Flow

How To Blend

2010-12-25T15:19:00.000-06:00

The success of a Blended Learning Environment depends on creating a balance that is best for the students and community the school is to serve. In recent months, I have been exposed to three blended schools, each with a completely different balance of face to face and distance education.

In Olds, Alberta, Canada, grade 10 through 12 students can apply to be a part of their Academic Team program. The students spend half of each day in the newly constructed Olds High School and the other half of the day working on projects, assignments and classwork where they see fit on the Olds Community College Campus, adjacent to the high school. What makes this high school even more special are the creative learning spaces designed within the school, including a commons area with pods of computers and a teleconferencing room as well as a science lab with a horseshoe design so all students have a front row.

The Odyssey Charter School, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A, offers a K through 12 blended experience. In this school where 85% of the student population is considered at-risk, students attend the physical structure 4 hours a week. At the elementary end of the building, teachers make weekly home visits to ensure curriculum is being covered. At the high school end, students interact online with their teachers and are required to attend the recovery room at school if they begin to get behind in their studies.

While visiting family just outside of Dallas, Texas, U.S.A., I came to learn that my young second cousins go to their school only two days a week. The rest of the week, required study is planned by the teacher and completed at home with their parents. Through this process, the students have parents active in their education, with the support of their teacher.

Each of these programs has high satisfaction and success rates. Now, we need to keep in mind that Blended Learning Environments need quality programs to be successful. When deciding on the right balance for a Blended Learning Environment, what factors do you think should be considered?

How are our schools changing to meet the change in the type of student walking into our buildings?

2010-10-24T22:45:00.002-06:00

S. Craig Watkins, University of Texas at Austin professor and author of “The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future” asked the pivotal question during Tuesday’s Keynote at the NSBA’s Technology & Learning Conference, How are our schools changing to meet the change in the type of student walking into our buildings?

The amount of time our school aged children are exposed to media is increasing at a rapid rate, from 7:29 hours a day in 1999 to 10:45 in 2009. As the New York Times article from January 20, 2010 states, “If your kids are awake, they’re probably online”. For example, there is never a time in the day where people are not on Facebook. Someone is always posting to this prominent social networking site (SNS). Currently 73% of all teens belong to a SNS (55% of 12-13 year olds and 82% of 14 to 17 year olds). At the college age, this statistic jumps to 98%, with almost 60% visiting a SNS 3 or more times a day.

Social networking sites are not just about consuming content but are a place for youth to create and produce content. It gives students a voice. As the three year, U.S wide study funded by the MacArthur Foundation, Living and Learning with New Media (2009), states these digital spaces provide our youth with a space of their own, leading to increased competence, one of the four dimensions leading towards authentic student engagement, the goal of Collegiate Renewal within the Saskatoon Public Schools.

Watkins feels that the Digital Divide is no longer the issue we once believed it was. In 2004, 18% of 8 to 18 year olds owned a iPod or MP3 player. In 2009, 76% have one. Cell phone ownership by the same group has risen from 39% in 2004 to 66% in 2009. While laptop ownership has only risen from 12 to 29% during the same time frame, Watkins would still like us to consider that it is no longer a matter of access but more about the quality of the participation. The data leads Watkins and others to consider the Smartphone to be the standard device in the near future. As such, this is also changing the way we use the internet. As Wired Magazine reported in September of 2010, “The Web is Dead. Long Love The Internet” .

We need to be creating conditions where technology is being used to support problem solving, just as our students are solving problems within the games they play online. We need to be creating conditions where collective intelligence is supported. The smartest people know what they don’t know and find ways to fill in the gap with others. We need to be teaching our students transmedia navigation, where they know how to filter all information available to them through technology.

We can no longer abide by the “power down” policies that continue to persist in schools. Our kids are changing. The world around them is changing. Technology is changing their experiences. How are our schools changing to meet the change in the type of student walking into the room?

Rant/Sermon from Ian Jukes caps off Conference - ISTE 2010 Day 3

2010-06-30T14:31:00.000-06:00

This is my final post of the ISTE series as my colleagues and I are headed for a flight before the keynote. That's too bad, as the closing keynote is the one the members voted for and the opening keynote wasn't beloved based on the Tweets. This last session has drawn my attention because Ian Jukes is one of the presenters and I have enjoyed him before. The other presenter is Frank Kelly, who is new to me. The session focuses on the impact of classroom teaching on technology (and not the other way around). While we were waiting to start, we got to look at a series of funny pictures that sets us up for the irony they discussed, that the problem is the schools and not the technology.

They started by illustrating how much technology has changed virtually everything else, and basically only allowed us to tinker with the traditional models schooling. Ian got a good laugh when we pointed out we are still releasing children over the summer so we can have them harvest the crops like they did in Prussia. He said that education is the only area that people ignore current research outright, and feel sanctimonious while doing it. Frank and Ian then went through a large number of American studies and major publication and pointed out that we changed very little for American students. They say we are fiddling while Rome is burning. They ended this section by pulling together the research that says teachers are teaching in a way that is different from how students learn. Students are fundamentally and neurologically different and continue to change, while schools remain the same.

Stylistically the presentation reminded me of a combination of a rant and sermon. There was slanted language, statistics, rhetorical devices and a Martin Luther King tone. Lots of the time, there were the good sound bites media outlets love to flirt with, like

If we as teachers continue to do the same things the same way when we know it doesn't work, it begs the question: Who has the learning problem?

This was a persuasive and rousing session designed to motivate the listener to create change. Good slides, lots of stats and slanted language were all used to help make the case. I enjoyed the session for that alone, but didn't need any persuasion. The most powerful point was that creative and critical thinking jobs will make up half the workforce soon. If a computer can do it more quickly or an oversees person can do it easily, it is leaving or you'll earn minimum wage. Our schools were designed for an era when 75% of our jobs were in agriculture and manufacturing, but those people will be less than 25% of our workforce within the decade.

My favorite quotation: "We have a headware issue, not a hardware issue."

Ian's three big picks for 21st century fluency (found on his Committed Sardine website):

Living on the Future Edge
Understanding the Digital Generation
Literacy is not Enough

It was a good session to end the day on and I repressed an "Amen, brother" as I left to return to my work of classroom reform. But I can't help feeling that nothing short of a miracle will get us where we need to go and the technology just helps to package the rants so that the medium is the message.

25 Google Tools I already knew - ISTE 2010 Day 3

2010-06-30T11:41:00.000-06:00

I am waiting for my next session, 25 Google Tools, to start. I have just changed laptop batteries (thanks for the spare, Jay) and am trying not to give my cold to those around me. This morning Barry called me Typhoid Mary, confirming that fact that my constant nose blowing, gulping of water and coughing has not gone unnoticed by others. Ah well, we educational technologists for Collegiate Renewal soldier on when the school year has finished and we are infecting others with our germs (thought I'd try to set a stupid standard for Scott and Jay, the other two people to hold the job). I am actually looking forward to this session through my fog of streaming eyes and cold medication. This is the one session I'm attend for selfish reasons as I use a lot of Google tools. We'll see if the session title is true and he can show me 25 things I didn't know Google could do. Howie DiBlasi is the presenter, and you can check his website or follow him on Twitter at hdiblasi.

Looks like the wireless is not up to the number of people currently in the room, so teaching us to do as we go may be an issue. Rough multiplication tells me there are about 620 of us. On the upside, the handouts are up at http://www.toolsfortheclassroom.com/ . The Internet connection means I am not recording anything I already know, which so far is everything. Most of the things that have been talked about so far are on Google's search help site. Lots are thing that I have been teaching to others like wonderwheel, timeline and filetype:pdf and advanced search.

25 minutes pass, and I still haven't learned anything new. This would have been a good session for me a while ago, but not so much, now. I'm off to find something else. For the record, I don't think this is the presenter's fault. It's my identity issue - I still think of myself as just a basic user. I realize this is because I know enough to compare myself to those who generate open-source code worthy of use by others. I guess I need to adjust my thinking (although in my defence, the level for the session was listed was intermediate user). On the upside, my departure let one person from the line outside come in. Hopefully the session is just right for her.

The whole experience was an interesting experience for me in terms of engagement. I think I could be fairly be described as not merely loving learning but being obsessed with it. But I couldn't use the technology to learn my way, so I didn't feel like I could maximize my learning. Also, I was cut off from the community I like to learn with. Finally, the content didn't present a challenge. Guess I did learn something I can apply in my teaching after all. . .

Chris is to Collegiate Renewal as thinking is to brain- ISTE 2010, Day 3

2010-06-30T09:52:00.000-06:00

My first morning session this Wed. is called Beyond Tools: Thoughtful 21st Century School Reform. It is presented by Chris Lehmann. Chris starts by reinforcing that pedagogy drives technology not the other way around.

He says the push for him comes from watching his elder son go from loving learning to hating learning, especially reading, in kindergarten. He also says being trusted with other people's children makes him want to be better everyday. Students are able to do more than ever before, but this creates a madden paradox of education in 2010. Kids are learning all the time digitally, and then the go to the school where the learning stops. This was basically the last thing he said that related to technology.

Next Cris moves to the difference between change and innovation. Change is just differently and innovation is completely new. In most schools, we have school plus computers. Technology needs to be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary and invisible. It can be transformative because we can create, research, collaboration, presentation and network, but these all existed. We may just be doing them better.

In order to tell a better story, we must have vision. There is a profound difference between "I teach Math" and "I teach kids Math". Students should never be the objects of their own education. Schools need to be inquiry given and student-centered. It must be about their learning not our teaching. That doesn't mean we don't need teachers - we need them more than ever because they need strong mentors. Schools need to be collaborative and students need to engage at the synthesis level. The work needs to mater, so schools are a place of passion. Schools should not be preparation for life, it should be life. One way to do this is change how many classes we have and see them as lenses not silos. That means we have common themes and content is integrated across curriculum. More than anything else our students need to reflect and be metacognitive. They need to know how they learn.

As I listen to Chris, I hear all the basic tenants of Collegiate Renewal. Our goal "All collegiate students will be engaged in their learning so they will graduate as active participants in lifelong learning and as responsible and caring citizens in the community, nation, and world" has much in common with the vision Chris is articulating. It's like his thinking is a part of the overall structure we have developed to guide everything.

Chris asked us to talk to a partner about our vision, and my partner was Tim from New York. Tim works as a professional developer for 22 schools, and his main vision is student engagement. Tim is hoping to change his professional development practice so that teachers pick one main goal connected to engagement and go after it, rather than attending sit and get sessions and getting a point or credit for them. Sounds like the shift in our professional learning practice over the last 5 years. Tim and I talked about the strengths and pitfalls of our approach.

Once we got back in the big group, Chris talked about some ways you know when you are getting to your vision (here is Chris' vision):

Your vision exists in the structure of the classrooms, not in the practice of a few teachers
We use common language intentionally
We use a common process of planning and assessment
The thing you use to assess at the end is the measure of the real focus of the class and articulate the most important learning in the class

These would be good ways of framing evidence around Collegiate Renewal. On thing I have noticed, is that some of the things Chris is talking about are givens in my teaching. He talked about releasing their grade 12 students to work on an independent inquiry, for example. I taught that same class last year to grade 11s - it was called Inquiry 20. However, to Chris' point, my teaching opportunities have not been standard, nor is the resulting learning students experience.

The next question Chris asked was "What is one structure you would change and how would you change it?" If I could pick one thing to change would be the rigidity of class structures. Although I have taught integrated classes, classes with community time, etc., I think few teachers have the opportunity to structure the learning so it is about what you learn not the time spent in the seat. One of the teachers stood up and talked about his experience in Maine, which works in that direction.

One of Chris' points in that each of the great changes we make also has problems. His goal is empowerment and his demon in entitlement. He asked us to think about some hard questions:

What is the worst consequence of your best idea and how will you mitigate it?
What are the obstacles to the change and how can you overcome them?
If you make these changes, how will the lives of teachers be different?
How will the lives of students be different?
How will you deal with the change?

Chris notes that at his school, students work really hard because of the projects. However, there needs to be balance. When you do real work, you need to do less of it, because it is much more demanding.

Schools must be transformative for students, and for teachers. Being willing to be transformed means that we have so much left to learn. That is the critical element of Collegiate Renewal for me is just that, engagement for both students and teachers through a growth mindset. Want to read more about Chris' ideas? Check out his site or follow him on twitter.

Teacher Librarians and Technology - ISTE 2010 Day 2

2010-06-29T14:54:00.000-06:00

I am currently sitting in my first model lesson. It's called Worlds Converge: Fusing Library and Technology in the Classroom. Next year I get to keep working with TLs (Teacher Librarians) in my new role, and one of their major focuses has been technology in the secondary group. They are doing a book club next year with a focus of rethinking libraries in a digital age, and most have developed a virtual presence for their library this year.

A model lesson is a little different than some of the other sessions I have been to so far. 20 of us are on the inside, set up at Macbooks to be "students." I am on the edge so I can blog as I go, but I will be using a clicker to participate. Jenni Swanson Voorhees (K-4 Tech Coordinator) and Angela Smith (Elementary Librarian) are the presenters. Here is the link to the library and to the materials for the lesson. Angela and Jenni teach together, as we are hoping more of our SITLs and Secondary TLs will as we are able to see more connections. Here is the research process they developed collaboratively.

The model lesson is targeted at grade 4, and uses wikis and digital storytelling as its main tool. Like many of the poster sessions and student presentations I have stopped at and not blogged, it helps me to feel secure about the work we are doing. Our Secondary TLs have been working with a variety of digital storytelling tools and many have been partnering with teachers. We still have lots of work to do in helping our teachers learn how to use these tools well to create powerful learning, as you have to use them a while before you start to figure that out.

I enjoyed watching the model lesson, because they explained what they do at each stage and why. They use a book that narrates a student researching (Did Fleming rescue Churchill? : a research puzzle, by James Cross Giblin ; illustrated by Erik Brooks. ISBN: 9780805081831 for my TL friends). The book is a great choice, because the main character reads the urban legend on the website and this leads to a great conversation about authority and veracity. I have used a hoax site for years with secondary students, but it always works well. I have younger students search for the Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus and the first link is always the hoax site. The nice thing about that one is there appears to be a number of hits on this subject. A classic way to put together several websites in a way students don't have to type them all in is a sharetab. Much simpler to create than a web quest, it is a helpful quick tool for teachers and TLs because it just takes a minute.

The presentation suggests teachers (and their TL support) need to be sure there are both sufficient sites and books when picking a research topic. Good sites for research or books must have:

Authority (that means the who the author is needs to be clear)
Currency (that means they need a copyright date that is current enough for the type of information)
Relevance (alignment to topic and appropriate readability and depth)
Usability (easy to navigate and scan, at least 3 ways to get anywhere)
Lack of Bias (addresses a research topic without bias, ie is academic instead of persuasive)

The presenters suggested that we all need to learn to read websites, just as we are taught to read a book, as a part of being information literate.

The next section of the presentation focused to teaching students how to take notes from the web, use a custom search in google prepared by a TL (which I would not do at secondary for secondary research), and break jobs among their research group. They suggested brainstorming a list of synonyms to help students search (I also like Google Wonder Wheel, which helps expands searching). They also reminded the group that holding down the CTRL button and pressing the F allows you to search for a specific word or phrase on any website or in any digital document.

One thing the group did not talk about was how to make sure you had a good research question or were conducting a meaningful inquiry. In fact, the topics used as examples were just animals like Pandas and people like Alexander Graham Bell. No one moved to things like: "What can people do help prevent the extinction of Pandas?" which is a low-level inquiry. I think that continues to be a problem in much of the work we do with students, because we never get to the higher level thinking skills.

I liked where the group moved to next. They used a free package of Microsoft software to help students draw their own art using tablet PCs and avoid copyright variations. I don't think it we'd do it that way as art isn't integrated with science much and we don't have tablets. The resulting wikis allowed students to comment on each other's work and see what each other had done without taking a lot of class time for presentations.

I think the more we have TLs and SITLs working together as a team to help teachers, the stronger our work will be. It certainly makes a big difference for teach and student learning every time in happens. Information literacy and 21st Century skills in general continue to be a place where students need stronger skills.

An Amorphous Case for Empathy - ISTE 2010 Day 2

2010-06-29T12:20:00.000-06:00

I have see Alan November present before and he started today with talking about how Asia is really starting to focus on students connecting to each other. He says that the same type of urgency, cultural sensitivity and people skills in just not a similar focus in the US. Alan argues the most critical thing we need to do is globalize the curriculum and focus on empathy. He bases this interviews with everything from bank CEOs to cultural anthropologists.

Alan's presentation jumped around a lot and had some random stories that are part of his charm. It did not help that his mic jumped in and out. He did show some basic things for understanding world view like using the country code to get news from the specific place. Barry and I were is the session together and wondered how many of our history and social studies understand country code.

He used a number of examples to explain that we need to create assignments that encourage kids to be producers and be global thinkers. Alan says when we share, we need to share with other countries and different worldview automatically. So as a teacher, I would not have my students write about WWII using books - I would have them debate if the war was inevitable by debating with a German class and then consider writing (that's Alan's best advice on combating Internet plagiarism by the way). Alan says expanding the worldview is an opportunity that technology offers that we have never really had. I think we should be working on being able to understand different worldviews at the same time by starting with First Nations and Western worldviews. We should absolutely leverage as many worldviews for our students as we can, I just think we need to be able to do it locally first.

Alan ended with a case about why we need social networking. One of Alan's good illustrations is a podcast of an interview with Rahar Harfoush, the Canadian woman who was Barack Obama's media advisor. He notes that the tools she says are essential to help you become President are blocked in most schools.

I enjoyed the presentation very much but Alan's connection of wildly divergent issues makes it hard to blog. You'll have to trust me that Alan's case for empathy was a good one.

No excuses - ISTE 2010 Day 2

2010-06-29T10:49:00.000-06:00

I enjoyed the second keynote of ISTE this morning, particularly the student panelist. The message from all 4 members was around what we need to do to help our students achieve the NETS and become global citizens. A number of the suggestions from the panel were solid:

Have your class investigate the way we can solve global issues now (environmental, economic, social, depending on the class)
Connect to others, especially classes from other cultures and experts, so students can collaborate beyond their own world views
Focus your classroom on the outcomes for students rather than what you are teaching. Lecture less and have students work in isolation less.
Become a global citizen yourself. Build a social network online, watch TED talks, expose yourself to cultures other than European and American ones so you can model global prospectives in your own thinking and action
Listen to your students - each student whose voice finds a place in your classroom will be yours (the student said, "If you listen to me, you have me.")

In the question section at then end, educators seemed inspired but raised the three standard concerns we always do:

How can I do this with limited resources? I would say, by the end of next year, you will have a teacher laptop, sets of minis in your school, wireless access, reduced filtering, access to computer labs and access to data projectors. If you are doing something really remarkable and need more, apply for grants, call educational technologists downtown for support and resources, or ask the kids to bring things. The only way to change limited resources is to keep advocating for more until you have such a good case that it cannot be denied. Work with what you have, it is the best way to make a case for what you need.
I have to teach to the standardized test - how can I cover these other things? The standardized test we face in Saskatchewan isn't high stakes (like teacher firings for lack of progress in the US) and is directly aligned with new curricular documents. While it would be nice if it tested higher order skills more across all subjects, tests don't really do that well. That's what your classroom assessment is for. Plus you don't want to cover curriculum, you want your students to be learning by doing and thinking for themselves.
The curriculum is so full I don't have time to teach deep things. What can I do? First, how you teach is much more important than what you teach in terms of getting to deep learning. If your students are focused on doing the NETS type skills to cover the curriculum, both are happening. Second, renewed curricula are actually focused directly on these types of skills. If you are ensuring your students meet the outcomes using the indicators, deep is built in. All our renewed documents have as their foundation three goals: building lifelong learners, building a sense of self and community and building engaged citizens. These goals are the exact things the panel thought schools should strive toward, and they underpin all renewed documents. The documents are also build around the inquiry process, where meaningful question drive the learning. There is no curriculum or powerful learning - they are the same thing.

As a teacher, I always think about how I meet my student's needs to the best of my ability given the circumstances I am working in. When I can't meet a student's need, I fight to change what other supports I can offer that student. We are working with young people, and there are no excuses for not doing everything we can to help them learn. The student on the panel today said the one thing he wished the school system had taught him was how to learn - he said all he knows to do is listen to the authority or read Wikipedia. I think teachers can easily help students learn to question, research, collaborate and experiment, and I know many great teachers who do this every day with the resources they have, using the curriculum they teach. Education has never been great at change and can be very institutional. If I wait for all barriers to go away before I believe I am responsible for my students learn to learn, I can never really be a teacher.

Google Earth Mashing - ISTE 2010 Day 1

2010-06-28T16:30:00.000-06:00

I am in my final session of the day on Earth Mashing using Google Earth. In Saskatoon Public, the new teacher laptops have Google Earth as part of the standard build. I have been showing it to Science and History teachers this year, and am in the session hoping to learn something new. Links for this session:

download Google Earth 5
Digital Goonies, and specifically the links for the presentation (site of the presenters)

Okay, this session just started but I am already not caring for it. So far they have shown us three ways to call people and leave a message so you don't need to talk to them and three ways to pick a student digitally, all of which look like casino slot games. Each thing seems to be about avoiding connecting directly to others. Not a good sign. Ah well, I am trying to keep an open mind.

Some tools that you may not know are there:

The ruler can be used for measuring either distance or area around the edge perimeter. Great for teaching geometry
You can use not just the Earth, but Mars, the Moon and Space
You can add your own pushpins, add details to them and put them in folders. This allows you to make tours.
You can download .kmz files, which are other people's tours, or have your students make tours
You can use a cheat sheet top allow your student to do a series of low level activities like crossing out the lies or choosing a multiple choice answer from a list (yawn). I'd far rather have my students make something than answer questions.
You can embed a fotobabble, animoto, sketchcast, scrapblog, photopeach, slideroll or voicethread (not free unlike the rest of the list) or a glogster into Google Earth (exciting if kids do it, and you can do it with anything that offers and embed feature).You can use timetoast to get code for creating timelines in Google Earth (think Social Studies 9) or voki to have an avatar talk about something. For each of these you just take the embed code and then paste it into the description field of the placemark. This appears only into your own version of Google Earth. You need to share your placemark by right clicking on it and either emailing it to keep it private or clicking share to make it public. Make sure that you save your folder as a .kmz first, so all placemarks are saved together and ready to share (.kmz files are zip files). For schools with digital drop boxes, the .kmz file can just be copied into the drop box.
For those of you in science, you will sometimes see .kml files for download. Those are files sourcing from a live, updating database (like a Google spreadsheet).
I have my students make custom icons. You just take any .jpeg you have and make it an icon by right clicking on your pushpin and selecting properties. Then you left click once on your pushpin and change it. It allows students to customize their work in a way that feels familiar from social networking.

Google Earth has some good tutorials in their help section, including ones for putting your placemarks into your blog, wiki etc.

Something I did like learning is that if you want a throw away account for you students, you can create a gmail account that is your account +student (called picking backing). I might be JamesWMCI+betty. That was a good idea, especially for elementary students.

This session went much faster than the Internet connection allowed, and the presenters did not circulate to help those who could not keep up. By the end, that was a big chunk of the group because people fell behind and could not catch up. This wasn't an issue for me, but I got tired of hearing them say "well, never mind" or "we need to move on." The Internet wasn't tagging much, they just had more to do than the hour allowed. having said that, Google Earth is awesome, and now that it is on all teacher laptops, we should start teaching it more. We'll also need to add it to student machines as we renew the labs in high schools this year.

What Natives Need - ISTE 2010 Day 1

2010-06-28T14:19:00.000-06:00

David Warlick always documents his sessions well and this one is no exception:

Handouts from the session
Backchannel (type in istedw for the event code)
Twitter

David started by showing a video of a 13 year old entrepreneur and asked "Why is he different than I was?" He worked through many questions and concluded that the student has no ceiling. The information environment he lives in ignores behaviors, empowers accomplishments, allows manipulation of abundant information and has gateways to find others. It's an environment that is difficult to contain. David asks:

"If their information experience cannot be walled in, what is school to our students?"

David described Millennials as having a culture of communication, collaboration and information. However, he says that video games, cell phone and social networking don't need to come into the classroom for students to invest in school. Instead, schools need to leverage what those things do that meets student need. They are where are student's friends are. He says if we can crack the code of what these things are offering, we can get to what students want (links in his list are to my previous blog posts on related subjects):

Responsiveness: You try something and get immediate assessment. (Technology and Assessment for Learning, A dropout talks to educators)
Traction: Pushing and pulling against peers (teacher, text, bell in the schooling tradition). You can also access a support network of others - that is who you push and pull against.
Fuelled by questions - We have no step by step - we ask questions and look for answers using a problem solving or inquiry process. David contrasts this with the most common question students ask us in the class, which is how much we want "How many pages?" He notes that some assignments are actually question-proofed, because they are so proscribed that there is no explanation. (on using a Google jockey to model looking for answers to questions
Driven by conversation (on why people participate in digital conversation, sample of conversation -read the comments)
Safe to make mistakes (growth mindset)
Creates personal investments (Students making real choices, how choice causes us to invest)
Should be fun and involve making useful or interesting things so it is intrinsically motivating (on changing our filtering practices to allow for doing meaningful things

I have seen David present before in Saskatoon, and have shared some of his thinking about literacy with others in the division. Documenting one of his sessions is never as good as being there. He makes a point and then use a variety of examples to illustrate the point. Often his stories, or the morals of them, connect to stories of my own. One of David storied points:

We want our students to be the students we want to teach, instead of teaching the students they are.... How much time do we have before we figure out what questions we are going to ask on our texts with Google in their pockets?

I think that Google question is an interesting one and it's one I never answer the way my fellow teachers wish that I would. One of women I worked with has figured out that an iPod Touch can access the Internet, and when her students are "listening to music" they could be getting answers. She asked me what to do. I replied they could be listening to answers they recorded to tapes back when they had walkmans. She asked what we could do now that they could get answers instantaneously, short of taking their phones away or blocking them. I said: "Starting asking questions that are too high level to be answered using Google alone."

Then we talked about my To Kill a Mockingbird exam I gave last year. I don't give many exams other than required finals. My exam is open book, and you are encourage to work with others. But the questions are things like:
Using research-based criteria and examples from the novel, establish Atticus' strength and weakness as a parent.
What's more, I even gave them the questions from the year before, and three examples of student responses that we scored collectively. Confused, she asked what I am testing if I am not testing knowledge of what happened in the book. I have never taught literature for that reason, and actually she doesn't either. She is a great English teacher. I replied that on this test, students need to think critically, skim for theme and context, assess something against criteria, build an argument, write use persuasive techniques etc. Those are skills that matter (and are curricular outcomes), but simply knowing what Atticus' response to the mad dog is worth nothing beyond the class. Leveraging what our students do well to help them do meaningful work is what really maters for teachers, but sometimes the fact that we are not digital thinkers leads us to be trapped into thinking which is actually inconstant with our epistemology.

I am not convinced that the needs David articulates are really digital traits, although many researchers agree with him. In my mind, these traits have always been the hallmarks of the best learning. They are just a lot easier now that technology facilitates them. I do agree that students expect them more than they used to. I think that's a real opportunity to hack the code of traditional schooling and rewrite it to do what elegant code always does - meets the need in the most effective way possible.

Innovation and the Impossible - ISTE Day 1

2010-06-28T12:24:00.000-06:00

"It always seems impossible until it's done..." Nelson Mandela

One of my favorite Mandela quotations is one of the series of banners about excellence throughout the Conference Center for ISTE 2010. The session I am attending now is called Innovative Leadership: 21st Century Innovations that Mater. Its main focus is how leaders set up environments to create the opportunity for innovation. The presenter is Cheryl Lemke, and for those of you who like to see all the information:

The background
The backchannel (a way that the audience in a session talks to each other while the session happens)
On Twitter (#metirigroup)

Cheryl started by talking about how students learn and noted that attending school is a small part of students' learning. Students also use peers and home as they always have. Relatively new are the networked public, work and distributed resources. Cheryl argues that we need to tap into their interests and use them in school in order to have the opportunity to have most powerful impact of students' learning. We'll only get 18.5% of their life time to help them learn so we want to set them up to keep learning in the post powerful way possible.

Cheryl's big focuses for Innovative Leaders:

Own the innovation - don't delegate it to the right people, lead it. CEOs in top innovative countries don't delegate creative work, they do it themselves (The Innovator's DNA). Technology, social media, multimedia and eCommunication should inform every decision. They should be a factor via digital content, implementation, student voice, environmental scanning, expectations for teachers etc. The technology facilitator should be at all tables and be an advocate for the ways students learn best.
Drive the change through creativity and knowledge - be creative, informed, tolerant and critical of digital technologies and our youth driving changes. Our customer, our students, are digital natives. There are three basic was of thinking of learning: as acquisition, as participation, or as knowledge creation. As we focus on knowledge creation, we need to design our technology and our assessments to support creation. Knowledge creation doesn't happen in a vacuum - it uses teaming, Internet etc. We pull students out of this when we assess them and it doesn't make sense. Our structures are also set up to support acquisition not creation. Top innovators do some key things. They associate with things outside their sphere of influence and bring two different things together in new ways. The implications for the education is the need for more integration. Innovators ask questions all the time, and they asks the unaskable questions. Observing is another key trait of innovators. They watch the clients and users (students) and have student voice in what they do. We need much more student voice in education. Innovators are also experimenters. They believe failure is an essential part of success. We can do this with teachers around action research. Finally, they are networkers who bring people together and build effective groups. I think the role of Learning Leader is designed with this in mind - obviously a good thing that this is a main focus for us.
Shift from Rules to Shared Principles - actively facilitate the development and adoption of guiding principles for 21st Century Learning. This one has big implication for how my division might approach things.
Establishment of a Professional Learning System - includes observation, virtual and face to face work. Involves less student contact time, lesson study, and classroom observations. Doing there walk-throughs is very helpful for principals in particular, but for all leaders. We have been shifting our professional learning pretty dramatically in the last few years with these exact ideas in mind. We are still learning how to do this most effectively.
Shape culture - the leaders establishes the culture of openness, collegiality, honesty, and adaptability, all focused on standards or goals. Leaders should look for positive deviants, who are those working outside the rules to make something work for students. This is a topic that is really on the radar of the Collegiate Renewal team.
Ensure Digital Access and Infrastructure - including networks, devices, data systems, applications (web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0), instructional, business and technical support, policy). She noted that the system needs to be open enough to allow blogging, twitter etc. I think our filtering changes, use of online communities and use of web 2.0 tools are starting to make inroads here.
Data, Assessment, trends and accountability- it needs to be focused on student engagement, not just metrics on competence. This whole section was closely correlated to our work, complete with diagrams of flow, like the one in the Collegiate Renewal data from this year. I think we need to keep working on a systematic approach to evidence collection, and I know that is a major focus of learning for next year in administrative professional learning.

Many of the principles Cheryl talked about next are those of Collegiate Renewal. We spent time talking about the value to motivation for staff and students and how to create engagement. One thing she highlighted was the shift to lesson study as a form of professional learning for teachers in schools where students are the most successful. Some interesting achievement statistics related to teaching:

Teacher effectiveness has the number one effect on student learning, and professional learning must be sustained over time, content based, focused on concrete tasks, in community etc.
3 effective teachers in a row = +50 percentile
Single ineffective teacher is detectable 4 years later
A minimum of 6 days focused professional learning is necessary to make a substantial change in student performance.

My favorite quotations from the session:

"We defined the school system to make it the way it is, and we are the people with the power to redefine it. It is us."

"Business and industry are asking us turn education on its head. Let's go after that and do it."

"Sometimes behavior comes first and belief comes second. You can create change with resistance if you are doing something people will be able to see the impact of. Progress is the biggest motivator."

"People tell me that older teachers are stuck in time, but they came into teaching because they wanted to move things forward for kids. We need to give them real permission to go after 21st Century Learning."

I enjoyed this session quite a bit and it has lots of implications for the Collegiate Renewal work. Some we are working hard on, like professional learning systems and assessment and accountability. Others need more attention as we move forwards. I am leaving with lots to think about and record a fraction of what Cheryl said. I always enjoy a session like that. I left the session refocused on continuing to push for innovation.

Technology and the Arts - ISTE Day 1

2010-06-28T09:30:00.000-06:00

My first session this morning is called Rethinking Arts Education for the Youtube Generation. I have worked a fair amount with the arts over the year in couple capacities:

Drama 9-12
Arts education 10-30
Visual Arts 10, 20
Theater Arts 20, 30 (Technical Theater)

In general, I use technology a lot for the critical responsive strand in each of these. It will be interesting to see what the focus is for the two women who are presenting. They are a music specialist and visual arts specialist.

They argue that new technical tools provide ways of working with media instantly, and that they can be well suited to digital learners. Learning about the arts helps us to create more compelling media and really understand what creativity means in the 21st Century. They also mentioned that the issue of copyright and being a digital creator not consumer will be discussed.

What do we need to teach our students? The presenters showed a number of projects from their school and talked about the opportunities for arts teachers to help students learn fundamental skills.

First, they showed a sample from their school of pictures of students to a copyrighted music. They recommended teaching about creative commons and copyright (new laws coming here in Canada).
Next they showed a digital story with poor resolution images. They suggested me need to teach about file size, types of images etc. I use Google image search here to solve this issue once I have taught students the basics.
They also showed digital video creation. The video they showed wavered badly and they didn't understand composition. The presenters argued that even suggesting a tripod would have helped, but teaching composition is a real strength of arts
Next they played a song. This one had issues will levels in the audio.
They also showed an example of a poorly constructed digital slide show and talked about the need for teaching presentation skills and how to construct and effective slide show. I think that would be helpful to teach many adult presenters these skills - it would have helped our keynote speaker last night, and he was the former vice-president of the World Bank
Last they showed a student re-illustrating a professional's picture book and talked about why it is essential to create their own original work.

Next the presenters moved on to talking about creativity. They referred to Daniel Pink and his work as a good example, but think that many leaders use creativity as a buzz word and don't understand it. The stages of creativity in the multimedia process:

Pre-production - use a concept map (think Bubblus for free or Inspiration as common software) or make jot notes about key things you want to focus on. In video, you might use a treatment, even before storyboarding. These pre-production processes to make the key ideas clear is often missing in student work.
Production - here we need to make sure that students understand basic theory so the work can be both sophisticated and successful. They used the example of teaching the rule of thirds and focal point before having students take a digital picture.
Post-production - this is where students get ideas for how to polish the work to make it really sing. This often happens to me in the last three weeks of a drama production. These polish elements work best when you understand the possibilities and the teacher allows you to play with them. Very specific rules often prevent originality.

They had a number of resources and links for arts educators, including a prezi with national standards. However, much of their presentation was pages of presented text, an unfortunate choice given the subject mater. When the audience asked them a couple of questions, there was simply a reference to the handout.
They referred to many things, like the reference to creativity in ISTE's technology standards for students, called the NETS, but didn't actually fully explain any of their ideas.

They talked quite a bit about the need for a global audience, and how student projects are shared on a school screen, but also on Youtube, via blogs and in online communities. They said all of this required changes in school culture and the comfort level of teachers with the digital media tools. They recommended one-on-one planning and instructional support to grow teacher competence. They also says that digital tools should not be siloed into a class or a room, but should be present everywhere.

Overall, this session was hard to follow and vague - even though I understood each individual thing they said. It would have benefited from stronger structure and more practical elements. Both presenters clearly felt that they had to advocate for the arts, even though their audience was composed predominantly of arts teachers and clearly in agreement. I have noticed this issue with arts teachers in the past. When we are together and could work on making things happen we sometimes use the time to agree it is important that something happens instead. One thing I was really hoping would be a focus (given the title and description) was how are students are changing and what we need to do to meet their learning needs. Other than mentioning students like to create digital products, the presenters did not cover this at all.

The most interesting part was a discussion between some music teachers about the value of playing in a high school band versus teaching each student to arrange and compose, so they are creators not consumers. The group discussed Finale, which some of us in Saskatoon are using. I really like it, although licences are expensive. If you are a music teacher and would like to play with it, you can download it for 30 days for free and play with it. They also talked about Stomp and other ways of teaching students "music is alive, not dead." People discussed iPod touch Orchestras using the music apps and other ways to essentially use digital technology as either instruments or mediums.

Beyond Digital Storytelling

2010-06-27T11:18:00.001-06:00

The first session I am attending is a bring your own laptop session. The resources for the workshop are found at http://beyonddigitalstorytelling.wetpaint.com/. Each of the session presenters introduced themselves, and one I have followed for a while via his blog http://budtheteacher.com/. One of the other presenters introduced us to a blog I thought would interest Captain Orange, who frequently comments on this blog. It's a vegan and technology blog http://www.wokwildside.com/.

The team's main point: Many times we teach digital storytelling without explaining storytelling well. Each talked about how telling stories in a variety of forms is important:

The shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story - Anthony de Mello

Other key ideas:

Framing the story. The group discussed how each story has a story spine. I liked the part where they talked about the value of improv in building the story (close to my heart as Drama and English teacher). They did a sample improv for the group and then had us develop stories in small groups by framing. It was a good way to involve the audience and helped us to see that the spine of a story is easy to create. They also showed us a video that uses the storytelling spine - a funny anti-smoking ad. They also took us through a series of writing prompts and version of circle stories I have used for years.
Expanding the story. The framing is not enough. They talked about the frame of StarWars is not as good as the whole narrative. They did not use this bunny video - but I think it illustrates their point. they used the StarWars example to show that expanding and growing stories makes them richer. They asked us to think of a story that is important to you. I thought of Wolves in the Walls. We each drew one word from each other's story, and then on the drawing we got back, wrote things that were like the story and not like it. The wolves I got back looked a lot like book, but the act of like and not like helped us to get all the adjectives and verbs associated with the main idea. I liked this activity and would use it again. The presenters also talked about some of us did this digitally and others used paper and how the tool you use doesn't matter - it is how well it meets your needs. They showed is 5 card Flickr for storytelling. I have used it before and people like it so muck they won't move off it.
Stories worth telling. If the story is good, students care about it and return to it - that's a good subject and it focus the story on what is most important. They also remember the content. The team talked about sharing the stories as an act of creating relevance - stories worth telling. Go to the digital story only with those stories that are really relevant to your students or the heart of your curriculum. They showed us a series of pictures that students created about how they learn. I think it would be a great idea for collegiate renewal to do in terms of student voice. The first picture on their stories worth telling page illustrates it.
Sharing the story. This section could have been better titled tech tips, as it covered a variety of how-tos. I would have liked more on how to share it so it is part of a community or gets found.

On PD- The team talked about how getting teachers to make a photostory and sharing it with a group of teachers is powerful way to help teachers grow their narratives (see a sample of a teacher's photostory with a given prompt). The group's website has how to's for the tools you need.
On sound - One nice tip they gave was how to reduce ambient noise in the room - like by putting kids behind a barier made of electronics packaging or in part of a box lined with cardboard egg cartons. Carpet scraps also make a great liner for quiet sound spaces.
On using your voice - they showed us a a great video to illustrate the point that how we say things makes what we say more or less powerful:

They also shared a poem by the same author, Taylor Mali, on proofreading. It is a poem I know students would love, but the last line might be an issue in some classes.

Two tools I'm going to play with - I'd like to use is Comic Life. I tried the free download (it is a 30 day trial). I have avoided it in the past because it is a pay version eventually, so not great for all. However, I thought it would be great for the Collegiate Renewal team, as we use comics for our major posters. I wanted to use it to make my digital story, but the defaults in my machine are set to a network drive, and the download doesn't allow me to change it, so I couldn't install properly. I also saw a bit a Aviary - a free Google Ap. I'm not sure I'd recommend use of it as school as it is very intensive on the bandwidth, but I know some of my readers could use it at home. I had to settle for building a simple comic strip.

Once we were done learning the structure, they gave us time to build us a story for our selves and circulated to help us. We published stories on drop.io - I have used it before with students because they can call the number and record themselves creating their audio stories using a cell phone.

The "Last Post"

2010-06-21T12:03:00.001-06:00

This week is my last week working with Collegiate Renewal, but I am hoping there is no Last Post playing mournfully to accompany the death of this blog. I'm being followed up as the Collegiate Renewal Educational Technologist by Scott St. Pierre, who has posted on it before and hopefully will again. I'll also post in partially in new curricular role when I attend ISTE next week.

I think the value of sharing what we learn with others in a digital manner is tremendous, especially because conversations with diverse thinkers really help your own thinking be richer.

Using RSS feeds has been my best way to deepen my own thinking and conversation this year, and it is a great accompaniment to conversations I have in the division. For example, in the last 5 days I have has 6 different conversations about the use of interactive white boards, like SmartBoards. It wasn't a topic I was specifically thinking about, as it was something I did extensive research on about 6 months ago. However, as it resurfaced in the division, I had a variety of ways to think about the conversation. Here is who I got to talk to:

Face-to-face
Judy, who publishes about technology in the Online Learning Center here in Saskatoon Public
Jay, who bridges communication between our IS department and the learning side, and informs himself via his Twitter network of Educational Technologists
Phone
Ruth, just returning from an education leave after studying educational technology. Ruth also learns via a Twitter network and will be an elementary teacher librarian in two schools next year.
Digital conversations via blogs
Blog post from Tim Comfort, an elementary teacher in our system
Blog post from Bill Ferriter, an elementary teacher in Wake County, NC

All of these people were talking about whether or not whiteboards could be used for transformational teaching. I thought I'd like to extend the conversation more, and searched my Google Reader for references to whiteboards in past blog posts and found 103 references. 25 of them were about directly about the role of interactive whiteboards in teaching style. Each of the blog posts I read or people I talked had a whole series of research, conversation and teaching experience behind their thinking.

Why all this matters:

Pamoram, a marketing source, has a number of great info graphics about social media and this one illustrates what is happening in different age groups.

Teachers have always shared resources with each other by giving their "binders", folders of handouts and plans they developed. In the last 3 years, I learned so much about engaged learning that my "binder" was always changing and I didn't really have a form I could share. My RSS feed replaced the binder, and it means I will never make a binder again. I am learning so much and changing so much thanks to the influence of research, other teachers writing and conversations that my professional learning resists being neatly packaged because it doesn't end. Like the conversation about interactive whiteboards, I have ongoing dialogue with students, teachers, and researchers about each topic I think about. No Last Post for me - and hopefully not for the conversation around technology and Collegiate Renewal.

I began this blog with a promise to stop lurking and put myself out there. I was the Spectator that 41% of Americans in my age group are. Thanks to my ability to become a Creator, Critic and Collector, I also have a community I can use to engage in my learning each day. Thanks for being a part of my community this school year.

Wendy

Critical Thinking and Social Studies - Day 2

2010-06-03T11:04:00.000-06:00

I'm now in the second day of the critical thinking and Social Studies day with Roland Case. Yesterday, we worked on understanding inquiry and starting to plan a unit using a template.

We are keeping working on the template today, and have started the day talking about the connection between technology and critical, creative and collaborative thinking. Case explains that critical thinking is criteria thinking, then compares it to creative thinking and notes that they are often viewed as opposite.

Case makes the "case" that creative and critical thinking are good partners. He argues that a problem in critical thinking is a situation where the answer is not immediately obvious - he says creative thinking is activated when the problem is concerned with imaging. He also notes that critical thinking is designed to judge the merits of the options. That happens in creative thinking as well, and there is a purpose as well. Then

Case says we also need to do collaborative thinking. He notes that doing something and then just showing it to others is simply consulting. Collaboration is the act of doing it together, and makes critical and creative thinking much richer and more powerful than it would be otherwise. His way of thinking was helpful for me here - I have understand the creative and critical thinking parts well, but his summary of collaborative, because it helps me see the connection.

I am often working on helping teachers to understand how technology is not something else, but a useful tool to help us do something that involves critical, collaborative, and creative thinking. Case's framing will be a nice way to help others understand it. However, I notice that Case is slowly easing us into talking about technology. Perhaps he is nervous that we will react poorly as he adds in technology.

Case says each tool has a particular way that it is designed to be used, which has an advantage and disadvantage. He helps us through textbooks and microphones - two technologies we are comfortable with. Then he asks us to talk about a technique - sharing with partners. After we discuss, he suggests alternatives like think/pair/share or email as ways to support effective sharing. Each time he says we must:

Explore each technology's orientation and disorientation
Play to the strenghts and mitigate the weaknesses

As Case goes through his rules for do's and don'ts around technology I find myself in general agreement but critical of some specific points. Almost all his examples are about interactive whiteboards, which he notes increase transmission unless they are used well. Hopefully I can see some examples of "used well". I think Cases' point that technologies are designed to be used in a specific way is valid, and in my experience, you need to work against the design of the smartboard to create high-level thinking opportunities in the hands of students. I love a good opportunity to do some critical thinking.

Critical Thinking and Social Studies - Day 1

2010-06-03T09:18:00.000-06:00

This week I attended a feedback session with the curriculum writer for the Social Sciences in Saskatchewan, and I am now sitting is a session with Roland Case of the Critical Think Consortium related to the renewed Social Studies documents. I have used a number of CTC documents and resources before - and I'd recommend them for librarians, history teachers etc. In particular, the summary of critical challenges is good place for social science teachers to start.

The type of Inquiry Case is discussing is a relatively closed form of inquiry. He makes the argument that we have specific curricular outcomes, so we need to direct the questions. However, he sees Inquiry as a process of developing intellectual tools throughout. Critical thinking doesn't happen at the end, it occurs throughout.

Case looks at 5 categories of tools (which he had us develop through concept attainment):

Background Knowledge
Criteria for Judgement
Critical thinking vocabulary
Thinking strategies
Habits of mind

Students learn inquiry tools and practice inquiry skills throughout, using AFL to practice, get feedback and improve. The culminating task is interesting: "Draw on at least 3 past civilizations, recommend the the 2 most important lessons for future societies to remember. As a class, agree on the 5 most important lessons, and in groups, create artifacts to bury in a class time capsule expressing one of these lessons." I like this question because it is built to cumulatively, has some group and individual task, involves the academic and tactile and lends itself to differentiation.

I was gone from the session for an hour while attending an admin meeting, then returned to activities designed to help us check our understanding of the difference between fact questions, feeling/preference questions and questions that require informed judgement.

I think that these sessions would be helpful for teachers as they work towards understanding inquiry, and the direct ties to curriculum are very helpful. I'm hoping to see more on backwards design tomorrow.

Accounting for the billion - G20 or Alberta Education

2010-05-31T11:27:00.000-06:00

Last week I found a copy of Using Technology to Support Real Learning First in Alberta Schools via Joe Bower's blog. I see other Saskatoon bloggers like Tim Comfort are blogging about it, too. I think the report looks at the problem through one specific lens, but is generally an interesting read. On page 5, it lays out Somekh's technology senarios as a framework for understanding technology uses in schools.

Scenario 1: Policymakers at empt to “shoehorn” technology into the existing regulatory framework governing curriculum and assessment, thereby augmenting the government’s bureaucratic, centralized control over schools.
Scenario 2: Policymakers and educators acknowledge that infusing technology into schools is a complex and uncertain process. To encourage innovation and research at the school level, they relax controls and accountability mechanisms.
Scenario 3: Schools deploy technology as a way of reconceptualizing the curriculum. For example, teachers may use technology to help students understand how their community ﬁts into the global context and what it means to be a responsible citizen.
Scenario 4: Policymakers undertake a series of initiatives to integrate technology into schools, all of which fail. In the end, the teaching–learning process largely reverts to what it was before.

The report argues that Alberta has taken a largely Senario 1 approach. I contend that Saskatchewan would also fall into that category, in that choices outlined on page 8 are virtually identical in Saskatchewan although there is less funding to support them. The remainder of the report argues that Alberta needs to move towards Senarios 2 and 3, and that provicial accountability measures get in the way of that.

According to the report, Alberta $1.5 billion on technology in last 15 years (that's enough to fund a whole second G20 summit). Like the Summit, which has a million a minute price tag for the leaders meeting, it is unclear what great gains are being made for the dollars invested. The loaded language of the report places Alberta technology spending in the same category as G 20 security - way too much money for the difference in makes in real terms.

I think the issue rests with a lack of alingnment about what we are trying to do. If the focus is efficency and augmenting trantional education with additional but similar options, Alberta has done what it has intended. If the goal is using technology to transform student learning, Alberta's investment would be the subject of a scathing report by the Auditor General. Mind you, so would the technology practices in most schools throughout the continent.

If our goal is to use schools to prepare students for a knowldge economy and to be 21st Century citizens, we need to change how we teach, not just add Smartboards. If our goal is prosumers of learnign instead on consumers, then we need to also change how schools are structured. Both of these are massive changes that are virtually imposible to create centrally, and require massive investments beyond infastructure.

Ultimately we need to ask ourselves why we are spending the money in the first place. If the latest G-20 yields what other meetings have, the million a minute price tag is indulgent, offensive and wrong. But if it were actually to yield say lasting environmental change (yes, I know it won't) the price tag is a spectacular investment. So the question is, what is the goal? Safety and efficency or a changing world?

Once we have the goal in place and everyone actually agrees it is the goal, technology to support learning becomes possible. Before that, it can never move beyond what it is now. A report like this comes out and we bloggers champion the need for change. That's not enough. We need agreement from all parties to actually move forward.

Why people do things like edit Wikipedia?

2010-05-25T13:41:00.000-06:00

Ah, serendipity.

I was reading The New Learning Commons (check out the wiki) today and came across an image that really articulated the thesis of the work I have been doing this year to steer us towards web 2.0 technologies. It is easy to see which model connects more easily to learner engagement in general, and motivated, life-long learners in particular.

Then over lunch, I was reading an article in Wired (like that new digital format) that was a conversation between Dan Pink and Clay Shirky, both of whom I have blogged about before.

Pink and Shirkey start their conversation by talking about why someone might contribute to Wikipedia:

Pink: A few days ago, I was talking with someone about Wikipedia. And the guy shook his head dismissively and said about the people who contribute to it: “Where do they get the time?” We both think that’s a silly question.

Shirky: It is. People have had lots of free time for as long as there’s been the industrialized world. But that free time has mainly been something to be used up rather than used, especially in postwar America, with the rise of suburbanization and long commutes. Suddenly we no longer lived in tight-knit communities and therefore we spent less time interacting face-to-face. As a result, we ended up spending the bulk of our free time watching television.

Pink: The numbers on that are astonishing.

Shirky: Staggering. Someone born in 1960 has watched something like 50,000 hours of television already. Fifty thousand hours—more than five and a half solid years.

Pink: You’ve just described our boyhoods.

Shirky: Yes, sitting in front of the television.

Pink: Passively watching Gilligan’s Island and The Partridge Family.

They go on to discuss how time spend passively receiving content from TV is now spent actively creating content as well - and that the quality of that content is no different than the quality of conversation we used to have about TV. Some is great and compelling, much is not. However the act of creating and sharing what we are thinking means the conversation that is great and compelling now has play beyond our living rooms.

This thinking about who owns ideas and earns the right to share them has shifted in the way our educational system must. If we want to engage students, we need them to actually be the people who help to write the story. Publishing on Wikipedia isn't an act of stupidity - billions of school children every year write down what they have learned on a topic. We think it is a worthy activity for them, even though they only have an audience of one, the teacher. How does doing work that will be used by many and having others build on your thinking suddenly make it less worthy? (especially compared to Gilligan's Island)

As teachers, we need to start by thinking of all of our students as people with the potential to learn and grow, not as fixed entities that we need to measure. And when we think that way, it's clear how we want the technology we use with them to function. Pink notes:

I think our nature is to be active and engaged. I’ve never seen a 2-year-old or a 4-year-old who’s not active and engaged. That’s how we are out of the box. And if you begin with this presumption, you create much more open, flexible arrangements that almost inevitably lead to greater satisfaction for individuals and great innovation for organizations.

Strong, motivated learners want to share their stories with others, and strong schools create flexible, open arrangements to help them engage in doing it. The serendipitous relationship between current technologies and student engagement is just too powerful to ignore.

A Good Day

2010-05-21T13:15:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while you have a really good day because you know the work you are doing is making a difference. Last year when I was teaching, I'd have a student come in once every couple of weeks to tell me that or have a class go so well that I felt wonderful. In this PD role, that happens less often.

A big push of my work this year has been to support SITLs and TLs is working with teachers on how and why to use technology in their classrooms. Part way through the year, I started getting unsolicited feedback. Two of my SITLs started sending me links to share out with the division. I watched the hits on various web applications I was teaching climb, and I saw our libraries develop virtual presence. The most significant thing was the number of teachers who were trying digital storytelling, mindmapping and more effective research methods with students, thanks to the support of the SITLs and TLs. I also got invited to work with large groups of teachers, like English teachers. Each of theses things was part of evidence that the learning I was working on was making a difference in Collegiates - my big reason for wanting to do it. However, the really exciting thing was an email I got this morning:

I just found out (from what I understand about my teaching assignment next year) that I'll have every other morning in semester 1 free of classes. This means I can spend a morning working with teachers in either school. I'm looking forward to this great opportunity to transform classroom practice. I shall be going over the book club selection you chose this summer.
I hope that we can send someone else to IT Summit next year. It was really exhausting after two days of that conference - I was wondering how I could even get started. Get started I did. I started my personal blog on May 3rd and opened up Delicious and Evernote accounts. I've been using Twitter more now and I use all of these tools in my classes this semester (except for Comp Sci). I now realise what power these tools bring and how they relate to AFL. Blogs and wikis are an ideal way to allow students to practise continuous improvement. The power of sharing things in a social network might be a way to build community (not limited to just the classroom). It occurred to me that I could RSS feed my Delicious bookmarks in a virtual classroom like this on the bottom of my AFL Science portal. Instead of cutting out newspaper articles, this is an easy way to create a bulletin board of current events in science or history. I'm just wondering about how to segregate the feeds now.
This year was the most useful for PD in technology I've ever had. I now understand more of your question to me last year about the "why" rather than the "how". Thank you for all your great work this year.

Thanks Leslie, for that uplifting email. I am so delighted to see all the great things you are thinking about as you connected them to your life in your blog. And as you start to work with teachers in a support role in mornings next year, I think you'll get the pleasure of seeing other teachers learn as you learned this year.

Sometimes as a facilitator of teacher learning, it is easy to feel like you don't have much to offer. Leslie knows was more about programing, networks, and computer repair than I do - how could I possibly offer him something in the area of technology? The answer lies in the fact that great people are always growing, sharing ideas, and looking for possibilities to make a difference for others. So I can make a difference with Leslie this year, and he'll make a difference for others next. Every bit of feedback, especially the feedback designed to help me grow, is useful in getting closer to making that difference.

Digital Citizenship and Reputation Management in Learning

2010-05-20T13:31:00.000-06:00

I recently wrote about my reflections on the focus of our professional learning around technology this year. I was working with SITLs and TLs on what we accomplished this year and what we were going to work next year.The group said next year they want to work on:

digital rights
digital citizenship
digital footprint.

Then today in my blog role, I saw an interesting presentation from Dean Shareski on Reputation Management (it is licenced under Creative Commons so you can use it as you like). It is absolutely worth your time to watch, and it got me thinking about how we'll work on it and why.

Dean's work talks about how you don't really control the message now that coffee row is posted in the public. His point is that working together create the social media message with teachers and students makes a lot of sense. (Many of Dean's ideas are a part of Don Tapscott's Growing Up Digital if you'd like to do some reading on the re-thinking businesses, politics and schools are doing). Dean identifies 5 shifts in communicating, which I read about in Here Comes Everybody. You can watch Shirky's TED talk to get the basics:

So the questions I am left with as I think about the implications of Dean's presentation are two fold:

How can we harness social media to engage our student and professional learners in things worth doing?
What issues do we need to be aware about as we think about social media and education?

Let me know what you think. . .

Our Technology Story - Water and Sun

2010-05-19T13:48:00.000-06:00

I have been working on a draft version of the story of the work around technology that happened this year in Collegiate Renewal. Yesterday, the SITLs and TLs looked at it and made some revisions as we prepare to add it to the board report. I am also working a wix page (in progress) to go with it an augment the story with background information.

As I sift through evidence, I am always thinking about what it is telling me about what went well and what next steps we need to take. In particular, I am thinking about what we need to do to grow the seeds we planted this year. I had just finished a personal blog post on all the perennials I am excited about in my yard, when the following serendipitous video came up on my blog feed:

As I watched it, I thought that it embodies many of the things I'd like to be able to say next year about Collegiate Renewal and Technology after I have looked at our evidence of growth.

As I sifted through the evidence from this year, I was excited all the possibilities created by the learning our SITLs and TLs did this year, and by the initial work of the technology grants. I continue to see the potential for a rich harvest, but I am also worried.

As I watched this video, I waited and waited, because community net (the way in which Saskatchewan schools get Internet) started throttling our streamed video access last week, causing the video to lag. I wanted to send the video to others and extend the conversation the group had yesterday about how we will grow the learning in Collegiates next year. But I didn't, because of a basic barrier like connectivity.

In order to grow technology use, we need to address pedagogy and understanding to shed light on what we can do. We also need the flow of hardware, software and connectivity to allow that light to turn into fuel in our classrooms. Water and sun are basic necessities for a good story of growing our learning.

I feel like the classic Saskatchewan farmer - even as I am excited about the bumper crop I am shoveling into bins, I am worried about what the weather may bring next year. I don't have control of the weather, so I need to make my best predictions about the things I can control and continue to be hopeful. As I am revising the story and planning for next year, I am excited that I am from Saskatchewan, and have a good cooperative of fellow planning and instructional leaders to work with. It's nice celebrate to have a community harvest.

Forward Failure

2010-05-12T09:12:00.002-06:00

I often enjoy Joe Bower's blog, and the video he posted today is no exception. I have spent the last week or so doing some reflection about the results of the year as I write up my materials for the Collegiate Renewal board report. As I am writing, I am reminded of the concept of growth mindset once again. I am finding some fantastic successes, but being me, I mostly see where I didn't hit the target or there is opportunity for growth.

As I looked over the goals I had for the year, I was able to say that I met a number of them, but there were just as many that I got part way to or made no measurable progress on.

So what does this mean?

From a fixed mindset position, "those I worked with did not do enough, I was unlucky, there were barriers that were too big and the whole process is stupid. " From a growth mindset position, here is what I learned:

I would set the goals collectively next time, so they are more shared
The lines from professional development to student engagement need to be clearer (Reeves and Guskey).
Feedback needs to be a greater part of the process at all levels

Like always, I actually look forward to the opportunity to try some more and get closer to meeting the needs out there. I am also really excited about each and ever success and look as closely at that as I do at the failures/learning opportunities. I think both are all about how to move forward. I liked the video (minus the fact that it was so American) because it reminded me how much failures are stepping stones just the way success is.

Laughing though my tears

2010-05-06T10:09:00.004-06:00

My husband is a huge Sting fan, and I sometimes think he believes there is a Sting lyrics for everything. Laughing through my tears (from I'm so happy, I can't stop crying, which is actually about divorce) was exactly what I did when a former student of mine named Jennifer sent me this rubric for competencies in humour this morning. I followed the links and realized that Microsoft has a rubric for virtually ever possible work place competence, including ones that are diametrically opposed to each other (check out ambiguity and priority setting).

I am all about student and teacher competence, but I don't think Microsoft and I mean the same thing. As I look at the rubrics (an oft overused educational tool), I began laughing. I think I may have slid just a tad into hysterical. Here are my three salt-encrusted reasons:

A rubric is designed to be a series of steps, and each step is supposed to describe what specific things you need to do to improve. These rubrics don't do that, they are just metrics for describing what you aren't doing. Classic and ironic, given what they are designed to promote.
Who thinks you can evaluate humour on a rubric? I know we are geeks in the computer community, but could we deviate a little from the worst stereotypes about us?
When you are actually competent, rubrics are useless to you, because you understand something with more depth and complexity than can be expressed in a rubric. Ah, the irony of measuring competence in a way that shouts that you don't have it.

Jennifer's email was entitled "I can't stop laughing" and she writes ironically that "apparently there are rubrics for everything." Thanks for helping me take competence/measured acceptability and evidence a little less seriously just before starting my work day, Jennifer. I think all educators could use that, and if they couldn't, there is always this rubric to measure their lack of competence .

Tool duel - I wanted TPack

2010-05-04T14:18:00.006-06:00

One of my big criticism of technology presentations is that they are sometimes a random collection of tools embedded in a dialogue about how technology can change the word but hasn't yet. That has been the case for at least a portion of many of the sessions I went to today. This last session was pretty much there for the whole time. Dean Shareski and Will Richardson (both of whom had sessions I enjoyed earlier) showed a series of tools:

Dean

Picnic for photoediting - many glog-like features. I have used it and like it.
Map a list to turn spreadsheets into maps. I haven't played much with this, but really like the idea. I have only used it twice before.
We emailed Posterous as group. It is an online place that functions as a repository for images, text etc.
Tube chop allows you to take a video off youtube and keep just a section of a part of it. You get a URL with a part of the video
Geogreeting sends a message using letters and a map. Dean called it a niche tool - I think it is a non-tool. No thinking here, so I scorned it by not linking it
Big Huge Labs is for creating things using images. Makes callendars, trading cards, posters etc.

Will

Evernote - like Onenote, it is a tool where you store notes, links, audio and pics for you to file. Superior to one note because on a variety of platforms like your phone). I like this one.
Skitch is a screen capture tool that allows you to edit the image and posts it to skitch, flickr or in Evernote. I have used this quite a bit.
Jing is a screencapture tool that captures what you are looking at on your computer and you can turn it into a movie. Then you can talk and your video camera tapes you and adds it to your video. I use Screenr, but Jing is good.
Mindmeister is a standard mindmapping tool. It allows you to make a map and collaborate or share it. You pay, though, which is why I don't promote it.
Instapaper marks something to read later on kindle, paper, computer etc.
Readability is a good tool for striping out adds. I use the Firefox add-on, so I linked to that

I had used all of these tools before and wished that a bit more time was taken to connect these web 2.0 tools and student outcomes. It is easy to use a variety of tools and still make no impact on students. I think I am a bad audience for this sort of thing because I am not a geek - I don't like technology for the sake of technology. Technology, pedagogy and content knowledge (TPack) must be married.
I stopped blogging for the last several items each of them raised, and they ended on talking about the value of the iPad. Will said you need one just for the racing game. Yawn, I have no need for tech speed. However, it seemed to be invigorating for all the tool men out there :-)

Presentations... It's About The Narrative

2010-05-04T12:15:00.001-06:00

Wendy James, Curriculum Renewal Technology Consultant and soon to be Coordinator of Curriculum and Instruction for the Saskatoon Public Schools, presented at the IT Summit on the Power of Presentations. The following are some of the great points from her presentation. I just couldn't type fast enough for more!

She showed us Google Search Stories, which took only minutes to learn and create, allowing the students to concentrate on the narrative. After placing a series of search terms, Wendy suggests working from a big Idea to a more specific idea, I video is created. Students can search the web, images, maps, news feeds, blogs products and books. Goggle Search Stories can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories

Wendy stress with students to think about what the main idea I am trying to get across and how am I going to get this idea across clearly. Google Search Stories works well to keep these concepts in mind.

Wendy uses ShareTabs to provide handouts for students. This way students always have the materials on hand and can not lose the handouts! The ShareTab for this session is located at:

http://sharetabs.com/?power-of-presentations-summit-2010

Having a backchannel, like http://typewith.me/, allow students to provide their thoughts and prior experience while a presentation is ongoing. Students can then review this material. Teachers and see which students contributed, allowing for Assessment for Learning feedback and evidence of learning. Wendy does recommend keeping a copy of the work generated so it is not lost, whether it be copying and pasting or taking a screen capture. Some other backchannel options include http://primarypad.com/ and http://titanpad.com/. When using a backchannel, it is important to refer to it during the presentation or the information located on the backchannel is not utilized effectively. While shifting every 15 minutes, usually from the individual to small groups to the large group is a commonly suggested structure, this may be a dissatisfier for those students who want to dig deeper. Backchannels allow a blend of these groupings.

Consider who the audience is.
The traditional model of a presentation is for the audience to face the presenter. We are conditioned to sit and listen to the speaker in this environment. But, with a computer in front of the audience members, Continuous Partial Attention can interfere with learning.

Creating a rapport with the audience.
You need to show that you are ready. You need to show respect. Audience members do not feel respected if they are forced to speak but not asking questions lowers learning in a presentation by 32%. A balance needs to be struck to maintain respect. Also, audience members want to know they are taking away new information.

Google Jockey
Having a Google Jockey allow someone in the room to fill gaps and additional provide information. Even if it is only a photo of what the presenter is discussing, the material provided by the Google Jockey will increase the audience's recall by 50%. With Google, various new search options, such as the Wonderwheel and the Timeline are powerful tools that can be encorporated by the Jockey.

Clearly articulating your message.
Images do generate interest and allow us to bring our prior knowledge to the topic more quickly. We pre-process the concept. The image can take us to a specific area of a topic.
Noises and flying words are a distraction.
Full sentences should not be used.
There can be too much information on a slide.
The most powerful position is the top left and should be reserved for important information.
The maximum number of bullets on a slide should be 3 to 5.

Image Pitfalls
Complex Images.
Too much cognitive effort.
Distracting or misleading.
Not appropriate.

Points to consider for your Powerpoint.
No more than 30% of your content should be on your PowerPoint (max. 5% would be great)
At least half the area should have anything on it (Chunking and whitespace).
Keep a consistent look
Most importand points should be highlighted.
Keep your layout audience appropriate (more text for over 40, more images for younger students).
Pause more for older audiences. They are more apt to write things down and need the time.
All detail should be verbal.

Copyright Issues
When using a photo from the web, Wendy posts a link to the original photo. She also suggests using a site like Flickr where photos listed under a Creative Commons Licence can be specifically searched.

LEET

Label
Expand
Evidence or Examples
Tieback to main point

Often, when speaking, we skip the Expand step. To practice meeting all these steps, record yourself with talking with a slide you are going to use for a presentation.

Hand Jestures
People often have a hand jesture that is distracting to the audience, but there are jestures that can help, along with moving forward to emphasize a point. This is a heavily researched area in sales and politics. Destracting jestures create a version of white noise.

Loaded Language
Putting the subject at the beginning of a sentence is 3 times more persuasive than having the object at the beginning. Another way to be persuasive is to incorporate larger concepts to draw in your audience. It can create emotional appeal.

Wendy provided a ton of great ideas and concepts for presentations, both useful for presenters and as points to teach students. I only was able to record a few of her points. I would encourage you to check out her handouts from this session (and maybe even book her to speak at an event).

http://sharetabs.com/?power-of-presentations-summit-2010

Welcome Will Richardson

2010-05-04T08:39:00.004-06:00

This is 4th time I have seen Will present, and I have been encouraging my division to work with him as a part of our professional learning next year. I tell you this up front, so you know the perspective from which I am writing. While I am at it, I'd like to thank Scott St. Pierre who posted yesterday to the blog, and has posted in the past. Will and Scott are both a part of my community of professional learners, and I have read Will's blog for a number of years.

Will's keynote is called Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything. He start with an example story about a blind gamer and talked about how this is an example of how kids function. While he is very excited about technology and thinks it can change everything, he thinks schools have changed little: "There are few real examples of transformative change." Will cited one of his favorite quotations:

If you think that the future will require better schools you are wrong. The
future of education will call for entirely different schools. - Knowledge
Works Foundation

Will sees a couple of really critical, "tectonic" shifts because of the Read/Write web:

If you have an interest, you can find others with that same interest
People can hold a a conversation and make it real for crowds long after the media moves on (Richard uses the example Iranelection)
You can't be a politician, a publisher, etc. in the way you used to 5 years ago. When people have choice, they compel changes like interactive content, choice and sharing of ideas (I wonder if that will impact schools, what with the lack of choice).
Copyright is in flux - people can steam things they go to, creative commons allows sharing of ideas. Media is changing.

Will acknowledges that schools haven't changed but feels that schools will be compelled. Kids use the tools to connect socially (they are fine there without our help) and in interest-based ways. Will thinks that this is the place where there is a key role for us as educators. We know that connecting to others is very powerful and makes many of us uncomfortable.

Public is the new default. - Erick Schonfeld

Will talked about how most of the pictures of his daughter online are posted and tagged by someone else. We need to teach students to manage their reputations online (for those new to this idea, take a look Joyce Valenza's writing on the subject of digital footprints). Then he showed a map of those who read his blog from all over the world. He has nearly nearly 50,000 hits from the US alone, and over 5,000 from Canada. He says in his children's lives, there is only one reader, the teacher. He wants diversity of passionate listeners for every kid.

Now Will is repeated one of my favorite refrains, that we want our student's learning to be found and we need to teach them how to do it well. He is very negative about walled-gardens, although he is approaching the idea tangentially in this presentation. He is showing us how MIT's content is available on-line and just showed us the Khan academy online.

Will asks: "What changes will this sort of thing online?" He argues that Harvard became popular because it has the biggest library. He also notes that many of our professional learning around technology is misguided. He says we should stop teaching teachers how to use technology and start teaching them why to use them. This is also a favorite refrain of mine.

Will is saying how his kids are still waiting in school to be told what to learn, how to learn it and when to learn it. They don't get to choose how they show what they have learned. Then they come home and have complete freedom. He says this disconnect is a problem.

Now Will is making himself deeply unpopular by arguing wikipedia is a good source. He asked how many people teach kids to use wikipedia and I am one of the "12" who put their hands up. Will notes that all of us know our kids use wikipedia and then he shows all the errors from print texts. I agree that teaching kids how to back track wikipedia is a really important thing, but I think Will may have crossed over into a rant that is making the audience feel badly.

Creating Engaging Online Courses

2010-05-03T15:29:00.002-06:00

Peggy Lawson is an instructional technology consultant from South East Cornerstone School Division. She shared her own reflextions in the area of developing online courses that are robust and provide a compelling reason to be engaged in their learning.

What does it mean to be in an online class? It started out as being mostly text-based. Basically, it was the old correspondance material posted to the internet. Peggy then posed the question, "What is Engaging?". Her philosophy on engagement is extremely close to the conversations that have been occuring in Saskatoon Public Schools. She links engagement closely with authentic learning.

Peggy lists a variety of challenges when creating an online course that is engaging. In comparison to post-secondary education, where there are teams of developers, in the K-12 system, the teacher is the developer. It is important to start with small steps then build onto the online course each time the teacher delivers the material.

Best practices to keep in mind include keeping in mind different learning styles and providing materials in a variety of ways. Peggy feels providing online office hours is an important support. Some suggestions are Skype conference calls, systems such as Adobe Connect, or even text messaging. It does, however, have to be manageable for the teacher.

Feedback is crutical for the online learner. This feedback may be written, through a video, or may take the form of an audio file. Marking up student work on a PDF or using the comment features of Word are options for written feedback. This session reminded me of Rolph Polan's presentation on using Acrobat to provide audio feedback to students (featured earlier on this blog). Jing is a free resource that can be used for video feedback. For audio feedback, Audacity is an excellent, free resource. Even a checklist, letting the student know that their assignments have been received is a great satisfier and lowers potential frustration levels associated with online courses.

Content delivery methods depend on whether a synchronous or asynchronous format will be used. In general, students prefer interactive activities as well as virtual tours.

Peggy shared a variety of uses of technology in transformative ways, leading to engaging environments. Complex examples included use of Adobe Connect but she also showed Powerpoint being used in transformative ways.
It was interesting how many of her discussion points paralleled Dan Shareski's presentation on the 10 Worst Practices in Educational Technology. Shareski's ten points were discussion points that existed within Peggy's presentation, when planning an engaging online course. An example is "gated" vs "open" environments and the pros & cons of each.

SETA might have misplaced their keys

2010-05-03T14:37:00.006-06:00

I worked with the PD committee of the Educational Technology Consortium for a number of years and watched it gradually disappeared for a variety of reasons after I had left. SETA, the Saskatewan Educational Technology Association, appears to have replaced it. The board chair describes the main focuses as a hub for distance learning, infrastructure, and supporting effective use of educational technology in a variety of ways.

Part way through this session, I realized I had lost my keys. They have a hook on them and are usally attached to me, but I decided to go more professional and less janitorial today. I had no sooner realized they were gone than Scott emailed he had found them.

Ironically, before I had lost them, I was thinking about the keys to transformative uses of technology I learned about while researching for the old ETC. We learned a lot about how important it is to support professional learning and tie software to student outcomes. I was looking forward to hearing about how this young organization would address these things.

Then I got confused. The chair said the focus was on education, so membership does not include the stakeholders the ETC did, like STF and LEADS. They will offer training sessions, like one on Smart next Wed. and training sessions on Microsoft hardware and software. SETA mentions that you can email Shelley Lowes about IT sessions you are interested in.The presenting group was particularily excited about getting a province-wide Microsoft agreement. It will cost about $75.00 per student.

I must admit, I am concerned about the model SETA is moving forward with, because some key pins in the educational technology lock will not be turned given the key they have cut. It seems pretty focused on the business side and doesn't have teacher reps, which might make it difficult to keep a focus on the instructional side. They don't have a web site yet, but have been talking about high value targets for software licencing. They gave us a handouts for a variety of types of software they are exploring based on suggestions from technical coordinators in school divisions. Sorry, no links, so I can't post those for you, but Adobe, Atomic Learning and Inspiration are some of the big names offering bulk purchasing. This whole presentation was mostly focused on bulk purchasing, so I wasn't the intended audience. My focus is always on what student outcomes we want and supports we need to help educators get them there. This was not really the focus of the presentation.

On the upside, Donna and Scott found my keys, which I lost when they fell out of my jacket in Dean's session. Since Scott already emailed me and I'll get them back before I head home - I barely even had time to worry. I'll bike home in peace. As I am getting ready to leave, a member of the audience pointed out my exact concerns about all stakeholders being involved. Maybe this will help SETA find its keys, the way Scott and Donna helped me find mine.

Dean's Debate

2010-05-03T13:15:00.004-06:00

After Dean's big ISTE win, it is unsurprising to see that the room is packed for his session. Dean works as a digital learning consultant and his presentation reflects his curriculum focus, and I am a regular reader of his blog.

One of the things I like about Dean's presentations is that he is one of the few presenters I see where I think the slides are powerful. He often has a simple image and a sentence or few words for each of his ideas. Another strength is being responsive to where the audience is going. That will be a challenge for him this time, since this room has twice as many people in it as it really fit. Dean's presentation is about 10 technologies that are often misused. Here is his list:

Smartboards (Dylan Wiliam, Hattie etc. agree with Dean on no educational impact) Smartboards are used because they are easy and support current practice. Dean's question: Is easy a goal of technology?
Powerpoint - Dean's question: Why do we so many bad Powerpoints? What strategies have been effective in eliminating bad PPTs? Answers of the group: People try to read off the presentation and don't think about why they are doing what they are doing. JAIME
Digital Camera - Dean's question: Are they used for more than just taking pictures? Answer: We don't know how to use images to tell a powerful story or as a tool for feedback. Dean notes that lack of standardization around editing and optimizing images is also a barrier.
Walled Gardens - Dean asked when a password protected space is necessary and when it hurts the learning. The group discussed security issues and advantages of safety and the loss of opportunity when connectivism is prevented. We discussed how students are online and need to be taught how to do it well and safely. We also talked about how sharing is important, but people are worried about copyright.
Computer Class - Dean's question: Do we need the special place for computers? Interesting. I love the Hookanson and Hooper article that compares computer class to segregation and Dean asked if we need pencil labs. Ah, shades of Rick Schwier. The group noted that there are some strengths including not looking for wireless, things like video editing that require solid machines etc.
Cell phones - Dean asks if we are not using computing power we could. As schools, we don't know what to do with them. There has to be a mid-point between banning and abuse.
Keyboarding - Dean's question: Do we want to spend our computer instruction time learning to type in a certain way?

The three we didn't get to: Drill and Kill vs Games, Searching (is still bolean as best), and audience choice (they suggested printing and hand editing, texting etc.).

It was interesting to watch the audience want to defend practices. There were strong advocates for each of Dean's 10, and really good discussion. I think it is great for us to do some critical thinking on the subject. My favorite session so far since it was a debate. I am so predictable .

Ruo on probeware and motion capture

2010-05-03T10:35:00.003-06:00

The second session I attended at Summit was Leslie Ruo's session on probeware and motion capture. I have seen Leslie present before - he was the SITL when I started teaching in Saskatoon at Walter Murray Collegiate.

Leslie prepare a set of resources that are really helpful for learning to use the Vernier probes. We have some sample videos, labs and other resources, in addition to links and docs from a variety of sources. I think I would have found it helpful if Leslie talked a bit more about what why we do this sort of capture with students and what type of thinking skills we are trying to promote (like what Bernajean Porter was talking about this morning re headware and hardware).

One of the things that strikes me about the probeware is the fact that students can easily visualize things like slope and compare multiple data sets. Students can spend much less time gathering data and much more time understanding what it means. I think that is a good thing. Gathering data is an important part of lab work in the Sciences, but sometimes it is easy for gathering to take so much time that students have little left to use in the analysis. This strikes a nice compromise.

I liked having the time to play with multiple videos and really enjoyed what Leslie shared about his results in his class using standardized measures like the TUG/K.

The second thing Leslie showed us was how to use the motion sensor to collect data. We learned how to set the time, and collect the data. I was walking as a part of the data collection with my partner, Karen. She accused me of drinking, then Leslie helped us figure out we needed to have me walk towards the go-motion probe. We got to play with the rest of the resources on the DVD for the remainder of the session.

IT Summit starts with Porter

2010-05-03T08:43:00.004-06:00

I am IT Summit again this year, and am looking forward to the key notes in particular. I am presenting tomorrow on the subject of creating powerful presentations - yup, no stress with that topic. It is probably Jay's fault that we picked that topic. Some resources for the presentation include the Prezi, some Sharetabs and a handout, but I am hoping the talking is the interesting part.

The first keynote today in Bernajean Porter, who is speaking which technology practices are high-yielding. Porter starts with the back channel link, gives us the wiki link, and then moves on the examples. Her first is a sample of high school Science, and we are supposed to score it low, medium or high for its rigour (boy, I hate that word. It sounds like the idea has died). The room is pretty equally divided. I thought there was no really content and was worried that I missed something. Turns out no - Porter's point is that how we use technology is much more important than what technologies we are using.

Porter talks about the headware, which is the deep and enduring learning we want for students. She notes that the hardware changes but the headware stays the same.

Porter goes on to provide a series of examples to prove that technology, especially hardware and software, does not impact achievement just because you have it. She says certain focal points(she doesn't name them yet) actually impact life long learning. Porter notes that the biggest deficit in student understanding around technology is the ability to find credible and reliable sources. To applause of a TL in the audience, she comments that teacher-librarians are one of the 3 key indicators of student competence.

I think I would have appreciated more examples about how powerful instructional strategies are leveraging the tools. She gave one example of writing, which is one I am familiar with. Porter talks about how integration is just re-framing traditional teaching. A pod cast is an on-line lecture, an old story reframed. She argues we need new stories.

I first encountered Porter's HEAT spectrum last year, and it fits well with ISTE standards and the Technology Infusion Matrix I have been using with the technology grants this year. Ultimately, all of them require constructivist pedagogy and that is the place where I keep struggling. Helping teachers change pedagogy is the most challenging thing I have ever done in my career (check out Peggy Ertmer's writing on second order barriers) and using new technologies just makes it more complicated.

I really enjoyed the Flashlight activity where we categorized our things happening in classrooms. It was good because we were all engaged in thinking and interacting, and it helped us move to deeper understanding. I think I made be able to build on our SITLs and TLs hearing this in our session in May on Planning and Instructional support.

I don't do Math, but I like problems

2010-04-28T12:22:00.000-06:00

When I think about student engagement, I always try to compare where I was most engaged (anything with problems and critical thinking) to where I was least engaged - Math. That's interesting, because I had some engaging teachers who taught me math, and a number of my friends are Math teachers. There must be something there when so many people I like and respect use so much of their time and energy to work on it...

For years, I pegged my low potency in Math to my dyslexia. How can you feel able when 6 and 9 or 3 and 8 look the same and you are always getting basic arithmetic wrong? When you are always making mistakes, I told myself, it is hard to be engaged. Yet as the same time, I actually sought out other things because they weren't easy. I loved English and History, although my writing was full of spelling mistakes that never failed to illicit comments from my teachers about how I did it wrong. I also really liked all the sciences, and liked the applied Math I found in them.

I have been reading Dan Meyer's blog dy/dan since meandthedoor sent it to me. She sent out another link to Dan's TEDx talk and I watched it. I think Dan has it right on the money. I have been gradually realizing that I didn't hate Math because I made computational errors, I hated it because I didn't see it as problems or creative thinking. This is a little ironic, as my father (yup, mathematician) and one of my best friends (physicist), are always "going on" about how math is the language of all the interesting questions in the world.

I use my mathematics education all the time - basic arithmetic, but also geometry when I build things and statistics because they interest me. Permutations and combinations were my favorite unit in all of my K-12 math education because they were about prediction and I could see how I was using them to problem solve choices I was making playing cards. I guess every time my math is problem solving I like it, but in my education it rarely was. Even word problems were just identifying the formula and subbing in the variables.

I know the many good math teachers I know are not surprised that students don't feel they can do it and just want a formula. I was always way better at memorizing the formula and doing the evens or odds in the text than I was at understanding the why. But understanding the why is what would have made Math relevant for me, and I would have persevered through lack of potency if I was really thinking critically. I just wasn't doing much thinking most of the time.

Dan talks early on in the video about how textbooks are a big part of the problem. They were for me. Since they gave me only the variables I needed, they were like a badly written mystery. You know, the kind where the only minor characters you meet will be significant later? You don't do any thinking there, you just sub in Mr. Scott in as the murder. If I had been figuring out what I needed to know and excluding irrelevant information, the why would have been automatic, as would my sense of engagement. I have always liked a challenge, but math just seemed to be low level thinking.

As my husband is teaching math to our daughters, I can see that texts are starting to change, but the problems Dan identifies are still firmly in place. I'd sure welcome some insights from my math loving friends on this one. Is Dan right in your experience? How do you think we should teach math? I have always liked a good problem - and maybe it is worth starting to do the math.

Replacing grading

2010-03-30T15:42:00.004-06:00

Joe Bower has an interesting Prezi about how he replaced grading with feedback. I like it because it used the progression of Prezi well and he is clearly thinking deeply about how he structures his class and why.

Joe's blog is about his quest to make his Red Deer, Alberta classroom more engaging for his students. He is also hard at work challenging educational practice, sometime in a constructive way and, sometimes in an aggressive one. However, since Joe is thinking about why his classroom is the way it is, he often holds my interest, and I think he is worth adding to blogs you follow.

On Sunday, Joe diverted from his usual topics to post on a video that irritated him. Having recently posted on a video that irritated me, I thought I should humour him. Despite Joe's focus on removing judgement in his feedback, his blog title of Taylor Mali is a Joke seemed just a tad evaluative to me.In watching the video, I re-focused on what it is in the grading conversation that bothers me so much. It is the control.

Teachers measuring students and declaring them bad or good is really a problem if we want learning to occur. Plus, who wants to learn when someone is watching to catch you making a mistake so they can put a big red X on in and report it to everyone? Mali is all about the control. He talks about enforced silence, students feeling like failures when given an A-.

That's it right there - teaching as tyranny. It actually isn't the marks at all. I didn't mind having to give or receive them, but the part where marks were a weapon in the struggle for dominance is an issue for me.

Having said that, I would not describe myself as a flexible, open, and spontaneous teacher. I'm a structured person and my classroom reflects it. And students didn't just get to hand things in whenever or have no consequences for anything. It's just that really bad choices always have their own consequences in the end, so I know you will face the consequences. My role is to help you learn - measuring your learning is a very small part of what I do.

By the end of last year, I was using an evaluation method that was essentially portfolio based. Students used various assignments as evidence of learning to move up on a mastery rubric. I didn't grade particular work, but I did say what learning I could see in it and I asked my students to do that for each other and themselves. Although we negotiated the marks, it was rarely a struggle and never for control. You have the evidence to show you have acquired the learning or you don't, and most students see that easily.

Every year I ask my students for feedback - I use specific questions designed to assess competence, autonomy, relevance and belonging. I also ask what they would get rid of and why, and what is critical to keep. Other teachers always ask me how I keep control without the marks, and the answer always consistently up in that feedback. Kids always say my class was tough, but they almost always say it is relevant to them. My favorite parts is this: the things they learn about through the assessment are always about how they learn well, not about the hoops they need to jump though for me. That means the control (and the grade) both sit with them. We replace grading with responsibility.

What is a Learning Leader?

2010-03-30T09:02:00.002-06:00

As we move into the third year of Collegiate Renewal, people who have been Learning Leaders and administrators are starting to offer a vision of what this form of distributed, teacher leadership looks like. Marshall Whelan cc-d me on his version. He says that as a leader he tried to do these things and was not always successful, but he figures this is what the the job needs:

Whether you are Right Brained or Left Brained or double dominant, learn to enjoy the practice of holding yourself professionally responsible in a widely divergent community of thinking that seeks to converge into the most engaging conversations about learning that you are likely to experience. This could be and must be a mix of the Philosophical and Practical - a steady diet of one and not the other makes for frustration.

Sincerely believe in the power of WE: a We staff, a We school, and WE classrooms.
Be prepared to learn from your fellow Learning Leaders, staff and students. You have something to contribute, but it may be at times no more or less important than that of anyone else. The real power is in Group Thinking.

Believe that Excellence is a process and not a state. We are never finished/fixed products, we will never "arrive", and we can only get better if/when we decide it is for everyone's progress.

Be prepared to see messy change: always ask people to explain their version of change , as they may be on to something that you in your omniscience may just have not realized.

Recognize that we are not just changing practice for the betterment of students, but also for ourselves. Collegiate Renewal is first and foremost about changing/ empowering teachers.

Know that you are not and will never be the ONLY fount of all wisdom and knowledge on the staff.

Listen often, ask questions, do not pontificate (This is a hard one for me, or so my wife and daughter tell me.)

Demonstrate a willingness to be judgmental: about practice, but not about people. (This is the starkest change for those who have never had THOSE conversations about people behind closed doors. And yet, it is reality!)

Do not seek this job if you are thinking that this is about ladder climbing to the higher echelons of power: others will reject your motives as base. Instead, roll up your sleeves and get at it! There is beauty and worth in this noble cause in and of itself.

Be critically minded: about reading and points-of-view: Always ask "Does this make sense?" "Who could use this?" "Who needs this?" "How much of a change is this from OUR collective philosophy or practice?" "Is this something I can be the first to try?" Don't be a bandwagon leader. Remember: you not only sipped the Kool Aid; you mixed it! So drink deeply!

Lead by example....Be consistent in all your practices and schedules. Inconsistency is perceived at best as lack of organization; at worst, it is seen as lack of conviction.

Be a detective when it comes to trying to understand people's reasons BEHIND the reasons they give. Everyone is an individual and comes with a learned set of experiences and ideas and situations. Yours are not theirs.

Always be willing to look forward in both vision (where are we going?) and immediate steps in the process ( where are we headed tomorrow/ next week/month? and HOW do we get there?)

Never be afraid to look back and check if you have gone off course or gotten sidetracked. While you look back, always check for stragglers to come along beside. Be positive and be willing to compromise, but exact commitments to proceed in the process. As we say: "Permission to try, and permission to fail and try again. BUT NO Permission to NOT try."

Always look for others who can be of like mind and can take your place in offering suggestions to any and all, especially the stragglers. Someday, you will need to be replaced.

Try as much as possible to create a like minded progressive staff that can begin the process of Mindset change through seeing as many people as possible at the front giving exemplars.

Celebrate often the small victories and little changes in practice.

Never be afraid to ask "Howzitgoin'?" the worst that can happen is they'll tell you the truth! BUT before you ask, remember that the answer to the question: "when I ask you 'How is your AFL journey going?', is that pressure or support?", the answer is YES.

Look for the weary staff as a whole; know and sense when to take your foot off the gas pedal. Remember that taking one's foot off the gas pedal doesn't mean you have hit the brakes or stopped moving forward.

Be wary of the nay sayers that they do not spread poison. Enlist their participation wherever possible (make them sip the Kool Aid too). You just might be surprised at their growth!

Enjoy reading and thinking .......a LOT!!!

Seek ways for people to spend time in collaboration: it is better if they learn HOW and WHY themselves than by being told by you.

Small groups are easier to work with. They are the best blend of all that is good about individuals and all that is Good about large group thinking without the Bad.

Remember to seek feedback....carefully. You have the right to find out what you need to know and the responsibility to let others tell you what they want you to know.

Be reasonable and realize that while you may not have a life, others want one. Don't be a Collegiate Renewal Nazi.

Recognize that you will get to work with some incredible people in the Learning Leader community: some days will be terrific and some days won't. But there will always be progress made if you learn something new every day.

Collegiate Renewal is NOT a contest between schools.

Always ask superiors to explain their rationale for why they believe or do what they do. They usually have a good reason for what they want!

Strive to explain the message of Collegiate Renewal as often as possible to those who know less about it. But do it in a manner that dignifies them, and try it in plain layman's lingo.

Hopefully, you'll do yourself out of a job as We all become independent and co-operative thinkers.

Lastly, BE POSITIVE and realize that this initiative of change will take years to effect. In fact, it will and should never be over, as this is the true culture of learning civilization we are attempting to inculcate. In retrospect: I do not like the term Kool Aid: this is really a vintner's dream. We are not trying to grow the definitive grape or the best year. We are seeking to become the best vintners who grow the best varieties of grapes for any and every climate and region, adapting on a continual basis.

Marshall retires this year and he says the white hairs in his beard are stress highlights. He also says that the work of Collegiate Renewal has been the richest work of his career. I think it is the richest because of what Marshall brings to the work. He is a linchpin as Godin describes them, and his growth mindset is in all his suggestions. Adaptation, learning by looking at what is working and what isn't, and being the change you want in world are all a part of what Marshall recommends. Marshall's ideas are similar to my own, if more eloquently expressed, and I know some people find them daunting. They ask how anyone can be all that and be a full time teacher. I think maybe we miss the point. We want you strive to be these things - it isn't a destination, it is a way of thinking.

Not just talking

2010-03-29T08:46:00.004-06:00

As a part of the work of Collegiate Renewal, we have been working to support both Learning Leaders, Learning Coordinators and administrators in leading other teachers towards student engagement. In the last month and a half, I've had the opportunity to work with a number of groups, and I have noticed that small group conversations, chances to ask questions, and work re-focusing on the specific goal of the leadership team make a much bigger difference than big professional development sessions. Last week I participated in conversations clarifying assessment goals and re-focusing on engagement, and I have concluded that these conversations are more than just talking, they are an essential part of a distributive leadership model.

When we are hoping that teachers are reflective practitioners, we are hoping that they are life-long learners and teacher leaders. Life-long learners look at research, question what is, and vision what it might be. They lead by innovating, and that innovation is the result of observing what is happening in their classrooms and considering how to grow it. Everything we are aspiring to in Collegiate Renewal hinges on all our learners being publically engaged in their learning, and teachers are a critical part of all learners, because they need to be seen making changes that help students.

I write this blog because it is one of the ways that I engage with both ideas and other people. Sometimes I feel like I am talking to myself, but even then, I am reminded that journalling my thinking is a critical part of the reflective process. Now this is mostly whining, as I get emails virtually everyday as a result of the blog, and they continue the conversation. This weekend, Scott St. Pierre sent me a number of other blogs related to the Collegiate Renewal conversation over the weekend. Two of my particular favorites reminded me that conversation itself is a complicated process:

I have been discussing Sir Ken Robinson's conversations since his TED talk came out. I hooked people up to webinars, recommended seeing him live and shared his ideas through PD. However, I think it is challenging for us to really understand the implications of what he is saying in terms of how we need to change schools. I think the Innovative Educator really explains it well in the post We Have Finally Perfected Educating Students for the Past.
I have also been concerned about the grading conversation we are having around The 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. It gets confused with our conversation around Assessment for Learning, and we see changing grading as a substitute for changing school. The conversation we had about the problems with grading is problematic for the division and parents are concerned, but the reason we had Kohn in to speak is because the focus on grade is a problem. Joe Bower has some interesting ideas on Abolishing Grading that get closer to where we want to go in terms of focusing in feedback and growing learning.

Reading the blogs of others, like talking with small groups of school leaders, reminds me how conversation is organic. Ideas spread and grow among those who are looking to learning, and talking about them is more than one conversation. It is the extended dialogue, across times and beyond a physical location, that really creates the growth all learners need. It is this growth that is our best hope for changing schools - making the simple process of talking to others a firm step in the direction of the 21st century school. We need to remember that the process of talking to others about the changes you are making is a critical part of leading as an educator.

Dropout Talks to Educators: What would we say in response?

2010-03-24T11:29:00.004-06:00

I got an interesting video off my RSS feed this morning. It's talking about university, but really about educational institutions in general. In Collegiate Renewal, we often discuss student voice, and the value of the voice of the disengaged. Today, I heard from one of them and I thought I would share it with you:

After I watched this video I asked myself a couple things about this student:

What is his identity as a learner?
What extended conversation is his rant a part of? (Reading the other videos and comments after his rant on YouTube gave me a partial answer)
Why did he annoy me so much, even when I know he has some good points?

I found myself watching some of his other rants and wanting to declare him just a guy who always rants. Discrediting this rant as one in a series helped me to feel better about the fact that he calls all of us teachers largely irrelevant. I even think that there is no value in just teaching and assessing facts, and have made his main point in previous posts on AFL, and engagement. Even when I agree with him, he irritates me.

Part of it is I want people to talk about how to solve the problems, not just try to prove they exist . . . and yes, I know this position is ironic given my lifetime coaching debaters. I also want to celebrate the work we have been doing to change the way education works and focus on opportunity thinking. But I think that isn't all of. I need to do some more thinking about this one and I could use some help.

Do you have any answers to any of my three questions? What else should I be asking?

related note - report on high school dropouts and reasons (March 2010)

It isn't really a technical work-around

2010-03-22T10:36:00.003-06:00

Three teachers emailed me today about various work-arounds they have been trying when technology doesn't work. As I was helping them with their technical issues, I was thinking about the practice of working around and what it does. These are all hard-working caring teachers who have just become so frustrated with technical problems and systemic barriers that they have given up. I understand why, I have days where I am with them, but I think you need keep saying when things aren't working for you and your students.

First of all, some common language. I am fine with avoiding conflict over difference of perception or different ways of doing things. Likewise, if it isn't about something important, I say let it go. When I' m talking work-arounds, I mean a situation where there is a problem and the problem is significant. You are working-around because you think you don't have the power, knowledge or skills to fix it. Here is my case for why working around technical or systemic problems in education in a mistake, regardless of the tools you have to fix the issue:

1. When you work around the problem, it is still there. Sometimes you even make it bigger.
My brother-in-law has a pet rat (pause for collective shudder of revulsion) who, like many domesticated rats, has developed cancer. The rat has a large tumour near its leg that it has learned to work around, even though its leg doesn't work the way a leg should. The rat is able to function, but only for now, because the tumour is still there, and it is growing. In education, we frequently have problems that are systemic or technical, and individuals just work around them. However, doing this actually collectively shapes our practice in a cancerous direction.
Let's say our filtering doesn't allow to access YouTube (common in many school divisions, although not ours). People start sharing how to access blocked sites, students teach teachers how to use a proxy server and teachers turn a blind eye, and technicians see the illicit access and do nothing. Because the filtering wasn't updated, it becomes institutional practice to ignore division policy, and a cancerous view of policy in general is spread.

2. Not all people can work around the problem.
Especially where technical problems are concerned, only a select few understand how to solve the problem. If the average person doesn't know the difference between their computer hard drive and their personal network drive, they don't understand how why just saving to "my documents" means they can't find the document when they log in from home or at a different computer. If we try to teach people work-arounds rather than addressing the problem, we turn less comfortable users into non-users, because it just doesn't work - that darn computer lost their files again.

3. Working around prevents reporting and solving.
If you try to work around a problem rather than telling others it is a problem, then it looks like the problem is just yours. If it is a systemic problem and no one reports it, the system has no way of knowing it needs to be addressed. Teachers I work with are always telling me there is no point in reporting something because it often doesn't get fixed. I respond that if people never report it, it is 100% guaranteed not to be fixed.
In some ways it is like civil disobedience - it needs to be publicly said that something is wrong by a lot of people to get a system to change. People who just work-around are saying that they want the system to stay the same.

4. Working around grows a culture of accepting "being broken."
We want our students to work at learning how to solve a math problem until they can do it. The worst math class to teach is one full of students who are convinced they can't do math. Their low potency means that they become nearly impossible to teach because have failed before the learning even begins. We are the same way with computers. When we say "That dumb thing never works" but then do nothing, we are committing not to come to the table to solve it, and we make it okay to not learn, grow and change. That is never okay in a learning environment like a school division, a classroom or a technical department. Accepting it just doesn't work and not finding something that does is making non-functional just fine.

I know that sometimes we really do have no power to change something, and repeatedly pointing it out just irritates others. It gets me in trouble all the time. On the other hand, irritations are itchy, and an organization inevitable scratches them, creating the opportunity for change. If something really isn't working for you and your learners, you need to report it, encourage others to report it and point out when it still isn't solved. If it is technical, call your help desk or help portals and stay on it until in changes. That's what we do with our students, specific descriptive feedback about how close we are to the destination until we actually get there. As Jay would say - it isn't about criticism, it is about getting better. Now that's a growth mindset.

Reflections on the 21st C Learning Day

2010-03-18T08:19:00.008-06:00

It is never easy to look to closely in the mirror if your purpose is to see what is wrong. It is much easier if you are looking into to yourself to try to make things better, and it is even more successful if you have some friends along to help you out. Equipped with my growth mindset, I decided to look closely at the professional learning day Lois and I planned.

At the end of the session on Tuesday, Lois and I looked at the feedback we got from teachers attending. At that point, I was feeling frustrated about how parts of the day had gone. By the time teachers go back to the Gathercole at 2:15, they were clearly tired. They had been listening to each other present since 10:30, and most of the presentations were primarily lectures with visual aides. I realized I needed to do a better job of helping teachers feel comfortable leading others in doing or using more models and examples of student work - it wasn't clear that would be welcome. I was also worried about overlap in some session topics. As I looked out, I saw fatigue reflected back. Lois and I wrapped things up and asked them for their feedback, and I expected them to say it was too much. Mostly, they commented on what worked, what they need to keep learning and what structural changes they'd suggest next time we do this.

I asked for no "good job" style feedback, and our participants mostly gave practical suggestions, and explanations of the impact on them. I got a number of next day or later in the evening feedback around structure of the day. Almost all of it was discussion of how valuable it was to hear what peers were doing, but I also got some good ideas for structure:

"One more idea I wanted to add (as I kept thinking on the drive home) - next time, perhaps people could be surveyed ahead of the session to see what topics they would like to see addressed or presented. This could then help to then help to build the day."

Even teachers would did not attend are thinking about ways which we can keep sharing about technology and learning. One our teacher librarians send me a link to TEDx, a series of TED talk style presentations. As I thought about the day, I realized that I was seeing what I see in a classroom, lots of good learning with some things I'd do differently next time.

After the day was over, a group of six of us got together to add a second mirror - you know, like you do when you want to see your hair in the back (Speaking as middle-aged woman, seeing your backside is not always a great experience.). However, our collective reflection really gave me some good insights this time. Here is what I learned over the two days:

You can't under-estimate the value of just-in-time technical support. We had Jay there for help, but still had many mini-computers that did not work, issues with the Smartboard and some software issues. One thing that I would say is that teachers with greater fluency were much more able to work around the problems (read some interesting comments re the on-going nature of technical problems in the comments about this post)
It is easy to have anxiety about putting your ideas out there. In our group, some of us found it really hard to know our ideas were being 'published' to the world. I think this may be related to another observation I had. Many of the teachers used technology to comment on student work, but a much smaller group encourage student to provide specific, descriptive feedback to others. We teachers struggle with creating and publishing to the world - it's that need for perfection rather than growth. I need to think some more on this one.
I always move things along too quickly, and I did this time even with Lois to slow me down. I need to remember to give others time to reflect. My internship report (last thing a pre-service teacher does to be certified) had one suggestion for improvement - wait time. I need to work more on this.
Teacher's speaking to each other about what they are trying, not what they have perfected, is a really good way to promote reflective practitioners.
We talked to much about the technology and not enough about why we are using it. That happens ever time. Lois and I discussed it and how to avoid it, but it still happened. Dave noticed it within the first 1/2 hour. Hmmmm. . .

I really appreciate all the teachers who stood up to share what they had been trying. We could never have put together a group like this a year ago, and it speaks to how the people in that room continue to be dedicated to a life time of learning. That's one image I am delighted to see reflected back at me and I think it is a critical trait in a great teacher.

Sandra's glog

2010-03-17T21:32:00.004-06:00

This is just a part of Sandra's glog to show her learning. You can see the full glog at the link. Glogs are online posters created using web 2.0 tools like Glogster.

Acrobat Audio Comments with Rolf Polan (excerpts)

2010-03-17T17:32:00.004-06:00

Lois Keller's Thoughts on Inquiry Learning Session

2010-03-17T15:05:00.000-06:00

Teaching, Technology and Las Vegas

2010-03-17T14:54:00.000-06:00

I am excited about technology – about what it can do – about its inherent creative possibilities. It has a caché not dissimilar to that of Las Vegas. It is glitzy and glamorous, promises infinite rewards that, most of the time, refuse to pan out. This sounds negative, but it’s not meant to be. If Las Vegas were bad, people would stop going back. Right?

That said, melding technology with good teaching, at times feels a little bit like winning at craps. (Of course, if you don’t win, you can always drink.)

Just recently, I decided to experiment with Etherpad and Wix.com. This experiment was facilitated by a kind teacher who was willing to have me in his classroom messing up lesson plans that potentially would have run more smoothly without my interference. The benefit for this teacher was that, as teacher-librarian, I had time to find and create resources (and web sites) that, hopefully, would make the students’ experience of the novel richer. Our goal was to provide students with some background to the Russian Revolution (before reading Animal Farm) through the various links provided in the web site. The students, then, would have the opportunity to collect their learnings on a group Etherpad. Their writings on the Etherpad would serve as preliminary notes/background for the novel.

I congratulated myself on my brilliance and off we went to the library to learn.

After an inspiring explanation of how Etherpad works, the students responded with blank, unimpressed looks akin to what you might find on someone who has just been hit in the head with a large pumpkin.

The conversations went something like this . . .

“So basically you want me to use this Etherpad thing to communicate with the person who is sitting right beside me?”

“Well, yes, but they could be anywhere. Think of the possibilities . . .”

“But they’re right beside me. I could just talk to them.”

“Well, yes, but you can also pose questions that your teachers can answer at some point . . .”

“But you’re standing right there . . .”

It was a bit like “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It didn’t matter how much I tried to convince the students that this technology had potential. They knew that I was standing in the library naked.

But my learning was not complete. There was more to learn (and clearly it was I who learned the most on this particular occasion). This is what I learned . . .

• Students need to be told to use their real names when doing school activities using technology. As unbelievable as it may seem, it is not that easy to identify “Brown-Ice,” “Tasmanian Devil,” “SexyMiss16.”

• Students also need to be told that using the chat function on Etherpad to tell other students to “F-Off” is probably not appropriate for school.

• New technologies are a little bit like Las Vegas showgirls – it’s easy to be distracted by the glitter and forget that it’s, like, really hard to be a Las Vegas showgirl.

• While students may be “Digital Natives,” in some ways they are just as illiterate, primitive and barbaric as we “Digital Immigrants” (not to mention the lesser known “Digital WTF Are You Talking About?”)

The experience, overall, was a bit like getting married by an Elvis Impersonator after drinking a fifth of gin – not great, but not that bad either. And definitely worth trying again, once you get the first marriage annulled.

The experience with the students, Etherpad, Animal Farm and wix.com, not to mention a generous and patient collaborating teacher, simply underlined that learning is messy (leaves bits of feathers and sequins everywhere), and often things do not go as planned. That said, we’re not done. Next time the lesson will be better. I think it’s what keeps people coming back to Vegas – sometimes you win.

Learner Lois Keller

2010-03-17T10:29:00.008-06:00

Literacy for the 21th Century... what does it mean in our collegiates? What does it mean to students? What does it mean to teachers?

My roles in working with Collegiate Renewal as a learning leader, resource teacher, support literacy coach with READ teachers and a mother of adolescents has lead me to numerous questions around how we are meeting the needs and inspiring the potential of our students. The changes in popular culture, and technology present an urgency and opportunity to creatively and collaboratively respond if we are going to support all our learners. I am a digital immigrant... one who breaks into hives when I am responsible for using technology, and yet I see incredible possibility for all of us to meet the learning needs and collaborative and communication possibilities.

A year ago to the day, appropriately on St. Patrick's Day, we gathered as a group of READ teachers committed to the literacy of adolescents and we began a journey investigating how Web 2.0 tools would best assist our students in capturing their ideas and support their literacy needs. We worked toward developing school based teams: READ teacher, teacher librarians, EAL teachers, and resource support teachers. It was our beginning point with technology, and now a year later, many of those individuals who were just beginning to imagine the possibility returned to lead the conversation and share their experiences.

Overview - 21st Century Learning Day

2010-03-17T10:23:00.022-06:00

Yesterday, a little over 40 educators in Saskatoon Public Schools got together to share what they had been learning about technology. Today, a group of us are getting together to reflect on the day and future steps. Our inquiry will revolve around what teachers need in order to be supported in using technology to grow student learning and literacy.

Who will you hear from?

Arlene Fedorchuk, EAL/ESL teacher
Wendy James, Educational Technologist,who writes this blog
Lois Keller, Learning Leader, Lead Literacy Teacher
Sandra Mancusi, Spanish/EAL teacher
Scott St. Pierre, Secondary Instructional Technology Leader (see his site)
Jay Salikin, Educational Technology Analyst
Shannon Welch, Teacher Librarian

Throughout the course of the day, we will each be publishing materials on-line that will include our reflections about our learning in during our PD yesterday, and our thoughts about the supports need to make our technology use in secondary classrooms meaningful. I will keep modifying this post so it is an index of all our posting.

Pre-day thoughts

Wendy James on why blogging is scary
Wendy James on worries about this type of PD day
Wendy James on the structure of the day

During the day

See photos from the day
Wendy James on the opening session
Read Dave Derksen's reflections as a person who thinks about improving the structures of professional learning opportunities.
Wendy James on acting as a Google Jockey in one session
Arlene Fedorchuk thinks about the impact of the day
Wendy James on Audio comments
Lois Keller on Inquiry
Wendy James on the session on tools for language learners
Wendy James on integrated classes

Reflections

Feedback on the day and Wendy's reflections
Sandra Mancusi's glog

Literacy: It's not just about reading anymore

2010-03-17T09:56:00.005-06:00

I was fortunate to attend an in-service on Literacy in the 21st Century. What made this professional development session different was the audience. The focus was on use of technology, which often means the audience will be individuals with an interest or expertise in technology. Yesterday, half of the audience comprised of language specialists, many of whom also presented.

With four concurrent sessions over three time periods, there were plenty of options for the participants to chose from. It was great to see the use of technology integrated into various areas of instruction.

One of my personal areas of interest are the use of Virtual Classrooms, a piece of our school system's portal. A VC can be used in a variety ways, from web-enhancing a classroom by posting notes, assignments and a calendar of events or to providing online forums for students to post work, provide feedback, work collaboratively, and support each other. It was great to see such a variety of areas leveraging this piece of technology.

Today, I hope to gather a few clips from the various sessions to provide a feel for way technology is being used in Saskatoon schools.

Literacy in the 21st Century: Technology as a Foreign Language

2010-03-17T09:47:00.036-06:00

Literacy in the 21st Century is presenting challenges for me as a learner and as a high school English as an additional (EAL) teacher. I readily admit I'm technophobic. (I still rely on my daughter's written list of instructions from 1997 explaining how to program my VCR . . . yes I still use a VCR.) As a participant at the Literacy in the 21st Century workshop on March 16, my reflections are from the voice of the technologically challenged learner.

That's me on the left, Arlene Fedorchuk, trying to participate at one of the sessions. Note my trusty pen and paper technology because I can't log in to my computer.

As a technologically challenged learner, I often find learning about new technology overwhelming and energy draining for several reasons. First of all, the language of technology is a foreign language that I am slow in acquiring. Secondly, I struggle with the basics such as logging on or opening sites and I don't know why. Some days I swear leprechauns inhabit my computer and wreck havoc at will. Thirdly, I need to have time to process each step of the application, but because I struggle with technical issues, I'm always a step behind the presenter. I am a bit competitive (I like to think in a healthy way) and I lose focus as I struggle to learn and worry about falling behind. Fourthly, I see the potential in incorporating new technologies in my classroom - I actually get really excited about this - but because when I leave a session, life gets in the way and I don't revisit what I've learned, I'm often left with a sense of failure as a learner and as a teacher who missed an opportunity to offer EAL students alternative pathways to acquiring the English language.

Ironically, however, I was a presenter at yesterday's workshop too. Yes, me - Ms. Technophobe. I presented a session on my EAL students' use of Photostory to share their learning journey in my EAL classroom. I have to say I surprised myself by accepting the invitation to present, especially because I identify myself as illiterate in the area of technological literacy. I realize several factors were part of a process that led me to the place where I had enough confidence to share my learning with my colleagues, which were:

stepping out of my comfort zone and taking a risk
making the time (uninterrupted time) to spend using and experimenting with Photostory
inviting our teacher-librarian to be on hand in my classroom to troubleshoot the technology as together we introduced it to my students and as the students shared their final presentations
taking on the role as learner and learning with and from the students
trying Photostory again and again with other classes and working out some of the kinks

As a participant at the Literacy in the 21st Century workshop, I came away with an array of feelings and lots to think about. I was amazed at the variety of new technologies shared, and I felt inspired to try some with my students. But I was also overwhelmed by the sheer number of technologies and could feel myself disengaging because of the overload.

Hmmmm . . .

I wonder how students feel about incorporating new technologies into their learning. I've heard the talk that young people are often more technologically savvy than adults. It's true that some EAL students are highly technologically literate and possess the latest technology. But, others arrive with low first language literacy, and have no experience in a school setting, let alone with computers. The common factor among this student group is that each student is an English language learner who needs to acquire both conversational and academic English in order to be successful in high school. As their EAL teacher, the technologies' ability to enhance students' English language acquistion will be what I keep in mind as I decide which new technology to incorporate into our learning environment.

No Longer "Preaching to the Choir"

2010-03-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

My job changed just after Christmas from a full member of the Collegiate Renewal team, to one called Instructional Technology Analyst. While I enjoy both jobs, I somewhat miss the closer connection to instruction and working closely with teachers on strategies directly related to their instruction.

Now I do work with teachers, but I feel it is more at the adoption level. Many of the teachers I am speaking with now are teachers who are not necessarily pro-technology, and in fact, some see it as something that is taking away from learning. While people are generally very kind to me, I know that there are many who do not share my views of technology in education. While with Collegiate Renewal, I mostly felt like I was, “preaching to the choir.”

With my new position, I struggle to find ways to make people comfortable enough to try new things and be adventurous, and to see how technology is not just another thing to do, but another thing to help us do what we want to do. We need to define clear outcomes, then use the technology to help us reach those outcomes. So that rather than trying to keep the students from using technology (“it is so distracting”) we need to find ways of embracing the technology that is so engaging to the kids. As one of my colleagues commented today, “a pencil is a technology, but we don’t think about using it, we just use it to do the job we want to do.”

And while it is different work, I find it rewarding and challenging to have these conversations, just as I did when teaching students who weren’t necessarily, “buying what I was selling.” But when I can make them challenge their own thinking, then I have done my job.

Integrating Courses

2010-03-16T13:54:00.007-06:00

I went to watch Bill K to see that he did with his innovative grant for technology. Bill decided to teach a class called Robotics, which is taught as a computer science credit, although students are learning engineering, design and programming. Bill has taught computer science 20 for a number of years, and covers the essential content which adding vex materials. You can view Bill's prezi to get the basic idea of his presentation.

SPSD Tech Literacy on Prezi

Bill's robots are like a combination of vex (think meccano) and a programmable brain. The brains have a programming module and a couple of processors, and can be programed in a variety of languages. As Bill talked about all the things that he could do with the robots and the students' problem-based learning, you could see why many students would be engaged in the process.

Bill's students get to take their robots beyond the classroom to Skills Canada. He said, "the student engagement level is much higher [than computer science]. They program it, then they see it in action."

In the 30 level, student will learn how to design and fabricate robots, adding electronics, welding, cutting, and other fabrication skills. Bill is excited about the fact that this class will integrate a series of skills for technically inclined students. As I watched the video of the students driving the robots they built in skills competitions for cheering crowds, I could see how an authentic audience really added to the student engagement.

Bill described how easy it is to retain students, who love the class. He describes himself as a co-learner or facilitator. He described a day when he was working with another teacher about what engagement looks like. Bill quickly opened his class, and his students were all in and working while he talked to the teacher. He realized anyone could look into the room and see engagement - busy students talking loudly, problem-solving and working with technology.

For the second half of the his session, Bill talked about how he has been conducting his assessment using wikis. Bill started by explaining the advantages to the site being open the public, and how he handled problems with inappropriate additions. He likes wikis because it is clear what each user contributes and students are accountable for their learning. You can view their wiki or their specific group work. Bill likes the fact that you can the history allows you to see what each person contributes. Because he uses negotiated assessment where students explain what they have learned and use evidence from the wiki to prove their contribution. He uses the comments for students to provide feedback for other students. Bill noted that students learn the most by commenting on each other's wikis.

A media-rich environment for language learners

2010-03-16T12:53:00.003-06:00

Sandra Mancusi and Joanne Molaro started off by explaining how they use Drop.io. Their whole session can be found there, and the login is student. They also created a prezi, which can be found in their list of links or viewed directly.

Sandra and Joanne applied for a tech grant last year from the division to create a language lab. They got a grant and picked up computers, speakers, a smart tablet and a data projector. They also attended ISTE in the summer of 2009 to prepare themselves to use the tools. I am excited about going to ISTE this summer, and their experiences make it sound like I will like it.

As the presentation started, getting the smart tablet and the smartboard working was an issue. However, they worked around technical issues, and showed a variety of tools they were using. I was reminded that we need just in time support available in our collegiates and at central office, so that when there are technical problems, they can be quickly solved.Sandra and Joanne are adept enough users that they can work around it, but many others are not.

The free web 2.0 tools they are using create a really rich set of expereinces for students. Sandra explained how using Glogster allows students to speak in Spanish, record their writing and personalize layouts. The ability to create, personalize and share is very well connected to 21st Century Literacies.

As Joanne was explaining her voicethread she did a great job of explaining how it helps English as an additional language learners. She created a presentation of Rememberance Day, and gave students a copy of the text. They pre-learned words, and uses the voicethread as a listenting activity. This allowed her students to listen and re-listen, to decode using the images and to prepared for the new cultural experiences. It also introduced students to Voicethread.

Voicethread is a good tool for assessment for learning, because you can leave oral or written comments on the digital story. Joanne created examples and the class discussed criteria. Then they created their digital story. As they were presenting, Sandra noted that audio visual examples help students process the content more effectively. Sandra and Joanne showed student voice threads and how to make comments on them.

Each time I see voicethread used, I think about how we want to teach students how to give specific, descriptive feedback. When Joanne's students presented their voicethreads, she had them explain what they chose and why, which helped with metacogintive skills. Since the project asked students to compare their orginal city with their lives now, there was a good chance to do critical thinking. Sandra noted that there is no real way to archive work for free. That is a problem if students are trying to develop portfolios and show their learning over time, whcih is critical to metacognition.

Sandra and Joanne showed a wide variety of tools, and it is worth your time to view the links at the top of this page. However the best thing about their session was what they spent a lot of time explainign why they did what they did and invited audience comment. If we do this kind of thing again, I think we should suggest more why and audience doing in general.

Teachers reflect on the last 20 years

2010-03-16T12:36:00.006-06:00

As a part of our opening session, we had teachers think about the changes in a wide variety of areas compared to K-12 education. You can see the full powerpoint and the list of presentations.
The teachers worked in groups to comment on the changes they had seen in technology. At first they were instructed to make lists, then they made a sentence to capture the critical differences. We used Etherpad to write the comments.

If you haven't used Etherpad (or the identical Type with Me) before, the basic idea is that you can co-construct something at the same time. It is like Google wave but more limited. However, it has the advantage of being instant, with no login. Etherpad was in good form yesterday, but seems to be down as I am writing this.

With Etherpad/Typewith.me, you can create your own title, or let the application generate one for you. Next time, I'd make my own, as a the lowercase L and the capital I looked too similar and we wound up with two pads, here and here. Looking over the pads shows some interesting things about how this group of teachers, all of whom are trying to use technology in their classrooms, feel about the technical changes. Sometimes they are positive about the opportunities, but many times they are concerned. I think that the opening session reveals many of the challenges we face as teachers trying to embed technology in our teaching, including the pace of change and the challenges that our students present as digital learners.
I am not sure we really understand what digital learners mean - sometimes we think it means uses computers in an expert way. Our students aren't computer experts any more frequently than we are, they just prefer to take and use information differently. I wish we had more chance to discuss this.

After we looked at how banking, travel, books, movies, music etc. were all changed (think both the technology and the underlying way of interacting) in the last 20 years, we came to the slide of K-12 schools. It was the first example of silence, followed by a little whispering, clever comments and some laughs. It's hard for teachers to get to that visions of engaged digital learner to be a reality.

Audio comments avec Rolf's wry humour

2010-03-16T11:06:00.006-06:00

I got to attend the second half of Rolf Polan's session on audio comments. Rolf is a Secondary Instructional Technology Leader and an on-line teacher. When I arrived, he was showing a video and explaining the freeware and Mac tools he uses. Here is a still of the video - you'll have to ask Rolf for the full meal deal. You can also watch excerpts on Scott's post.

Rolf talked about how he use Adobe PDF to use leave verbal comments on student work. I can see how being able make more comments in the same amount of time could really help us growing student ability.

3 of his tips that really interested me:

He saves a general comment that he inserts in all of the students' work for one assignment
Students just double click on the PDF file to hear the comments
Giving audio comments allows you to comment much more extensively, like having a conversation in a classroom, which makes giving specific, descriptive feedback easier. It also makes it easier for students to understand what you've written on the document because you are expanding it.

Rolf's presentation, specifically the humour in his video where well worth the time in the session. One of my favorite shots was Rolf marking massive piles of disorganized assignments, followed by a pan to a massive attached table with late assignments.

One question I asked was if used students use audio comments to provide feedback for each other. Rolf's students are at a distance, finding ways for students to interact and help each other learn is more challenging than it is in a traditional classroom. Like all the presentations I happened to go to, Rolf used the tools so he could provide feedback, but did not use it with students. As we work more on engaging students and practicing the principles of assessment for learning, this will be something we all need to work on.

Being a Google Jockey

2010-03-16T11:02:00.004-06:00

I just sat in on Erin Robson's session on Inquiry in English classrooms. She showed us how to use Inspiration, a mind mapping tool, to help students start an inquiry. Erin uses a KWL process and has one student driving the computer while she is facilitating the discussion. I got to be the student (learn about why we use students as Google Jockeys)

There were about 15 of us in the session, and we help Erin brainstorm around "Why Zombies are still so popular?" as a part of the Unknown unit in grade ten English.

Three things I thought would others might like:

Outline view - you can change your mindmap into an outline that students can write from. It helps students students go from brainstorming issues to structuring in a linear manner.
Photos and Google advanced searches. Erin showed how to use the new Google search tools. I think teachers need to remember about copyright - we need to address that issue more as professional development people at central office.

What I would have liked more of:

I'm not sure we should have had 1/2 hour sessions in general. I think it almost always made the sessions rushed, and reduced the time where we might have discussed or practiced on our computers
I liked it when Erin explained why she did what she did. More examples of student work or explanations of why would have helped me in her session, and in the other sessions I went to.

Look who is coming to dinner

2010-03-15T11:54:00.004-06:00

In my last post, Like planning a flash mob, I was talking about the complexities of planning an upcoming professional learning opportunity. I will have that "opportunity" tomorrow and I am excited about it. I was very nervous we'd only have a few people, but we are over 30 now, and I have had to add spaces to present.

The day, which is about 21st Century Literacy, has attracted a pretty wide group of teachers, most of whom will be presenting about what they are doing this year. It is designed to be a conversation between professional learners about what they are trying and how it is going. Some of those coming will present for an hour, some for a half hour. I like the fact that some will talk about co-teaching experiences as well.

We are going to have a very diverse group of people who are coming to share what they have been doing to meet student needs. They are sharing their learning along 1 or 2 of the themes of the day: assessment for learning, struggling readers, learner engagement, differentiation, and digital learners. Here is a look at who will be there.

READ teachers - teachers who work with reluctant or even no-readers on acquiring literacy skills. These teachers are a part of our division's priority of Literacy for Life.
EAL teachers - teachers whose students speak English as a second or additional language. These teachers are working on language acquisition in addition to literacy skills.
Pod and Grant teachers - teachers who have been given different or additional technologies to meet a specific instructional need. In the case of the grant teachers, presenting about their action-research is a required part of the grant process.
Secondary teacher-librarians - are teachers who manage our learning resource centers/libraries, and work with teachers and students to support learning. Our TLs are typically full-time in the library. This year our TLs have been working on creating a digital presence for our libraries.
SITLs - some of our Secondary Instructional Technology leaders will be present. They work with teachers in individual collegiates through planning, instructional and technical support. Almost all collegiates have an SITL, some of which have release time to work with teachers.
Classroom teachers - a number of classroom teachers, particularly English/Language Arts teachers are coming to present what they have been trying in their classrooms.

Throughout the course of tomorrow and the next day, some teachers and our professional development team will be documenting their experiences learning. I'll be posting on this blog, others will capture video, build digital stories and use other web 2.0 tool. Expect to hear a lot from us.

Like planning a flash mob

2010-03-04T09:21:00.005-06:00

One of the members of our board gave me the idea for a new kind of learning experience I am helping co-plan next week. It reminds me a bit of trying to plan a flash mob.

The session is about 21st century literacy, and has some elements of formal presentation. However the bulk of it is teachers talking to other teachers. Each participant comes and talks about a technology or idea they have tried in their classroom. These short sessions are a combination of professional sharing and discussion.

In the next week I will start to get confirmation of who is coming and what they will be talking about. So far, I only have 4 confirmations. Teachers seem pretty nervous about the sharing part, I think because they feel they need to be experts. I am getting worried that we'll be a mighty small group.

One of the other things we are doing is having some teachers document what they are learning as they are learning it. Again, I am a little unsure how it will turn out. Yesterday, I was in a PD session with a teacher who was talking about planning a flash mob as an arts education project with her students. You can watch the project on YouTube.

We watched their "performance" and she talked about the nervousness of doing something with only Facebook to promote it. She also found it difficult to get permission from the malls they wanted preform at. It's feeling a bit that way for me.

The day is set to go for the 16th, and day where we'll be putting together and posting what we learned is the 17th. I'll post then about our flash in the pan of a day. I'm hoping it will distill to something delicious rather than fail to ignite.

Blogs are scary

2010-03-02T15:47:00.007-06:00

I think I might have scared others today. I was working with a group of teachers who were kind enough to want to learn about some tools to use in presentation. Then I hit them with the blogging part and they stopped making eye contact.

When I set up this blog, I invited the others on my team to help with the blog. Dave did a post on collaboration, and Judy keeps both a professional site and a professional blog with Jenn. But for all us, blogging remains more than a more little scary. Here is an eloquently worded one of my colleagues concerns:

Blogging is scary because you are putting your thoughts for all to see - cemented for as long as the Internet is out there. It feels as if you can't retract, and it is set stone.

The others concerns are just as real. Blogging could cause you to loose control of what is up "out there", or others could say something you don't want. You might upset people. Blogging is a commitment, and once you start you need to continue.

I have observed an interesting related phenomenon. Very few of the people who know me and read this blog post to it. Teachers are lurkers as a group. They often send me emails about something I blogged (I got three emails yesterday), but a public conversations is just a little too. . . you know. . .

public.

Yup, that's the issue alright. Because even in an learning institution like a school division, too many public statements are probably not a good thing.

I have enjoyed seeing the offerings of other groups of consultants throughout the province, and think it is great to see which subjects they cover, and how they are responding to new curricula or what they value based on what they blog. But there are all those problems of public commitments when things may change, being perceived as the public voice of the division when you are an individual who is learning - it is all just so

public.

What do you think? (Yes, I am aware of the irony of asking).

P. S. I just started reading my RSS feeds and come up with an interview with a consummate teacher blogger - tangential, but interesting.

Why we want students on Youtube

2010-02-24T18:53:00.007-06:00

When we changed filtering policy, lots of people have been asking why we want to give students access to social networking site. They are worried that students will be off task, post dumb things on line or endanger themselves. What could possibly be worth these risks?

1. Students are already on social networking sites and they are already creating digital footprints. We need to teach them to create footprints that really show their strengths. If they can access Facebook, we can teach them how to protect their privacy. Teaching media literacy is critical responsibility for the modern teacher.

Watch the common craft video on protecting your online reputation (the other technology videos are also worth a look)
See the Youtube video channel on safety, including safety mode
Read about Facebook privacy settings
Have your students check out their digital footprints on pipl
Read what experts say on how to use your digital footprint to help you

2. If students are bored and want to be using technology, the logical solution is to use the technology to promote learning not attempt to prevent them from accessing it. Technology is intimately connected with choice, which increases both motivation and potency.

3. Think about AFL classrooms. These are classrooms where students use products, conversations and observations as evidence of their learning. What holds evidence over time, shares it with authentic audience and provides opportunity for many iterations of feedback? Web 2.0 (no cape or tights or speeding bullets are needed).

Learn tools for on-line AFL records. Try Etherpad, Wall-wisher
Use interactive feedback elements, like comments in YouTube or VoiceThread
Play with the tools you may already have, like OneNote portfolios or comments in Microsoft Word

4. There isn't much evidence that many students are lured or tracked more often virtually. Research says they are much more likely to be the targets of in person predators. The place where they are most often hurt online? Cyber-bullying. What does the research say can prevent it? Open dialogue in schools using social networking and cell phone examples.

Look at this PBS site on Internet safety
Access resources on Cyber-bullying

In the end, we need to think about what our goal is for our high school students. I think it is education - give them the tools to learn, make good choices and represent themselves well. That means they need access and we have to teach them to use it responsibly.

Technology and AFL - signs of change

2010-02-19T11:07:00.017-06:00

Today I was working with a group of secondary instructional technology leaders, secondary teacher librarians and learning leaders. We were discussing the connections between assessment for learning (afl) and technology. And as we discussed, we talked at lot about the challenges of both afl and technology as change. Take a look at the backchannel from our morning to see some of our discussion.

As I was reflecting on the challenges that this group faces in trying to support teachers, I was reminded of a graphic a teacher friend sent me last week. (I wasn't able to backtrack it fully to site it properly - if anyone finds correct attribution, I'd like to know. This wiki is the earliest use I could find.)

Change, particularly transformative change, is a very difficult thing in education. Because I work in technology and professional learning, virtually everything I read is focused on how to create change in one way or another. I liked this graphic because it really summarizes how gaps create barriers to the change process. It also helps me to think about why many of the teacher leaders I work with feel frustrated.

Technology requires both pedagogical and structural change that never really stops. Software, hardware, filtering, and policy must adjust as new technologies are available, and many people need to be a part of the process of deciding to change. Most of the time, those people aren't teachers, but they hold the keys to the resources that teachers need to make the change. Teachers fall into loops of frustration and treadmill because they can't access the resources or there isn't an effective plan for action, and teacher leaders are sandwiched between the angry teachers and the needs of students. Trapped by the inexorable slowness of institutional evolution and pressure from teachers and students who want change, teacher leaders can sometimes feel powerless.

At the same time, we teachers are often the source of our own confusion, anxiety and resistance when we don't want to use technology. Sometimes we can't envision why a technology is worth using and feel it is pushed on us. We often feel that our skills sets aren't as good as they should be, or as good as our students, so we feel heavy anxiety and say we "don't do computers." We are also busy people and don't want another thing to do - and while extrinsic incentives may cause us to use technology in the classroom, only a deep belief in student centered learning will cause us to use it well.

Back to frustration for teacher leaders, who are swished between desires of the converted and the slow pace of change, then pressed from above by the confusion, anxiety and resistance of those who don't want change at all.

Many divisions, including my own, have made tremendous progress in the last few years. I have seen us change filtering policy, put more money into professional learning on many subjects, and start to provide teachers with laptops. All of these things are correlated with better student outcomes and deeper student engagement. I know we are on the right track. So why are teacher-leaders frustrated, even as we are excited about the opportunities technology and afl offer for our students? I actually think it is a good sign. Stay with me here for a moment. . .

Take a look a the wallwisher exit slips from the end of the day. Many of these people want in, not out. That is a sign of people who believe in students, want to help teachers and can articulate what they need to do to gain more opportunities to influence how professional learning happens in their schools. I know frustration isn't always a sign of good things, but in this case I think it is a positive portent. If we can keep giving them resources and reducing the barriers, many of the teacher-leaders I worked with today will keep working until they can actually create significant change.

Real Choice

2010-02-08T15:21:00.001-06:00

I was speaking to two teachers yesterday about real choice. I distinguished it from fake choice this way. When my children were 2 and 3, and in a phase where they really wanted to do and choose everything "self", I often provided the illusion of choice to gain compliance.

Me: Well, it is almost bedtime. Would you like to put on your pajamas first or brush your teeth first?

See? Looks like choice, but it isn't. You might get to choose your order of operations, but you are still in bed by 8 and your choices made no difference to the outcome. I think school functions on many of those algorithmic (finite sequence with instructions) choices.

Me: Today we are going to show we can suit what we write to our intended audience. Would you like to write a descriptive poem or a narrative poem?

Never mind that almost none of you see poetry as a way you choose to express yourselves and the intended audience will be me. I've given you choice - and it is about as genuine as the "Have a nice day" you get in a fast food drive through.

If you haven't read Daniel Pink's new book DRiVE: The surprising truth about what motivates us, you should. You can get the synopsis by watching his TED talk, but you miss some really important stuff.

In the book, Pink talks about our world has shifted from algorithmic tasks to heuristic ones. 70% of the new jobs created are heuristic and need people who can think creatively, plan their own task and solve problems. In short, the type of people who have experience choosing in complex situations without a template. Pink argues that schools need to shift to providing choice where ever possible, and that those choices need to be about things that are important. If we want students to be engaged, we need to avoid rewards and punishment and focus on creating opportunities for flow.

Dangerously Irrelevant, a blog I read, was on this very topic recently. The essential argument was that we let students choose content but not delivery, and they need to choose both. I think I'd take it a bit farther.

We need to make the content essential questions, so it is worth studying and full of choice.
Then we need to co-construct what is worth doing and how we can tell if it is done.
Lastly, we need to allow students to show us what they know in a wide variety of ways (not just deliver it differently).

Let's try the classroom conversation again.

Me: When you write a text message or an essay, or you compose a digital story, you use different conventions. Let's view some pieces of text and talk about the differences (class discussion ensues).

Me: Make a list of three things that you think people need to hear. For each one, write what the message is, which people really need to hear it, and what type of writing, audio/video or speaking they will listen to the most. When you are done your list, pick the one that draws you the most (students start thinking about what they believe and how to communicate it).

Me: Now when someone really communicates well for an intended audience, how do you know? (Assessment for Learning process follow. The class brainstorms criteria. I help them group the criteria, prompt for criteria that might be missing and help them think about value the criteria in relation to each other).

Me: Now look at your plan. Will you be able to show us what you know? Get a buddy to help you revise it, so you can meet our criteria for communicating well for the intended audience (good critical thinking and an opportunity for powerful descriptive feedback before the product is even created).

In my newer version, virtually ever stage of the task is heuristic. My students are designers, arts and writers, and problem solvers. They are thinking critically and making choices about a subject that matters to them. In short, they are engaged because they are choosing and their choices really matter. They are motivated by the worthiness of what they choose not the mark they hope to get, and get much closer to mastery as a result (Pink has lots to say on this subject as well).

I don't have time to do this with every lesson, but I do it every time the thing my students are learning is important. And like with my children, I have taught my students about how to make effective choices and provided a safety net for the inevitable bad choices (if it isn't safe to fail, it isn't safe to take the risk of learning).

That's what real choices are, complex problems with significance - things that encourage engagement in deep learning rather than driving through on the way to a credit and a forgettable, nutrition-less meal.

Just like Parallel Play

2010-02-01T18:45:00.005-06:00

Every time I think I need something, Wes Fryer finds it somewhere. I was working with teachers on social networking in the classroom last week. I showed them Clay Shirky's TED talk on social networking and had them categorize their own learning traits as digitally immigrant or native so they could think about providing digital learners opportunity to engage.

As we were doing it, I wished that I had a good interactive visual that provided facts on who our students are digitally. Today as I was checking my RSS feeds, Wes' blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity linked me to an interactive image full of interesting facts about digital learners.

I keep trying to persuade others that it is really worth their time to develop some form of on-line learning network. RSS is great for those who aren't really ready to talk to others yet and just want to lurk. In the workshop I lead on Friday, one of the teachers remarked that seeing teenagers in a circle texting each other is a lot like watching toddlers when they are at the parallel play stage. For me, watching others get information by searching but not use a digital PGN is the same thing. They are all playing near each other, but no one is playing or learning together. Anyway, thanks to Wes for being a great digital play-date and PBS for another great toy.

AFL - not Assessing Facts Lots

2010-01-27T13:24:00.004-06:00

What are we going to ask on our tests when students are
walking in with Google in their pockets?

David Warlick

I was working on a presentation connecting technology and Assessment for Learning after reading a blog post by Konrad Glogowski. His blog, blog of proximal development

often has interesting ideas on it, and he is wrestling with some of the big questions of Collegiate Renewal. Most recently, the connection between what technology does the classrooms and the role of assessment for learning have been merging in his thinking. I lifted this quotation from his blog:

As Michael Wesch recently argued,

All of this vexes traditional criteria for assessment and grades. This is the next frontier as we try to transform our learning environments. When I speak frankly with professors all over the world, I find that, like me, they often find themselves jury-rigging old assessment tools to serve the new needs brought into focus by a world of infinite information. Content is no longer king, but many of our tools have been habitually used to measure content recall. For example, I have often found myself writing content-based multiple-choice questions in a way that I hope will indicate that the student has mastered a new subjectivity or perspective. Of course, the results are not satisfactory. More importantly, these questions ask students to waste great amounts of mental energy memorizing content instead of exercising a new perspective in the pursuit of real and relevant questions (Wesch, 2009).

Wesch, M. (2009, January 7). From knowledgeable to knowledge-able: Learning in new media environments. Academic Commons.

Warlick's point regarding those mini computers we call cell phones is a valid one and Welch's point about how we assess connects in a critical way. For many teachers, testing is still an act of checking to see which invertebrates traits a student can correctly identify. I know I've given more than one exam where students had to define poetic devices.

The question of what is robust and compelling for student to learn shaped not only by what students will give their heads and hearts to (as my boss always says), but also by what things they need, given that the facts are already there.

There is an ongoing debate in educational technology circles about how much knowledge you need to be able to engage in media and information literacy. I actually happen to think you need quite a bit. But "testing" is one of the worst ways to see what students can do with information they know, and testing low-level factual recall is more than a little pointless.

When learning is shaped around real questions and assessed through an interactive process that is collaborative and designed to promote growth, then we actually have alignment between our technical reality, our teaching philosophy, and how we assess.

Now all we need is a mark book that can keep up new types of evidence and use specific descriptive feedback instead of numbers. . .

Digging out

2010-01-27T09:33:00.007-06:00

Saskatoon was hit with a substantial snowfall of 30 cm over the weekend, and we are still digging out. Since school and city buses aren't running , my husband has been driving us all through a quagmire of snow over the last three days. As I was looking at this slide from John Pederson yesterday (made by Saskatchewan's own, Dean Shareski), I realized that the trudging I have been doing inside my work and in the great outdoors is eerily connected.

Many divisions in the province still operate using an 80s-90s mentality about technology. (Solomon and Schrum, 2007) lay out the shift to Web 2.0 this way:

Application based to web based
Isolated to Collaborative
Offline or in labs to online anywhere
Purchased to free online
Single creator to multiple creators
Proprietorial/copyrighted to Open source or shared content

The implications of this shift are far reaching and difficult for school divisions to make. However, by looking at this list, it is clear which world view is closer to student engagement and life long learning.

This week (close to a year after we decided to), we are finally opening our filters to allow access to web 2.0 applications for students in our high schools. It has been a really difficult transition. We are worried about safety, digital footprints, bandwidth - all the things that could be problems in this new reality.

I contend we are thinking about it wrong. Let's try the metaphor of the school bus here. In order to travel in the winter we need to keep roads clear, we need certified drivers, we need safety protocols, permission forms and a massive communications infrastructure. But no one says we should not bus kids to school. We understand that as a reality.

Web 2.0 is our magic school bus. Like Miss Frizzle's class, our kids need to be warned about dangers, but they also need to do it for themselves in order to really understand it. We need to teach kids to use web 2.0 tools safely, because they are using Web 2.0 now and will continue to. Thinking about and teaching information and media literacy is just smart teaching in the 21st century.

But, it is bigger than that. A school bus can only travel a short distance from the school. Virtual field trips, simulations, gaming, blogging and wikis have a travel radius that spans the globe. The opportunities for web 2.0 learning vastly exceed those offered by the school bus, but the smaller barriers are still too immense for use to feel safe venturing out.

We are snowed into a 80s-90s view of technology because schools are slow to change. Teachers and administrators are careful people. But like this snow storm, the perfect storm of Web 2.0 technologies is not a choice. It is here.

We can be snowed in.

Or we can we can help our neighbors shovel out, go tobogganing, and remember that all this precipitation will grow our crops this summer.

Teacher as learner

2010-01-22T11:58:00.004-06:00

We always say that if we want deeply engaged learners, we need deeply engaged teachers. Growth mindset, commitment to renewal, a focus on each learner - these are all things that we value. I recently came across a power point by Wes Fryer on Slideshare that articulates many of the things I aspire to be and hope that my children have.

Things I Want To Model As Your Teacher

View more documents from Wesley Fryer.

The problem is, Wes picks so many things. I'd have a hard time picking ones I don't think are important, and I know that teachers are busy people and we are always adding to the list of things we want them to be and do. And they can't do them because we compel them too, it has to be because they really want to or it is not enough. Teachers have to really want it.

What can I do to create the conditions where teachers want to engage in the way Wes suggests? What barriers do we need to address?

Learning in CLASSrooms or Communities

2010-01-20T22:34:00.001-06:00

I watched an interesting video tonight - it connects to all the pondering I have been doing about how we rethink school to engage our students. Take a look and let me know what you think. What makes the best connection between Collegiate Renewal and technology?

Choice as pain killer

2010-01-19T12:49:00.002-06:00

Patterson (et al) argue that there is a critical difference between punishment and sacrifice. They both have pain, but you have no choice with punishment and choice with sacrifice. That's the nugget, Patterson argues, that leads to personal engagement.

I first encountered Paterson reading an article in December's issue of Teacher Librarian. The whole issue is about teaching and learning with technology. My favorite article is by Vicki Davis, whose blog I have followed for a while. Davis ask, "How do we unleash the intrinsic desire of teachers to help students learn and help teachers make the sacrifices it will take to get there? "(p. 9). Yup, sacrifices. She argues we want to teachers to act as teacherpreneurs: "someone who organizes a classroom venture for learning and assumes the risk for it" (p. 8). Sounds a lot like Collegiate Renewal.

When discussing Collegiate Renewal, we also talk about how engaged learners need engaged teachers. We know what we are asking is actually a really big shift. Sometimes I think we forget about how painful it is.

I think we always need to come back to that intrinsic desire to help kids learn. That's why we are teachers - we make the decision to do things with that desire in mind. Ask two teachers with opposite practices why they do things, and they will both tell you they do it for the learning.

So if choice is the pain killer we need, we have a problem. It is antithetical to "prescribe" choice. And yet, choice in a vacuum is often uninformed or outright wrong.

I have been willing to do a lot of gruelling, devastating and tedious things when I see results for my students. I'm even more willing to do these things when other teachers encourage me to do so. I got my copy of this article from a teacher librarian friend of mine, on the recommendation of another TL. I've shared it with 5 other educators. I went out today to interview a teacher and he talked about why Collegiate Renewal was the only way to go, and then he talked about how hard it is. The choices he is making in his classroom sacrifice his time and energy, but in talking to him, I was reminded that I was prepared to engage, even knowing the pain.

Patterson is right that choice is key, and it is really hard to make a change . Davis quotes Herold et al in the article: "There is no such thing as an 'organizational change...'. When we say an organization has made the transition from 'point A' to 'point B', we really mean individuals within the organization have changed their behaviour, so that collectively the organization now reflects these changes" (p. 70). I guess that means we need to keep talking about what is happening in our classrooms, and about what difference it made for our students. That choice to engage is the only balm.

Google Jockey - a simple step in the opposite direction

2010-01-18T12:26:00.007-06:00

A teacher I was working with today asked me about a simple thing she could do. She has a new data projector in her history classroom. Like many teachers, she feels pressured to create presentations to show in her students. I told her the best thing she can do it put the technology in the hands of the kids and appoint a Google Jockey each day when they are discussing or looking at notes.

To the best of my knowledge, the term originates in 2006. A Google Jockey is a student who has Google open and looks up terms, ideas and events as the class is working. This frees the teachers to work at the front facilitating discussion and provides the other students with visuals and ideas to extend what is happening in class.

4 great tools for playing with Google in this way:

Use the Wonder Wheel to find related terms or ideas to the one you are discussing
Pull up Google Earth and search for resources connected to your topic - you can find maps, stats and historical images.
Do a standard image search and show pictures of the people, places and ideas you are discussing. Be sure to set your filter to strict filtering to avoid inappropriate images.
Current events? Use time lines, twitter searches and comparison sites to give a real sense of what is being said by people or news organizations around the world.

Collegiate Renewal is about creating opportunities for students to be deeply engaged and be responsible and caring citizens in our community, nation and world. A google jockey models some of the skills to be a life long learner, and the stream of visualizations, different world views and people's thoughts help us really be a part of something beyond the classroom. A google jockey also meets the needs of our digital native students, who prefer image and video to text and want many rapid pieces of information.

If we don't think about how to use our data projectors, they become just another tool that the teacher uses to transmit to students. A google jockey is a simple step in the opposite direction.

Of course we believe collaboration is a good idea – right?

2010-01-13T14:32:00.005-06:00

For the last two decades, education journals have been publishing studies that extol the virtues of professional collaboration. In fact, creating a collaborative culture has been identified by some educational researchers as the most important factor in successful school renewal.

Research is clear that, for teachers, working collaboratively:

· inspires the desire to renew professional practices,
· increases instructional competence and confidence,
· makes complex professional tasks more manageable,
· promotes coherence and consistency in instructional practices

Together, teachers have more energy, skills, resources and ideas than an individual teacher and their synergy leads to higher quality planning and instruction.

Thus it is not surprising that we are all familiar with Professional Learning Communities, inquiry teams, PGN’s, teacher learning groups and many other structures designed to promote collaboration. Also, countless sub-days are provided and many detailed facilitation plans are developed so that teachers can work together. These are prevalent in our schools because we want to realize the benefits of collaboration in our division.

However effective these structures and expenditures are, I do wonder if collaboration - an idea with such wide acceptance - requires so many extra efforts and supports. If collaborating is such a good idea, it seems to me that planning and teaching together would occur naturally as a part of our day-to-day work. Does it?

Do we plan instruction together on a regular basis? Is team-teaching common in our schools? Do we develop common assessments with colleagues? Do we invite other teachers into our classrooms as an extra set of eyes and ears to provide feedback on something we can’t take note of while we are teaching? Are our actions evidence of our belief in and commitment to collaboration?

If the answer is yes, let’s share examples of teachers collaborating and the benefits of their work together – to reinforce this as a core element of our professional culture. If the answer is no, let’s find out how to grow a collaborative culture in our division.

Based on what I have read and experienced, I know that time and courage are required for meaningful collaboration. Collaborative planning and instruction take more time and deprivatizing our practice is a professional risk that may be uncomfortable.

To realize the benefits of collaboration we can overcome those two factors:
· Do we already have time built into our work lives that we could use for collaboration?
· Do we have trusted colleagues with whom we can establish a more collaborative professional relationship?

To enhance the quality of our instruction and our students’ learning, we can find the time and the courage required to collaborate.

We believe that collaboration is a good idea – right?

More: Read an “old school” DuFour perspective on collaboration.

Mindset green thumb

2010-01-13T11:37:00.006-06:00

“How can growth-minded teachers be so selfless, devoting untold hours to the worst students? Are they just saints? Is it reasonable to expect that everyone become a saint? The answer is that they’re not entirely selfless. They love to learn. And teaching is a wonderful way to learn. About people and how they tick. About what you teach. About yourself. And about life.

Fixed-mindset teachers often think of themselves as finished products. Their role is to impart their knowledge. But doesn’t that get boring year after year?”
p. 201, Mindset by Carol Dweck.

Collegiate Renewal asks teachers to be engaged learners in concert with their students, I have been thinking quite a bit about the implications of a fixed or growth mindset lately.

If you've got a fixed mindset and you get a bad grade you think:

I’m an idiot, failure etc. (the self is caught being bad and publicly exposed).
I have no life, its unfair, my teacher is mean (students learn that bad things are in the control of others).
I’m not putting time or effort into that. (if I am not good at something, I should stop doing it).

If you've got a growth mindset and you get a bad grade you think:

I need to work harder in that class, but I have the rest of the semester (making a mistake is something you can fix, not who you are. The solution lies in changing the circumstances or marshaling resources to get better).
Next time I will get help from my friends, or ask the teacher for extra help (if I am not good at things, I need to make a specific plan to learn more or do more. I like a challenge).

Clearly, we want our students to have a growth mindset if we want them to keep learning, and we hope assessment for learning will make a difference for them. Dweck argues that teachers play a critical role in nurturing the seedlings that are their students' mindsets.

The roots go even deeper than that. Teachers with fixed mindsets see the potential of a student as fixed; they predict what mark a student will have at the end of the class, and they see believe it is the job of the teacher to evaluate what students can do. Fixed mindset teachers impart what they know and and then test students on what they have learned. They believe assessment for learning and differentiation are a lowering of standards because performance is the most important thing. In a classroom with a fixed mindset teacher, it is important not to make a mistake, because everything is reflected in your grade and you need to get as close to perfect as possible. You should not take the risk of trying something that is hard - you should do what you know how to do.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it actually prevents learning. So a critical question for Collegiate Renewal is: How do we get teachers and their students to embrace a growth mindset?

Assessment for learning (Davies), delaying marking (Kohn), differentiation (Hume) - we've talked about them all. But for some teachers, the mindset the traditional education system remains a critical barrier.

Every year, my husband and I do a bunch of things to help our garden grow despite the harsh conditions of our Saskatchewan climate. We start seeds on our indoor grow table, transfer them to the greenhouse slowly, acclimatize them to the sun, and finally plant them in May. We'll have been growing things for 4 months before the 4 month gardening season starts.

I think we need to consider the transformative change of mindset in Collegiate Renewal the same way. Sprouting growth mindsets will be laborious, and even when it succeeds, we are going to take years to understand how to really teach with a growth mindset. We'll need to shelter it from the winds of public criticism and accountability, and slowly expose it to rays of deep engagement and real partnership with our learners.

Lots of times people ask me if all the work I do in my garden is worth the fresh produce I get in the end. I do really like the great taste, lack of pesticides and the enhanced nutrition when you eat seasonable vegetables off the vine. But mostly, I love to garden. And gardening, like teaching, is a wonderful way to learn. About our world and how it works. About what what we eat. About myself. And about life. In the end, I believe that our transformative change of mindset in Collegiate Renewal will bear fruit in the same way.

Professional Doublethink

2010-01-07T08:39:00.004-06:00

I really enjoyed School by Design (Wiggins, Grant and McTighe) when I read it this fall, but it challenged my thinking in a number of ways. I was on board with the thinking on curriculum and on the critical role of the teacher. But when the discussion of the professional teacher came up, I struggled a bit more.

I am a member of the Saskatchewan Teacher's Federation. I have always thought of myself as a professional, and as part and parcel of that, thought that it was the teacher's right and obligation to decide how to teach.

Wiggins, Grant and McTighe: Indeed, schooling and reform have been hindered by the view that it is most 'professional' if teachers decide for themselves how to teach (P. 111, Schooling by Design: Mission, Action and Achievement, 2007) .

Me: But that's what professionalism is. All professionals make decisions based on their experiences and knowledge. When I weigh a variety of complex variables to make a good choice for my students, I am being professional.

Wiggins, Grant and McTighe: The result is not merely an inconsistent array of unexamined approaches to instruction (as if medicine were still what any country doctor 200 years ago thought it should be) -

Me: Wait. But the process of learning is, at best, highly contextual. That's why we are professionals. I respect the wisdom of those I teach with, and their collective wisdom helps kids. I know that sometimes we use the instructional strategies that we find most comfortable, or teach what we like best, but in general (pause). Well, I also know there is clear research saying what we should do and why we should do it, like the research on the need to change our assessment strategies, the fact that summarizing is an important think for students to do -"

Wiggins, Grant and McTighe: The result is not merely an inconsistent array of unexamined approaches to instruction (as if medicine were still what any country doctor 200 years ago thought it should be); a more harmful effect is that any critique of teaching inevitably is seen as an attack on teachers (P. 111, Schooling by Design: Mission, Action and Achievement, 2007) .

(pause)

Me: (as implications for school change and view of professionalism collide) Oh, dear.

Engage me

2010-01-05T14:06:00.005-06:00

When one of the men I work with describes engagement, he talks about finding his cousin obsessively playing video games in the basement. His cousin has all the indicators of deep engagement while gaming:

• Clear goals-sense of purpose
• Connectedness—to people, things, ideas, and/or actions
• Intensity—concentrating and focusing—deep learning
• Direct and immediate feedback
• Balance between ability level and challenge
• Sense of personal control
• Intrinsically rewarding (read p. 3 of the 2008-2009 Board Report)

My colleague asks, "What must a school be in this context? is engagement something we need to do for kids?" His question is designed to get us thinking, and that is just what everyone in schools needs to be doing.

Marc Prensky, an advocate of gaming in education says that if students aren't actively, or at least ritualistically, engaged, they truly resent their time being wasted. He notes that students have long attention spans, read above grade level or solve complex problems anytime they are doing something that really matters to them. Presky does note, however, that it increasingly isn't school.

So what does Engage Me mean? Must teachers be as exciting as video games, respond as quickly as texting and provided all the choices a habitual multi-tasker could want? Does it mean we must be so exciting that kids are forced to be engaged?

That's clearly a battle we can't win, and Prensky argues we don't need to. Like many advocates of 21st Century learning, he doe values choice, visuals, authentic audiences and creating. However, he says the key to "creating engagement is not about those fancy, expensive graphics but rather about ideas. Sure, today’s video games have the best graphics ever, but kids’ long-term engagement in a game depends much less on what they see than on what they do and learn. In gamer terms, “gameplay” trumps “eye-candy” any day of the week." In gaming we often talk about levelling up - acquiring enough skills to take on bigger and more important quests. If we want to engage in levelling up as a group of educators, we need to provide our student with the opportunity to think about ideas that a relevant to them, create things that impact their world, and gain skills that matter. That's what Engage Me is about - the opportunity for a worthy quest.

Cited in this post:
Engage Me or Enrage Me -- What Today's Learners Demand (in Educause Review, Sept./Oct. 2005)

Affable Lurking

2010-01-04T20:57:00.004-06:00

Two years ago my school division embarked on Collegiate Renewal. The goal of the renewal is lofty:

All collegiate students will be engaged in their learning so they will graduate
as active participants in lifelong learning and as responsible and caring citizens
in the community, nation, and world.

My principal put out a call for people to be Learning Leaders in our high school. I had recently finished a masters focused around professional development and technology and wasn't sure it was the gig for me. I think part of me wanted to keep lurking.

On the Internet, lurkers are people who consume what others post but rarely or never enter the conversations themselves. Some 90% of us are lurkers (Nonnecke and Preece, 2003). In the world of teaching, almost every adult lurks. We all went to high school, we all have strong opinions about how school should be taught, but few of us teach. Those who do often lurk in the school system, observing and privately commenting on our students, our peers, those who lead us, and the school system itself. When I decided to become a Learning Leader in 2007, I decided to stop lurking.

Change processes, particularly transformative changes, are a difficult proposition in high schools. Like blogging, leading change in Collegiate Renewal is a far cry from the affable lurking of my teaching career. I find myself talking publicly about changes as I am making them, sharing what I am doing even as some of it goes wrong, an act of inviting the comments of observers. It is a process we are asking our students and teachers to embrace as we all learn about the role assessment for learning plays and it is a place of vulnerability.

For the last two years, I have been muddying the torpid waters of our high schools even more. I am now working on helping lead professional learning around how technology can help us with renewal. There are days I could really use a little camouflage. One of the things that buoys me the most is understanding that I am not alone in the work I do. I have been reading everything I can - research on change literature, assessment for learning, learner engagement, differentiation, and 21st Century literacy. But more than anything, I have been lurking on the blogs of other educators who write about the value of technology in transforming the classroom. The wealth of their ideas and richness of their shared conversation reminds me that lurking, however affable, is the opposite of contributing. Deeply engaged learners are always participants, and I need to be one myself.

Cited in this post:

Blair Nonnecke and Jenny Preece (2003). "Silent participants: Getting to know lurkers better". in D. Fisher and Christopher Lueg. From Usenet to Co Webs: Interacting with social information spaces. Springer. pp. 110–132. ISBN 1852335327.