Risk- takers learn by doing: The Road to Change

"A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" George S Patton

This was the theme of our three day in-service that marks the beginning of our school year. It is a kind of mantra for us and it reflects the catalyst for the changes we have embraced. One of the lessons we learned at NECC this year was that there are a lot of people who really want to move forward and try new things but they are held back because they feel they "do not know" how or what to do. What we discovered was that we did not "know" either but we accomplished a great deal because we went ahead and tried.

We are continuing along this path this year. We understand the importance of educational theories, and the research that informs practice and those certainly are the underpinnings of our vision and our plans. And as a educational leader I have a responsibility to read and do research but the purpose of gaining this knowledge is not to teach it to others but rather to drive school improvement which focuses on student learning. Good teaching we know comes from good planning and is supported by teachers having a firm grasp of their curriculum, well defined goals and an understanding of their students needs. These conditions help teachers be risk takers and give them the time energy and focus they need to be innovators and learners. The question is how do we get there?

Two things that I have been reading about and struggling with for over two years are the concepts of curriculum mapping and Understanding by Design. I have made various attempts to introduce these concepts to the teachers and encourage their use but only with limited success. Perhaps because they were not well scaffolded. Perhaps because I did not not fully understand. Perhaps because I was trying to get it perfect- What is a really good essential question? After watching Chris Lehman do two down and dirty Ubd lesson plans with his audiences at NECC I realized I was trying to hard. To borrow from Nike we needed to "Just do it"! thus was born our 3 day in-service.

This is a salute to an awesome staff and too the ability to move mountains if you have the courage to take risks and believe in yourself.

Day One I gave each teacher a packet of curriculum standards and benchmarks that had been cut apart into slips for each standard and were color coded by subject. Subject by subject they sorted through these slips of paper and marked them 1st quarter, 2nd quarter 3rd quarter or 4th quarter and put them in corresponding envelopes. When the sorting was done on they laid out their year on big tables and looked for cross curricular connection and did some rearranging. Then they filled out a monthly map to make a record of what material they planned to cover. And so Day One was finished and everyone already had a plan of action for the whole year.....

Day Two- I introduced Ubd- Not with lengthy explanation , philosophy or theory ( they had heard snippets of allof that before) but by using a template and writing a lesson plan together for a unit on California Missions. We worked through stage one and then tried our hand at it. by lunch time everybody had completed stage one the understanding, essential questions content and skills for one topic/ standard. We repeated our mantra- "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." After lunch we finished our model lesson with the assessment piece and then the activities. And then it was back to work on their own plans. With much bouncing around of ideas and discussion by the end of the day everybody had finished one complete Ubd plan! Wow!

Day Three- With new confidence and the promise that Sunday nights could be reclaimed from the lesson planning monster we dug into write more plans. We focused on big ideas, why we teach these topics and real world assessments. By days end plans had been written for all of the beginning units and in some cases for the whole quarter. We face the unfolding year with a new sense of purpose. We know that the plans will get adjusted and that we will get better at doing this but we also know we can do it because we have done it. I believe the benefits of these three days will be reaped twenty fold. Already there is discussion about not being tied to the text and having the time and the focus that will allow the exploration of a whole host of other kinds of resources.

Technorati Tags: Ubd, curriculum, risktakers, ChrisLehmann, NECC

Finding the Path

(Cross posted to LeaderTalk)
The path to understanding and change. This is a personal journey but one that has been formed by the many people who form my personal leaning network. In the discussion surrounding NECC08 one of the things that people have talked about is how this NECC may have been different from the last. NECC is different each year because we are different having journeyed, grown, changed over the course of the year. In reflecting on this reality for myself , in thinking about about leadership and learning, I have had cause to think about my journey, my perceptions and the ongoing act of transformation.

A vision is shared,

connections and exploration begin,

a personal vision is developed,

a shared vision is built,

learning about tools, connections, and possibilities,

exploration/ practice begins,

reflection on practice leads to reflection on pedagogy,

establishing big picture goals for student learning

and knowing where to find the tools to help achieve your goals,

Obviously this is not solely a linear process but it does summarize my journey and the journey for our school. (The highlights represent our current focus.)

The first agent of change I encountered almost 4 years ago was Alan November. At NECC this year I attended his session "Designing Rigorous and Globally Connected Assignments". The ideas were not new but their value lay in how they embrace the big picture and they serve as a waypoint to evaluate your course of action. Alan always touches on the fundamentals like using country codes and other tricks of good searching and some basic tools ( a concept I will comeback too) but the heart of it all for me was in the following three statements.

• Give the children problems to solve.
• Rewrite the job description of learners.
• We need more voices teaching

What impact does this have on my planning for next year? What do I need to do?

First, I need to know where my staff is with regard to the journey. I was fortunate to take 4 people with me to NECC and we will debrief tomorrow night and talk about where we are and where we perceive our colleagues are with this journey. The tools discussion also fits in here. What are the essential tools? We are re -imaging all the computers in the school with a basic tool box to ensure everyone has access to what they might need and to ensure some platform uniformity. We will include Google docs and open office, picassa for basic photo editing, skype, photostory3, Google notebook, diigo, audacity, Google reader, google earth, voicethread, primaryaccess one of the mindmap programs, wetpaint wiki and learnerblogs. The emphasis is on ubiquitous access to tools but it is driven by the pedagogy that says that learners need access to information, collaboration, global connectivity and the ability to be content creators.

With regard to Alan's statements particularly the middle concept that we need to rewrite the job description of learners I am thrown back into the whole discussion of how to be an agent of change. Chris Lehmann's NECC presentation on Understanding by Design (UbD) hit the nail squarely on the head because it addresses how we think about what we teach and what learning is all about. UbD will form the other part of our before school to do list. UbD is not a magic bullet but it is about thinking and planning and with each passing year I become more convinced that one of the reasons change is slow is because for the most part we plan like we always have, chapter by chapter, sticking in blogs and wikis or some other tool because we know we should but not because we are thinking differently or setting different goals. Once the school year starts and the busier we become we are more likely than ever to fall back into what is easy and comfortable. So starting our planing with the big picture and working with Ubd can change our thinking , our framework for learning and become a tool of change. At least that is what I am thinking.

The final piece I am going to strive for in the coming school year is to create an environment that values, supports and rewards risk takers.

So here are the questions: Tools are cool but what are the basic elements we really need? Personally and for your school -How did your journey unfold- Where are you and what is next? How can you rewrite the job description of learners? What agents of change are you putting into place for the coming year?

Photo credit: Uploaded on January 21, 2007
by ionushi

Technorati Tags: NECC08, UbD, November, Lehmann, Classroom2.0

Back from NECC- Where the real learning begins

NECC is over and now I am home sorry to have left the face to face leaning community but I am also ready to begin to think deeply, reflect and move forward. Tomorrow is Leadership Day and I am also thinking about what I have to contribute to that conversation.

This NECC introduced me to a few new tools ( not that there weren't plenty of them out here) but most of what I sought was a deeper understanding of the pedagogy and the learning that the tools facilitate. To that end there are several presentations I want to reflect on including, Wes Fryer's session at Edubloggercon on Digital story telling and Oral histories, Alan November who always helps put the big picture in focus and Chris Lehmann's presentation on pedagogy. (Those will form /inform my next post).

What tools am I using, what tools are we using at school, and why are we using them? What do we need to be doing? Having teachers with me this year was a great opportunity to hear what they needed, what they were excited about and what structures I can facilitate to enable them to move ahead.

A few ideas are already surfacing..

Mentoring...teacher to teacher...who will really learn what tool well and be willing to help others

As a community we need a repository ( social bookmarking) of tools and tutorials for just in time learning and to share academic content

We need a way to bring new teachers quickly up to speed and fire their imagination with possibilities

To avoid projects or technology being an end in itself we need to have clear curricular goals.
and a clear understanding of the big picture....inclusive of the concepts of Global awareness, digital literacy, critical thinking, creativity and innovation in problem solving etc.

So in the end what do you need from technology? Perhaps it is only three basic things- Connectedness, publication capacity audio and visual, & collaboration tools. It does not matter which specific tools ....It is about what tools work for us and about the learning and skills they facilitate.
Chris Lehmann said tools are invisible (not to put too much of a spin on semantics ) I was challenged by that to move beyond simply transparency for our tools. At what point do tools truly become invisible?
Technorati Tags: NECC08, NECC , San Antonio, Chris Lehmann Wes Fryer, Pedagogy Web20

ThinWalls- NECC- A Transformative Experience

Clarence has done a nice post outlining some of our plans for the future of ThinWalls. And I have to echo his reflection about our face to face meeting being a wonderful experience and an opportunity to also deepen the connection of all involved.

This morning we discussed briefly another aspect of a ThinWalls classroom, the interpersonal connectedness or community, we hope the students would establish. To foster this we have discussed opening some channels of communication, like Twitter, that would help them develop that sense of connection beyond the specific content area. We also hope to make use of social bookmarking which I hope will move beyond the specific academic content they are working with to embrace their leaning in all areas.

From the perspective of the NECC experience I think another important thing happened for the ThinWalls classroom. Doing the poster session served as a form of publishing that allowed us to reflect on , recognize and celebrate what we had actually done. For the classroom teachers, especially Lucy and Terri, the day to day work and planning kept them so busy that they did not recognize how much they had done or the significance of their work. It was a great opportunity to see the big picture and to realize the significance of the ThinWalls work. But even more importantly from and administrative perspective I am seeing that "publishing" teacher work to an authentic audience is every bit as important as publishing student work!

Technorati Tags: NECC08, NECC , San Antonio, ThinWalla, Barbara, Barreda, Clarence

NECC- The Mega-Conference Syndrome

Three days into my San Antonio stay I am trying to get my head around the pros and cons of this kind of mega conference. I have attended Eubloggercon, gone to some formal and informal sessions, had some conversations, visited the exhibit and completed our poster session in the Global Gallery.

Everybody in the Bloggers Cafe this morning told stories about sessions over run with people or closed. The members of the faculty here with me have talked about having to run from one session to the next in hopes of getting a seat. My question about the conference scene in general is whether the more intimate conferences are more effective. Certainly I know the more intimate format of the BLC last year fostered some great conversations for me.

At the end of the day a few of us talked a little bit about the conference audience and conference spaces. Jeff Utecht shared about the organization of the conference in Shanghai and the ability to create both formal and un-confernce sessions that were open to the flow of the conversation they generated. Formal conference sessions all had a back up physical space where the session/conversation could be continued if warrented for a full 45 minutes after the completion of the session. The un-conference sessions ebbed and flowed and were assigned spaces as requests were made for conversations.

A conference the size of NECC has a very diverse audience. For many ( maybe most) it is a fairly new experience.They are looking to figure technology out and they are looking for cool tools, examples or ideas. If you visit the exhibit floor alot of people seem to be looking for software and gadgets too. There are others who are looking for the conversation, the pedagogy and the chance to converse on a different level. And of course there are many others with many other goals . The point is that there has to be way to meet these diverse needs and I think it has a lot to do with providing dedicated spaces and not filling every corner ( let alone every minute) with scheduled events.

Technorati Tags: NECC08, NECC , San Antonio

Cell Phone Conundrum

(Cross posted to LeaderTalk)

In my position as an administrator, sometimes I feel adrift in a sea of information and an ever changing landscape of responsibilities and possibilities. I am already a day late with my post and I have at least three topics which I want to explore but for now I will stick with two related topics that stood out in my recent reading.

The Cell phone conundrum. There is an article in the latest Technology and Learning which does not offer any real opinion but which exposes the wide disparity of policies. The most extreme example of allowing/encouraging cell phone use is:

“Three middle schools and three charter schools in Brooklyn, New York, started a pilot program in direct opposition of New York City's public schools' cell-phone ban. The schools gave 2,500 free cell phones to students, preloaded with 130 minutes of talk time. Students will be rewarded with additional minutes in return for good behavior, attendance, homework, and test scores. Teachers, meanwhile, can send text messages to students to remind them of assignments or upcoming exams. The $2 million program was funded by private donors through the Fund for Public Schools.”

The reader survey, which accompanies this article, however shows almost 89% of the respondents ban cell phones on campus. Greg’s blog prints and excerpt from a New York Times blog on cell phone in the classroom. While most of the discussion centers on higher education there are some good points ( along with the usual fears, liability, responsibility, cheating, posting you tube videos etc).

At about the same time David Warlick posted the same example I have above but the primary context of his discussion was the development of acceptable use policies. This all comes together at a time when I am wondering about the application of cell phone technology at the Junior High level and wondering about how to help the students develop the maturity they need to responsibly use this tool.

I entered the conversation with the following comment which I am reprinting here because I think it is an important question and because I want to highlight David’s follow up post.

“Since both cell phone use and AUP are things I am thinking about let me raise a question that I have not seen addressed in the last year or so..

The givens: We talk about teaching students to use “all technology” in a responsible manner ..we see the potential of a whole variety of connectedness like cell phones

The question: Should we have a tiered AUP? That is should Junior High students have the same AUP as 9th graders? As 11th graders? What are realistic expectations based on maturity and responsibility?
(I work in a K-8 school)”

I have a host of questions about cell phone technology but for a moment I wish to diverge to explore the AUP issue. David posted again a couple of day later a link to a wiki to explore AUP policies and to give us an opportunity to collaborate on a tiered approach. The post and the wiki have some nice resources that are worth exploring but even more important in my opinion is the concept the AUP is much more than a set of rules . that it should be part of a technology policy statement.

Join in the conversation here or on the wiki.

Just a few of my other questions include: Is the cell phone a viable technology for the Junior High Classroom. If you have a one to one program is there a need to use cell phones? What are possible applications?

Photo by compujeramey

I did not know until i read Clarence Fisher's blog..

How has RSS changed things? It is not a tool just for the classroom but also a tool for administrators. What professional journals pile up on your desk? How many education trends, curriculum ideas and legal issues do you try to track?

I use Google reader to track my subscriptions and I have it on my iGoogle homepage.

Reference Materials- What do our students need?

Library 2.0- Print resources and web resources for student learning- What do we really need?

I recently attended a professional development day designed to help us spend our allocated funds on research materials for our school libraries. I work in the private sector and I do not have the luxury of having a librarian so the day was informative and it did get me thinking about evaluating and maintaining our library. It also raised some very important questions about today's school library which I hope you will help me to answer. In this particular instance the allocated funds had to be spent on print resources and so in choosing those books I struggled with what our students needed.

What do today's students need?

What is the balance between print and web based resources? Is there a balance? Does it matter? What if any print resources do you think are essential? I have a nice chart from the workshop that breaks down by percentage and Dewey categories the rough proportions a elementary or secondary library should follow in building their collection but it does not address the questions I have about print resources.

Please don't misunderstand. I am not against books, in fact an avid reader. But I need you to help me think aloud here... What are essential tools for research for our students and how much of the budget should go to print resources?

We have set a goal to ensure our students are effective researchers* but now I have to considerer and evaluate what tools we need to make sure this happens.

Please share your insights...

*Specifically we state: “St Elisabeth Students will demonstrate effective research and information fluency by developing original conclusions, re-evaluating and interpreting their assumptions, and assessing the reliability and validity of their sources.”

A conference , two tools and getting moving again..

Just so I can restart my engine I am not going to even try to explain why my posting has been so sporadic since the beginning of 2008. Here however are a few quick notes on some recent experiences...

A Conference for Administrators

Last weekend I was in San Fransisco with 200 other principals and administrators for Leadership 3.0. You can read more about this conference in my post on LeaderTalk. The keynote address was made by Sir Ken Robinson who challenged us in our leadership to refit our schools. He addressed a particular concern which we really need to make a priority which is to address, nurture and work toward an environment which values creativity and innovation. To set this up he made an interesting observation that one would generally assume the goal of education is to discover and develop the intrinsic gifts and talents of the students, He suggests however that a great many people pass through he educational system with their talents uncultivated and he suggests that is because the educational system in the United States has ,since its inception ,had a different purpose-preparation for the industrial age. The conclusion- Refit our schools.

A New to Me Tool

Even though you have probably read other posts on this tool I have to put in a link. The Digital Vault is an easy to use tool for work with primary sources. It is a tool which will easily become transparent because its use is intuitive for most students and the primary source history materials are just what teachers need. Check it out for yourself.

I Finally Get PicLens

When I first saw it I thought it was kind of fun but wasn't sure how I would use it. Now I get it and like Digital vault it makes a lot of sense for our students. The application is simple. Once it is downloaded it allows you to “swing” through thousands of photos in an iphone style interface. ( the website calls it an "immersive view”) It works with most image collections and now instead of pulling up page after page of flickr photos to find the right one i can view literally thousands of images in a very short time.

There are a couple more posts that will follow now in short order...Time to think and write really is a critical piece of my own personal learning but sometimes “stuff” just gets in the way.

Technology is not the sugar on our cereal…

In today’s faculty meeting, we watched a short video from YouTube called 3 Steps. If you haven’t seen it I think it is worth taking a look.( The tags mention NECC 2007 and David Warlick so evidently this has been around for a while but I had not seen it) I used it as a lead in to today’s meeting. It address three steps we need to take to prepare the students in the 21^st century:

1. Making our classrooms creative spaces Photo by gongus
2. Teaching students to be competitive ( with themselves), to cooperate and collaborate
3. Connecting them with their global peers.

( It is on Teacher tube also in case you can not access You tube)

It was a good review of what we are trying to do and why plus it brought home the idea of changing how our classrooms look and function. The next stop was to consider the role technology plays in education. I told the teachers, “It is not the sugar on our cereal” . Technology is the means to access information learn and connect with others. As professional educators if our job is about information and teaching students how to access and use information then our job is about technology. I believe there is no way around this basic truth. It is not about cool projects it is about teaching and learning because teaching and learning are about information.

So with all of this out in the open today we embarked on something new. Armed only with our standards and a laptop I shared a iGoogle tab with the teachers on which I had preloaded some basic resources and I challenged them to go textbook free. They picked one subject, Science or social Studies and worked together to plan all of Marches lesson only with the resources they had at hand.

The standards helped us to look at the big picture and with the help of their peers everybody was successful. They explored video resource, Google gadgets, you tube, teacher tube etc. The next step is for the teachers in 6^th 7^th and 8^th grade to build an iGoogle tab for their subject area for the students to use !

Today I think we made a big step forward….and kudos to the whole staff who didn’t even flinch! Today technology became a viable source of teaching and learning in a new way for all grade levels , Pre-k to 8!

Doodle4Google- Explore your creative side

Over the weekend I stumbled on this contest and I am posting it here because I think it sounds like fun. Check it out for yourself. It is open to students from K to 12.

Design a Google Doodle and have your artwork viewed by millions on the Google homepage (plus win a
college scholarship, computers for your school and other cool stuff).
Check out www.google.com/doodle4google
for official rules and ask your teacher for
details on how to enter.

Thiwalls, A Colorado conversation, and MeBeam

Learning 2.0 A Colorado Conversation, a one day conference took place today at Arapahoe High School. I listened in to a few of the sessions through ustream and Clarence and I did podcasts for the opening session and participated in a live round table in the afternoon. One of the things that stood out was the fact that this conference was truly about conversation. In the words of the conference organizers… “Education is conversation. Conversation creates change. The future of education does not exist in the isolated world of theory and abstract conference sessions. Instead, it exists in conversations. It exists in creating a robust learning network that is ever-expanding and just-in-time. Learning 2.0 is not the beginning of this conversation. It is merely a stopping point, a time to talk about the visible difference that we all seek.” (You can access a great deal of the material from their wiki so use it to continue the conversation.)


For the afternoon round table we used and interesting little application called mebeam. It was very simple to use and while it worked pretty well for our round table discussion it is probably best suited to conversation where everyone has a headset. It certainly started me thinking about the classroom possibilities for collaborations like our Thinwalls classroom. It would allow groups of students to work together real time with face to face style communication. IM and skype our great but there is also something to be said for seeing each other while you talk. With mebeam you can have several people together in one room. I think this is a tool worth exploring!

I know the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time...But sometimes I forget

Where have I been? This is the season when my administrative role focuses on a broad range of issues that take me away from my day to day work with curriculum. It has also cut into my time for professional reading and when you are not reading it seems that it is much harder to write because you are not engaged with new content and ideas. ( I know that is pretty obvious…but it seems important to articulate this simple truth and to own it)

In the last several days I have begun reading and I also have been engaged in some reflective work as we begin to prepare for next years accreditation. So over the next several days I am going to blog a variety of things that are beginning to percolate to the surface.

Over the last year I have been exposed to a lot of cutting edge ideas. I have been challenged on many levels to provide leadership, support, professional development, and direction to the faculty to ensure that we are pursuing best practice across the curriculum. I have had the opportunity to hear some truly dynamic and motivational speakers including Paula Rutherford and Robert Marzano. I have talked about assessment with Scot Mcleod and I have picked the brains of many who are brighter than I am. Each interaction has left me excited and with a vision for what we can do and where we can go in ensuring that we provide an excellent education. But the real task is to translate the ideas and the head knowledge into practice.

A key to learning, a key to professional development, is to find a way to break the work down into “bite size” tasks. As an instructional leader who gets very excited about the possibilities the most challenging thing I need to do it is promote and encourage change and growth without overwhelming the faculty. Compassion and fear of overburdening already busy teachers however can paralyze our growth and so today I hit on an idea that I think will work. Daily 5 minute tasks that keep us moving forward seem relatively painless and which over the course of several days will yield real accomplishments.

With the second semester just beginning it is time to review our curricular standards to take stalk of student mastery and of what standards we have covered. We need to complete curriculum maps for second semester but that always sounds like a daunting task to teachers who only have two prep periods per week. Math is our focus subject this year so one page a day I am distributing standards work sheets to mark mastery level of the benchmarks taught. By next week we will be looking at a completed standards worksheet and be ready to plan for the rest of the year.

No Longer Content to Surf the Top of the Waves

No longer content to surf the tops of the waves of knowledge with our students we have been actively involved in retooling teaching and learning to dig deeper. It is not an easy task, nor is there a one size fits all solution. What I do want to share is some of our recent successes and the tools and teaching that took us there. As we have known all along technology is a tool and not an end and we are just beginning to learn how to choose and use tools to transform common activities into deeper learning experiences. Two tools, which have really affected our teaching and learning, recently are video game simulations and chats.

I have written about our experience with chats as a way to work on group projects on my blog. The gist of our experience was that as the students worked collaboratively with the students in Snow Lake Canada as part of our ThinWall classroom they used IM to plan their projects. The transcripts of these chats, often completed at home. gave us a whole new insight into the students thought processes, much more than one gets walking around a class listening to the groups talking. Because we could see their thought processes we know what skills they need. It is an absolutely incredible moment. Yes, it means we are working hard but the opportunity to give the students the thinking skills, communication skills, planning skills, and talents they will need for ….well for the rest of their lives is an unbeatable experience.

Using video games in class has become another incredible tool for deepening the student thinking and learning. In 6th grade social studies students study ancient civilizations and the formations of cities and societies. In most cases the students read about the various factors that influence the early developments of cities like geography, resources, government, trade etc. They can answer questions for an objective test but they have only "surfed the waves" with most of the information soon forgotten. Like many classrooms, you will sometimes see the students constructing dioramas or models depicting the various places they have studied. But when questioned about the model you find that for the most part there was little real thinking about what they created and it was mostly a fun arts and crafts activity( I remember having students do revolutionary war dioramas and they came in with WWII planes hanging from the top f the shoe box).. However, this year things are different. This year we used looked at several simulations like SimCity, SimSocetiy and finally decided on CivRome, which starts with the early development of city-states as a means to deepen the students understanding about building cities. Suddenly the students were no just reading about the choices others had made but they were planning and making choices. They were divided into teams of four with one student as the geographer, one as the government official, one as a farmer and one as a job specialist based on a web quest on early civilizations. They then moved on to the simulation where they continued work in their teams and dealt with all aspects of early civilizations, where to build, what to build, how to provide food and jobs, where to place roads, how to keep the citizens happy. In just three sessions where they could immediately see the effects of their decisions they had come to a whole new level of understanding. The teacher then had them build models which will soon be up on Voicethread, but this time they had to justify every decision, think through the process and make sure their city was sustainable.. These couple of days of activity was absolutely amazing. It was classroom as studio with students moving from simulation to building and back again. They were adjusting their plans and explaining their decisions and while these students may not remember the name of the early civilizations they have studied but they will understand the various factor that contribute to the development of society and they will understand more deeply the impact of the decisions made by leaders or a government on the people.

So, we are now building a library of simulations. It is one of the tools that works for us in the quest to re-tool teaching and learning to dig deeper but is also part of a whole package of technology tools we now are employing regularly as part of our commitment to do more than "surf the tops of the waves". What is working for you? How are you moving beyond technology or technology sake into new and better ways of learning?

Cross posted to Leader Talk

picture by by mrcthepc

Technorati Tags: IM, Chat, simulations, criticalthinking web2.0 class2.0

Instant Messaging for Class Makes Student Thinking Transparent

The ThinWall Classroom which is predicated upon connectedness, networking and learning beyond our class walls changes everything. Over the last few days the students in Snow Lake and Van Nuys began their final projects on The Oustider . They are exploring themes related to the book like teen violence , friendship and death. I have been busy lending support and collaborating with Clarence and Terri as we worked out the details and solved day to day glitches.. I worked with the students in Van Nuys modeling how to develop their topics and teaching about Creative Commons. I have been monitoring the wiki and checking on the students to assure they completed their scheduled chats. It has been an intense time of activity, monitoring and coaching.

Today I had a few moments for reflection and I had a new revelation of just how powerful and exciting this kind of teaching/learning can be. For the first time I realized that we were doing something that we never could have done in a more traditional setting…..we could literally see the students think. When technology allows you to be connected to the students thinking and processing you can guide them to build essential skills in a way that was never possible before.

Here is what I mean. I taught at the Junior High level for many years. I did enumerable group projects which fell under the umbrella of “cooperative learning”. I was careful to make sure that each student had a specific part to complete and that the work was divided between all students. I walked around the room listening in for a minute or two as they planned,(of course while I stood over them they were very productive) I watched them work and I talked about timelines etc. But I am not sure I was really very effective in teaching any of them how to think a project through in a collaborative environment. I am not sure that they really respected one another or in some cases that the kids even listened to each other.

.

Now imagine you actually had a transcript of their discussions as we do with their IM chats. I not only get a momentary glimpse of what they do in school but a detailed look at all of their planning, discussion and thinking. If two students are taking over I can intervene right away. The students and I can look at the chat together and talk about how they came across and what would be a better approach and why. If they are not on target we can remediate. If they are having trouble with any part of the process we can see how they are thinking and give guidance.

Because we can see their thought processes we know what skills they need. It is an absolutely incredible moment. Yes, it means we are working hard but the opportunity to give the students the thinking skills, communication skills, planning skills, and talents they will need for ….well for the rest of their lives is an unbeatable experience.

Photo by

Technorati Tags: ThinWall,Clarence, Instant Messaging, Classroom2.0 IM

Think aloud- What do I expect from our ThinWall classroom

Working on the "elevator speech" about the Thin Wall Classroom. I just attended a leadership conference and was asked to share about the project with Snow Lake. After I gave a brief overview of what we are doing another principal approached me and asked -"What do you want/expect your eighth graders to gain from this experience? What will they have learned? " It was an important moment reminding me that I need to be clear about the purpose of what at first blush might appear to be just a bunch of cool activities. So now as a think aloud I want to try to flesh out the my answers.

In no particular order :

• Students will move beyond limits of the classroom and the 8 to 3 learning day -opening up new ways to learn
• The students will learn how to work in a public space
• The students will understand the power of connectivity as a tool for learning
• The student will build learning networks
• The students will expand their world view
• The students will demonstrate multiple effective methods of collaboration and communication in the digital world
• Students will be self-critical of their communication skills
• Students will be able to track the development of their thinking and reflect on the impact of interaction with others on their thinking process over time
• Learning will become a process more than a set of facts to be mastered
• Students will be pushed to think about their learning

Picture : http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2047686395&size=m
by Tochis
Technorati Tags: thinWall, classroom2.0, web2.0, snowlake

When we get in the way......

Who has the key?
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=414993708&size=s by spiralz

What happens when we get out of the way. The ThinWall classroom was using Moodle to create chat groups for the students. Moodle is a great tool and it has served our school well in a variety of circumstances. However in this case the students were finding it cumbersome. For some reason the chats would drop participants or just would not work smoothly. We expect some minor difficulties and we checked settings and tweaked the system but it was beginning to effect the conversation and thus the learning. Clarence suggested we switch to MSN Messenger since his kids all had accounts and then require them to email us transcripts of their chats. Here is where it gets interesting.

I okayed the switch , asked for a code of conduct and directions regarding the transcripts and we went to check with our students to see if the had MSN. Surprisingly only seven did. So now the tech coordinator and myself were considering what we would do. Should the kids set up MSN accounts ? What was involved? Although both he and I had accounts it had been a long time since we set them up so we had to check out what the kids would need to do. The problem here is we had not asked the right questions and we had not listened to the kids. We spent at least 30 minutes working on a solution before we went back and asked the kids what IM they used. It turns out that our kids use Yahoo Messenger. Now what? Someone suggested looking at Meebo which we did... but then I actually talked with the students rather than just getting one reply and running off to find a solution.

As soon as the kids understood the issue that in Snow Lake the kids were using MSN and in LA they were using Yahoo they told us that it was no problem the two platforms could communicate with each other. They knew how to add MSN people to their Yahoo chats...problem solved. Or was it?

I think the hidden problem is that we get in the way. In an effort to be the teacher we do not allow the students to navigate through the tools. We forget to listen and be learners ourselves. It is important that we teach safe and ethical behavior and monitor the way they use the tools as well as helping them see the power the tools have to help them learn. It is good that we show them new things like voicethread and that we make the tools available to them. But we also need to allow them to find solutions and use the tools that work for them. Last night before we even had officially switched from Moodle one of the groups switched on their own and emailed the transcript of their chat to Clarence

In the beginning the students were hesitant they did not know how it would work to learn in a connected network. Some of the tools we pointed them to were new to them . All of what we were doing was a new way to approach school. Now I think they get it. They see the potential and want to move ahead and so we can point out tools and we can guide the learning but we are ready to listen and to let them find the right tool for the job. Hmmm …..if I am not worrying about the tools I can focus on planning the learning.

Technorati Tags: ThinWall, tools, Clarence, IM, classroom2.0

This one blew my socks off! What a tool!

Okay maybe I am behind the times but if you have never played with TouchGraph you have to give it a try. My technology coordinator just stumbled on it this afternoon and we have spent the last 30 minutes playing with this tool. The possibilities are limitless but even more to the point it seems to be a POWERFUL tool to help teachers uncover resources and to allow older students to find information and discover the way networks interact. One of my concerns as an administrator has always been supporting the teachers and finding ways of opening up to them all of the resources that are available for their curricular content. One of the stumbling blocks is the vast number of hits you get with a standard Google search and the time consuming activity of refining searches for each component of you lesson. Enter TouchGraph which provides a visual representation of resources networked around topics or URLs.

You absolutely have to try it to understand but the concept is straight forward. You create a visual network which allows you to see related concepts and a whole variety of resources in an incredibly easy to navigate interface. The visual representation is much easier to work with than pages and pages of hits from a google search and it allows you to move into the deep layers very quickly. So for example if you put in "California history" or "Sahara Desert" the program generates a graphic map of the network around these topics showing a wide variety of subtopics and related links. My test search for Sahara desert immediately revealed a whole host of hubs including images, physical characteristics and subtopics like animals of the desert. The graphic representation is interactive and by clicking on an orbiting sub topic that link then becomes a hub leading you to other linked information. When you click on the "+" in the circle in the upper left corner you will have a link to the URL and further description of that resource. It also worked well with the topic "3rd grade Math".

You also have the ability to manipulate and save a particular graphic representation. I have not been quite as excited about any tool recently as I am about this one. For students this has tremendous potential to deepen their research and assure that they do not just stick with the first things they find on Google. It also helps them to understand the power of the networked information that is now available. For the teachers it puts a whole network of information at their finger tips in a format that will make it infinitely easier for them to access and utilize the resources of this information age. Go and play with this tool and see what you think. Just for fun put in your name and see where that leads. I would love to hear your ideas about how this can be used. it will be the tool of the day for our technology playground this month!

Technorati Tags: TouchGraph, web2.0, classroom2.0, networks, tools

Color me illiterate!

Becoming a life long learner and globally connected just underscores how much I still need to learn. I was perusing the K12Online schedule today in an effort to plan some staff activities when I had an aha moment. When I taught 6th grade part of my curriculum included world time zones and though I taught it and the kids more or less got it none of us really understood it. Why? Because we had no real use for it! Like I said in my previous post knowledge without context and application is not of much value. So now I am confessing I am functionally illiterate in this area and I am setting out to fix this problem. Yes, I know there are time converters and world clocks but I want more than time conversion I want to understand. I just found out that my time zone is GMT -8 now I need to learn how to use that information!
Photo Credits:by melissambwilkinshttp://flickr.com/photos/melissambwilkins/388974924/

Technorati Tags: literacy, web2.0, 21century, time, classroom2.0

Taking Flight and Learning New Lessons

No time to read or blog has made me feel disconnected. The beginning of the school year has been exceptionally busy but much of it has been good stuff. The connection with Snow Lake is really moving us into some new territory. From an administrative perspective it is really exciting to read the planing going on between our teachers and Clarence on the Moodle site. It is like watching a butterfly take flight! We have worked for over a year on becoming technology literate and this year the staff is ready to fly and the students are reaping the benefits.
Today I caught up on a little reading and two blogs caught my eye. One on LeaderTalk and one I can't find now but both of them talked about the issues of Internet safety. There are lots of great resources out there and I know that almost everybody who is involved in Web2.0 with students addresses this issue. Although we used blogs some last year this year we are involved in a a year long collaboration and we are using all kinds of tools including chat, voicethreads and blogs in our work with Snow Lake.
As the year began we spent a fair amount of time on internet safety. The students did research, they discussed, they prepared brochures, and they made presentations to the parents and to all of the K-8 classrooms. We were impressed with the work they did and how well they presented the material. BUT then we discovered something, it takes practice! Our students knew what the rules were and what to say but they did not translate the head knowledge into practice. With their first few blog posts and their voicethreads we began seeing risky practice. They just had not taken the lessons to heart . We then had them read all of the blog posts and rate them for risk factors. It was a most interesting exercise and many of the students had to edit their blogs. The lesson that I took away from this was how important it is that they have the opportunity to work in the digital world and use their knowledge. It would have been easy to pat ourselves on the back and say "Wow the kids gave great talks on Internet Safety" . But what good is talk without a personal context and practice. At the Junior High level the concrete reasoning skills are just beginning to develop and so we will spend the whole year learning about digital citizenship as they continue their work. It is really pretty exciting to consider how important these experiences are to their formation and their future.They just do not get it until they really use it in a setting where someone is helping them to evaluate along the way. I for one feel strongly this is our responsibility. Yes, the parents are the primary educators and they need to be involved in guiding their children, continuing the lesson at home, but connectivity is the portal for learning and so we have to teach them how to enter that world- it is an essential learning space.
Technorati Tags: Web2.0, Safety, Blogs Connectivity