences anymore.

Oh great.  Now it’s out there.  There goes any chance I ever had at presenting at ISTE (or NECC, or whatever it’s next iteration will be).

While I truly love the conference I am speaking of, being that the first time I attended was one of the biggest eye-opening events of my career a few years back, something has changed around the world of education and educational conferences.   What’s changed is not the technology–that’s a given.  What’s changed is that we now ask different questions than we did before. The more “Ed Tech” conferences I attend, the  more I see people there who don’t need to be there.  If we are talking about real change in education, the kind that makes nervous people of those with big jobs in big companies that depend on education as a market, than we’ve got to get different people here.

Instead of the word technology or educational technology being mentioned anywhere in the nomenclature of the conference, why don’t we focus on student learning.

If you can’t show me (preferably with live students) how what you are talking about is credible, gets kids excited to learn, and allows them to share their learning with whomever wants to be a part of it, I don’t know if I am interested.

I know this has been said before, and many times here in this space, but it’s not teaching with technology, or learning with technology, or educational technology.  It’s just teaching, just learning, and just education.  It’s here, it’s your computer connected to the world, and it makes your job easier.  And if  the educational technologist in your district would just let you know about these conferences, it might just become very clear to you.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that these conferences need to recognize the fact that we moved beyond just inviting directors of technology, technology coordinators, or higher-level administrators, but rather classroom teachers, students, and even community stakeholders.

Hysterical

This is just great.

A Quick Story of Shift

We have a problem in our district that most of you probably have: we do not have enough teachers to do what we really want to do.  We have classes we’d like to make smaller, classes we’d like to offer more sections of, classes that we dream of creating, and classes that we used to offer that we can no longer staff.

This year, the issue arose with our 5th grade Introduction to World Languages program.  Due to schedule changes at both our high school and middle school, the teachers that had in the past traveled to 5th grade from those two buildings to introduce the students to four additional languages they can study at the 6-12 level (they have Spanish from K-4th grades) could no longer travel as the times they are available didn’t match up to the elementary schedules.

We’ve spent the better part of the last two years increasing the minutes that our students spend learning languages in the middle and high school, and to do that we moved the Introductory program to the 5th grade thereby having our 6th graders choose a language to study for their middle school years.  Eliminating it was not an option, but realistically nothing was working out for us.

Last year, I reluctantly met with a sales rep from Rosetta Stone.  I am not big on proprietary software systems like Rosetta Stone; I find them cumbersome most of the time, but this one was different for a few reasons.  First, it reminded me of how the Florida Virtual School worked in that there is the element of individual pacing, and secondly that it may work for students who don’t traditionally perform well within the classroom.  I saw potential for its use all over the district.  After that meeting, I eagerly brought the demo back to a few members of the department to see what they thought of it.  Most dismissed it outright, but some were intrigued, so the idea got put on the back burner.

When our scheduling issues came to a head this summer and it was made clear that we could either move the Introductory program back to the middle school and steal a year away from the focused study of one language, or find a solution that would allow the students to experience the four languages before making a decision to study one further in middle school, out came Rosetta Stone once again.

This past Tuesday, I worked with the four teachers from our department (Russian, German, Mandarin, and French) to create custom curriculum within our web-based launch of Rosetta Stone.  Some of these teachers were among those that initially balked at the idea, so I was interested to see what their reaction was once they were immersed in it.  Their task was to be a student and go through as much of level 1 as possible, then change hats and become the designers of that curriculum.  Rosetta Stone allows you to modify their existing curriculum for their languages, or create your own curriculum entirely.

Their reaction?  Let’s just say it’s going to be hard pressed to keep our licensing agreement intact–they want to use it in the other schools they teach in.  They loved the idea that they could create rich, dynamic curriculum and learning environments for students and get accurate, timely feedback on their progress.  Plus, each of our students is going to be able to progress through the languages at their own pace, and on their own time.  Due to the time constraints that our school day places on language learning in 5th grade, which only allows for 35 minutes per week, these students are going to be asked to work on these languages outside of school.   Having access to their learning via the web goes a long way toward respecting the time of the students.

I am not affiliated with Rosetta Stone, nor do I think it’s a perfect product; however, what I do think of when I see our teachers working in this environment is a glimpse into what schools can look like in any subject area when quality learning environments are created both online and off.  What I am finding in working with more and more teachers on projects like this that change the perceptions of teachers and traditional learning is that what we all can agree on are the elements of that need to be in place for learning to happen.  Whether or not those elements look exactly like what we’ve all grown up with is not important to most.

Service Learning is Different from Community Service

Maurice Elias’ short piece on service learning in Edutopia had been sitting as an open tab just staring at me for about a week now.  It’s common practice for me to dump all open tabs at the end of a day just as a means of starting fresh for the next day.  However, each day I would run through the tabs, dumping many of the grand ideas in hyperlink form culled from the network, and make decisions about what was worth my time, and this one would stick.  I just couldn’t dump it.

Today I decided to give it a real once over to see if it there was anything within it I could pull together for our Connections teachers.  Last year, as I have noted previously, the idea that we allowed them to push student thinking to action led them into projects that had real-world implications: refugees in Darfur, analysis of the market fluctuations and their affect on the global economy, carbon footprint, and many more.  What struck me most about the work the students chose to do was the desire they showed in wanting to do more than just read and write about the causes they studied; they wanted to contribute.

Elias points to a few studies that show the academic benefits of service learning, and hints at the fact there may not be definite academic measures (in  the form of the number of  A’s, B’s, and C’s received by students who participated in service learning projects being higher than those who did not), but there are other indicators that are reliable:

Further evidence comes from the work of Andrew Furco, who compared high school students who engaged in service learning with peers who either performed community service or participated in no service. The service-learning group scored higher on all academic measures — based on a rubric of academic goals — and engaged in ongoing reflective opportunities.

One line that struck me was that he calls out the dichotomy that exists between what people call community service and actual service learning:

a plain distinction needs to be made between community service and service learning. When youth engage in service learning, it involves more than arriving at a soup kitchen or a park and serving food or cleaning up. It begins with preparation and learning about the particular problem area or context the service experience will address and, ideally, is linked to academic subject matter being studied.

One piece that I noticed this year was that our students, although truly engaged in the work they were doing, remained disconnected from the people they were helping.  Often was raised, a check was written, and off both parties went in their separate ways.  Elias points to these elements that as teachers we must inherently design into these service learning projects:

• direct collaboration with the recipients of the service
• should be genuine and personally meaningful
• generating emotional consequences that can build empathy and challenge preexisting ideas and values.

That last piece there is one that I’ve harped on before–the need for a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance infused in all that we do.  I’ve seen great teachers do this with students and the effect is profound.  Let’s build the relationships between students and community so that rather than just a service relationship, we foster one that is of mutual respect and obligation.  Too often our community service projects end the moment we are no longer physically bound to the cause, but if we can begin to create emotional ties to projects, that will go a long way towards creating the democracy we all want.

Please be sure to check out Maurice Elias’ article.  He has linked to some excellent documents surrounding the creation of service learning projects in schools.

The Length of Our Reach

The more powerful our reach, the more important the question.

Since I came to education a while after she made huge headlines in the 1990’s, I didn’t know much about Liz Coleman and the work she had done at Bennigton College.  When the title of her TED Talk came up on my iTunes account today, I didn’t truly understand the history behind the iTunes generated titling “Liz Coleman’s call to reinvent liberal arts education.”  What followed was another one of those serendipitous moments that I hope will begin to shape what I help create over the next few years.

Coleman in the 1990’s was viewed in many ways as Michelle Rhee is now, only at the college level.  When she assumed the post of President of Bennington College, she immediately began the abolition of tenure, elimination of departments, and the firing of many professors.  Her aim was to radically reshape how liberal arts education functions.  As I look at various writings that have come my way, some from enlightened folk like Ryan Bretag, whose statements of belief about curriculum and supervision are so right on the money I want to steal them outright and call them my own, and some from the minds that are greatly influencing the direction that the state of New Jersey is heading in, I hear what Coleman talks about as being equivalent to auditory gold.

There is no such thing as a viable democracy made up of experts, zealots, politicians, and spectators.

A while back, I read this Wall Street Journal article by Mark Taylor.  Coupling the ideas within that article about the over-specialization of academic disciplines with the ideas that Coleman has put into practice leads me to one conclusion: I want to design curriculum that is centered around big problems and the search for those solutions.  While I don’t know how that looks yet, in a public high school setting, I see it as being an undercurrent for students to study: a humanities curriculum that allows them to focus on problems within one specific area, but attacked from the perspective of several disciplines.   Solving suburban planning through good design.  The politics of environmental activism.  The science and mathematics of the credit crisis.  The affect of global food production on the economy and the environment.  The language and rhetoric of mass media.

The problem with this, as I see it, is not falling into the trap of seeing how we can do this in the existing model.  I want teachers to begin seeing themselves not as English, history, science, or math teachers, but rather as leaders of thought, of solution, and of growth.  The end result of all of this should be action.  If you have been a reader of this blog in the past, you may know that I value actionable curriculum over that which is static.  Make those that learn with you move to action.  It’s not always a reality, but it is an ideal worth striving for.  A redesign of this magnitude would require that the curriculum ask those within it to be actors in towards the solution of the problem. 

Coleman’s last line provides me with more than enough motto to go on.  After I finish typing this, I am going to bust out some really big paper and start sketching this out.  I can’t wait to see where it goes.

You have a mind and you have other people.  Start with those and change the world.

An Era of Rapid Change

Graduation season around here has come to a close.  The skies parted for a brief moment, and the final piece to our annual graduation lineup was able to be held in its intended setting: outside under a June sky.  Throughout the day, each speaker, and there were quite a few of them, touched on the pre-requisite graduational topics: friends, opening doors, closing doors, opportunities, blazing paths not following them, and myriad quotes from men and women more wise than us all.  However, one idea permeated all of them: change.  Not just simple change, but rapid, constant and continuous change.

Apropos?

Whether or not we buy into the changing nature of how students can learn now, or whether or not we choose to wait for the research to come back that tells us that giving students access to content and learning when they want it and how they want it, is immaterial.  It’s here.  And it’s apparent to everyone–even graduation speech writers.

Over the last month, I have received more pushback from the teachers I work with, both constructive and destructive, about the way in which the business of curriculum is run.  Which direction are we going in?  Are we driven by the AP test/state report card/U.S. News and World Report Rankings?  What is the vision you have for us?  When will this relentless change stop or at least slow down?

There’s that word again.

It’s great to work with people who have been through situations like this before, situations in which those that work with you are frustrated and feel like they have no voice.  My boss, when I relayed some of the information and sentiments that I was fielding in my meetings, responded with this:

Listen to what they are saying, not how they are saying it.

It’s now three weeks since those meetings and those conversations with the teachers.  What have I taken away?  What were they saying?

Voice.

We need to have one.  We need to know that what we are feeling and what we are dealing with is going to be acted upon in some manner.  We also need to know that what we say has value and that we are heard.  We want to be a part of the change process.

Relevance.

We need to be working on ideas, plans, materal that is relevant to what we do on a daily basis.

Access.

We need to see what everyone else is doing.  Common planning time plus observation of other teachers within this department is essential to our growth.  How can we develop that?

How I respond to these ideas is a huge part of my summer plans.

sarcasm= saying it-not meaning it

Earlier this week I wrote a post for TechLearning which I posted here and at Ecology of Education titled “Open Letter to the Teacher who said ‘I Hate Technology.’” Sarcasm is not my strong suit, but it just felt like the right mode to match the way I was feeling.  I’d like to turn this post over to the commenters at each of the three places that post appeared because of the conversations that sprang from it.

From TechLearning:

Veiled sarcasm and disguised insults and insinuations are not productive tools in diagolue. Nor, are they good tools for persuasion. Yes,it is difficult to leave your comfort zone, however, it is necessary for growth.”
– Roxann

While it is tempting to poke fun at those who resist technology, these teachers are often (but not always) the ones who have many of the other skills and talents necessary for good classroom instruction. They have the learning strategies, classroom discipline and understanding of curriculum down cold. When we honour these skills and abilities and provide on-going support many of these “resistors” are encouraged to use technology and change their teaching. When we belittle them, they, just like our students, retreat, resist and defend. Too often, when we “train” these teachers they feel overwhelmed as they struggle to see how the software connects to what they are doing in the classroom. And so they continue doing what they’ve always done.–Kendra Grant

From Ecology of Education

We might do well to also hate technology for its ability to shed light on assumptions and render the teacher’s knowledge authority obsolete. What’s more, when students understand technology better than us, it only serves to illuminate our own ignorance, further eroding our positions of authority.

What are we left to do? Level with students? Learn alongside them? Or worse, admit we don’t know something and learn from them?! Blasphemy, Patrick. Blasphemy.–Jason Flom

There are many good examples of how teachers are using technology with their students, both in and out of the classroom. It’s important to make those connections so teachers can see the value. Problems arise, though, when some teachers refuse to even participate in the discussion. They don’t need technology, and nothing anyone can say (or show) will change their minds – they’ve closed them tight. I think those teachers are in the minority, but they definitely present a challenge.–tcervo

Think there’s a deeper, possibly more discouraging aspect to this. The teacher who hates technology communicated a hesitation to learn and grow. Technology just happened to the target of the moment. And if that’s the case, this teacher needs to find a job where learning and growth aren’t the actual reason for the job to exist. We all resist change, and perhaps that’s more the motivation here. But failing to recognize that growth = change, and that to continue being a relevant teacher I must grow, and that to grow I must learn, and that technology may be the thing needed to be known at this point in history—that’s a sad commentary. Sure, our teachers did it without technology, but technology (other than filmstrips—BEEP!) was not an option.–Kevin Washburn

Chalkdust101

I’m not sure if your response is to a hypothetical person or not, but I wonder if the tact you take in this blog post will be a constructive addition to the conversation. Rant is certainly an appropriate tag for the post, and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone an occasional rant. However, if conversation is what your looking for, why not ask questions.–msstewart

Patrick, I too hate technology. That is, I hate technology simply for technologies’ sake. On the other hand, I love learning and I love teaching kids how to learn. If I can use some digital tools among the other tools I’ve acquired over the past 17 years to help kids learn, I love that process. The more tools I have, the more effective I can be, as each tool may not be relevent, useful, or timely in every situation.–Barry Bachenheimer.

Thanks to everyone for truly pushing my thinking on this.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day?

Couldn’t resist this one from Jessica over at Indexed:

Assessment that Informs

A couple of days before I came to ASCD, I gave some real thought to what I view as my weaknesses as an educator.  Not only those that I have now in administration, but also those I had in the classroom.  One glaring element that always makes me cringe to think about, in that I realize that I never did it well, is the use of assessment in the process of learning.  Too often, I fell into the category of solely using summative evaluations, and then not taking the information those summative tests, quizzes or papers and acting on them.  It wasn’t until the last few months I spent in the classroom that I really began to look at how I used formative assessment and misconception analysis to drive instruction.  Then, of course, I moved out of a full-time classroom.

That move, however, didn’t stop me from exploring formative assessment in my professional development classes.  Last year, in fact, I wrote about how we use some very quick assessment strategies with our new teachers when we meet with them in their induction program.  Those strategies I wrote about were embedded into the ideas we were trying to teach and reflect a philosophy I wish all presenters/teachers would follow:

If you are teaching them about using a strategy in the classroom, teach them by doing the strategy, and then have them do the strategy in front of you.

Today I sat in Robin Fogarty and Brian Pete’s session called Informative Assessments: When It’s Not About a Grade.  Much like last year’s session with Deborah Estes, this was a session in which the presenters walked the talk.  We were learning about three types of assessment:

• Routine Assessments: used everyday
• Reflective Assessments: many days, deliberate ways
• Rigorous: some days, thought-provoking ways

From the start of the session, they had us engaged and interacting with one another using some cooperative learning strategies and some questions from Sidney Parnes.  We were given the task of viewing this video, a clip from The Simpsons called “How the Test was Won.  Then we stepped into a “Three Musketeers” activity where we got up and walked around with our hands up until two other people met our hands.  We then became a quick group.  The two questions were simple, but connective:

• How can you connect this to something you already know?
• How can you use this in the future?

Any chance I can get to push my thinking, I’ll take.  Their statement that followed listening to some of the answers from the groups crystallizes a lot of the buzz I’ve been hearing at this conference:

THE PERSON DOING THE TALKING IS THE PERSON DOING THE LEARNING.

If I can go back to my district and put that into my own practice more often, I can’t think of any better improvement I could make that would transfer the responsibility onto my learners, and give me a glimpse into what they are thinking and learning.

Another element they introduced today was the idea of using the “one-minute challenge” to push learners to write with purpose and meaning for only a minute, which was interesting because they preceded that minute by a full minute of complete and motionless silence.  What a settling event that was.  I didn’t look at twitter, didn’t write down any notes, I just sat.  When it was time to write for a minute, I was calm and ready to think.  From that minute’s writing we again shared with a partner and set goals about what we’d like to do in the next minute to improve our thinking.

Goal-setting in a micro way.  I liked that too.

While I didn’t walk away from this session an expert on assessment, I did begin to see how easily we can set up formative assessment systems that give us the information we need to see how our students are doing.  By breaking the classroom down into these three categories:

• what do we want students to know?
• how will we know that they know it?
• what will we do if they don’t?

it gives me a plan of action when I work with teachers.  The question becomes how to model that for my teachers, because the goal is to get them thinking at this level about their instruction.

Modeling Expert Thinking.

Doug Fisher had a profound affect on my outlook today, and I’ll likely spend the next few days putting together some more of my thoughts that came from his shared session.  At this moment, I’ve got this one stuck in my craw:

We need to model expert thinking for our students.

All too often, he states, we see too much “explaining and interrogating,” and not enough of modeling how we think through a text, how we go about finding information when we really need it.  My standard line when it comes to this has to do a lot with Penny Kittle’s book Write Beside Them and our work with the National Writing Project in that if we are teachers of writing, we must be writers ourselves.  We need to show that there are processes and skills that even we as educators, who have already done this thing called school, still work hard to figure things out.

He works in a high school with his colleague Nancy Frey, called Health Sciences High & Middle College and the shift to the Gradual Release of Responsibility has helped that school make incredible gains in learning and literacy.  What it took was a huge shift from investing in the “magic bullet” programs to an equal or greater investment in teacher ability.  For those of us who are in charge of providing professional development or making sure it is available to our teachers, that’s a huge shift. Amy Sandvold asked “why is it that teachers feel that the Professional Development expert have to be 50 miles away from your district in order for teachers to believe what they say?”

I’d like to see what we could do in our schools if we did invest in our own abilities rather than rely on some external force or program.

I Have Become That Student.

I have not been a student in the traditional sense for some time.  I have not sat in a classroom, at a desk, and listened to a teacher or speaker discuss and run a class centered around a central topic.  Everything I have done over the last few years has been focused on my own learning and those elements that I deemed necessary for me to focus on: technology, school change, leadership, curriculum, educational theory, methodology, state mandates, assessment, differentiation, learning styles, visual literacy, Web 2.0, or any other of the most current buzzwords the field of education.  In the last seven years, that time that has passed since I have last entered a graduate school classroom where my primary role was that of “student,” a lot has changed in me.  Never was this as evident as a lecture series I sat in on Monday and Wednesday of this week.

Dr. Eric Davis, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, came to our district to engage any of us interested in a conversation about how to teach our students to better understand terrorism, its root causes, and a means to combat it in an enlightened way.

I was an anthropology major in college, and took enough history to obtain a dual degree (have to check on the status of that one).  It’s my bag, and I am lucky to work with a department that is rife with history junkies.  So when one of our teachers arranged for Dr. Davis to speak with us about his work in the Middle East, we were all excited to work up some intellectual sweat.

Dr. Davis ran his class like many of our classrooms are run: he used a slidedeck laced with his overarching objectives, followed by rationale, example, and explanation.  He also, at any moment, took questions or requests for further clarification from us.  No different than many of the history lectures I attended in either high school or college.

What was different was me.  In those previous situations, the only source for information I had was Dr. Davis, his syllabus, and the recommended books on that syllabus that I was to have read for that day’s class.  In Monday and Wednesday’s class, I had all of you, I had video, I had Flickr images, I had Amazon’s recommendations.

As Dr. Davis spoke about Fareed Zakaria’s work on how to win the war on terror, I popped out and linked my notes to his book on Amazon.  The same with obscure texts like those by Olivier Roy.  As he talked about and showed us startling images from the looting of the Iraqi National Museum and the treasures that were lost, I realized I wanted those images too, so I pulled them into my notes from Flickr.  He discussed the use of Iraqi student blogs with his undergraduates; I conducted a quick scan of my twitter network and of Davis’ own resources and and found several examples.

We all asked questions and contributed to the discussion.  I chronicled it in a way that I never would have.  My notes look vastly different and more robust than anything I could have done ten, even five years ago.  His lecture, his class, took on a whole new life in my notes.  I dropped in questions to myself that I’ll look back on and that will help me go in new directions later on.
The best part, for me at least, is that I shared them with everyone in the seminar via Google Docs, and I asked them to drop in their notes and thoughts as well, or to just use mine to springboard even further.

I am now that student–that student that wants more than just what is front of me, and knows how to get it.  We had all types of students in this seminar: those that listened, those that talked, those that hand-wrote notes, and me.  The best part about it is that it doesn’t matter at all if no one shares their notes with me in the collaborative document.  Their interactions in engaging Dr. Davis became part of my thinking and my documentation.  They contributed to my learning, and the least I can do is give back to them this document.

Deja Video.

Listen to the message Don Tapscott leaves here in his brief plug for his new book:

When I was a freshman in high school, an odd, yet charismatic senior ran for student council president.  Jake John Robert Hast was his name.  I did not know him, never interacted with him, or even saw him much after that year.  However, his speech contained an element I never forgot.  He began his speech with this quote, stating that it was from an earlier generation:

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint.

Upon hearing it, I could hear my grandparent’s voices in it, and I could sense it came from a generation that sacrificed much for the liberties of my own future.

Jake then revealed that it was in fact from ca. 700 A.D. by a Roman poet and rhapsode named Hesiod.  That moment made me forever suspicious of judging youth at media’s face value, and of resistance to change.

What do you feel about today’s youth?  Do you agree with Tapscott, Hesiod or neither?

School. Different.

Beginning on March 23rd, I will be leading a discussion with teachers and administrators in my district about ourselves and our professions, but most importantly, about our students and how they learn.  What I want to know is this: are we teaching with their learning in mind?

Here is the description I gave for the workshop:

In this conversation we will examine our goals as educators in the face of a rapidly changing climate in American education.   We’ll look closely at the shifts that need to occur in our profession and the very question of what it means to be well-educated today.  Each group will meet three times: one online session, and two face-to-face sessions.

Essential Questions:
•    Who are the students you want leaving your classroom every day?
•    What do you hope they know how to do with that they’ve learned?
•    What do you hope they care about?

Essential Understandings:

School should be less about preparation for life and more about life itself.
-John Dewey

We must connect our students with information, people and real world contexts that will inspire and engage them throughout their curriculum.

We teach a subject not to produce little living libraries on that subject, but rather to get a student to think mathematically for himself, to consider matters as an historian does, to take part in the process of knowledge-getting.  Knowledge is a process, not a product.

-Jerome Bruner

When our students know how to evaluate media and make sense of its complex messages, they are better able to use it as information for learning.

Our rapidly changing society, both nationally and globally, demands a change in the way we view education and the teaching profession.

This idea was originally inspired and adapted from Jeff Plaman’s LrNing site where he has gathered international educators from around the world to participate in an online class centered around the movements and changes that our students and the profession of teaching is undergoing.  I asked him if I could modify it slightly for my district and he was all for it.

In looking at television lately, I caught this commercial, or should I say, it caught me:

I look at that and I contrast it with Doyle’s recent post regarding his school’s motto: “Learn to Live.”  Are we teaching our students to live?  Are we teaching them the skills to be wise?  Do they have the moral skill to know when to make the exception to the rule?

Oh, I worry some time that we get bogged down in the minutiae of this standard and that standard, and this score and that score, and we forsake the true goals of education: learning to live well.

Budtheteacher, Pt. II

Konrad Glogowski, in his response to Bud’s prompts wrote this:

Thomas Mann once wrote that a “Writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” When I was in high school, my English teacher offered the following interpretation of Mann’s words: ‘Writing,” he said, “is a craft that requires you to spend hours writing and re-writing, focusing on ideas, sentences, words. It is for many of us a long and lonely process, but at the end of this process, you have a document that others will appreciate and enjoy. You also have the feeling that you have achieved a challenging task – that you have succeeded in communicating ideas that matter to you.”

I still agree with my English teacher, but I also know that the networked world we live in has changed writing. It has helped us understand that the writing Thomas Mann was talking about, and the kind of writing my teacher had in mind, is Writing, with capital W. It is the formal, transactional type of writing that we associate with academic texts. The internet has allowed us to participate by engaging in writing (notice the lowercase “w”) that is expressive, that facilitates connections and relationships, that lives in nodes and correspondences created through hyperlinks. It has been called “connective writing“, but I don’t think it means that Mann or my teacher were wrong. I still think about how hard it is to be a writer, but what it means to me today is how hard it is to write and think about the connections and embed all those connections and nodes in our writing. Yes, everyone is a writer, especially today, but what we think about when we write today is more intertextual than ever before.

And there it is.  Crystalline and succinct.  We do two types of writing, and one much more so than the other.  Why is it then that we place such a premium on high-stakes writing?  Writing with a lowercase “w,” as Konrad says, allows for avenues and expressions that the uppercase “W” writing does not.  The fact that there can be a dichotomy where both thrive is one of the beautiful elements of writing today.

Response to Bud’s Prompts at EduCon

Howard Rheingold posted some advice for his students at Stanford the other day pertaining to their use of technology, particularly RSS and IM in class.  His advice: it’s only a filter.  You don’t have to read everything or even see everything that comes your way. 

What stress we places on ourselves when we mandate that we keep up with everything that is said in our little sphere of influence.  Fforde reminds me in this passage that we, the reader have very important work to do.  We must dissect and make meaning of text that may or may not have been intended for our eyes.  The author’s intended audience may have come and gone, and a new audience, not germane to the writer’s initial purpose is still able to read the text.  What does that new audience make of it? 

As we deal with inputs, and “noise” from the channels of text and image that we subscribe to, let us look at our focus.  Read everything with the intention of writing about it.  It changes everything, and we are critical of more than we thought.

Year End, Part II

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

Digital Book Talk

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.

Warning: Think Alouds to Follow over the Next Few Months

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.

Which Would You Prefer?

I am tossing around the idea of offering up some professional development for my staff, but unlike any I have done before.  Personally, I am done with the “training model;” that’s not what these are about.  I want conversation and dialogue around an idea.  Once the idea is situated in someone’s head, then we can get practical with it, but we have to want the idea first.  That’s what I want to do–create an itch.  It sounds icky, I know, but it works.

I wanted to try the PollDaddy function in wordpress, and this gives me reason to do that too.

If you care to, in the comments section, I would love some recommendations for content you would include in the sessions as well.  I have so much in mind, but due to time constraints, it will be limited.  The format for these classes would most likely be two, one-hour sessions a few days apart (still unsure about that too).

Thanks in advance!

Open Invitations

We’ve been fortunate over the last few years in that most of the time we invite someone to speak to our staff virtually, it happens.  Yesterday, we had the pleasure of having Dina Strasser from Rochester, NY skype into our Language Arts meetings for both 8th and 6th grades. On many levels, yesterday was a special event.

First, our teachers are being asked to switch their mode of thinking about their classrooms and the way they function.  We are moving towards a workshop-based approach to integrated Language Arts.  With that comes considerable pushback and anxiety.  I understand that and most of my job is to help them manage that stress.  Thinking about helping them make this transition, several ideas came about: layout a physical model of what the classroom will look like, take what they already do and transform it into this new modely by breaking it into pieces, and have them work step-by-step in the new model.  But what has always served me well, both as a teacher and as an administrator, is to bring someone in who is, for lack of a better term, smarter than me.  Why should I try to convince these teachers of something they could easily say I know little about in practice.

Enter Dina.  The descriptions, the answers, the ideas, the issues and concerns, and help she was able to give our teachers was monumental.  Dina is immersed in this same change that we are asking our teachers to undertake.  The reason I found Dina was through her post: “Junking it…Literature Circles,” in which she clearly outlined what the perfect model for literature circles is, what she was trying to do (and failing), and what she would then move to in the hopes of making the change sustainable.  What she is modeling is exactly the process we need to spread among our staff.  Not just the fact that she is reflecting on her craft in the view of others, but just the fact that there is internal dialogue that assesses her own performance in an objective manner.  We need more Dina’s.

Secondly, as Dina stated in her post earlier today, this was another display of PLN in action.  We have never met each other, and we may never in the future, but you can be sure that if I have questions, or if someone asks me for a resource on literature circles or anything middle school Language Arts related, I am going to send them Dina’s way.  She’s now much more than a node in my network; she’s a person to me, and a generous one at that for giving up two hours on her day off.  We need more PLN interaction in front of staff members that have limited exposure to their own networks.  More teachers and administrators need to construct these type networks to model how we can leverage “wicked-smart” people that we have access to.

My goals for yesterday’s meetings going in were to help our teachers feel more comfortable in their own skin with this new change.  What I left with was just that, and with new goals for what I can do to help them.  I need to be present when they are struggling, not for punitive purposes, but to offer instructional support.  I need to get them access to materials, because I realize how fortunate we are to have the means to gain that access.  I need to let them know that failing is just fine, but refusing to attempt is a poor model.

Thanks again, Dina.  You were brilliant.

Effective School Leadership in the Digital Age

A few posts back, I stated that I would try to get out the audio that accompanied my slides from the TechForum Northeast Conference on October 24th.  It’s taken me a while, and along the way I lost my notes, but here it is, as best as I could deliver.  I am already rethinking the format of this and the content; it’s like with our students when we ask them to read their writing out loud–it takes on a whole new level of awkwardness.  In the end it’s great for the piece, but it sure feels weird while you are standing there.  I’ll make one glaring admission before you view:  I need to include the student part of this the next time I deliver it.  It was in the planning, and I spoke about it at the conference, but did not get to it here.  What is their role in school leadership today?

more about “Effective School Leadership in the Di…“, posted with vodpod

Effective School Leadership in the Digital Age on Vimeo

more about “Effective School Leadership in the Di…“, posted with vodpod

In the rush to get caught up with everything that is swirling around me here, I’ve been trying to get both Slideshare and Google Docs to play nice with my slide deck from Friday’s Tech Forum Northeast Presentation I did.  The presentation, called Effective School Leadership in the Digital Age, was a blast, and I hope all who attended enjoyed it.  I ended up just exporting the keynote file to quicktime and then uploading it to Vimeo.  I hope to do some audio work on it shortly, but here is the rough-ready version.

Embedded Reporting

I am banking on one very important thing this year: that the use of publicity will continue to raise the tide of change and lift more boats.

For the last two years, I have managed a district technology blog called Tech Dossier.  This year, I have reconstituted it thanks to a few posts by Miguel, but changed it slightly.  First, the name: from Tech Dossier, to The Dossier.  I truly want to move away from the inclusion of the word technology in any of the titles I use.  Through several conversations with people like Barry Bachenheimer and Patrick Chodkiewicz, I’ve come to realize that semantics matter, especially to teachers.  It’s not about how to use technology when you teach, but rather it’s about how you can teach, period. Second, to match the semantic shift in the title, the focus of the articles has now broadened to include topics that are not solely technologically based, but rather a highlight of some of the innovative practices our teachers are using.  We have teachers in all of our buildings who constantly push their thinking and their students thinking.  I’d like to get there and find them; the rest of the district, and the world at large should be seeing what they are doing.

I’ve enlisted several people to write over the two years, and this year we’ve added a second-grade teacher from one of the elementary schools to the list of authors.  We’ve got three administrators, two high school teachers, a middle school teacher, a tech coordinator, and now an elementary teacher writing and looking out in their buildings for ingenious ideas.  Also, being no stranger to shameless promotion, I send out a bi-weekly email highlighting all of the posts that have appeared.  I am trying to get a feed service to send it to our global address book, but somehow I think that may either get flagged as spam, or individual teachers would not recognize it as an important message and just delete it.

The idea of doing some reporting, let’s even call it micro-reporting due to the short nature of the posts, on what is going on instructionally within you building is a gold mine.  While our commenting has been limited so far, our stats are through the roof, so I know people are going to the page.  At this point that’s all I want: people to know that others are out there looking for them, trying to catch them being competent and taking risks.

Head on over to The Dossier, and check out what our teachers have been up to.

Image Credit: “Reporter’s Notebook, U.S. Version,” from niclas’ photostream

Thinking Out Loud

Since everyone is asleep here, save the dog, and I need clarify my ideas for a meeting tomorrow with a group of high school English teachers regarding the Research Cycle I thought I might try writing out my agenda and how I want it to come across.

Firstly, I am very concerned about how it will come across.  I do not want to challenge anyone’s credibility by changing a process and document that, although revised on a yearly basis, needs to look forward a little more.  This is my talent pool; these are the people that will be working with the students as they course through the process, and they deserve to vet out all of the snags and kinks, just like I did this summer.  So I feel the need to open the meeting tomorrow by letting them know that we are changing how they teach research.  They need to know that my goal is to move the department forward, and this is a step that has to be taken.

Secondly, the last major update to our Research Style Guide was done in 2005.  I’d like to ask them to take a look at it.  I am going to give them pens of various colors and ask them to trim it down: eliminate all that you feel is not necessary, all you feel has changed and needs updating, all you feel is detrimental, etc. This is a massive document that every student is required to use as they course through their research process.  When I looked at it in the beginning of the summer, it caused me to begin asking questions of people all around the state of New Jersey: what do you do? how do you make this process engaging?  We’ll be working with motivation this year in our high school, and as I looked at this huge document back in June, I wondered how we motivated students to give their best effort on their research projects?

The third part of the morning I’ll spend asking them a series of questions attempting to get at the essential questions behind research.  We need to identify what we want our students leaving this project with.  Thanks to a bunch of you, especially Lisa Huff, I came up with this list on my own, which I will share with them:

• understand how to search for information
• evaluate the sources of information for reliability and validity
• formulate research questions before beginning and throughout research process to sustain and focus productive search for information
• synthesize information from multiple sources
• attribute sources

Once we identify the essential skills, the nuts and bolts I was whining about earlier this summer, i.e. notecards and MLA, become secondary, as do the tech tools.  We can focus on teaching several methods to the students and allowing them to find that which works best for them.  Notecards rock for some, not for others.  I just happen to fall into the “others” category.

The last part I want to discuss with them is the Research Cycle.  In putting this together, I went through just about every type of research system that is out there, and Jamie McKenzie’s looked the most streamlined. It follows this pattern.

• Questioning
• Planning
• Gathering
• Sifting and Sorting
• Evaluating
• Synthesizing
• Publication

What’s best about this one? Nothing really, except that it can be taught as a linear flow, or a cyclical process.  The clincher really was the idea that questioning is involved at every step of the research process.  Always be asking questions that lead to bigger questions.

swurl

Haven’t written about a tool or an application lately, so I thought I drop a screencast about Swurl, a lifestreaming application.

more about "swurl", posted with vodpod

Thoughts to act upon.

I realize it might be poor etiquette to clip and post nearly the whole text of the recent Google Blog entry titled “Our Googley Advice: Major in Learning,” but in light of what I am charged with helping to create lately, these skills and the messages that define them really hit home.  The highlights are my own.

At the highest level, we are looking for non-routine problem-solving
skills. We expect applicants to be able to solve routine problems as a
matter of course. After all, that’s what most education is concerned
with. But the non-routine problems offer the opportunity to create
competitive advantage, and solving those problems requires creative
thought and tenacity.

… analytical reasoning.
Google is a data-driven, analytic company. When an issue arises or a
decision needs to be made, we start with data. That means we can talk
about what we know, instead of what we think we know.

… communication skills. Marshaling and understanding the available evidence isn’t useful unless you can effectively communicate your conclusions.

… a willingness to experiment.
Non-routine problems call for non-routine solutions and there is no
formula for success. A well-designed experiment calls for a range of
treatments, explicit control groups, and careful post-treatment
analysis. Sometimes an experiment kills off a pet theory, so you need a
willingness to accept the evidence even if you don’t like it.

… team players.
Virtually every project at Google is run by a small team. People need
to work well together and perform up to the team’s expectations.

… passion and leadership.
This could be professional or in other life experiences: learning
languages or saving forests, for example. The main thing, to paraphrase
Mr. Drucker, is to be motivated by a sense of importance about what you
do.

These characteristics are not just important in our
business, but in every business, as well as in government,
philanthropy, and academia. The challenge for the up-and-coming
generation is how to acquire them. It’s easy to educate for the
routine, and hard to educate for the novel. Keep in mind that many
required skills will change: developers today code in something called
Python, but when I was in school C was all the rage. The need for
reasoning, though, remains constant, so we believe in taking the most
challenging courses in core disciplines: math, sciences, humanities.

in the real world, while the answers to the odd-numbered problems are
not in the back of the textbook, the tests are all open book, and your
success is inexorably determined by the lessons you glean from the free
market. Learning, it turns out, is a lifelong major.

I read that and thought of the possibilities that lay ahead for us, and the ideas we have yet to have.  I get excited at the prospect of a whole life filled with change and refinement of thought–how can we do this better?  What about what we are already doing works well and can be translated to new situations?  What should we leave behind?

Nevertheless, as we returned from BLC and came back to our realities of working within a strict system, we began to have some doubts about the differences we can make.  Looking through our notes I pulled this one from Ewan’s keynote:

All mankind is divided into three groups: those that are immovable,
those that are movable and those that move. — Benjamin
Franklin

And the coup de grace:

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing
new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down
new paths.–Walt Disney

I started thinking about this Disney quote (we watched Meet the Robinsons last night) and thinking about an opening day with staff speech.  Can you weave this into the message that you give to you staff on opening day?  Would it not move them to higher action.  Unfortunately (I should watch what I say) I don’t have that responsibility this year, but if I did, these messages would be interwoven into what I would deliver.  We always need to be moving forward, and we need to remember how to learn.

I need to nail this stuff down on the local level.

I love writing and sharing, and while I don’t profess to have a “great process” for getting it out there, I willingly share my practices, both success and failure, with anyone who cares to listen. That being said, and after listening to Clarence and Darren on Friday morning as they laid out the real possibilities that our teachers and students have before them, I know I live in perpetual beta. What that means for me is that, yes, I will continue to write about my personal struggles and successes with motivating today’s student and helping teachers understand changes that can help their instruction and effectiveness, but I will keep things close to my vest too.

Before I get up there and share like mad and give it away, I want to run it through the ringer here. I went to BLC with our administrative team, and my focus was on finding ways to make the goals we had set work well. That meant that we worked together almost exclusively. I missed sharing with some of the people there, but I felt the conversation pieces were lacking (or not built into the conference like at EduCon). My first priority in all of this is to the people I work with and for, the students, teachers, and parents in my district. Until I feel a sense of accomplishment within the audience of that crowd, I am finding it difficult to begin to share our practices. In other words, I don’t want to just get in front of people and talk about the cool things we do with this tool or that tool. I want to give the people I am fortunate enough to share with solid methods and practices they can go back and share with their students, teachers and parents. That hasn’t arrived for me yet.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve accomplished some wonderful things, and we are really trying to up the ante this year with our staff at every building; however, where’s the proof that what we are doing is better? or at least creating fascination and wonder on the part of both teacher and student? I need that before I jump out of beta and into limited release.

Image Credit: “Goatopolis-v2 (beta:Matthew Broderick)” from Goatopolis’ Photostream

Quotes from Day One of BLC

I imagine there is a post or several brewing from all of this, but here some quotes I pulled from our admin team’s notes (via Google Docs) today:

Some great quotes from our notes from the conference:

” what simple tools can make learning become remarkable -”
“you only need a handful of staff on board to move things forward”

“do teachers enjoy learning?”

“schools don’t encourage divergent thinking.  Social networks – no deadlines, no stress, to a big crowd.”

“We need to teach kids to escape.  Kids aren’t afraid to experiment with technology – they understand that they can’t “break” it.”

“To be successful in school, you have to be convergent.  To be successful in the world you have to be DIVERGENT.”

“If we want our students to learn it deeply, they need to be able to teach it.”

“Unscripted – talk, write, have the students do critical thinking on the spot, showcasing the student, choosing the right vocabulary words, authentic assessment, gives the student an active role in their OWN learning.”

“what do we push to next?- creating the need for more people to embrace this and try the things that are out there and more importantly keep technology as the vehicle to get to the places we want students to go-technology should never replace best practices and good teaching”

“We should teach children to drill through content to find audience and purpose.”

“Filtering: we are not protecting our students in the way we think.  We may actually be handicapping them.”

“Good idea for creating our own faculty search engines.  We do this now but its done by teachers linking sites from their own websites.”

BLC Preparedness

In a few hours, myself and a team of administrators from my district will be boarding a plane for Boston to attend the Building Learning Communities conference.  If you are a somewhat regular reader of this blog, you may already know how often I reference Alan November’s ideas and what an influence he’s been on my practice.  When I pitched the idea for us to attend, way back in April, I didn’t anticipate all of the us going, but I am glad we are; it will be nice to see the reactions of my colleagues to some of the ideas that will be circulating.

The last few days have been interesting for me here.  On Saturday, I had the great opportunity to talk about new teacher induction programs with Steve Kimmi (the conversation was recorded and can be found on Steve’s blog or on the EdTechTalk site).  When Steve emailed me and gave me the list of topics that we might get to, it was a big one, and my preparations for the conversations led me to do some deeper thinking than I had done in a while–nothing like a deadline to get you motivated.  Steve’s idea was this:

We will be discussing how to prepare new teacher’s for today’s classroom and 21st century skills.  There are a lot of resources that attempt to define 21st century skills, so I will list the one’s that I am privy to.  However, this will also be discussed.

• 21st Century Skills:
• Digital Literacy
• Global Awareness
• Collaboration/Communication

Problem Solving/Inventive Thinking

So I knew I needed to formulate some ideas about them, and it coincided nicely with the direction I was heading in as we approached BLC.

New Teachers and 21st Century Skills

When I saw this heading, I thought immediately back to some of Jeff Utecht’s posts about interview questions for hiring of new staff.  What should our incoming teachers be versed in technologically v. what can we expect to teach them in the induction programs and in working with them over time?  This dichotomy gets at a few things I feel are important.  When new teachers arrive at our offices and classrooms, we expect them to have licensure and credentials as certified by the state and have passed through a teacher training program at a university.  I know nothing of what teacher training programs look like these days, only what the products of those programs, the new teachers we hire directly out of college, show us when they arrive for interviews or as new hires.  As Jeff stated in his post from last spring, we need to be a bit more stringent in what we are asking of our new teachers.  This is much easier said than done when we consider the amounts of schools out there that will open in September without a full staff due to the inability to find qualified applicants; however, for my own personal experience, I don’t think it’s enough to expect that a teacher have a basic understanding of the trends in education, rather, I feel they should be on the cutting edge having come from a teacher training program.  They should understand the power of networked learning, of the use of mobile technologies, and the utmost importance of critical thinking skills and collaboration among both their students and their colleagues.

Digital Literacy/Leadership

In looking back for Jeff’s post above, I came across one of my earlier posts regarding a conversation I had with my Uncle Bill in early Spring regarding the effects of changing systems and the workplace.  He posed a question that is apropo here as well:

“If you believe in changing education, who are you working for now, the students and teachers of today or the students and teachers of tomorrow?”

In the conversation with Steve on Saturday, I mentioned a story I heard via a comment on the “Uncle Bill” post in which she relayed a story that Alan November told audience at the Learning 2.0 Conference last year in Shanghai.  In it, Alan spoke of how Plato struggled with ideas espoused by the current educational system in his day and railed against those in control of it in order to have it changed.  In the end, his conclusion on how to change it was simple: wait for all of those in control to die.

That’s not exactly an option we have; I think of all of the students that would exposed to new pedagogies, all of the teachers that would not come to know the power of a network that can be tapped into constantly and one that can be added to at the same rate.  Steve said it best in the discussion when he referenced the fact that we cannot give up on trying to help teachers develop lessons steeped in 21st Century literacy because what if students have a teacher that uses new methods successfully and exposes them to the use of new tools and transforms the way they learn, only to have a teacher the following year who does none of that.  Does that put the child at a disadvantage?  I don’t have that answer–reason being is that I don’t exactly know what the variables are yet.  What does good teaching with new tools and new pedagogy look like?  Are we at the point yet where one way trumps the other.  I have visions of Dan Meyer floating in my head here:  are we trying to re-invent something that is already invented?

What this calls for, this change we keep referring too, is a change in the vision of our educational leaders.  I am excited to meet up with David Truss this week and get into his head about leadership, and with Dennis Richards to look at what type of vision for schools of today we can forge.

More to come as the week progresses.

Image Credit: “lead type” on jm3’s flickr photostream

Daily Diigo Links 07/09/2008

• ISTE | NETS for Teachers 2008

  New Standards for teachers from ISTE

  tags: Standards, ISTE, necc2008, teachers, technology, education

• 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report

  reading report

  tags: reading, research, scholastic

Daily Diigo Links 07/04/2008

• Globaloria: Social Networks for Global Learning

  This one looks pretty robust here. I’d like to get my head around this one for a while.

  tags: web2.0, globaloria, science, learning, socialnetworking, global

• 7 Steps to Completing Your Projects on Time

  Guide to figuring out how to handle long-term projects with skill.

  tags: productivity, problemsolving, tasks

• The Omni Store

  possible to purchase

  tags: gtd, omnifocus, taskmanager

Daily Diigo Links 07/03/2008

• Totlol – Video for Toddlers, Infants, Preschoolers and Parents

  kid-friendly video. Pre-screened.

  tags: kids, totlol, video

• Jakesonline Wiki

  Jakes’ presentation on how to effectively provide for professional development within a school district.

  tags: jakesonline, pd, professionaldevelopment

• Generation YES Blog » Blog Archive » 6 degrees of professional development

  Great article from Sylvia Martinez about the elements that make up professional growth and how they combine and affect one another.

  tags: PD, professionaldevelopment, growth, change

• web.mov (video/quicktime Object)

  tags: conferencebike, connections, writing, howto

• TestCafe: free brain type test, free iq test, online testing, emotional iq test, I.Q., personality test, love, astrology, career, relationship

  what hemisphere are you?

  tags: braintype, brainresearch, test

• flushingfrench » home

  tags: French

Daily Diigo Links 07/02/2008

• Study Guides and Strategies

  Great small lessons in how to make yourself a better learner.

  tags: education, learning, productivity, lifehacks, howto

• Backward Design

  Greece Athena’s guide to using backward design to write curriculum.

  tags: ubd, backwarddesign, wiggins, curriculum

• ELA Best Practices

  Great list of strategies teachers can use to make their classroom more student-led.

  tags: strategies, classroom, teacherresources, observation

• Mohonk Preserve | Pfalz Point Trail Challenge

  I love this race.

  tags: mohonk, running

• XTERRA Trail Run Series : New York Series

  upcoming run at Mohonk

  tags: xterra, running

Daily Diigo Links 07/01/2008

• When is Good

  This is a great tool, thanks to Angela Maiers on twitter.

  tags: productivity, schedule, calendar, meeting

• Welcome to Debatepedia! – Debatepedia

  IDEA’s debate topic wiki. Great resource for helping students make arguments and form their own opinions.

  tags: debate, wiki, topics, connections, writing, socratic

• IDEA: International Debate Education Association – Debate Resources & Debate Tools

  I used this site when I taught English in Ramsey to provide students with sound basis for arguments in class. At the very least it can provide you with a host of topics for students to write about and discuss.

  tags: debate, topics, writing, connections

• Web 2.0 Guru » home

  Good collection of tools by subject area and best practice

  tags: web2.0, necc2008, tools

• Tikatok

  An easy way for students to publish a digital book.

  tags: tikatok, writing, books, publishing

• Webnote – an online tool for taking notes

  Take notes and share with anyone via RSS

  tags: notes, web2.0, webnote, tool

• FeedBlitz – The Leading RSS and Blog to Email Service

  another way to get all of your web content to filter to one place.

  tags: rss, tools, feeds, blog, newsletter, connections

Daily Diigo Links 06/28/2008

• State Education Reforms (SER) – Welcome to the Website on State Education Reforms

  Data warehouse on state reforms in education

  tags: education, reform, states, standards, nces

• http://spacemag.tumblr.com

  This is a magazine created by students from around the world. It’s truly amazing on so many levels.

  tags: spacemag, studentwriting, connections, publishing

• Vinegar tip card.pdf (application/pdf Object)

  Had to add this one.

  tags: vinegar, cleaning

Daily Diigo Links 06/27/2008

• elearnspace: Distributed Learning Environments

  tags: no_tag

  • 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.

• USATF – America’s Running Routes – View Route

  Nice loop to run in Boston

  tags: usatf, boston, blc, running, maps

• USATF – America’s Running Routes – View Route

  nice running route while at BLC.

  tags: running, maps, boston, blc08

Daily Diigo Links 06/26/2008

• Annenberg Media

  Annenberg media programs that span all aspects of the curriculum. Designed around adult learners, it seems, but great for self-directed learners.

  tags: annenberg, history, socialstudies, resources

• Annenberg Media – A Biography of America

  Recommended by Clay Burell, this site looks promising for teachers to use to engage their students.

  tags: history, socialstudies, ushistory, education, annenberg

• Papers Facing Worst Year for Ad Revenue – NYTimes.com

  This is an article I have been waiting for. Interesting to start to see the future of news. Yet, I still wonder how many people are getting their news from sources other than print or TV.

  tags: nytimes, advertising, media, future, reading

Ad Revenue Matters to You

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

• Using Writing In Mathematic

  This site shows some great ways to get started writing in math classes.

  tags: mathematics, metacognition, thinking, writing, prompts, connections

• chris jordan photography

  Chris Jordan’s site where he chronicles consumption via photos. Great stuff for visual thinkers.

  tags: photography, culture, consumption, environment, photos

• The 5.75 Questions You’ve Been Avoiding – by Michael Bungay Stanier

  Another flash video from bungay stenier courtesy of a diigo contact.

  tags: thinkiing, questions, flash, video, inspiration

• The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun

  This is worth watching, especially when you are stressed over small things.

  tags: fun, inspiration, motivation, flash

Trying to Get Motivated…

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!

Daily Diigo Links 06/24/2008

• Chris Jordan pictures some shocking stats | Video on TED.com

  Chris Jordan talks about how to he uses data and represents it visually. These images made the rounds last year, but his talk really shows how well they transfer the information he is trying to get out to people.

  tags: TED, visualization, art, images

• wikiHow – The How-to Manual That You Can Edit

  Really love the idea behind this. Very practical

  tags: wiki, howto, tutorials, collaboration, web2.0

• Interactive online Google tutorial and references – Google Guide

  Nancy Blachman’s guide to searching. Some pretty cool stuff here for all levels.

  tags: google, medialiteracy, connections, searchsmart

Daily Diigo Links 06/22/2008

• 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

• Bloom’s Taxonomy Blooms Digitally | 21st Century Connections

  Another stab at revising Bloom’s taxonomy for the digital age. This one stands out because of the activities it suggests.

  tags: bloom, blooms, thinking

• ChaCha. Good Answer.

  How cool is this? Text your question to ChaCha and they reply with an answer in minutes. Similar to goog411, but has a better name.

  tags: mobile, search, sms, answers, knowledge

Daily Diigo Links 06/20/2008

• Game Templates

  tags: templates, powerpoint, resources, education, classroom

• The Hangman by Maurice Ogden

  I have been searching for this one for a while. Great video to show regarding any social issue that involves standing up for those not able to stand on their own.

  tags: hangman, ogden, holocaust, genocide, bethechange

Daily Diigo Links 06/19/2008

• The human mind – a users guide – lateral thinking

  tags: thinking, connections, writing

• Using Google Docs in the classroom: S…

  tags: googledocs, google, classroom, education, teaching, collaboration

Daily Diigo Links 06/18/2008

• YouTube – dove evolution

  tags: dove, realbeauty, advertising, photoshop

• Group 1: Anders and John – APWH Wiki

  tags: holocaust, wiki, writing

• YouTube – Do schools today kill creativity? (Ken Robinson, TEDTalks)

  Sir Ken Robinson’s talk about creativity in schools

  tags: education, tedtalks, ted, creativity, connections

• YouTube – Google Docs in Plain English

  tags: googledocs, collaboration, docs, English

Daily Diigo Links 06/17/2008

• 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

• eLECTIONS Your Adventure in Politics brought to you by Cable in the Classroom

  This looks great for social studies teachers focusing on the upcoming election

  tags: elections, socialstudies, history, politics

• Moodstream™ by Getty Images

  Wild site that can be used to initiate some great writing. Think consistient and moving images and video from the Getty image collection, coupled with mood matching music. There is potential here.

  tags: moodstream, mood, brainstorming

Daily Diigo Links 06/13/2008

• YouTube – We Think

  I like this video for a bunch of reasons. Much like the commoncraft series, it shows technology not for bells and whistles, but for practicality and usefulness.

  tags: video, wethink, connections, newmedia, education

• ReadWriteThink: Lesson Plan: Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience

  Lesosn plan from ReadWriteThink about writing choose your own adventure stories

  tags: readwritethink, writing, connections, twistaplot

• Men’s Health – Eat This, Not That – The Healthiest Supermarket Foods in America

  Who doesn’t need some help in making these choices?

  tags: healthiest, food, shopping, groceries

Building my Case

“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?”

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

• pjhiggins’s Library

  tags: screencast, jing

• Main Page – FreeReading

  Could this be an option for RTI? How would we fit it in to what we plan to offer?

  tags: reading, literacy, curriculum, RTI

I Love Visualization

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

• Welcome to Our Courts!

  This is one to watch for the coming school year

  tags: government, socialstudies, civics, history

• Photo

  Image from Scott McLeod that describes his daily process as he perceives it.

  tags: mcleod, learning, diagram, process

• My Report Card, 08-09 | The Line

  Great read by Dina Strasser about setting goals and providing feedback for yourself.

  tags: theline, professionaldevelopment, teaching, evaluation, assessment

Daily Diigo Links 06/08/2008

• Home :: World Without Oil

  tags: oil, games, interactive, connections

• FreeRice

  tags: vocabulary, charity, freerice, education

Daily Diigo Links 06/07/2008

• 26 Learning Games to Change the World | Mission to Learn

  I’d like to play a couple of these just to see how engaging they are.

  tags: Games, interactive, education, socialjustice, connections

• Metro Race Forum

  tags: running, racing, training

• The Four Rs: Rigor in Twenty-First-Century Schools | Edutopia

  tags: edutopia, envisionschools, connections, rigor, curriculum

  • We believe curriculum becomes rigorous when students are pushed not only to know information but also to apply and demonstrate their understanding of that information. We believe that requiring students to reflect on and analyze their thinking and learning might be the most challenging task you can require of a teenager.

• Zero-Thumb Game: How to Tame Texting | Edutopia

  Check out how this teacher is viewing the use of text message lingo in her classroom. Very forward-thinking stuff here.

  tags: texting, edutopia, connections, writing, language, innovation

  • guiding exercises in text translation: pulling up a MySpace page or a lingo-drenched school paper and asking students to translate the writing into standard English. Or they ask students to translate passages from classic literature into texting speak to demonstrate their comprehension of the writing and to create a form of multilingual focus, similar to how learning a foreign language tends to enhance a student’s understanding of his or her native tongue.

Daily Diigo Links 06/06/2008

• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The Collection. Newly Discovered Documents

  tags: primarysources, connections, history, gilderlehrman

• The Rules | Brain Rules |

  John Medina’s book about

  tags: brain, connections

• French podcasts

  tags: podcasts, French

• Pseudoscience – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Wikipedia entry point on pseudoscience

  tags: pseudoscience, connections, writing

  • Pseudoscience is defined as a body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific or made to appear scientific, but does not adhere to the scientific method,^[2][3][4] lacks supporting evidence or plausibility,^[5] or otherwise lacks scientific status.^[6] The term comes from the Greek root pseudo- (false or pretending) and “science” (from Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”). An early recorded use was in 1843 by French physiologist François Magendie,^[1] who is considered a pioneer in experimental physiology.

• How Things Work – How Things Work Home Page

  UVA’s site about how things work.

  tags: science, physics, knowledge, education

• Museum Mapping Initiative

  Google earth layers from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

  tags: mapping, googleearth, holocaust

• Comiqs | Create & Share your Comic Stories

  tags: cómics, comic, generator, digitalstorytelling

• ToonDoo – The Cartoon Strip Creator – Create, Publish, Share, Discuss!

  tags: cartoon, creativity, toondoo, comics

• Students find the presidential race is not politics as usual – USATODAY.com

  tags: usatoday, connections, election, politics

• rubrics home - Rubric Studio Home - RCampus

  pull from a bank or create your own rubric here.

  tags: rubrics, rubricmaker, assessment, grading

• How To: Build Instruction Around Your Region’s History | Edutopia

  tags: edutopia, connections, servicelearning, region, sparta

Daily Diigo Links 06/05/2008

• Convert iTunes to MP3 Format

  tags: itunes, MP3

• Education Week: ‘Soft Skills’ in Big Demand

  tags: connections, 21stcenturyskills, projects

Daily Diigo Links 06/02/2008

• kis21learning wiki / A “Digital Arts” Menu for Multiple Intelligences

  Clay’s great wiki geared at finding web resources that fit multiple intelligence learning.

  tags: multipleintelligences, web2.0, assessment, nti, connections

Daily Diigo Links 05/29/2008

• Burning Questions: So, How Many Albums Will Usher Actually Sell?

  tags: no_tag

  • The biggest first weeks of the year so far have been Mariah Carey’s E=MC2, with close to 475,000 sold, followed by the Jack Johnson album I’m too indifferent about to look up the title for with 380,000. You’d have to think Usher will top Johnson for certain, and likely Carey as well, but when Confessions opened with nearly 1.1 million in 2004, that topping the half million mark first week is a question says something about the last four years for the industry.

• Alltop, all the top stories

  Don’t know why I haven’t put this in my bookmarks before. Collector of the top news stories on a variety of issues. Created by Guy Kawasaki.

  tags: aggregator, news, web2.0, rss, alltop

• Poll Everywhere | Simple Text Message (SMS) Voting and Polling, Audience Response System (ARS), PowerPoint Polling

  text your vote poll creations. This is great for workshops and meetings.

  tags: polls, survey, web2.0, collaboration

From Scott McLeod

I am really digging the work that Scott McLeod is doing via his blog.  Over the last few months he has recognized great commentors, blogs that deserve a bigger audience, and sponsored a button making contentst for NECC.  But what really grabs me is his call to leaders in our field to “get it,” and do so quickly.  This button sums it up for me.  How are you making something happen?

Exit Comments from New Teacher Induction

I’ve been going through the comments left by the New Teachers the other day in their exit cards and I thought I would take the time to post them for review here. Regardless if they are read by a large audience or not, they are already proving useful to me. To continue along the “be the change you want to see in others” vein, the information we are getting from these comments is already shaping the format for next month’s meeting. What amazes me is how easy it was to elicit feedback that is useful to my planning. I remember being in the classroom searching for meaningful information to help me plan my lessons, and the last thing I thought of was asking the students what they thought and what they needed. But when I did, the results were exactly what I needed. I hope these are of some value to anyone who has been reading the last few posts.

“What I Learned:”

• To have students come up with their own goals and feedback–triggers brain to work and students assess themselves
• The information of timely feedback was very interesting. It makes sense, but it’s good to see the research to back it up.
• I learned a lot of interesting ways to have students self-evaluate–mostly from talking to colleagues who are doing great things.
• Students can effectively monitor their own progress and this form of feedback is strongly affective
• Feedback should be corrective and provide discussion of why the response was correct or incorrect and what makes a response correct or incorrect.
• There are some very creative and productive ways to modify my objectives and goals
• Feedback should be immediate after a test
• How important it is to have student input
• How to incorporate several structures in a seamless way.
• It is important to set flexible goals; kinesthetic learning is more fun
• Student self-assessment is important and should be included in lesson planning.
• Setting goals and objectives can be negative. Students sometimes miss the big picture.
• There are many ways to set goals with students.
• Feedback should be provided rapidly in various forms
• Learned the RAFT technique
• I learned that other subject areas have students self-assess in a similar manner. This is truly a universal method.
• Goals are more effective when they are student driven.
• I learned that there are many ways to get information across. I like incorporating the different styles of learning–kinesthetic, intrapersonal, verbal, doing group activities.
• I have the students set goals and give feedback, but not consistently. In my class it could work to do it everyday. I could structure my class all around this if I remember.
• Have students involved in setting the learning objectives.
• The real importance of feedback and the timeliness of it.
• Goals should not be too specific; allow students to personalize them.
• To focus on making my goals attainable and not to forget that students should be involved in goal setting.
• Give feedback in a timely manner
• That goal setting in the kindergarten level is not much different than the High School level.
• I learned that it is really important to provide students with goals for each lesson. I sometimes am not consistent when I do this and when I do remember, I know they get more out of the lesson. I also learned that timely feedback is important.
• When given the opportunity, students can assess themselves and provide feedback to themselves directly. This is an example of becoming a mature person who is capable of self-reliance and growth. We should, as teachers, provide this often and encourage it in other situations.
• I learned it was important to be more specific when providing feedback–target particular areas.
• That goals need to be more personal.
• Today I realized how important quick feedback is to students.
• I learned how amazing it is that different grade levels and subject areas can use the same “modified” ideas to attain goals in student achievement.
• The fluidity of groups to increase learning.
• Importance of setting goals. Impact of immediate feedback.
• I learned that it is really important to set specific goals in planning. I also learned that feedback is more influential in learning than I previously thought.
• I found the idea of students creating their own learning objectives interesting. My curiosity is piqued about incorporating this into the novels I teach.
• Corrective feedback has a “shelf-life” and if I wait too long, the lesson is lost.
• Goals need to be more general and not too specific otherwise students get so focused on the specific goal that they miss out on the other learning.
• New ways to include students in their learning and assessment.
• The description of goal-setting is similar to backward design in the sense of general direction and fundamental understandings.

“What I would change:”

• I think the structure of the lessons have improved already since September.
• Wow, I liked actually trying the strategies rather than talking about them. I wonder if we could have some concrete examples of how teachers use goals and feedback.
• Wow! I liked the flexibility of today’s lesson.
• I liked the session–It would be helpful to debrief the reading so we understand your perspective on the readings.
• The “Wow,” exercise was easy to do, but the “wonder,” part was hard to do about the same statement.
• Walk and talk was difficult because you had to write, too!
• I wonder if you could have let us in on your lesson plan. I had no idea what we were learning about until it was all over.
• I wonder if my students feel the same way about doing group work?
• Thought it was very well done. More geared toward the elementary level?
• At first it was difficult to understand your goal for the lesson.
• At this point–no questions. I really enjoyed going through each of the structures.
• The activities were useful, but I think there were a bit too many. I wonder how this would have worked if we cut one or two out?
• Very organized; I enjoyed it very much.
• How can you get the students to strive for their goals and feedback when it is lacking choices and options. Loved being able to talk with other teachers–more personal info and helpful to grow.
• So far this has been one of my favorite professional developments. I liked actively testing out the different strategies and giving and getting feedback to different groups. The activities made the learning more fun. Thanks!
• We touched on it, but perhaps one or two more lessons and even some demos of differentiated instruction
• I wonder if we could have new teacher meetings everyday. I learned a lot about goals and differentiated instruction.
• I enjoyed moving around. I wonder if we could have established an overall goal at the beginning of the session.
• I enjoyed today’s time. Although at times the activity seemed confusing or the guidelines for completing the activity seemed vague it all came together nice and clear in the end.
• Spend more time outside.
• Provide every teacher with a MacBook!
• Practicing group activities was beneficial.
• More time to develop lessons and activities using some of the concepts presented.
• I feel a lot of the topics discussed would be more beneficial with some veteran teachers instead of all 1st year teachers–they know what works better.
• I thought the first chart we had to fill out was confusing.
• It’s good to talk to peers in different grade levels and subject areas to learn new ideas.
• The first part of the meeting was confusing, but then it was really clear and helpful.
• I enjoyed moving and talking/collaborating with other teachers. More of the same would be fantastic.
• I did not feel that the instructional goals section had much value. The readings were widely interpreted and more guidance was needed.
• Liked the way the lesson was guided and not completely structured. This allowed for more creativity and interaction between colleagues.
• Make sure reading was done ahead of time and then we could recap.
• I really liked this meeting because I am a big fan of cooperative learning. I learned a lot of different structures today that I will definitely implement in my classroom.
• Enjoyed the co-op groups and actually met new people!
• Being active is important to me. I learn so much more when i play a role in the lesson.
• I liked the different activities we did today. It was interesting to meet with other teachers at different levels and subjects.
• There were too many activities today. Hard to take it all in.

Image Credit: “Teacher,” by Paradox Blue

Using Cooperative Learning Structures to Teach Teachers

from animoto.com posted with vodpod

Each month, we meet with our first year teachers in the district to help them adjust to the expectations and the rigors of being in the classroom everyday. I have spoken about this before, but the program uses Marzano, et al’s, book Classroom Instruction That Works as a framework for teaching strategies that are research-based and effective. More than anything we do instructionally, the workshops always help the teachers come together to discuss success and failure in their classrooms; it provides them with a support structure in which they can reflect on their practice and share their uncertainties about what they are doing.

Last month we spent some time with cooperative learning structures and how to use them to help students take responsibility for their own learning through collaboration. The feedback we got from that meeting was really positive, so this month we decided to use the structures as a means to teach the next theme in the book: Goal-Setting and Feedback.

One of the most significant parts of my own learning this year has been to make every attempt I can to be a practitioner of what I teach. You have read it here before: “Be the change you want to see in others.” So when we were planning this month, Dan and I created the sessions entirely around learning structures and reaching as many intelligences as we could. Here is a list of what we did and the accompanying structures:

• Clock Buddies: as soon as they walked in we handed them appointment clocks on paper and asked them to make appointments at 12 (with someone not in your building), 3 (with someone in your building), 6 (someone in your subject area), and 9 (random). We used these throughout the session to organize ourselves.
  • this got them moving and engaging and really set the tone for their activity level for the day.
• RAFT: Sternberg created this concept based on his three intelligences. What we did is ask the teachers to write an entry on their blog using the idea of choosing a Role (object in their classroom, a student in their classroom, an observing administrator), an Audience (a parent, an administrator, a reluctant c colleague, etc.) a Format (classified ad, instruction manual, letter to the editor, observation narrative, etc.) and write about a Topic (why should we use cooperative learning structures in the classroom?).
  • immediately it got them thinking differently because we asked them to reflect via a different modality then they were used to. A little cognitive dissonance is a good thing!
• Walk and Talk: They read a section of the book on their own, then we used our 12 o’clock buddies and asked each group to do some guided reflection using a graphic organizer. However, we asked them to do it while on a Walk and Talk. Since yesterday was a gorgeous day here in New Jersey, we allowed them to walk anywhere on the school grounds, inside or out, and asked them to discuss the reading and fill in the graphic organizer as they strolled.
• “Wows and Wonders:” More reading was done independently and then we used our 3 o’clock buddies and paired the groups up to form larger groups. Since we were talking about goal setting, we asked each teacher to write a brief statement about how they use goal setting in their classroom. We then used a Round Robin format where they passed their statement to the left. Each person was responsible for writing a “Wow,” on the page and then passed it along to the next person in the circle until eventually they all received their own page back. We did the same again, only this time we asked each person to write a “Wonder,” statement on each other’s page.
  • This allowed everyone to get positive feedback, but also framed the constructive feedback in the form of a suggestive question, which works a lot better than a “you should have done this” statement.
• Four Corners: After reading the feedback section in the book, we asked the teachers to pick one of the four research points made in the reading as the one that they would like to have a discussion about. Each corner of the room represented a different point. They moved to that corner and were asked to use a graphic organize to lead their discussion about that point.
• Numbered Heads: as they discussed, we walked around and gave numbers to each group member. When it came time to wrap up, we picked numbers randomly and asked that that person tell us what their group discussed about a certain point within their topic.
  • this gave everyone time to add additional information to their organizer and hear points that pushed their own thinking.
• Parking Lot: also as they were discussing feedback, Dan and I circled the room and distributed a blue and a yellow post-it not to everyone. We asked that on the yellow they tell us something about their own learning from the day’s session–what did you learn today? On the blue, we asked that they help us with our learning–what could we have done differently today? As they left the room for the day, they put the yellows on one wall and the blues on another.

We are in the process of sorting our notes out and going over the feedback (it was just yesterday), but I could already see that the teachers were engaged with one another at a level that we’d seen glimpses of before but couldn’t sustain. Also, on a selfish note, I did so much less talking, used so much less tech, and spent so much more time listening than I had in any of the the previous meetings.

If we are truly about changing the way our schools work, about reforming our practices to meet the needs of students, modeling said practices and methods should be the first order of business. Think of your next factulty meeting. How much will you move about the room to discuss an issue or concern or theory (trips to the food area don’t count)? Will the dialog be one-way, two-way, or circular and constant?

I realize that all meetings and sessions vary, and that decisions about presentation and lesson design are germane to the material itself, but when we can we should use what we know to produce lessons, meetings, professional development courses that we would want to sit through. Ask yourself, would you want to be in your class?

On “Becoming a Better Teacher”

Today, I spent a good portion of the day preparing for tomorrow’s monthly meeting with our first-year teachers. In doing so, Dan and I often enter into conversations about what the ideal situation would be for our first-year teachers to find themselves in a few years down the line. Mostly, the conversation centers on asking teachers to share what they do, as we have some extremely talented educators not only in our district, but also within this crop of new teachers.

Darren Draper’s latest post, which pulls a page from Carl Glickman’s book Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed. I’ve recopied the page here because Glickman makes points that I couldn’t possibly state any better.

ah44j8d3ksr8_313f3wgp2cw_b (image) via kwout

As Darren quotes at the bottom of his post:

“How do teaching and learning improve? The answer is no mystery. It’s as simple as this: I cannot improve my craft in isolation from others” (p. 4).

Our push with the teachers we work with is not to call them out or catch them doing something wrong: it’s quite the contrary. We want to catch them being competent, and we don’t necessarily need to be the ones doing the “catching.” The concept of peer review, or as Glickman notes above “welcoming visitors with experience and expertise,” into classrooms, is, in my view, essential to the success of both teachers and the schools they work in.

What troubles me is how to proceed. What are the steps you take to get your staff to the point where they want feedback from others in their room? I don’t think it’s inconceivable for many teachers out there to be leery of having visitors come into the classroom without specific criteria in place, but in the same vein, Glickman makes a great case why we need collaborative professional contact.

Tomorrow’s meeting is one I am looking forward to, as we’ve planned the class completely using Kagan’s Structures. Lately, it’s gotten into my head to, as if I haven’t said this enough this year, be the change. Instead of talking about what good teaching should look like, I’d like to model it in the work that I do with other teachers. Tomorrow is a first step of sorts, and I am sure it will give me much to reflect about, whether or not it succeeds.

• Glickman, C. (2002). Leadership for learning: How to help teachers succeed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Editor’s Note: Without realizing it, I totally ripped off Darren’s post title.  I apologize for that.  Since the initial posting last night, I have changed the title.  Sorry for the oversight.

Radiohead and Your Classroom

What does this announcement, via Read/Write Web, say to us about the types of consumers our students are or will become?

Rock band Radiohead has already pushed the envelope in the past year by first releasing their new album under a pay-what-you-want price scheme in October, and then calling on fans to create a music video
for any of the album’s songs in March. Now the band is at it again,
teaming with Apple, makers of iTunes and GarageBand, to launch a public
remix contest.

The contest offers up the single “Nude” from the album for remix.
The band has for sale on iTunes “stems” for the bass, voice, guitar,
strings/fx and drums for the song and anyone who purchases all five
gets access to a GarageBand file that can be opened in GarageBand or
Logic.

Until May 1st, the public can vote for their favorite remix, and
remix authors can use a MySpace or Facebook widget to allow fans on
social networks to vote for them. The prize, though, is just that
Radiohead promises to “listen to the best.”

To me, it speaks to everything Larry Lessig was talking about a few years ago at TED, when he told us how these generations would interact with electronic media.

This also points us to the fact that our students today have an altogether different view of intellectual property. Is what Radiohead is doing counterproductive to our efforts to teach responsible copyright? Does it muddy the water?

Common sense and an appeal to my preferred view of the future of copyright (heavily focused on the use of Creative Commons) tell me that this is not so, that Radiohead is onto something here that more and more artists will do to capitalize on participatory culture.

The Fastest Growing Segment

Thanks to Scott McLeod for posting this on his blog recently. This highlights something we often neglect to mention when talking about the 21st Century learner: their age. Too frequently, we focus on students being those that are youthful in age, but forsake those youthful in mind. This video clearly points out that ceasing to learn and adapt as you age is not an option for every generation under 60.

We work with teachers to help provide our students with the optimum environments for learning.  What are we doing to help our teachers optimize their learning?

ASCD Reflection

Being the first giant conference I have ever been to, and being the first non-tech-centered one as well, ASCD was fascinating on a few levels. The oddest thing about it was the fact that I chose not be connected via internet (god bless the iPhone and Twitter) for most of the conference. It might be a silent protest, but paying for wireless internet in hotels doesn’t sit well with me, especially when I am fronting the money. We listen often to people talk about the ubiquity of free Internet we will see in the future, but I feel it’s a long way off. More and more businesses are choosing to put proprietary restraints on the use of their wireless networks. Let’s use the Google model here: give it away and we will stay and use your product. Or at least we will give the perception to passersby that we are enjoying your business. I’ll end that rant there.

Bigger issues seem to dominate my thinking lately, issues such as school change and culture change within our society. My reading and writing tends to focus on the areas of motivating people to want something better, and giving them the means to create it for themselves. I am not going to be dishonest, I have goals and ideas that I would like to see put in place not only in schools, but in the larger picture as well (stay tuned for the world domination post to come shortly); however, I am wise enough, I think, to know that what I want matters little if the people I work with don’t see the value in it.

On the way down here, I sat next to a gentleman named Simon Sinek, of Sinek Partners. A while back, in my days as an expatriate in Greece, I worked for man who taught me that airline flights were the best places to go to school. “Interesting people fly and travel,” he said. Talk to the people around you on the plane.” So I took Fouad’s advice and struck up a conversation with this gentleman to my left. It turns out that Simon had an idea that he was trying to spread that involved asking corporations, individuals, government, or whoever would listen to articulate to themselves and others why they do the things they do. Without knowledge of and presentation of the “why” no one will be able to understand you, or better still, buy into what you are doing.

Often, he said, we confuse the “what” with the “why.” In business, people rarely buy the “what,” but more likely buy the “why.” I use Apple computers, and if you asked me why, I would probably rattle off that their design is intuitive, they are less buggy, I like the interface, etc. But what I would leave out would be the essential part of why I use them: I subconsciously buy into Steve Jobs ideal of irreverence and individuality. We might say the “what’s,” but only because we can’t articulate the “why.” I’ll admit it, I bought into “Think Different,” and why wouldn’t I? It’s a fantastic ideal.

Translating all of that into my practice, we ask our schools to change, and we say we need to change so that we “promote lifelong learning,” “create students capable of excelling in the 21st Century,” or any one of the mission statement buzzwords we might put there. But do we articulate why we do the things we do? What if I told my teachers that I wanted to inspire them to be innovative? Leave the kids out of it for a moment, and focus on the teachers. Inspire and innovate. I don’t have to tell them what that looks like, I have to model it in my own practice. Innovation comes from the fringes. Ric Murry and I had a banter back and forth about this via twitter the other day, but I think we can understand that teaching is not a “fringe,” but the model still works; it’s just semantics. Our teachers should be the ones leading the change and innovating. My role in all of this is to help provide the “why”. Steve Jobs didn’t make the iPod, he made the idea of an iPod possible. Teachers should be sharing their “innovations” with one another regularly, and I should be connecting them to one another to help spread that innovation.

Comparing what I do to what Steve Jobs does makes me feel way too self-important, but I think it’s an easy way to see the relationship between what we sometimes lack in schools and where we need to go.We don’t need mission statements, but rather leaders that inspire through action and empathy. Ginsberg’s session on Friday gave me a great insight into how to create a community of teachers that cares not only about one another, but about the level of teaching in the building: observations should be done with a group of teachers, as well as an administrator. Group observations and group debriefings, all with a common language and goals will become commonplace.

My thinking is shifting once again, and this time it’s shifting toward inclusion. Get on board, and grab an oar.

The Key to Moving People is Moving People

Part of what we do as teachers and learners is report back on what we find out in our personal inquiries.  As teachers it was done on a daily basis with our students.  We helped them disseminate the information that they need to be successful.  As administrators, the number of presentations often lessens, but the audience usually increases; at any one time there could be up to 100 people in the room we are presenting in.

What strategies were successful for us when we stood in front of students and helped them make sense of information?  What can we take from our time in the classroom and make it work for us as presenters?

Saturday at ASCD, I changed my schedule around so that I could attend a workshop by Deborah Estes, a presenter, former teacher and administrator from Texas.  The title is what originally caught my eye: “Brain-Friendly Presentation Skills.”

I present frequently to my departments, and I’ve struggled recently with creating engaging content.  Not that what I am saying is earth-shattering stuff, but I know that there are moments in my presentations that I need to invite the audience to digest what I am saying and give me feedback.  Sitting in Estes’ presentation, I learned that I have not been nearly observant enough of my audience; your audience and being able to read them and redirect them through the use of movement, storytelling, and, of all things, touch, determines the success or failure of your message.  Information without reflection and discussion does nothing for learners.  Give them the chance to hash out what you are saying and clarify it for one another and you stand a much better chance of making a difference in their learning.

Right from the start, Estes subtly began to coerce me into her presentation.  I was early by about 20 minutes, but she was much earlier than me.  She greeted me with a handshake and used my name (name-tag) when she did.

Points #1 and #2: Be early and set up at least 30 minutes before your scheduled start to greet your audience by name and appropriate touch (handshake) as they enter.

As she began to speak to the room of 150+ people, like most presenters, she gave her background and brief bio.  Hers was not done as a description of credentials or current occupation, but rather the story of how she became a teacher, coach, administrator, and speaker.  It was done structurally, meaning she related herself to all levels of educators: high school teachers, middle school teachers, and elementary teachers.  Each part of her opening story, which took about 5 minutes, had relevance to someone in the room because in our lives we, too, held or currently hold one of the positions she did.  More than that, her stories were relative to experiences we have all had.

Point #3: Use the power of storytelling to share information.  We remember best when we give our information context.

One of the most powerful things she did was move us.  Not the kind where we were emotionally moved, but rather we physically moved around the room.  In the 90+ minutes we were there, we moved over 15 times.  We conversed, we shared information and discussed the topics in the handout on our own terms, but in ways that she dictated.

Point #4: Move people.  Look at your audience and find clues that they are disengaging.  When you see the nods or the glazed eyes, change their state.

Some examples of what we did:

• Moved to another seat
• Turned and talked
• Four corners of the room (body voting)
• Invented names
• Hand voting (raise your hand and think of a number, use your fingers to represent the number, then find someone else in the room who has that number.  When you do, discuss the topic with them).
• People bingo
• Touch blue (simply walk around the room and touch something blue)
• Take your neighbor for a walk around the room while discussing the topic at hand.

Another thing I often struggled with is the format of how I present.  Should I do straight lecture and give a handout with all of the cute slides on the handout?  What other options are out there?  Estes presented us with at least 10 examples of how to change up the format of your lecture.

Point #5: Transfer of information does not have to be in the format that we all learned it: the straight lecture.  What if your audience knows a great deal about the topic you are covering?  Why spend time on the details if they already have them?  Give them the opportunity to list everything they know about the topic.  Have them present it to the crowd.  Based on what they know, amend your presentation on the fly and allow your group to go deeper into the topic.

After leaving the room, I realized that not only had I met over 20 people during the course of her presentation due to the movement and socialization, but I reflected on the attitudes of the staff that I work with as they receive information during faculty or department meetings.  Wow.  I see the source of their boredom and frustration.  They are disconnected from the information because they never have time to reflect on it.  The subtleties of presenting were on display for me today, and I thank Deborah Estes for sharing them with me.

Technorati Tags: presentation, deborahestes, ascd08, ascd, brainresearch,

Notes from ASCD Pre-conference Session: Motivation and School Change

New Orleans is a quiet city, if taken in at the right moments. We woke early today to get out before the city woke up and began its consistent cycle of reveling. A run through the streets of the quarter, over cobblestones and remnants of the previous night, set the tone for our day.
We were scheduled to attend a pre-conference workshop given by Margery Ginsberg from the University of Washington-Seattle. When we sat down a few weeks back to select this one, Dan, Kathy and I saw it as an opportunity to learns some strategies for moving the district forward. What we have been learning over the course of the last few weeks via feedback from meetings and conversations with the faculty is that they need to buy in to what is going on; they need to feel part of the change that is occurring.
Ginsberg’s workshop, titled, Motivation and School Change, came for us at a crucial time. Tremendous change is afoot in our buildings with construction and the impact it has on curriculum. We need to be able to provide framework for our staff to feel validated and know that they are essential to improving how we educate our students. What we learned today gave us a few great strategies and a key to developing the framework for building trust, establishing a common language for our buildings (so they can begin to see themselves as learning communities), and giving teachers voice.
Some of the things we discussed regarding motivation:
• Motivation based on improving test scores is a short term gain (Sinek would say that you are motivating based on a “what”: an outcome rather than an idea)
• Intrinsic motivation should be to love learning (this is a “why”) An effect of this type of motivation might be improved test scores.
• Motivation focused on classroom learning—also focused on those who do that.
Lesson Study:
• Finding teachers willing to make their own teaching public.
• Talking in explicit terms about instructional practice
• “Catch them in the act of being competent.”
• Video is huge.
• Asking teachers to share lessons and/or teaching practices.
• What does learning look like when all of our curriculum has relevance to student’s lives.
• How do you combat entitlement among staff—those that feel they are entitled to their position and there is no need to move forward.
What are some moments where you felt like you were: Creative, Capable, and Joyful?
• Birth of Parker and realization that I am now capable of doing this, being a parent.
What do people, especially teachers need in order to feel motivated?
• Positive Feedback- Give teachers feedback that is substantive and positive while still providing food for thought. Nothing punitive here.
• Successful Outcomes- teachers, anyone for that matter, needs to know that what they are a part of is destined for success.
• Validation- how do you provide them with the tools and support they need to feel like what they are doing is the right thing?
Strategies used during the workshop:
• Human Highlighters: people designated as speakers in a large group. Use them for giving voice and summarizing what they group might be feeling. Select several
• Carousel: each group works on a question, writes the answers down on their paper then passes the paper to another group. On the one you receive, they are to underline the things that they agree with, plus add to the list with their new ideas.
• Wows and Wonders- when giving feedback to teachers, use a system of Wows to describe positive contributions and attributes of the lesson and teacher. When attempting to give some constructive feedback, phrase it in the form of a “I wonder if..” or a “how could you…”
o “I wonder if you had the chance to think about…”
o “I wonder what would have happened if you did this…”
Central Characteristics of Schools that change well:
• Shared Language of instruction and change.
• Adult Collaboration
o Make time for it
o Expect it and encourage it.
• Creative Data
• System-wide Advocacy
o All shareholders feel like they can voice their concerns and be heard equally
o Students, parents, teachers, administrators
• “signature” or “identity
o Figure out the “why” before you figure out the how.
o Who are we?
4 Norms for Groups to build trust
• Honor the absence of others
o No talking behind each other’s backs.
• State challenges in problem-solving terms. Speak as if things can be solved.
o Maintain a problem solving disposition
• No blame, because it is too easy.
• Respectful listening, which can be defined by the group.
• Teach each other in the moment.

“New Orleans at Disneyland” from matthewsage’s photostream

Reaction from a conversation I overheard

I think it was at EduCon, but it could have been from somewhere before that, or even in a twitter discussion, but Joyce Valenza was given credit for coining the phrase “I want to be a widget in your learning space.”

That got me thinking, and since I have been playing around with using iGoogle or Pageflakes as the hub of a class I am creating, I told myself to try to find out if that is possible: a teacher with a presence in their students learning space. This is the closest I have come.  I built it using something called Sprout, which was fairly easy to navigate.  Go check it out and see what you think of its potential.

I know I took the quote literally, but the ideas coming out of this are pretty intense:

• marketing classes designing page-specific ads
• running for student council?  Why not insert widgets into your friends pages on Facebook or Myspace?
• use the RSS feed aspect of the widget to have pertinent class information displayed immediately on your widgets (edits follow the widgets wherever they are placed).

What are you ideas?

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.

Five Ideas To Think About

 

I don’t know if this was prompted by the fact that he came up and said hello to me last night, or by the fact that the title of his post, Reality Bytes, struck me, but David Jakes has got me thinking about the five main points he brings up in his most recent post at TechLearning. When we spend so much time speaking of changing schools, whether you buy into what Alvin Toefler is saying or not, we often forget that we are a supreme minority, we edubloggers. That real change is a much bigger elephant that we are going to need a lot of help in biting over time.

According to David, “the conversation forgets:”

1. That schools, like the one on Main Street in Downers Grove, and the schools that are in your community, can indeed be successful.

I work in a public school system. We are bound by a state-mandated curriculum, bound by every regulatory principle under Title 18A of the New Jersey State Constitution, and participate in every mandatory data collection via assessment. That system is not changing; those responsibilities are not changing.

We are also a state with a powerful and active teacher’s union who does some great work for teachers. Any changes that are made within my schools will have to done with these two aspects in mind. This is possible because of the staff that we have and the vision that we have for our students. It’s just going to be much different than some of the visions we see and hear about as we read.

2. That school change, school reform, whatever you want to call it, can emerge from within schools themselves.

The most important aspect, and this came up in a brief conversation with Kristin Hokanson last night at the Franklin Institute, is that there are so many people involved in this conversation that are classroom teachers. I love to hear what Scott Meech, George Mayo, and Brian Crosby are doing because it is practical change. For someone like me, and this point was reflected in the comment from John Maklary, I am out of the classroom so I may not “get it” as much as I used to. Seeing best practices evolve from around the world helps me speak about change in practice with my teachers, and then show them the examples and put them into contact with these practitioners.

This is a grass-roots movement in that it’s not mandated from above. No one is telling you that you have to connect your classroom to the world. We would like you to see it for yourself.

3. That we know how to educate kids.

Our teachers did not suddenly unlearn how to teach, how to care, and how to lead. There is in every school those that should not be there, but you would find that in any profession. Currently, I am immersed with several groups of veteran teachers in professional study groups centered around the ideas of questioning skills, differentiated instruction, cooperative learning, collaborative teaching, student assessment methods, instructional practices, and unit and lesson design using Understanding by Design. Our teachers are still learners, and they want to hone their practice. If they don’t, well that is a different story, but one that again, plays out in any field.

This is as, Ben Wilkoff used the term last year, a “ripe environment” for change. Professional development in New Jersey is mandated. Mandated, but not enforced. Still, teachers are continually looking for development. Let’s make sure we offer the kind we need to facilitate the change we want to see.

4. That students still need to be placed in rigorous, challenging learning environments where they learn things like writing, math, civics, and science.

The relevance of this statement will always remain profound. It’s the geography of it that will change. By this I mean that where we teach these subjects, not just physically but topically, will change. We are currently in a re-design phase for our business and technology department at the high school and we are thinking of creating a series of open classrooms where the students are not only taught in the specific class that they signed up for, but exposed to other classes and ideas as well in one large open room. The possibilities for collaboration and exploration are boundless. We will have our subject areas, but the boundaries between them won’t resemble anything we know now. Still, this has to come from within your staff and not from a mandate. Let it be organic.

5. That not all kids are tech-savvy.

This fact is becoming a hot topic, not only in the edublogosphere, but in our individual buildings. Our students are not terribly academic online. I’ve written on several occasions about my experience with students and content management, and we had an instance the other day where a student was complaining about having to check the class wiki for update. What he is missing, and what our role as teachers in this era should be, is to teach him how to set up a reader to monitor it for him through RSS, rather than having to be a slave to a page load.

Either way, David got me thinking about these things. I love radical change as much as the next guy, but will it get us where we want to go. What is it they say about asking for what you want….

 

Image credit: “schoolhouse in a field of oats” at Mc Morr’s photostream

 

What are you Aiming for?

After a short day at the office, Dan and I headed down to Philly for Educon 2.0. Leaving work behind, I have to say, was a relief; I think we both needed some time away from the rigors of work (but I have to say, leaving the family was not easy–miss them way too much right now).

I laid kind of low tonight and avoided the really big gatherings, not for reasons of anti-socialness, but more to get centered before tomorrow begins. To be honest, this is my first “big idea” conference, where most of the people whose conversations I have participated in are here. There are definite goals I have going into tomorrow, and tonight was a good time to get them ordered and centered.

• we’ve worked very hard to establish the groundwork for change in our district, but where do we go from where we are?
• How do we create a “felt need” for open professional development and creation of personal learning environments for teachers to participate in dynamic learning alongside their students?
• What are the best practices involved with this thing we are calling School 2.0? If I am going to continue pushing for innovation, I am going to need to be armed with strategies and materials for them to grow with.

My schedule for tomorrow breaks down like this, at least for now:

1. Session 1: Influence without Authority: Finding the Common Ground to Frame Innovation and Change with Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez
2. Session 2: Tearing Down the Walls – Practicing What We Preach with Vinnie Vrotny and David Jakes
3. Session 3: Building School 2.0 — New Tools and Dewey’s Dream with Chris Lehmann

At the conclusion of the sessions, I will be leading a reflection session from 4:00-5:00, which I hope to do as little interfering with conversation as possible.

Sunday is still up in the air, as it should be. I want tomorrow’s conversation to dictate where I end up.

I look forward to hearing from all of you out there as the weekend goes on.

Alan November Notes, 1/21/08

Some highlights from Alan November’s keynote:

China

• Rigor is expected not only by teachers and parents, but also by students.
• Lifestyle we give our students here can be dangerous as compared to Chinese students
  • they are earning their lifestyle
  • we are giving our students a sense of entitlement

India

• produces 500,000 engineers per year
• we produce 50,000
• Cisco is moving their headquarters to India
  • 80% of the world’s population is within a five-hour plane ride from India
  • that part of the world is growing faster than this part.

We have to overhaul what we are doing

• rethink creativity, innovation and imagination
• We are the last industrialized nation that values test scores the way we do.
• It’s a numbers game-gifted children v. total children in America

What is your role?

• how do you teach children who will have to compete globally?
• Tear this apart; debate it
• Who owns the learning? Who should own the learning?
• Who knows more about technology?
• If technology was gone tomorrow, would you still be able to teach?
• Let go.

Commander of West Point ordered his staff to introduce Islam into the curriculum whenever possible.

• Literature student from West Point anecdote about the Pope quoting from a 14th century scholar
  • Professor asks students to do a web search on the impact of Pope’s speech in Turkey
• host, link, URL

Job of a teacher: Idea #1-You must teach critical thinking as early as possible

Job #2 You can have fantastic social skills over the web.

Job #3 You should become a fantastic researcher using the internet.

Job #4 You should have the ability to empower children to be a learner. Give them a stake.

would adding an authentic audience add value to your teaching?

My PLN

Something I have been working on for a presentation coming up this week; it seems so unfinished, but I don’t want to get too specific as a lot of the people at the conference will be new to the concept.

I’d love to hear some reactions, or better yet, some links back to your own maps.

The gOS. Make your Business Administrator Happy with This One.

gOS – Discover a good OS. via kwout

It’s been a while since I posted about an app or a tech topic, but this one was too good…

I took one look at this the other day and thought immediately of the decrepit group of ThinkPads we have sitting around the Tech Department and how they could suddenly be revitalized as internet machines with some really great functionality.

Maybe I am jumping on the open source in education bandwagon a little late, but here’s to those of you out there who are cranking out all of these fantastic applications and interfaces for the rest of us to marvel at and be productive.

We are installing it tonight, so I hopefully will have some reports on its functionality tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: opensource, gos, linux, google, education, edtech, osef

Process Re-Design, Part I

I had a great Christmas. I realized a few things, saw my son explode with joy over the least likely gift, spent some quiet time with my wife, and had one of the most meaningful and perfectly timed conversations with my uncle.

Everyone should have an Uncle Bill like mine. He was an executive for various corporations for over 30 years, specializing in systems, which, during his time, meant that he was in charge of initiating change in process design for production and data analysis. He was the guy who brought computers to your parent’s or grandparent’s office and redesigned their jobs.

On Christmas day, after everyone had left the house, we sat down while my daughter snored on my chest, and we talked about change, and why it doesn’t make great bedfellows with workplace harmony. Just some light holiday banter, right?

That conversation, coupled with what I’ve been reading lately have pointed me towards some new ideas, ideas that I am going to use the next few days of quiet time to figure out.

Last week, Barry Bachenheimer, a fellow New Jerseyan, came to some realizations after thinking about professional development in his district. His aptly titled post, “Everything You Know is Wrong,” expressed a desire that we are going about helping our students and teachers in the wrong way if we offer them traditional methods to learn and grow. If you have given a workshop lately, what was expected of you by your audience? What did you deliver? For me, I have tried to move away from “sit and get,” and more towards “here is what you can do, here is the way to get started.” Lowered attendance and more requests for “specific activities we can take with us” have given me pause about the state of where we are professionally.

Barry advocates an idea, and I will gladly catch that grenade and chuck it farther:

For many teachers who are late adapters of technology and whom it is a struggle to get them to use digital tools to foster these ideas, we shouldn’t bother. I would argue it might be more important for them to effectively develop critical thinking, cooperative learning, and analysis skills for their students with paper and chalk rather than do it marginally with a SMART Board and a laptop.

Uncle Bill and I spoke about where your change comes from, who you target and who you tacitly neglect in the interest of the greater good. In an era where we are so focused on time, do we have it to spend on those that are not willing to accept change? I am more inclined to agree with Clay Burell, in his comment on Barry’s post:

When I look back, I don’t see much to be proud of in education over the last decades. But maybe that’s just my own student experience speaking.

My problem is, I don’t see change happening quickly either. I don’t like the view behind or ahead.

Where was the engagement in my education? Identifying with Clay’s student experience, the engagement came when I was with a teacher who cared about their craft to push boundaries and ask me to think originally, as scary as that was at the time. Do educators who don’t push themselves to grow professionally, at least a little, have that ability to reach students?

While we sat and talked about resistance to change and how my role will be defined, Uncle Bill gave me this advice: “Your job is to make it better for those who are yet to be in your charge, not to make it acceptable for those currently in your charge.”

As believers in educational change, who are we working for? The students and teachers of today, or the students and teachers of tomorrow?

Image credit: “[re]design,” from Kate_A’s photostream

Technorati Tags: bach, clayburell, processredesign, change, education

The Timing, You Know?

Just as I am entering full-on anxiety mode, along comes Tracy Weeks’s post at LeaderTalk. Tomorrow is my official start date as Director of Curriculum for Humanities. Notice I capitalized that. I don’t think I’ve ever had a job title that needed to be capitalized before.

I’ve been thinking about what to expect as I make this transition, and I will admit, there is a lot of apprehension in changing roles; I’ve never known a job that was as diverse and challenging as the one I am leaving. What this next one holds, I don’t fully know, but the glimpses I have seen in the last few days show me that the stakes are higher, the responsibilities greater, and challenges more complex than any I have ever known. I’ve never been one to shy away from things that are difficult, and I have to say I am excited for the challenge.

Things do worry me, though. For example, the idea of change has been on that I’ve bandied about on this blog for a while now. How do you effectively institute it without alienating those that fear it most? And several of us have spoken in the past that people in the field of education have an odd relationship with change. For the most part, we see it as arbitrary, and often hitched to political agenda.

What I learned so well from being immersed in, for lack of a better term, “all things 2.0″ over the last year and a half, is that this change we immersed in did not come as a mandate from some overarching political edict. Rather, just the opposite. It has come from the needs of our students, and the desires of some extremely talented teachers who want to reach them with undeniably meaningful and timely lessons using sound pedagogy combined with new tools.

So I look at tomorrow morning with apprehension, but also renewed excitement, as I will take with me the skill set that I have honed up until this point in my career. Tracy spoke of a few things that I really liked, and plan to carry over in some way to my new role:

Being the Change
Tracy talks about using tools with people rather than just showing or telling about the tools. This idea is one I plan to implement as I will be involved in so many projects and groups and committees that keeping track of them will be daunting. Putting my theory into practice by using a wiki for organization, or really trying Google Groups to keep members up to speed will show how willing I am to push the “change” agenda forward, and do so with results in my own practice.

Leading and Learning by Example
One of the greatest by-products of my time as technology coordinator was how closely I was able to examine my own learning. The outcome of that introspection has helped me see the kinds of things that Will Richardson has been talking about for quite a while: teachers and administrators need to look at how they learn, just as they need to look at how their students learn. Getting teachers and administrators to come together to discuss how professional development is changing is a goal of mine, one that I have begun on our district blog, Tech Dossier, but would like to see spill over into what Tracy calls “Lunch n’ Learns.” When you get administrators and the teachers that work with them to the same table to discuss how things are changing, or the ideas that they have for working with students, or how to expand the walls of the classroom (or better, knock them down completely), you get honest change, and you get hope.

We’ll see how this goes. I know this is going to be transformative, and that my life will change dramatically as of tomorrow morning, but this is the right move. This is the direction my head has been going for a while anyway. Wish me luck.

Photo Credit: “Sidewalk Philosophy,” from babasteve’s photostream

Technorati Tags: curriculum, sparta, change, willrichardson, tracyweeks, edublogosphere

Aswirl

Influencing this post:
Karl Fisch’s Thought for the Day 11-25-07
Jeff Utecht’s Where’s the R&D in Education?

Karl Fisch excerpted this quote from Shelly Lazarus, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather:

We’re living in a world now where consumers are bombarded with thousands of commercial messages – they’re everywhere you look. Unless you cut through that and engage someone, I think you are lost. Consumers are now clearly in control. They control what they hear and see, when, and where. You have to find new ways to allow them to actively engage with you, or the money you spend is wasted.

and I immediately thought back to watching Seth Godin’s TED Talk in which he spoke about the noise created by advertising. Lazarus is on to something here, as is Karl with his appeal to the educational community. What’s the parallel?

Lazarus’s quote echoes what has been said many times over: engage them don’t enrage them because they have heard it all before. When Godin spoke, the most striking thing, and being an Apple geek I understand this all too well, was that he spoke about how the center of the populace doesn’t hold it for advertisers any longer; if you are going after the biggest demographic, you are going to lose and and lose bad. The niche market, the long tail, the early adopter is who you need in order to tip the scales in your product’s or idea’s favor. There’s the link–the early adopter, or as we like to call them here, the blue-bird.

Bear with me.

Jeff posted today about who is doing the R&D in education. He argues that it is us, the educational technologists, who are doing the majority of the testing and playing with new ideas. Taking Seth’s and Shelly’s ideas into consideration, we are the early adopters. It’s what we are paid to do, and, in my experience, what we are passionate about. However, is that where we should be heading? I’ve got this idea stuck in my head that the best way to transfer the R & D is not through my work, but the work of the early adopter, the blue-bird.

Have you ever seen teachers learn from one another? It’s magical, and quick! There is no wasted time, just “do this, do that, this works well, this doesn’t, let me know how you do.” While it is our responsibility to encourage and guide the early adopter, I am so amazed at how well teachers relate to one another when it comes to tackling new concepts, or as Jeff put it, R & D.

Here’s my plan: I want to begin shifting the professional development onto the blue-birds. They use these tools practically. They use them daily and see them for what they truly are. Couldn’t they offer classes in what they do? This is not a shirking of responsibilities by any means, but rather a hard look at effective transfer. Teachers learn well from teachers. In bouncing this idea around with a few colleagues, another great idea came out: why not co-teach the classes or at least Skype in one teacher they know during the workshop?

My role is to find the next thing, understand its pedagogical uses, and bring it to the faculty. The same ratios will apply in that you will get early adopters to whatever you are selling. But you will need them. They are your niche market, your standard bearers.

Technorati Tags: nichemarket, sethgodin, shellylazarus, karlfisch, jeffutecht, professionaldevelopment, education,

Expect the Unexpected

Maybe I am naive, but this comment on a recent student survey I conducted about using wikis in their AP class took me by surprise, especially based on most of the things we assume about this generation of students:

not make it so that you have to go on every night to check what is happening. It is turning into something like facebook or myspace just with history. i dont know about everyone but some people dont have time to check the internet everynight sometimes more than once.

Are our students as “connected” as we assume? This quote, while isolated, makes me wonder about the way this assignment is structured, and the way this student is relating to the assignment. Plus, are we taking for granted the fact that using something like a wiki is not a panacea.

Just another example of why it is NEVER about the technology, but ALWAYS about the teaching.

Flickr image credit: “Wiki Wiki Teriyaki,” from Parvati’s photostream

Technorati Tags: wiki, surveys, sparta, technology, pedagogy, education

My Thoughts on Mr. November

Friday, at TechForum New York, the keynote speaker was Alan November, of November Learning. Alan is someone whom I have read much about via other’s experiences in meeting him, attending BLC, or hearing him recently in Shanghai, but never really did any focused research on myself. Who was this guy, and why did he always leave behind a wake?

His bio in the conference program started off with a great piece of information: his first professional gig was that of an oceanography teacher at an alternative high school in Boston Harbor. Where can’t you go after that?

Needless to say, I was impressed, and tried to take notes on his presentation, but when your network shows up, it is difficult to stay focused on much other than your twitterstream. Also, however, I find it hard to take notes any more unless the speaker is talking about something other than tools. Thankfully, Alan seemed to care less about the tools, even at one point, throwing a jab to the aggressive vendor crowd assembled.

What he did give me was this:

Turn your fears into goals.

That sounds simple enough, but let’s put it into practice for a minute. Here are a list of fears/obstacles that I often hear when working with staff:

• I am not technologically savvy.
• There is no time to implement this into my curriculum. I am held to state standards on tests like Regents/GEPA/HSPA; I need to focus on that.
• The students will not take this seriously.
• They (the students) just copy and paste everything anyway.
• I can’t add one more thing to my list of responsibilities.

And as Alan was speaking, he impressed me less with his rehearsed ideas, but more with his spontaneous addressing of crowd concerns, taking direct questions from several people who iterated some of the same fears/obstacles above. Looking at that list, I can do that. Here is my revised version:

• I will become comfortable teaching in a manner that appeals to the learning needs of my students.
• I will use resources contributed by teachers who are using technology to help students reach state standards on tests.
• I will create lessons that matter to my students, ones in which they will work on without realizing it as work.
• My assessments and assignments will be authentic, so that students cannot merely take the work of others and pass it off as their own.
• I will focus on adding one new method to my teaching repertoire this year.

As I ready myself for a switch in job titles (more on that as the time nears), these type of semantic shifts are things I want to embrace. I have long thought that leadership determines institutional attitude more than any other component. My experience in the schools I have worked in bears this belief out. If I am to be someone who expects change, pushes innovative measures through, and enlists the creative forces of my staff, then I have to able to transform negativity into a goal-setting mentality like Alan prescribed.

This is the first in a series of posts I am generating from his session, and from the subsequent round tables and discussions from Friday.

Technorati Tags: blc08, alannovember, philosophy, education, change

Professional Development Workshop Dates

If your interest was piqued by the classes I listed in a previous post and you want to participate, below are the titles, dates and times for the classes. I also included the descriptions again so you wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth between two posts.

As for bringing you all in, suggestions? Ustream? Skype/Yugma? I am all ears.

Note: Classes are offered twice to accomodate the different schedules of the buildings I work in. So if you can’t make one, check the other.

ALL TIMES EASTERN STANDARD TIME, U.S. (UTC/GMT -4 hours)

Presenting with Google Earth in the Social Studies Classroom, 4hrs
Location: SMS Room 121
Presenter: Patrick Higgins
Date(s): TBD
Time: TBD
Limitations: Grades 5-12 Social Studies and English/Language Arts teachers only
Course Description:
Teaching has become such a visual profession, with great emphasis placed on the context within which you present the material to the students. Using traditional methods of presentation such as PowerPoint can be augmented with several emerging technologies. Google Earth allows teachers to create dynamic, visually engaging presentations that employ the use of video, image, and geographical interfaces.

Participants in this workshop will use Google Earth to create a class lecture or presentation that they otherwise would have created using standard methods (MS Word, PowerPoint, etc.). Follow up with the instructor is recommended after the class ends.

Presenting with Google Earth in Social Studies Classroom, 4hrs
Date(s): November 19-20
Time: 2:30-4:30
Limitations: Grades 9-12 Social Studies and English/Language Arts teachers only
Course Description:
Teaching has become such a visual profession, with great emphasis placed on the context within which you present the material to the students. Using traditional methods of presentation such as PowerPoint can be augmented with several emerging technologies. Google Earth allows teachers to create dynamic, visually engaging presentations that employ the use of video, image, and geographical interfaces.

Participants in this workshop will use Google Earth to create a class lecture or presentation that they otherwise would have created using standard methods (MS Word, PowerPoint, etc.). Follow up with the instructor is recommended after the class ends.

The Classroom Blog: How to move your students writing to a secure, online community. 4hrs
Date(s): November 26-29
Time: 8:00am-9:00am
Course Description:
Our definition of literacy is quickly changing, so much so that we really need to rethink what it means to be “literate” in this century. According to a study commsioned by the National School Board Association,, more than 50% of high school students have produced content on the web. Whether that means they are posting to a MySpace or Facebook page, or building a website or wiki, our students are active online. Just as with anything else we teach them, we need to be able to teach them how to create good content, content that has real value both in design and delivery.

Blogging with your students is a great step in this direction. Student writing proficiency and their desire to write will amaze you when you give them the freedom to create on their own blog. We will use 21classes to create your classroom blog. Depending on your level of comfort, we will allow your students writing to be viewable to others, or just to registered members of the site. Other topics to be discussed: online safety, online collaboration, and copyright.

The Classroom Blog: How to move your students writing to a secure, online community. 4hrs
Date(s): November 26-27
Time: 2:30-4:30
Course Description:
Our definition of literacy is quickly changing, so much so that we really need to rethink what it means to be “literate” in this century. According to a study commsioned by the National School Board Association,, more than 50% of high school students have produced content on the web. Whether that means they are posting to a MySpace or Facebook page, or building a website or wiki, our students are active online. Just as with anything else we teach them, we need to be able to teach them how to create good content, content that has real value both in design and delivery.

Blogging with your students is a great step in this direction. Student writing proficiency and their desire to write will amaze you when you give them the freedom to create on their own blog. We will use 21classes to create your classroom blog. Depending on your level of comfort, we will allow your students writing to be viewable to others, or just to registered members of the site. Other topics to be discussed: online safety, online collaboration, and copyright.

Feedback Matters: How student feedback can change your lesson design: before, during, and after, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 1-2
Time: 8:00-9:00am
Course Description:
We spend a good portion of our school year assessing our students on what have learned in our classrooms. But how often do we assess them on how they learned best? Asking students for feedback on your classroom practices, lesson design, and subject choice can lead to great strides in your professional practice. A simple five-question survey, skillfully designed, can yield feedback from the students such as what presentation mode the students enjoyed most, what articles mattered the most to them, or what area they would like you to have spent more time on.

Using Schoolwires, you can easily create a survey with varied question types. Schoolwires also provides an analysis page, plus a way to download the results to an Excel spreadsheet. This class will also explore how to create embeddable polls that can be placed on wikis or blogs using services such as PollDaddy and SurveyGizmo.

Feedback Matters: How student feedback can change your lesson design: before, during, and after, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 1
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Course Description:
We spend a good portion of our school year assessing our students on what have learned in our classrooms. But how often do we assess them on how they learned best? Asking students for feedback on your classroom practices, lesson design, and subject choice can lead to great strides in your professional practice. A simple five-question survey, skillfully designed, can yield feedback from the students such as what presentation mode the students enjoyed most, what articles mattered the most to them, or what area they would like you to have spent more time on.

Using Schoolwires, you can easily create a survey with varied question types. Schoolwires also provides an analysis page, plus a way to download the results to an Excel spreadsheet. This class will also explore how to create embeddable polls that can be placed on wikis or blogs using services such as PollDaddy and SurveyGizmo.

The Wiki Way: Using Wikis as Collaborative Environments, 4 hrs.
Date(s): November 12-15
Time: 8:00-9:00am
Course Description:
Several teachers in the district have begun to use the power of wikis to enable their students to work collaboratively on web pages centered around a particular subject or project. Sites that use “wiki” technology are turning the ideas we have held about online research upside down. A Wiki is defined as:

a type of web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content…. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to the collaborative website itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a Web site, or to certain specific wiki sites, …and on-line encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

Wiki technology lends itself inherently to collaborative learning and creation. The very idea that several students can work on a body of information both simultaneously, independently, and from any location where they have an Internet connection, immediately extends the classroom beyond the 40 minutes that we see them and beyond the physical walls of our classroom. Participants from any content area will benefit from the balance of student freedom and teacher control afforded by wikispaces. Some examples of projects that teachers using wikis have created are: classroom study guides for full and half-year courses and even individual exams, collaborative projects with other schools in other countries, choose-your-own-ending stories, and student-driven tutorials for all levels of mathematics.

The Wiki Way: Using Wikis as Collaborative Environments, 4 hrs.
Date(s): November 12-13
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Course Description:
Several teachers in the district have begun to use the power of wikis to enable their students to work collaboratively on web pages centered around a particular subject or project. Sites that use “wiki” technology are turning the ideas we have held about online research upside down. A Wiki is defined as:

a type of web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content…. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to the collaborative website itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a Web site, or to certain specific wiki sites, …and on-line encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

Wiki technology lends itself inherently to collaborative learning and creation. The very idea that several students can work on a body of information both simultaneously, independently, and from any location where they have an Internet connection, immediately extends the classroom beyond the 40 minutes that we see them and beyond the physical walls of our classroom. Participants from any content area will benefit from the balance of student freedom and teacher control afforded by wikispaces. Some examples of projects that teachers using wikis have created are: classroom study guides for full and half-year courses and even individual exams, collaborative projects with other schools in other countries, choose-your-own-ending stories, and student-driven tutorials for all levels of mathematics.

Internet Safety: What you need to know about keeping your students safe online, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 20-21
Time: 8:00-9:00am
Course Description:
If ever there was a hot topic among educators, it is the issue of how to keep yourselves and your students safe as they venture into the realm of online content creation. We wrestle with our fears and those generated by the media regarding the dangers of online activity, but we long to connect our students to the growing amount of quality information, interaction and creative outlets that the web offers. Where is the line?

This workshop will delve into common-sense strategies to help you feel more comfortable about using the internet in the classroom, working with your students in an online collaborative environment, and teaching your students true online ethics.

Internet Safety: What you need to know about keeping your students safe online, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 6
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Course Description:
If ever there was a hot topic among educators, it is the issue of how to keep yourselves and your students safe as they venture into the realm of online content creation. We wrestle with our fears and those generated by the media regarding the dangers of online activity, but we long to connect our students to the growing amount of quality information, interaction and creative outlets that the web offers. Where is the line?

This workshop will delve into common-sense strategies to help you feel more comfortable about using the internet in the classroom, working with your students in an online collaborative environment, and teaching your students true online ethics.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets: Track Student Writing and Foster Collaboration through Google Docs, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 30 and December 1
Time: 8:00-9:00am
Course Description:
Working with students as they learn to become writers is often a trial and error process, and we struggle sometimes with the ability to track changes in their revisions. Also, sometimes we have students that truly need more than just a conference or two to set them on the right path to creating a quality piece of writing. What if you could write alongside your students from the very first sentence to the final revision? What if you could provide scaffolding for the students to help them organize their thoughts and see the changes they make to that structure in real time?

Welcome to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, where you can collaborate on a document with a student from the outset, and track changes in their work as they complete it. This application, free from the folks at Google, also allows for a permanent storage place for student writing that is secure and trustworthy. Have a student that loses work, CD’s, or flashdrives? Google Docs automatically saves writing every 30 seconds and allows the students to access their writing anywhere they have an internet connection. If you are serious about improving the quality of your student writing, think about taking this workshop.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets: Track Student Writing and Foster Collaboration through Google Docs, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 28
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Course Description:
Working with students as they learn to become writers is often a trial and error process, and we struggle sometimes with the ability to track changes in their revisions. Also, sometimes we have students that truly need more than just a conference or two to set them on the right path to creating a quality piece of writing. What if you could write alongside your students from the very first sentence to the final revision? What if you could provide scaffolding for the students to help them organize their thoughts and see the changes they make to that structure in real time?

Welcome to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, where you can collaborate on a document with a student from the outset, and track changes in their work as they complete it. This application, free from the folks at Google, also allows for a permanent storage place for student writing that is secure and trustworthy. Have a student that loses work, CD’s, or flashdrives? Google Docs automatically saves writing every 30 seconds and allows the students to access their writing anywhere they have an internet connection. If you are serious about improving the quality of your student writing, think about taking this workshop.

SearchSmarter: Increasing Online Productivity through more efficient research, 2hrs.
Date(s): November 5
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Course Description:
How do you judge the worthiness of an internet site? When we search for information, or ask our students to search for information, we need to be able to use as many filters as we can to eliminate excess choices that detract from our task at hand: we need to search smarter. The percentage of students who venture beyond the first three or four hits on a Google search is minimal. As those charged with teaching them to delve deeper, providing them with failsafe strategies for making those top three quality sites is imperative.

Using simple Boolean search strategies, as well as alternative search methods and search engines, this workshop will arm you with a multitude of methods for helping your students find a higher percentage of useful information with their searching. You will also be shown how to create a custom search engine that limits the sites that students can search to only those you want them to access.

Introduction to Social Networking and Personal Learning Environments: Using Smarter People to Raise your Level of Thinking, 3hrs.
Date(s): November 5-7
Time: 8:00-9:00am
Course Description:
Professional development is often thought of as being the “sit and get” variety, however, with the emergence of new social networking software professional development can be taken to a whole new, interactive level. This workshop will explore the power of using a network to help you learn “socially,” through the use of professional networking sites, social bookmarking, and RSS, participants in this class will learn to find intelligent people in your field and “attach” themselves to them. As they learn and acquire resources, so will you!

Some of the applications used in this class will be the Classroom 2.0 Social Network, del.icio.us bookmarking, and Google Reader. Teachers and staff with familiarity with any of these applications are strongly encouraged to attend.

Introduction to Social Networking and Personal Learning Environments: Using Smarter People to Raise your Level of Thinking, 3hrs.
Date(s): November 14-16
Time: 2:30-3:30pm
Course Description:
Professional development is often thought of as being the “sit and get” variety, however, with the emergence of new social networking software professional development can be taken to a whole new, interactive level. This workshop will explore the power of using a network to help you learn “socially,” through the use of professional networking sites, social bookmarking, and RSS, participants in this class will learn to find intelligent people in your field and “attach” themselves to them. As they learn and acquire resources, so will you!

Some of the applications used in this class will be the Classroom 2.0 Social Network, del.icio.us bookmarking, and Google Reader. Teachers and staff with familiarity with any of these applications are strongly encouraged to attend.

Copyright or copy wrong, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 16 and 19
Time: 8:00-9:00am
Course Description:
As a district we are entering a phase where our student work is becoming increasingly public, as is the content we create for educational purposes. At what point do we as teachers leave the protection of “Fair Use,” and enter into the area of copyright infringement? This is information we need to know.

Our society, and especially our students, are becoming increasingly a “cut-and-paste” society, where information, pictures, audio, and video found on the internet are viewed as free for the taking. This is far from the truth; having a clear understanding of what is copyright and what is “copywrong” will help you steer yourselves and your students away from potential legal issues down the road.

Additionally, this workshop will explore the idea of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization dedicated to “creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare ’some rights reserved.’”

Copyright or copy wrong, 2 hrs.
Date(s): November 29
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Course Description:
As a district we are entering a phase where our student work is becoming increasingly public, as is the content we create for educational purposes. At what point do we as teachers leave the protection of “Fair Use,” and enter into the area of copyright infringement? This is information we need to know.

Our society, and especially our students, are becoming increasingly a “cut-and-paste” society, where information, pictures, audio, and video found on the internet are viewed as free for the taking. This is far from the truth; having a clear understanding of what is copyright and what is “copywrong” will help you steer yourselves and your students away from potential legal issues down the road.

Additionally, this workshop will explore the idea of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization dedicated to “creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare ’some rights reserved.’”

Technorati Tags: professionaldevelopment, classes, education, school2.0

Teaching, within 5 Years

If you had the gift of foresight, what do you think our profession would look like in five year’s time? Are the powers of change severe enough to move the field of education out of the rut it has settled so comfortably in, regardless of the myriad changes going on in the professional world around us? This post came to mind as I read the following from David Warlick:

I think that it’s part of the job. It is my job, as a teacher, to be able to teach today — to be skilled at using today’s information technologies within today’s information environments and apply pedagogies that reflect today’s information environments. We suffer from the myths of old world education, that you go to school so that you will be prepared for the next 30 or 35 years. But the teacher we are at graduation from college, is not necessarily the teacher we need to be five years later. Those days are long behind us — and I think that the job has become a whole lot more exciting as a result.

Formal staff development is important. We all need new ideas, new energy, new inspiration. Districts and service agencies should continue to make available any kind of professional development opportunities that are successful. But it’s still the job of the teacher to be competent to teach in the classrooms that today’s students need.

Certainly, the situation is far more complex than this. Teachers do not have nearly enough time, nor enough compensation. They do not have the resources, and many resources are actually blocked from access. They are expected to do so much more than teach, and they are held responsible within conditions that are often entirely beyond their control. I’ve often said that the very best thing we could do to improve teaching and learning is to give teachers the time. Every teacher should have one hour of on-the-job professional time for every hour they spend in instructional supervision.

Warlick, whose ideas are championed in many blogs more renowned than this one, had, in the past, spoke of teaching students to teach themselves in a post not too long ago. The generation of students that is graduating college today and will become teachers in the next few years should also not be allowed to escape this responsibility as well. We need learners as much as we need teachers. We need, I should say, those willing to unlearn and relearn much more than we need anything else.

Tablet PC’s and a Fenway-style venue

This past Monday we had a district-wide professional development day which, for a majority of our staff was the standard type professional development day: two sessions, or one long session and go home. For a group of 70+ high school teachers, it was four hours of introduction to a new challenge.

Last summer, we began to field interest from our high school staff regarding whether or not they would be interested in obtaining a tablet pc for this coming school year. The focus was originally on the teachers who would be teaching in the portable classrooms during the reconstruction, but also on teachers who showed interest. We found more money than we thought we would, so we ordered many more than showed interest initially. Monday, was the first day where we had all of the teachers together to begin 10 weeks of focused professional development around a specific skill or application. Here are the “strands” as we are calling them:

• Podcasting
• Journal or OneNote
• Screencasting
• Wikis
• Blogs
• Connectivity
• UnitedStreaming and Assessment
• Teacher or Student-created applications.

When we put together this program, we really looked at the ability of the tablet to transform their teaching. We did not want our teachers to get a laptop, a tablet at that, and continue to teach as they were before the tablet. We want transformation and content creation. Our staff, like many in the nation and world, consists of some extremely bright, creative people who are producing magnificent content on a daily basis. Our idea is that if the content is being produced, why not push it out to a larger audience, or push it out to our students in a manner that will allow them ubiquitous access to the content.

Four hours in a cafeteria with me had to be broken up somehow, and last week I asked for help with my presentation via a Voicethread. While I still don’t have any of my teachers adding to the Voicethread, I did have some all-star participation from my network: Chris, Clay, Sue, Barbara, Anthony, Melanie, Kevin (sorry, no link), and Robin. All were fantastic, and my staff were rapt with their comments and the fact that they took the time to speak to us. Sue actually hijacked my presentation for a while with her comments and asked a series of questions regarding connectivity and the terms we use with Web 2.0. If they knew the answer or had heard of the term, they were to put their hands on their heads, if not, they were to put their hands on their backside. Here is the proof:

The majority did not know the terms Sue was asking them, but by the end of the session, they were on their way to understanding how to connect to the right sources to find out. Note to self: leave Skype until the last thing you show them. Once they found out they could call each other or message each other it was effectively the end of my presentation. However, introducing them to the power that it brings (Thanks, Cathy for the impromptu call from South Carolina!) to the classroom and your own development was worth losing them to playtime a little early.

Technorati Tags: tabletpc,, contentcreation,, teaching,, eduction,, staffdevelopment

Pitch in to my Presentation

The Students Have Spoken

Diane Cordell and I have been conducting some impromptu research via our own interest in the role of schools in the lives of children and the communities in which they exist. The original post was spurred on by Barry Bachenheimer’s question to me:

Is the purpose of school to get students ready for the world of work? I argue, no. I think the purpose of school is the encourage students to do, read, see, and learn things that they wouldn’t do if left to their own adolescent devices. For example, if left to me, I never would have read half the “classic” novels I read in high school, watched classic films, read the NY Times, or gone to certain museums. Now as an adult, I am glad that I was pushed to do those things. It has made me a more rounded person.

but it came to be much more because Diane and I pushed it out to our students (well, I borrowed some). Diane’s student’s responses can be found here and are well worth a look. They drive at the need for school to be a safe place that has clear expectations.

Our students were a little more specific, and that may have a lot to do with how I framed the question. But needless to say, here is how the students I asked the question of responded on the class wiki:

In my honest opinion, I believe that schools are doing the best they can right now, they are teaching life skills and how to react with people, while giving them an education. I think that I learn best in a clean environment.

I think that school should provide a base education for students to give them as many opportunities in the future as possible. The standard for base education should be high though, don’t get me wrong. Schools should prepare us for life by supplying us with knowledge, obviously, and other skills needed to survive in the world, like social skills, common sense, knowing right from wrong, and other things. It isn’t the school’s problem if the students don’t use the skills taught to them once out of school, but the schools need to provide these things so that the students have the greatest possibility of success. The school enviroment should be clean, friendly, and practical. The environment isn’t all that important because all students learn differently in different atmospheres.

…

I also believe that schools are doing as best as they can, but I live in a middle-upperclass town so I do not know if the same can be said for towns and cities with a lower school budget. Although, I feel that schools should be clean and well-equiped with modern technology.

…

In general, schools should be geared to meet the needs of the majority of students. For our school, that probably means preparation for college or other higher learning. I myself am fortunate enough to have a voice inside my head (not literally) who helps to ensure that I take the proper steps in order to reach my college education, but many I people I know lack such a “voice”. Because of this, I feel, rather strongly, that high schools need to be more goal-oriented toward the futures of their respective students, and they should be better acquainted with the college admissions process.

…

You asked, and I will answer. I’m going to say the honest truth. I have become jaded for school. I do not believe it will influence ANYTHING in my future career course, unless there’s a Video game Design and Development class in this school. What I want is a teacher who can connect to the student, who can teach with all the modern technology (props to Davis and Scott on the wikis), and a teacher who can be forgiving in a time of a mistake. Life is not meant to be a non-stop 79mph crash course through a never ending flow of work. Teachers seem to forget that as students, we have opinions on our work. As a Game Designer, how will I ever need to use Proofs of Geometry? That makes the class boring, and therefore listening and learning become RIDICULOUSLY more difficult. In my life, weekends = essays, projects, outlines, etc. When I come to school, I want a teacher who realizes that we have lives outside of school that need tending to. I am of the belief that all things in moderation leads to a successful life.

Also, this may just be me talking, but I prefer a more Socratic method of teaching. As in, talking and discussing, and where everyone’s opinion is key to the lesson. We still use the archaic, slow, mind-tramping process of learning through reading the text. I feel true knowledge can not be plainly read, it must be taken in of one’s own accord, processed, understood, and released to others. If we read what we are forced to, we simply scan the information and speak or write it when someone puts a quarter in the slot, and just like machines, we don’t benefit.

…

I think that schools should both prepare students for the workforce later on in life and give them a standard education. However, if you want to be a fashion designer, I don’t think that whether or not you took physics should matter. There should be certain requirements, but they should be catered to certain career paths. This is because so many people, when they are done with high school, are not prepared for the workforce, not even the work they are passionate about. School and its work takes up so much time, that many people can’t uphold or maintain jobs, thus acquiring a poor work ethic. If you constantly have to quit jobs left and right, it will not only make you look less dependable in a job interview, but then for the rest of your life, when the going gets tough either in work, or outside of it, you will always find some reason to quit or to stop showing up. Schools should try to incorporate classes that prepare students for the workforce and that can help them develop a good work ethic.

I think we should be allowed to use cell phones and IPODS in school. If it is going to be shoved in our faces left and right, how could you ignore it? By integrating websites such as this one into our education, we are not only saving trees, but benefiting from one anothers ideas. This website allows kids who are shy or quiet or even mute to share their opinions. But that’s just my opinion…

Regardless of teen angst or the current reconstruction project going on at our high school, these comments speak to the idea of relevance, and that more than anything else we need to be teaching content that matters, that moves, that equips our students for a lifetime of change, and fluid, seemingly disparate careers that blend into one another. Our students are really ready for us to change.

Image credit:
“Student Protestors” Dave Bullock / eecue

The Flattest I Have Ever Been

How many posts have you seen lately that start like this:

“Last night, there I was sitting in my living room hanging out with my network, when all of a sudden I am in a conference halfway around the world with all of these really smart people…”

Well, here is mine.

We had a lot of laundry to do last night in my house, so we didn’t really get finished with that and cleaning up from dinner until around 10pm EST. At that point, I figured I would just start setting myself up for the following day by answering some emails and making some quick tutorials. I made the fortuitous decision to check up on Twitter and engage a little bit. Within a few minutes of being there, Kim Cofino sends out a call for participants in a Web 2.0 presentation she is doing for the parents of her school using Google Presenter. I click the link and am transported to her presentation in Thailand along with 17-20 others.

Then I start checking out who is there. For a second I really thought my Google Reader account spilled over into the Presentation: David Jakes, Carolyn Foote, Chris Lehmann, Jo McLeay, Lucy Gray, and so many more that I kicked myself in the shins this morning that I didn’t write it down. Even better than the guest list was the element that was added to the presentation for Kim. She was talking about global collaboration and was able to demonstrate it without much effort because we were all so jazzed to be there.

A few things that immediately strike me about this format:

• The nature of the presentation has changed. Presentation is quickly becoming synonymous with facilitation, as you could spend much of your time courting ideas from the visitors of the presentation and managing dialogue between both parties as you would normally spend speaking or demonstrating.
• Does this really work for everyone? Were the parents too blown away to follow the dialogue? I don’t know how I would react if I were in the audience sans laptop; it may have been too much to follow.
• Conferences are going to be flat out fun.

The format was so open and engaging, it was hard to pull off and actually get some sleep. However, to my surprise, when I came to work this morning, there was Kristin Hokanson doing something similar on social bookmarking. I couldn’t resist.

New Teacher Training, Part 2

Yesterday, we met with our new staff for the second time this year, but really it was the first time to get a hold of them after their first impressions of the classroom have sunken in. And rather than focus solely on what they were experiencing and how they are dealing with it, which is of dire importance, we pushed their buttons a little.

Let me explain: our first year induction program for new teachers was recently revamped to be more of a reflective practice that centers on Dr. Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock’s book Classroom Instruction that Works. This year we also added the reflective feature of asking them to blog about their practices and its relation to Marzano, et. al’s book, on a blog through 21classes. What this enables them to do is to reflect on their own practice, comment on others, but also archives these reflections for them throughout their first year here.

These are all common practices for those who have been blogging for a while; however, to teachers fresh out of college, or new to our district from another district, it set a fairly high bar in terms of the instructional style that we expect of our staff.

Does this reflect how our veteran staff uses technology or their familiarity with social technology? Not exactly. But this is a great start. The conversations that I was privy to during the day all centered on the focus we are putting on not just technology, but also using it in a way that matters, that is consistent with our curricular goals, and that is nearly transparent.

As the day moved from discussion of their program to the nuts and bolts of class website creation and online gradebook setup, several of them pulled me aside and asked if I could help them set up their blog, their podcast (which is the format that they were asked to submit their reflection in for month two), or asked me if I know about wikis. They were excited though, and I made a great effort to allay any uneasiness that showed up. I used Toeffler’s quote about illiteracy in the 21st Century to end the session and let them know that change will define their teaching career, and embracing it would surely lead to greater success and lifelong learning.

On a side note that is somewhat related, if my schedule is any indication of the direction we are moving in, than this year is going to one of great change and innovation.

Survey Says…

Lecherous Richard Dawson visions aside, I sent out my Fall Professional Development Survey to the staff of the middle and high school today. Here are the questions and the results:

What area of student improvement would you like to focus on this year?

Research Skills	25%
Personal Productivity and Organization	54%
Literacy and Storytelling	15%
Analytical Skills and Problem Solving	44%
Creativity and Expression	23%
Other, please specify	6%

Do you have a preference for the format of the classes?

Classes offered as single two-, to three-hour sessions	38%
Classes offered as several one-hour sessions.	29%
No preference.	35%

Which technologies or applications would you like to become more familiar with?

Wikis	46%
Blogs	38%
OnCourse	21%
Schoolwires	21%
Microsoft Office	17%
Unitedstreaming	48%
Podcasting or Screencasting	42%
Digital Storytelling	23%
Photography and Video	35%
Adobe Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator)	29%

Looking at these results, the list of classes I had planned takes new shape. While still in the early stages of development, I had planned on a major focus on subject specific courses with emphasis on collaboration. In planning the survey, I wanted to shift the focus away from tech-heavy topics, which is why I placed emphasis on student improvement, which I truly feel doubles as teacher improvement. For example, helping students create and nurture their own PLE’s will no doubt push teachers to do the same, so a class that explains them must first show the teachers how to create a PLE.

I would love to hear how anyone else assesses the needs of your district in terms of professional development: survey? suggestion? mandate from administration?

On another note, the most uplifting part of this survey has got to be the interest we have generated in collaborative and connective tools like wikis and blogs. If you walked through our halls now, these words, which not too long ago were completely foreign, can be heard in conversation between colleagues.

What is the Obligation of Schooling?

Regardless of where I venture in my tidy little PLE, I am confronted with the same question in various forms: What is the duty of a school in the life and development of a person? Bach has asked this of me on several occasions in the last few months:

Is the purpose of school to get students ready for the world of work? I argue, no. I think the purpose of school is the encourage students to do, read, see, and learn things that they wouldn’t do if left to their own adolescent devices. For example, if left to me, I never would have read half the “classic” novels I read in high school, watched classic films, read the NY Times, or gone to certain museums. Now as an adult, I am glad that I was pushed to do those things. It has made me a more rounded person.

We read constantly about preparing our students for the 21st Century Workforce, the new economy, and for a future that has been described as one where we can’t possibly have answers for questions we do not know the existence of yet. But in looking more closely at Bach’s comment, I remember the wonder of walking into the Metropolitan Museum of Art as an 11-year old, never having been anywhere remotely resembling it before, besieged by it’s majesty and mystery from various parts of the world. Was that feeling a preparation for the work I am doing now?

School as we know it has always had underpinnings of competition: students are given grades based on performance on uniform assessments–a system ripe for separating the wheat from the chaff. In our social groups and networks we are thinking differently, however, and as we begin to redesign how we want our schools to function and who they will produce, does that element remain or is it yet another piece of the 20th Century? Are we truly “competing” against a nationalistic entity anymore? Is it the role of schools to produce the future workforce to compete with a nation or nations?

Wanting to be true to this question, I’ve sat on it for a few days and asked around for some input, and the best insight, naturally, came from my wife, a 4th grade teacher. I asked her what she thought the role of schools in society and the development of a child should be. Her response, paraphrased slightly, changed my mindset immediately:

Our role is really an academic one, but also has huge socialization responsibilities. By the end of my time with them, I want them to have learned and enjoyed the process immensely, but I also think they need to feel safe and secure while they are here.

As she said this, the factory model of our schools past (wishful) began to become less hidden: our role is not to fill with content, or as Dewey said, back in 1907:

Just as the biologist can take a bone or two and reconstruct the whole animal, so, if we put before the mind’s eye the ordinary schoolroom, with its rows of ugly desks placed in geometrical order, crowded together so that there shall be as little moving room as possible, desks almost all of the same size, with just space enough to hold books, pencils and paper, and add a table, some chairs, the bare walls and possibly a few pictures, we can reconstruct the only educational activity that can possibly go on in such a place. It is all made “ for listening” — for simply studying lessons out of a book is only another kind of listening; it marks the dependency of one mind upon another. The attitude of listening means, comparatively speaking, passivity, absorption; that there are certain ready-made materials which are there, which have been prepared by the school superintendent, the board, the teacher, and of which the child is to take in as much as possible in the least possible time.

but rather to do what David Warlick spoke about the other day: teach them how to teach themselves. From that basic premise, we equip them with the ability to do the nearly impossible, and do it on their own terms. In School and Society, Chapter 2: The School and the Life of the Child, Dewey tells the story of trying to equip schools with desks that allowed students to be artistic, hygienic, and kinesthetic, only to find only desks suited for “listening.” Have we moved away from those desks in meaningful, if not radical ways? If that answer is no, our role has to change, now.

John Dewey. “The School and the Life of the Child,” Chapter 2 in The School and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1907): 47-73.

In Search of…

The wheels are turning, our preparations are in full swing, and we’ve lined up over 40 teachers, two rather sizable grants to really round out the project, when all of a sudden….

There is no more project. Well, sort of.

We had been relying on a product, which will remain nameless here, that we had used in the past to create video podcasts of live lessons. The kicker was that they weren’t really videos of teachers teaching, but rather actual PowerPoint or whiteboard slides coupled with audio and live penstrokes: essentially, they were Java-based screencasts. However, the real bonus about this product was that it had two features which really set it apart from anything else.

The first feature was a question and answer feature that allowed viewers to ask questions of the lesson author directly in the lesson. So if I were a student watching the lesson on fractions and did not understand the lesson, I had the option of asking a question by right clicking and typing my question. The question would then get forwarded to the author’s email address where the author could answer the question and then embed the question back into the lesson for the next viewer to see, thereby adding to the overall experience.

Secondly, it created a feed that allowed users to download through iTunes every time their teacher posted a lesson. We loved this feature because it made us available to the world at large, a la Dr. Tim Tyson and the Mabry Middle School. We are proud of our staff and the work they do, and we wanted it out there.

Days ago, we were informed that the product was going back into development and would not be ready again until Fall 2008. After initial disappointment, we have redirected our efforts to try to find something in its stead. Here are the particulars:

• Windows-based screencasting software, preferably something that would live natively on our machines
• The ability to export as mp4, or at least create a feed that would be accessible through iTunes
• Price needs to be workable, without a yearly fee for services.

I am also thinking of obtaining a server solely for this purpose that can house these projects. My real aim here is to begin having our teachers produce content that is usable by more than the students they see; we want to contribute to the creation of usable content. Also, it has to involve quick setup with minimal downtime as teachers have had problems with this in the past. A plug and play situation would be ideal.

It’s always this way, isn’t it? When you are geared up for something so exciting and progressive, a twist is thrown your way. This could have been worse, but now the solution doesn’t seem as singular and self-contained, but rather one that will involve a few more steps to complete.

Any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Top Ten Tools

This post is inspired by Jane Hart’s project, which I heard from through George Siemens’ post about it.

Although I am famous for the phrase “it’s not about the tools,” I couldn’t help but look at what people are using to produce and manage content. Especially when you get to peer into the minds of some really sharp people. Here are mine, with explanations:

• Google Reader- a bit overwhelming at times, but still the hands down best resource for learning
• Blogger- my think aloud. This is where conversation begins and ends with me.
• Google Notebook- I use this for focused research when I need to compile a list of sources for myself or others.
• iShowU- Best cost to performance ratio I have found in a screencaster
• Audacity- still simple, still perfect
• Zamzar- Converts just about anything on the fly and offers a simple downloadable file
• Skype- How I connect to people much brighter than myself
• Twitter- My new favorite thing. Quick, ubiquitous, and networked.
• del.icio.us- I use this more as a searchable catalog of links rather than an organizational tool
• Firefox- As many have said, this is the home base. Completely customized and suited to what I need it to do.

What are your top ten tools?

Conversations with Really Bright People

I confess, my new favorite thing, besides twitter, is to talk to people much brighter than myself, and do it in a situation that aides more people around me. For example, I started getting the idea to skype people into my workshops, beginning last week with Konrad, Clay, and Carolyn. This week, I did the same, only I was able to get Steve Dembo of Discovery Education to speak about some of the more “Web 2.0-ey” features of United Streaming. Here is the audio, if you want to listen.

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In addition to Steve, I also asked Carolyn back to talk about one of the digital storytelling projects that she worked on regarding the Vietnam War Memorial and the Virtual Wall. If you haven’t seen some of them yet, I highly recommend them to you. One of the most amazing things about the project is that it sneaks up on you. We had just finished our call with Carolyn and were at her blog watching one of the student movies, and we were a wreck afterwards; the movies really touch a chord within you regardless of your age or generation.

In one of the most connected moments I have ever had, Carolyn then skype-chatted us an address to a site where Vietnam Veterans had watched these videos by the students, and took the time to thank them and share more stories about the individuals the students profiled in their videos. As I looked at the site and read the commentary, the vision of school as center of community really began to become clearer. This type of project makes changes happen, forces understanding across generations, and really forges a deeper understanding of community by its members. Bravo Carolyn, and your students too!

More Workshop Reactions

As of tomorrow morning, I will be nearly halfway through my summer workshops, and as I have been inspired by the kick-web2.0-in-the-shins-punk-teacherman Dan Meyer, the data on each of the classes is coming back and I need to put it out there for posterity sake. Beginning with the Connective Writing class, which I thought was capped off nicely by a great skype conversation between Konrad, Clay and Carolyn (I pretty much just listened), the feedback has been steadily positive. Here are some examples from the Connective class:

1. I felt the the community of learning theme was hit by skyping with all of the bloggers. It was very worthwhile, we were exposed to so many difefrent applications and began to make our blogs.
2. This course was very good. I would like to have had more time to actually set up the blog accounts. I felt a little rushed.
3. Although I do not consider myself tech savvy I am going to implement blogs for my students this year, slowly at first, I feel it will provide a larger outlet for my students to express themselves.
4. Patrick is very knowledgeable and made the course easy to understand, and easy to relate to. It opened my eyes to the many possibilities that technology can bring to the classroom.
5. It was a lot of information to take in but was well worth the time. I can use it all in my classroom. Blogging, Wikispaces and their uses as well as ways to incorporate writing through the technology available to us.
6. I felt that this helped me feel less intimidated about using the technology and better understand ways I can use these tools in my class.

Now, those answers were in response to a request for an overall summary of the class. When asked if they planned on implementing what they learned, the same people (numbers indicate the respondent)

1. I will start a professional blog for myself and a book blog for my students in September.
2. I will set up a blog for the first novel that we read in September.
3. I will start with a basic class blog page and grow from there!
4. I will set up a class blog for my students to communicate with each other in a different way than routine class discussions. I also plan on setting up a professional blog to communicate with teachers all over the world, instead of just the ones down the hall. I’m excited to get started!
5. I would like to include book chats and classroom discussions with the blogging sites as well as use the Wikispaces to promote more research and discussions.
6. I will try to blog with my students and encourage them to share their thoughts and reflect in a productive way. I also hope to not only read various blogs, but jump in from time to time.

It was truly a great group of teachers to work with, but what strikes me most is that they saw the value in it. I have to confess that as I prepared the class, I wondered if that would come across. The echo chamber of the edublogosphere tends to shield us from the trepidation that exists in the hallways, faculty rooms, and classrooms of the buildings that work in. My mindset going in was really centered on trying to show the the need for doing this with students, not necessarily being that techno-evangelist. As Christian’s recent post about Twitter indicated, I think we are all reaching a saturation point with analyzing each and every application for its educational merit.

More to come regarding workshop reactions, and a hearty welcome to all of the new subscribers from the workshops!

Gearing for a great stretch

I have spent most of today’s not child-care related moments banging these keys and scouring my connections for resources and inspiration. These next two weeks hold the following: two-day workshop on wikis, one day workshop on social bookmarking, two-day workshop on web 2.0 teaching strategies, two-day workshop on Google Apps, and a two-day workshop on research 2.0. Needless to say, all my summer slacking is beginning to haunt me and steal my sleep.

In actuality, I can’t tell you how “geeked up” I am about running these workshops. Most are near full or over-capacity (15 teachers for us), so there is interest. There was so much talk about how to get teachers into these classes, and during the school year that problem haunted me, but I took marketing to several shameless levels at the end of the year. It paid off in the attendance numbers. Now, for the content….

Last week, in the Connective Writing/blogging workshop I ran, the skype-in session with Clay, Konrad, and Carolyn was a huge hit and all participants seemed to enjoy it, and if you listen to the event, I spoke of using guests to expand the knowledge base in these workshops. I wasn’t kidding. So, here I go again, asking if anyone would be interested in a skype session with a group of about 10 teachers on Thursday morning, August 2nd, around 10:00am EST (GST-4, currently) for a discussion of how to use the tools of Web 2.0 within your classroom. The focus here is going to be on seamlessness, whereby we make the technology a transparent issue in the teaching. Here is a brief description of the class, and I look forward to hearing from anyone that is around:

How many times have you marveled at the things your students can do on the Internet? How do you harness that ability and focus it in a targeted direction? Where the Internet used to be about gaining access to information and researching, today’s Internet, dubbed “Web 2.0,” is all about creating content and using services.

This workshop will focus on using the web to produce dynamic content for yourself and your students. We will use two types of data visualizers to take authentic research and statistics, either from your classroom or from a different source, and produce various types of data manipulations that you can use to help your students see the data in meaningful ways. Because of the shift away from a one-way flow of information on the web, we are all now able to access experts in fields like never before. We will examine ways to bring content experts into your classroom via Skype, a free Internet telephone service, producing podcasts, screencasts, and slidecasts, and co-blogging with other teachers, experts, or members of the community.

Upon completion of the workshop, participants will have a host of resources that they can take away from the class and apply in their own professional practice.

Tailgating on the road to reform

Another school change post, but who’s counting? Tom Haskins’ post today got me thinking about all of the work, the conversations, and the connections we are making in any of the various “2.0″ intimations that we are creating. But what are we really waiting for? What are the divides that keep us from moving forward? Haskins points to this:

Schools will change when the need to change shows up in the rear view mirror. The economy and culture will already have made the turn and changed direction without the proper education to do so. The know howto invent new models, enterprises and social constructs will not reflect how the innovators were taught, graded or indoctrinated. The change agents will have gotten their education from what works (evidence based), what seems inspired (unconscious guidance) and what makes the most sense at the time (reflective practice).

My response to this post is below:

I like your thinking here–that systemic change in education will only occur when
there is direct need as seen by the most affected stakeholders. Those
stakeholders are obviously not us. We see the need. In actuality, I
hope it’s the students.

If we have truly done our job of preparing students for life, then (the students) taking hold of their learning might be a natural outgrowth of that. Our system as it is now is set up so
that our students are just passengers along for an educational tour of
content. Until we put them in a position to pilot the tour themselves,
that rear-view mirror will look mighty clear.

Karl Fisch and others noted the lack of student presence at conferences like NECC07, and I am beginning to think that that might be the single most important thing we do in the near future. I remember in college, I was trying to impress a girl, Alicia, I think was her name. In order to impress dulcet Alicia, I participated in something known as a critical mass bike ride to protest lack of cycling lanes in our fair collegiate city. There we were on a Friday afternoon, all 250 of us on bikes, flooding every intersection we came to proving that a large group of determined people could really push for change, or at least annoy some commuters into illicit gestures from the safety of their sedans.

A critical mass of students pushing school systems to change in order to engage them. How does that happen? Terry Holliday via LeaderTalk addressed the need for this shift and characterized it as the most exciting and challenging part of his whole career:

As school leaders, we are faced with translating changing requirements for 21st century readiness that call for more rigor, relevance, and relationships to our parents, staff, and students. In translating these requirements, we are expected to make
changes in systems that have been in place for over 100 years. The
first step in creating change is usually to create a sense of urgency for that change and to relate the change required into “local” numbers and impact. This is hard work and very challenging. It is the proverbial “squeeze play” that
school leaders find themselves in every day. While it is the most
challenging work I have encountered in 35 years of education, it is
also the most exciting work that I have done. We indeed are preparing
messengers to a time that we will not see and cannot accurately predict.

The more I interact with teachers, the more I realize how hard they work just to do the things that are asked of them by the state, their administrators, etc. Having me come in and tell them that they should be engaging the students on a whole other plane is not a soothing moment or one that causes a “eureka” moment. The teachers I work with do want to give their students the best possible chance to succeed as they move through life. I just happen to think it will be the students who determine what it is they will need.

Technorati Tags: schoolchange, fisch, haskins, criticalmass, NECC07, 21stCenturyskills

Teacher Reactions to Connective Writing

In an effort to be as transparent as possible, I would like to post the reactions to the Connective Writing Class that just concluded yesterday. Here they are:

Overall Summary:

I felt the the community of learning theme was hit by skyping with all of the bloggers. It was very worthwhile, we were exposed to so many different applications and began to make our blogs.

This course was very good. I would like to have had more time to actually set up the blog accounts. I felt a little rushed.

Although I do not consider myself tech savvy I am going to implement blogs for my students this year, slowly at first, I feel it will provide a larger outlet for my students to express themselves.

Patrick is very knowledgeable and made the course easy to understand, and easy to relate to. It opened my eyes to the many possibilities that technology can bring to the classroom.

It was a lot of information to take in but was well worth the time. I can use it all in my classroom. Blogging, Wikispaces and their uses as well as ways to incorporate writing through the technology available to us.

I felt that this helped me feel less intimidated about using the technology and better understand ways I can use these tools in my class.

How will you apply what you learned?

I will start a professional blog for myself and a book blog for my students in September.

I will set up a blog for the first novel that we read in September.

I will start with a basic class blog page and grow from there!

I will set up a class blog for my students to communicate with each other in a different way than routine class discussions. I also plan on setting up a professional blog to communicate with teachers all over the world, instead of just the ones down the hall. I’m excited to get started!

I would like to include book chats and classroom discussions with the blogging sites as well as use the Wikispaces to promote more research and discussions.

I will try to blog with my students and encourage them to share their thoughts and reflect in a productive way. I also hope to not only read various blogs, but jump in from time to time.

My question to myself right off the bat is mostly about why I didn’t push the issue of personal professional development more? Will’s post regarding his intentions and the reactions he gets rings similarly to what I felt as I talked about using blogs as personal learning tools. However, this was a great first step taken by a great group of teachers. It’s easy for most of us to simply forget how hard it is for many teachers, especially those that are further removed in age from the students they teach to embrace the changes that these technologies bring.

These teachers worked very hard to assimilate blogging into their own framework, and I am excited to see where it goes.

Surprises are Welcome.

Last night, my son Parker returned from the Adirondacks; he had been on vacation with my in-laws for a week. I missed him terribly, and he me. After our normal run through of the toys: cars, trains, balls, and books, he wanted to play Thomas the Tank Engine on the computer. They have tons of games and activities on their site, and he especially likes using their online coloring books.

Instead of having him sit on my lap and have me use the mouse on the Mac, I thought we might give the tablet a try.

Revelation.

I felt like I was in the audience at TED when Jeff Han was speaking, as his interaction with the machine totally changed. He is not yet 3, yet there he was controlling the screen by himself. He was picking colors, clicking on icons, changing the screens in a manner that was somewhat self-directed. I exclaimed to my wife that this is the machine he will start out with when that time comes. We used Imagination Cubed to give him access to some basic drawing applications.

It really changed everything for him, at least for a little while, at which point I looked at the clock and realized that it was 10:30–well past his usual bedtime. Sometimes, though, I can’t help but break the rules.

Knowledge as a process

Reading the Britannica Blog makes me feel good. It makes me feel like more academicians are accessing the same information I am, even if they are taking contrarian views like Andrew Keen and Michael Gorman, and that shows me the leveling power of this medium. Danah Boyd recently wrote a marvelous piece as a quasi-response to Gorman’s original take on Web 2.0 entitled “Web 2.0, the Sleep of Reason.“

Here she takes on a point that many of us have belabored in the edublogosphere, but she couches it in a manner that is much more scholarly. That is not to say that we have not been saying similar things, but hearing this from an attested academic, which she confesses to in the opening of the article, validates it in a way that skeptics might adhere to a little more than the same message coming from the passionate computer-guy.

Why are we telling our students not to use Wikipedia rather than
educating them about how Wikipedia works? Sitting in front of us is an ideal opportunity to talk about how knowledge is produced, how information is disseminated, how ideas are shared. Imagine if we taught the “history” feature so that students would have the ability to track how a Wikipedia entry is produced and assess for themselves what the authority of the author is. You can’t do this with an encyclopedia. Imagine if we taught students how to fact check claims
in Wikipedia and, better yet, to add valuable sources to a Wikipedia
entry so that their work becomes part of the public good.

Herein lies a missing piece in Dr. Gorman’s puzzle. The society
that he laments has lost faith in the public good. Elitism and greed
have gotten in the way. By upholding the values of the elite, Dr.
Gorman is perpetuating views that are destroying efforts to make
knowledge a public good. Wikipedia is a public-good project. It is the belief that division of labor has value and that everyone has something to contribute, if only a spelling correction. It is the belief that all people have the inalienable right to knowledge, not just those who have academic chairs. It is the belief that the
powerful have no right to hoard the knowledge. And it is the belief
that people can and should collectively help others gain access to
information and knowledge.

Our teachers take on what Wikipedia is has to be examined, and what better way than to first have them do some fact-checking and entry creation. Our society has done so much tearing down of its capabilities, would not that energy have been better served in changing it to make it work better for us? The beauty of Wikipedia is that it can be argued, re-envisioned, and eventually changed to reflect new information. As Boyd states, encyclopedias could never do that.

What Boyd advocates is no less than a calling out of the academics because information is no longer the property of the elite. She asks: what can you contribute to the discussion? One of the most commonly asked questions concerning the validity of Wikipedia or any online content: “How do you know it’s valid?” We often say that we need to teach students to disseminate what is good and what is bad, but do we have those skills ourselves? How many of you or the teachers you work with would truthfully know how to assess the accuracy of a source given to them? We need those skills as much as our students.

Boyd’s ideas relate very well to the K-12 setting, and after reading her post, I came across this one from Pete Reilly:

Let us find ways to give our children back their birthright, their natural curiosity and facility to learn. There have to be ways that we can organize our learning institutions to accommodate individual curiosity and the standardized curriculum. I believe that thoughtful educators can create environments that are less restrictive and provide much more natural habitat for learning. Let us find ways to foster the wildness and thrill of learning again. Let us answer the “Call of the Wild”.

This idea that we give students back their creativity, echoed by several people recently at NECC, is one all teachers grapple with. If we polled teachers, how many would say that they want to teach the same thing year after year with little variation? If we removed all state pressure and made learning a truly organic experience, would teachers choose to mirror their curriculum from year to year? I am intrigued by what the statistics would say. Any ideas? My truest frame of reference is my own teaching experience, and I have to say that I did not do the same things from year to year; I may have covered the same topics as required by law, but the way that we did it differed each time. Why? I was curious; I wanted to learn; It was boring to do it the other way.

Supposedly, I am an adult and possess a longer attention span than an adolescent, and even I could not sit through similar material. How are we asking students to handle this type of environment without appealing to their interests, or at least letting them access the material in a way that is personally meaningful?

Marrying Boyd’s and Reilly’s ideas might serve to inform our staffs about the power of the medium and the importance of this new information literacy. For example, if we showed teachers how easily they, and thus their students, can access information, it moves us in a direction where we can all become learners again. Whether it is through a serious analysis of Wikipedia articles related to a curriculum topic or through some other activity that takes advantage of our students desire to find things relevant to themselves and their own world, we now have the ability to teach to our students’ passions, and the means to let them pursue them safely.

Photo Credit: Maven’s Photostream from Flickr

Technorati Tags: brittanica, knowledge, information, literacy

Using Data to Initiate Change

I know this might sound simple to some of you, but I have recently started trying to visualize some of the data that pertains to what I do here.

In a nutshell, what these pictures do for me is provide a measuring stick to judge against for next year. Also, when I really begin to analyze what I need to do for next year and plan to build consensus, these numbers tell me where to start, and who to build on.

It’s Coming!!

News today from the Read/Write Web about Google’s latest acquisition. Soon enough, we will see the Google Office suite!

This could be a potential cost-saver for many schools and businesses, especially if the price remains free.

Goodbye Status Quo

(Image taken from http://susanlucas.com/it/images/categories.gif)

We are taking steps. Slow, measured, and tender steps towards changing the philosophy in our school. The diagram above (thanks to Scott and his whole Change Week agenda) typifies the stages that organizations go through as they accept innovation and change.

Last week we opened our tablet program to our high school staff. As of this posting, over 30 teachers have responded to the initial invitation to the roll out. That is roughly 30% of our high school teaching staff that has accepted the offer to use tablet PCs in their classroom. Looking at Lucas’ chart above, that tells me that we are moving in a great direction right off the bat. However, that number needs some clarification: as I analyze the list, a small group of the teachers are regulars in my professional development classes, while others I have not really worked with all that much. That is not to say that those I have not worked with are not ready to begin using the tools that I teach in my classes–we all have met those teachers (and we actually love them) who are effective with little input from tech coordinators because they are learners themselves and figure out what they needed to do. Most tech coordinators, myself included, probably fell into that category when and if we taught in the classroom. So as for our early adopters, that number falls down into the single digits. As a first step, I am excited with the turnout.

I had a great meeting today with a member of our Phys. Ed/Health Department who has been one of the early adopters in our school. We talked for over an hour about how we can change the overall attitude students have for health class. She is familiar with the tools that I hawk, for lack of a better word, but she hit it squarely when she used the word “ownership.” She was referring to how to hook the students into a learning process by asking them to give it value and meaning. There are myriad ways to do that through our pedagogy, and we discussed the possibilities that did not include technology: guest speakers, community service projects that require the students to affect local change, etc. We laid out an ambitious project that we are hoping will accomplish the goals we have in mind for her health classes.

When I left the conversation and went on with the rest of my day, I kept coming back to the ideas we spoke about and I was recharged, ready for summer, and ready to push that bell curve further to the right. It was great to have a conversation that was charged with the willingness to try, to change and possibly fail. What I took from the exchange was more than anything a glimmer of hope that people do not want the status quo.

What Can We Teach the Hive Mind

I have been enjoying the discussions going on over at the Brittannica Blog immensely these last few days. Thanks to Joyce Valenza for pointing me there.

Of note today is the final quote from Gregory McNamee in which he states what I believe is the truest challenge to all of us out there, not just the scholarati:

The challenge is to teach consumers of information how to
distinguish the good from the bad, to recognize that junk data is as
bad for the brain as junk food is bad for the body.

Failing that, the future belongs to the hive mind and a new kind of person indeed.

McNamee makes his title reference clear throughout his short post: Maoism and the Mass Mind. What I wish is that someone would explain to me the dreadfulness of individualized search for meaning and education through reflection. The statement that

“Totalitarianism begins at the moment when bad information drives out good information, when the idea of expertise is tossed out the door in favor of the vague idea that anyone’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s. Totalitarianism requires ignorance.

is so unnecessarily inflammatory. Mr. McNamee, instead of decrying the dearth of expertise, teach your students or employees how to create it in the manner that you require.

Philosophy for sale

Scott McLeod’s spate of posts which he put under the umbrella term of “Change Week,” really kicked over a hornet’s nest in my shrubbery, so to speak. If any of you are like me, the really huge problems in life, I tend to avoid, and the really big ideas I usually tend to share them with more connected people. Recently, however, I feel that this is changing within me, and I want to reel in these bigger fish while I am at the helm. This is in no way a power trip, but I feel that I am able to work toward greater goals at this point in my life.

The schools I work in, up until about three years ago, fit the description of School 1.0 perfectly. With some diligent work and some innovative teachers, that all began to change, and more and more resources are becoming available for teachers to change the way they approach their teaching. In beginning to use some of the recommended tools that Scott talked about in his posts, I realize that we are in the middle of a philosophical shift, and need to be guided through to the end. That is where I come in. I am an agent of change. Sounds all cloak-and-dagger, and I dig it.

Looking at the big picture is daunting: we have major reconstruction going on, and we have a lot of trust to gain back after a year of spotty network coverage and unreliable, often aging machines. To allow this to remain a setback, and not spring over it would be simple; I have a core group of teachers that religiously take the classes I offer and implement some great strategies in the classroom. However, I have to look at this differently–according the improved, big-game hunter version of myself, this is something I must see through.

That’s not to say that the obstacles of mistrust and physical space will be overcome next year, or even the year after. They may not be. That core group of teachers, my agent provocateurs, if you will, will go a long way towards tipping the scales in favor of philosophical change.

One thing did strike me as notable in one of Scott’s posts. Scott, pulling from their 2005 Phi Delta Kappan article, Can Schools Improve?, Christensen, Aaron, & Clark speak about changing current public education systems, quotes:

Our current system is . . . incapable of changing itself. Most people know – even if they are loath to admit it – that it’s easier to start from scratch than to try to salvage what’s already there. We may wish otherwise, but we ought not to be wishful thinkers. Systemic, transformational change in public education can only happen if we are willing to start from scratch.

At this point, I am going to refuse to buy into this one. That may be my naivete, and although it is waning, my youthful optimism still weighs in fairly heavily that effective and inspirational leadership coupled with sound pedagogy and goal-setting can bring about a shift in how schools and all members of the school community view themselves.

There is some hope for me…

I posted this on my Tech Dossier site the other day to show how the new teacher’s took to some of the Web 2.0 technologies that they saw. I was really trying to build on the word of mouth popularity I was hearing from people in the building–the new teachers liked what they had seen and been able to do.

So, in analyzing this graph, I can see that the most easily adaptable technology was del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. More people planned on using it, and they did not require additional professional development on it. Conversely, videoconferencing proved to be the least adaptable after the workshop, and the teachers voted that they needed more professional development before they were comfortable using it. That will shape a lot of what I do with the new teachers next year. It also shows me that there is interest in things like wikis and blogs, but the learning curve appears to be a little on the high side, and that is OK. That is why we have professional development classes and it’s also why when teachers add technologies like that, I work closely with them until they are comfortable.

We met with our technology committee today to discuss a few things to wrap up the year and plan for the summer maintenance on all of the machines in the district (we are switching over from an antiquated network to a brand-spanking new one). Also on the agenda for today was a discussion of the training needed for our teachers who are piloting our tablet PC rollout this coming fall. Now, I make it sound like it is a huge plan based solely on the fact that we want to start putting laptops in the hands of teachers, and at heart (well, my heart) it is, but in actuality it is being done because we are entering a three-year construction schedule for our high school. The teachers who are moving to a portable classroom are being issued a tablet PC and a wireless Epson projector in lieu of all of the machines they will lose in their rooms.

Always glass half-full, I look at this situation as a turning point for our district; if this group of 30 or so teachers can find success with these machines, rolling them out to the rest of the staff, and ideally the entire high school, will be that much easier due to the initial buy-in. But in recent weeks, we have been regaled with stories of poor planning and implementation programs causing egregious wasting of taxpayer dollars on technology that was doomed to fail. So, my selfish agenda at the tech committee meeting today was to get a feel for what the high school teachers on the committee saw in the way of training needed for those going to the tablets.

What I got was a great list of ideas, all based on the level of proficiency with the technology. Some of the teachers moving to the tablets are at a point where using a laptop in front of the students is not something they would feel comfortable with. Others will take the machine, plug in and just go like they have always had it. My idea is to do two things: for those that need extra training, start with basic uses and applications to give them success, aiming for an in-class usage percentage of about 50%. With the other group of teachers, I have loftier goals:

So you have been issued a new tablet PC and you are teaching in a modular classroom this year–what now? The machine you have at your fingertips has the ability to change the way you approach your classroom, much more so than a regular laptop. Sitting in front you is a traveling interactive whiteboard, a mobile production studio, and the biggest productivity streamliner you have ever encountered.

I want to show them ways to actually make that portable classroom more technologically advanced then the room they came from.

If you have any ideas in this regard, please feel free to pass them along.

Image Credits: “Cuneiform Tablet,” allanimal on Flickr, “Tablet PC,” Calixto el octavo satélite de Júpìter on Flickr

A tempered rant.

Dean Shareski posted the other day about Possibility v. Probability, where by he addressed the issue of building an infrastructure within his school where change was seen as urgent and necessary in regards to how we use technology in our teaching. This same idea, in various forms, is one that I find myself answering to both internally and with teachers that I work with. The most frustrating aspect of my job so far has been the feeling that teachers don’t see the value in what I do in regards to their own teaching methods. There are two disconnects I see in the schools today: complaints I hear regarding cell phone usage, the ubiquity of iPods, and the persistent time-wasting of online gaming and social networking through MySpace and Facebook and the lack of change in pedagogical methods to captivate that audience and use those ideas and technologies to draw in the learners, and the sore-thumb syndrome, whereby teachers are using technology for technology’s sake rather than as a tool that will foster growth and understanding. Below, is a great clip from Stephen Downes as he responded to Dean’s post and follow up question of what schools will look like in five years, followed by my own comment:

Comment by Stephen Downes

May 26, 2007 @ 6:54 am

Well
there’s no easy answer to that. Schools change very slowly, so although
there will be increased penetration for tech (usually sanitized to
separate students from society) things will look much like they will
today. There will be increased pressure – especially from the U.S. -
for alternatives, but it will be difficult to separate educational
ventures from commercial ventures.

Meanwhile, online media will have gradually become more pervasive
and more immersive. It will occupy an increasing amount of students’
time. Online will be – indeed, is already – be thought of as ‘normal’
and most students will be in constant communication with their friends
(watch out for loners shut out of this network, as they will be more
isolated than ever).

Mostly, school will be about socializing and learning pushed to the
back burner (at least, for students). There will be an ongoing (and
losing) battle by teachers to prevent students from using their
technology. The number of schools breaking down and accepting the
online world will increase. Adoption will be uneven, with urban schools
being at the forefront, rural schools late adopters.

The students’ real learning environment – their online world – will
penetrate the school environment one class at a time. Innovative
teachers will attempt to actually remove students from the school
grounds much more frequently than in the old field-trip days (this
allowing for 100 percent use of online techs). The amount of school
time actually spent ins school, as an average, will constantly decrease
(in five years it should be roughly 80 percent, give or take a lot; in
ten years it could be down to 50 percent, give or take a lot).

Comment by Patrick

May 27, 2007 @ 4:44 am

Depending
on where you are, as Stephen said above, the ratio of innovative
teachers to traditional teachers will fall in favor of transformation.
For districts that lie in the suburbs and are truly committed to having
their schools remain centers of community outside of athletics and
arts, the shift is essential and the acquisition and support of
“shifted” teachers will bely their success at being involved in the
real learning process of their students.

This thought process that you had, Dean, is one that I have been
struggling with as I attempt to penetrate(I hope that word doesn’t
sound to pugnacious) classrooms that don’t necessarily see the need for
change. My biggest issue is with the technology not being as
transparent as it should yet. I have several teachers dieing to use
“technology” in their classroom, and several Professional Improvement
Plans submitted by teachers that use that terminology “integrate
technology” but what for? It’s apparent that they are taking that step
just for the sake of using technology. What about making it
transparent, so that it’s just another tool, like heterogeneous
grouping, that they they use to accomplish the goal of learning? That
is where my biggest disconnect is: the technology sticks out too much.

Technorati Tags: technology, education, integration, embedding, edtech

Beginning to See the New Problems

With the use of Read/Write technologies in our classrooms, comes a whole new set of problems that our students will face–a new set of decisions to make in order for them to achieve success. When we experience these problems and make these decisions beforehand, our role as coach and mentor becomes more meaningful.

Yesterday I began the first of two one-hour sessions in a class called “Writing with the MySpace Generation,” aimed at introducing teachers to the idea of connective writing. I had taught this class previously to a group of middle school teachers, but this class is made up of high school teachers. Instead of standing in front of the room taking them through the wiki and the ins and outs of Google Documents and Spreadsheets, with the help of my wife I decided to design an activity whereby the “students” were asked to create a summary of some data that I had provided for them. They were to use Google Docs to write the summary, but they also had to incorporate Spreadsheets to create the charts then embed them in the summary evaluation.

When presented with the problem, which was by no means what they thought they had signed up for, a few things became apparent:

• they first had to work within the application and play to see how it all worked
• even though they were in the same room, planning out the roles and delegating the tasks was paramount to getting anywhere
• it was extremely important to share information quickly
• controlling who edits and when, is necessary
• chatting (in spreadsheets) is fun

Perhaps the best question that came out of this activity, which took much longer than I had anticipated, was after the class was over:

How is this different than giving the students an assignment in school in Excel or Word and having them work on it and save it to our shared drive, where they can all access it?

The first thing out of my mouth was access. Our classes last 40 minutes, and homework debate aside, rarely do we feel that it is enough for us or them to see, touch, discuss, connect and incorporate what we would like to them to. The Read/Write web tears down those time parameters. The concept of asynchronous learning is a hard one to grab on to, as is the concept of a learner-driven classroom.

Clay Burell had commented about student trepidation a while back in regards to becoming 21st Century students, whereby they resisted as much as teachers resisted the change. It requires some different processes to be successful, but overall, I am seeing that a lot of the same valued characteristics that we look for in students today: communication, critical thinking, an emphasis on planning, collaboration all work in the Read/Write web. It’s that they are amplified by audience which gives us pause. And this is universal: student and teacher.

I am going to ask them for feedback today regarding the questions raised yesterday, and I hope to blog it directly from class (or soon thereafter). If anyone would like to Skype in (pjhiggins1), we will be in class between 2:30 and 3:30 EST. Here is the link to what I will be going through. It’s only an hour, so I am jamming a lot of stuff into that hour.

Evaluating Online School Success

How will we know if the program we create is effectively providing the students with what they need? There are so many options available, either in-house and on the web, to evaluate quickly how people feel about their experience in an online school. Metrics, when used effectively, are invaluable in this regard. For us, since this is so new and so unknown, finding out first who is interested with both teachers and students, then how we have hit benchmarks of progress will be important parts of the process.

The graph at the top of the page, with information taken from the US Census Bureau, shows the dropout rate among high school students over the last 30 years. I have to think that using online classes to either keep these students in school, or to give them access to credit recovery would push us, or anyone to create these types of schools.

Survey tools to gather data

• use them to analyze where the data is telling the school to move.

65% Survey

• when a student hits the 65% completion point, they are automatically taken to a survey that asks them about teacher effectiveness and class effectiveness
• Data is then analyzed and changes are suggested for the course or teacher
• This is kind of like RateMyTeachers on steroids.

End of year, mass surveys to stakeholder groups

• each district served receives the survey
• they are asked how well the school is serving the community/school

Principals and Guidance counselors receive surveys

• they are asked how well the school is serving the community/school
• how does the virtual school compare/stack-up to the regular school

Parent Survey

• targeted to their child’s schedule and class record

Student Survey

• end of course survey about their school experience

Data Visualization

I am not a numbers guy, not by any means. So much so that when someone asks a math question (even simple addition) in a meeting, I just look around the room and wait for the numbers to magically appear out of someone else’s mouth. You can imagine my surprise then, when after reading Greg Farr’s post on Leadertalk yesterday, I have been consumed with trying to get my district’s data to play nicely within a widget-type application.

Patterns, I can recognize. Numbers mean nothing to me, and haven’t since poaching tutoring sessions off of Raj back in calculus class in 1993. However, placed within a visual context, I can make sense of things and they begin to become real for me. For example, tell me a student is absent today and it means no more than any other day, but show me average student attendance plotted against some other variable, like night-time sporting events, and the numbers translate into habits.

Farr’s idea of making public the school’s essential data so that it is alive and “in your face” for lack of a better word, takes transparency to a whole new level. Instead of an intuition that teachers may have about the number of students in the hallways, real data tells them what the attendance numbers are, and better yet, if it is in the form of a widget that lives on their desktop, it is unavoidable. When data comes to you, it means something different than if you only go looking for it when you need it.

The second step of getting this data to the staff would be making it look all pretty and dance for them. Need twenty minutes of well-spent time? Watch this:

Gapminder is an unbelievable idea, and this truly makes patterns visible, and as Rosling says early on, fights misconception rather than ignorance. Right now, I am searching for some way, with my meager hack skills, to take our data from our SIS, and visually represent it for our staff (looking into using Many Eyes and Swivel). I love this idea, and I will settle for low-tech if I have to for now. Taking that representation to our desktops will be the final frontier. Imagine that, all of this from someone who ducks and covers when math is in the air.

VoiceThread

This link showed up on Clay’s Daily Diigo snippets the other day and followed it, and I am thankful that I did. Regardless of its classroom applications, Voicethread is an invaluable resource. If you haven’t been to their site and played around, here is a short preview of what you can create there:

The premise is fairly simple: upload images, record your voice as you narrate the story, or the story of that image. However, it gets even better when you share it with others because they can add their take on that image as well, and it all becomes part of the story. As soon as I began playing around, the possibilities became immense for me. Personally, I instantly started remembering pictures of events that took place in my childhood that my sisters and I have differing opinions on, thus completely different stories. This allows for multiple points of view on the same image. In that vein, pictures of conferences (there is a direct import from Flickr feature here) where discussions can be furthered using audio form and then posted for more collaboration long after the initial meeting.

If we want to take this into the classroom as a creative tool, or as an analytical tool, we can. Have students create stories with multiple points of view. Group storytelling takes on a whole new dimension here. Or, take picture of major current events story (I like what the folks at Daylife are doing with photojournalism), and have your students add their audio take to it. Shazam! Instant talking points for class discussion.

I love this stuff!

More on "Conversations"

In order to get some of these ideas going a little deeper, I will re-post Clay’s comment on “Blogs as Conversations,” here:

Clay Burell said…

Patrick, you really do nail the pedagogical affordances that, in my book, only blogging offers to developing student literacy–writing AND reading.

What I’m now experiencing with my own students is this: the idea of being writers is unsettling to them. After 9 years of schooling, they have only written homework and “schooly” writing assignments–have only been students, and never writers.

So they are resistant to this shift. They don’t want to learn to be writers, because it’s harder. It makes them find their own ideas, instead of hacking out some tired exercise based on ideas that Teacher prescribed to them.

So students have to be “professionally developed” as well as teachers into what the read-write web means for their learning. It’s new to them too, and just as uncomfortable.

Which brings me back to your main point: the training I’m pushing on my students now is precisely what you highlight: reading with writing in mind; writing with an audience in mind; conversing with other writers and readers via comments; hyperlinking and connecting.

Some get it faster than others. All need to hear this: we know you’ve never been a writer, and we know you’re a novice. We’re forgiving that way. This is a long-term journey you’re starting, so start where you are as a writer, and we’ll take you as far as we can in the coming years. Trust that you’ll grow.

That sort of thing. Enjoyed your post.

This is an observation that I have not heard about too often in my travels. As digital immigrants, we expect that we will have some issues with cognitive dissonance as we enter into blogging-as-practice and pedagogy, but Clay brings up examples from what he is seeing with his students. This is new for them as well, and this is equally as hard for them. By becoming consistent writers through blogging for larger audiences, we are kicking the chair out from under them, so to speak.

Think about the structures we have always placed on the writing process. We still use those structures, only the end piece is shifted dramatically. Audience is the most intriguing factor for us as teachers of writing because of the stress it places on the earlier steps of the writing process. Just by allowing for other students to access your writing openly and without the constraint of a 40 or 80 minute class period, it places new stress (what I would call “good stress”) on the writer as he or she develops ideas, formulates syntax, and revises. Eliminating the time constraint that a student’s work is open to others really transforms the whole process.

Professional development for students? I like that one, and our teachers will like to hear that as well.

An Appeal for Opinions

As it is Saturday, and I have a rare quiet moment in the house (boy is sleeping and my wife is at the dentist), I sat down to hammer out some content on the wiki for this week’s workshops. Since it lent itself most to this format, I began putting together my resources for “Welcome to Web 2.0″ and soon realized that there were too many directions to go in. And if I am feeling that way, how do I expect my teachers to feel when I begin talking to them on Thursday?

The class is broken into three, one-hour sessions, one-week apart, and I thought the best thing to do then was to separate the class into three sections: what is Web 2.0, RSS Feeds and using the web to work “for” you, and a student collaboration piece. Now, my question to the world at large is fairly simple and beautifully complex: based on those three categories, where do you think I should take them? Teachers: what would you want to be taught about Web 2.0 and its classroom uses or what has stuck with you from any workshops or formal training? Technologists: what do you think the most essential message is in terms of what teachers should see in order to connect to their students? Admins: What do you want your teachers to know?

I want the staff to walk out of the meeting not necessarily armed with a ready-made lesson for them to take to class, but with a little cognitive dissonance. They should be energized but slightly unsettled to the point that they email during the week, or post on the discussion board of the wiki because they want more clarity. Yet, I don’t want to have them tune out the tech guy because I am talking over their heads.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Praise study resurfaces in Wichita

An addendum to the Bronson post from Saturday. Wenzl’s article points to public opinion and practice mirroring the study.

Buck, the East High history teacher, sees slackers at East. “Some boys most prone to quit are the gifted boys. They don’t want to appear like they are trying. It’s not cool to try.

“I gave a test with multiple choice, and an essay question,” he said. “One of the boys finished the multiple choice, and said, ‘Let’s see how I did.’

“So I graded it. He got eight out of ten right.

“So then he said, ‘That’s good. Will I pass if I just blow off doing the essay question?’ “‘You’ll pass,’ ” I told him. “‘With, like, a 61 percent.’ “

“‘Then let’s leave it at that,’ ” he said.

“‘You sure?’ ” I asked him. “‘Sixty-one isn’t very good.’ “

“‘No,’ ” he said. “I’m cool.”

Alarmist, most likely, but after reading the Bronson article and being pointed in some relevant directions, I can see there is a connection between the culture of self-esteem and inability to pursue the messier side of learning.

Praising Mediocrity

Just when I thought I had really gotten this parenting thing down in regards to how to talk to my 2-year old, out comes Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s New York Magazine article “How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise” to force me to reevaluate what it will mean to be a good parent. He’s only two, but even still, lavishing him with praise over the coloring job he did, or the fact that he is a “good boy,” will now be yet another thing I will ask myself at the end of the day “was that the right thing to do?”

If you haven’t seen it yet, the article is built primarily around research from a psychologist named Dr. Carol Dweck, who performed a ten-year study in the New York schools based on the way children responded to praise. In short, those students praised for their intelligence, the “smart” kids, performed poorly on a series of tests aimed at evaluating the types of praise given to students. Inversely, “regular” kids were given the same tests and praised for their effort, what Dweck calls “process praise,” and did better on successive tests and in the overall study.

“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,”
she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their
success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s
control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

As I read it, I kept thinking back to all the students I have taught over the years and wondered how many of them I called “smart” or praised for being “intelligent.” Did I damage them?

Probably not, but I do like this information for several reasons. The first is that it begins to make sense, especially when I remember it in terms of sports. The best coaches I ever had in the various sports that I played were ones who, through their direction, forced me to work hard, and did not ever reward me for dumb luck or athletic skill. Thinking about this in light of Dweck’s research, they were indeed using “process praise,” rather than praising an innate ability. Furthermore, the anti-self-esteem backlash I have been hearing in faculty rooms since I began teaching now seems to have merit. Teachers that I have been in contact with for the most part have the child’s best interest in mind, and it makes sense that showering a student with praise for mediocre results did not make sense to them. Praise them for accomplishments, but know when to stop. We have become too wrapped up in the fact that our children need to feel good about themselves, maybe we are championing mediocrity, to quote Mr. Incredible.

Bronson’s last few paragraphs speak about how he is coming off of his addiction to praise, not for him, but for his 5-year old son. I can see how we, as parents and teachers, become stuck in the overpraising rut, and it is something that Dweck and others have described as a means of controlling behavior. Children do something we like, for example cleaning up their toys when they finish playing, and we heap praise on them because we want to see that behavior repeated. It’s effective, but what effect does that have on our children? Are we causing them to be praise-addicted? There is some science to that, and Bronson references that in the article, but I don’t know how you would tell parents or teachers to stop doing that. I am going to watch this one for a while. His blog has been fairly active over the last few days regarding that.

Periodic updates to come as my son and I work through this change in philosophy.

Image Credit: Dark Horse Comics/Pixar, Brad Bird

The IMspeak debate

How do I answer the question regarding whether or not to allow students to use IM language on school related webs? I always felt that this decision should not be a district-wide policy, but rather a more informed, specialized decision coming after reflection from the teachers. I have bookmarked this post by David Warlick from which I pulled this quote. In it, he is responding to a comment on his blog by a women named Beth who ardently disagrees with using anything other than proper and complete English in all university writing, especially the school newspaper:

I respectfully disagreed with Beth, who describes herself in her blog as “..a freelance scientist, educator, artist, model and social engineer”. We tend to give writing assignments with the assumption that the pinnacle goal of all children is to become a college professor. We seem to want to train our children to grow up to be scholars. There is history to this, where there was a time when you went to college to become a scholar. Most other occupations were achieved through apprenticeships.

When Beth writes to her scientist friends, she will write in a style and with a vocabulary that is different than what and how she will write to her model friends. In writing about social engineering she will speak from the same creative energy as with art, but the voice will still be different.

My point is that we should be teaching students to communicate with audiences in order to accomplish goals. The style of communication, the vocabulary, and even the spelling will depend on the audience and the goal, and that’s what we should teach.

I have had discussions with teachers in my buildings on the topic of whether or not we should allow IMspeak on any of our online publications or wikis. The line falls in a similar spot as the one in the debate over whether students should use Citation Machine for works cited sections of research papers.

This is a great set of paragraphs here, where the need for teaching audience trumps that of enforcing overarching grammar rules. This is where the discussion should be. My humble interpretation of the future leads me to believe that those with the ability to specifically communicate with a targeted audience will be the most sought after individuals in the new economy.

Transparency

Based on the sheer abundance of ideas that came out of today’s session with Will Richardson at Science Leadership Academy, I apologize in advance if this post goes wildly off topic. The main reasons I traveled to Philadelphia for the day were inspiration and curiosity; both were pronouncedly satisfied and yet piqued beyond what I had expected.

A while ago, I had clipped some segments off of David Warlick’s blog about the term “transparency” and how using Web 2.0 technologies allowed our schools to become open not only to the parents of the students involved in the learning, nor the community in which the school exists, but also the world at large.

The business world has always had some good examples of companies that were transparent and authentic with their customers, but there would likely be agreement these were too few and far between. …There is no doubt that the technologies we call Web 2.0 have both required and produced transparency and authenticity. Blogging, especially, by its very nature, helps create transparency and authenticity–both for ourselves in our own thinking processes (see this thread on Will Richardson’s blog), and for our organizations. This is why true blogging is so hard for companies that don’t have an open culture.

What is it that we would want to hide in our schools? Making our schools transparent to the world at large will only serve, as Will discussed today, to allow our students and teachers alike access to more teachers. The world is full of “teachable moments” as we like to say in our profession, and we must seek them out in order to give students of the 21st Century the tools they need to succeed in the emerging economies.

I look at the staff I work with at both schools, and I can’t wait to take what they do to the transparent level. Whether that is through blogging with them or whatever medium they become comfortable with, I don’t really care yet. What challenges me is the idea that we are able to teach them the ways in which to bring their students into the realm where they already exist, yet I haven’t started to make a dent yet.

Chris Sessum’s blog recently included the following:

Many schools operate out of fear of their constituencies and stakeholders. Many schools are afraid what the public would say if they knew what was going on inside.

This, from my own experience, is not what is happening. Becoming open to the world involves some serious soul-searching and expiation, and the fear of revealing what is going on inside the walls of schools is not what is inhibiting. Rather, shifting the paradigm in which a school has forever existed, and further, in which a teacher has always existed, is a groundbreaking move. As much as we embrace it, we have to be mindful that people need to be reassured that they will not be hurt in some way in the process.

What we need is a BHAG.

The top-down nature of educational reform is a bad model. When reform is pushed upon schools by government agencies and Acts and laws, problems occur and resistance is the natural by-product.

Recently, my Bloglines account has been filling up with posts from some very great minds writing about this very topic. Where change should originate is from those of us here in the trenches, and that is what I am seeing more so than from the push from above. Although we are held accountable for our performance on state and national tests, the real “revolution” in educational philosophy and practice is coming from the rogue teachers who have embraced what Chris Lehmann, David Warlick and Scott McLoed have been talking about for a while, and they call it School 2.0.

Recently, speaking of McLoed, I came across this post on Dangerously Irrelevant concerning what that reform might be. Is it a story that leads us in a direction towards the 21st Century? Or should it be more of an idea or goal, something McLoed c