A Reflection on METC: 10 Random Thoughts

1. Social media may be the catalyst to creating relationships, but it isn't as valuable as being face to face with each other. Yes, I know this is me being a broken record, but it still is true. :)
2. Seeing people I recognize (who also recognize me) shrinks the size of even large crowds. Just a nod or smile as we pass makes me feel much more comfortable in a strange situation.
3. There are many unbelievable people that work very hard to put on the conference. I would list them, but I know I would miss some and that would not be good. You know who you are. :)
4. Our community is not growing as quickly as I think it should. There are approximately 4 million k-12 teachers in the United States, but only a small fraction of a percent are connecting through social media. Are there other places where reform issues are being discussed by a larger group?
5. Students making connections seems to becoming a real theme among many speakers at these conferences. 
6. I'm not sure that this is the message most attendees are hearing though.There still seems to be too much focus on tools, not on why we use them. The message isn't being picked up quickly enough by "normal" teachers.
7. Teachers know how to have fun. 
8. The Embassy Suites in St. Charles is a pretty cool place to stay. If you stayed there you know why. ;)
9. I didn't see any students at this conference. I may have missed them, but maybe we should think about including them more in our presentations.
10. I know there were pre-service teachers in attendance. I think that there needs to be some presentations  specifically geared to them. While all the workshops are appropriate, they might feel a bigger sense of community if they have a few that address their specific needs. Perhaps a social networking class for them so they can learn more about being an online professional or how to develop a learning network using Twitter or Plurk. 

Posting and Commenting Are Only the Beginning

I have been stressing over my METC presentation for next Tuesday. It is supposed to be about how to use the blog and hash tag Comments4Kids to get comments on student and teacher blogs. Think of it as Beginning Conversations 101. The problem is I don't find this conversation very satisfying anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that posting and commenting are important first steps, but I really believe that these are imperfect. I want my students to develop real thinking, express that transparently, and defend it (or change it) as they encounter push back. A great example is happening now on Jabiz Raisdana's blog Intrepid Teacher.

What will it take to get my students to be as transparent and reflective as Jabiz? I don't know. I don't even believe that most of them will. But I believe the journey to get there is really useful for those than don't, almost as much as those that do. The process of thinking, writing, responding, reflecting, defending, and growing may be the most important thing we ask our students to do.

How do I move past the process of posting/commenting to something more in depth? How do walk into my presentation and talk about baby steps when they have been so unfulfilling? 

Can We Adopt a Master/Apprentice Approach to Learning?

In this post I make a lot of assumptions about your belief of the role of teachers education. 

Assumption one: You want students to become master learners. 

Assumption two: You are or are working to become a master learner.

Assumption three: You model learning to your students.

The master/apprentice model has been around much longer than the factory educational model we have been using and, it might be argued, been much more successful. The basis of this model is the master has a specific set of skills. He then contracts with the apprentice to teach him these skills in return for the apprentice working for the master. 

If we apply the master/apprentice model to learning, what would it look like? Obviously we would have fewer students and spend much more time with them. We would be focused on teaching them learning skills that help them develop into master learners. We would model learning for them and encourage them to follow by example.

Just as the master printer controls what content the apprentice prints, the master learner would control the way learning skills are imparted. Just as the apprentice printer spends free time creating their own content, the apprentice learner would spend his/her free time learning what he/she chooses to learn. 

Could schools be re-purposed to this end? Could a teacher take on the role of a master learner, take on a small group of apprentices (very probably of varying ages)? Can teachers as master learners help create master learners from their apprentices?

Snow Days Are Not My Friend

I have a confession, I don't do work on snow days. As a matter of fact, I don't do much work outside of my classroom. That doesn't mean I don't learn or explore or design, I simply do not like to do the schooly stuff outside of school.

Due to the school schedule and the weather we have not had a full week of school since before Christmas. Honestly, this makes it really difficult to "get in the groove". I feel my brain really disengaged from my classroom which is not where I want it to be.

Typically I would find myself musing about things to experiment with in the classroom while not in the classroom. I would be planning in the shower or checking if a particular digital tool would work while sitting in front of the television.

You can all pray, wish, or even do a snow dance if you want. I want to get back to normal.

Trying a New Spin on Current Events

I am teaching an elective class this semester on current events. While it would be easy to come up with stories for the students to look at and talk about, I am more interested in helping them develop critical thinking skills from the context as well as the content.

I believe too much of the news we consume is pre-packaged from a few large sources, think of it as fast food news. Are we supposed to give as much credibility to the stories written by anonymous writers working for big organizations more than the local beat reporters that write under their own by-line?

I also want my students to think critically about the importance of the news being reported. Do these stories directly effect us, our nation, or our world? Are they distractions such as sports or entertainment stories or are they really important? My suspicion is that most of the news people want to read falls into the former category.

To begin the semester I have had the students visiting international news sites (we are in the United States.) I have asked them to look for differences in word choice, and types of stories that are being reported.  Thanks to the Ted Williams story, we had a chance to discuss word choices from different sources. I was actually quite surprised by my students' responses.

What do you think about the way I am approaching this subject? Do you have any advice or some different ideas?

Social Media in the Classroom as Artificial Societies

Yesterday's afternoon #edchat was focused on using social media in the classroom. I have been thinking about community building and social networking with my students a lot lately. As projects I work on mature, I often see that there are limitations to the way I have set them up. While this is not usually a problem since most of my lessons are not long term, the Comments4Kids project is a long term project. Originally it was just a way to drive traffic to student posts. After conversations and time to think I have really seen the limitation of project.

My problem with C4K and social media in general is that we (teachers) are creating connections that (for the most part) are artificial and just not very useful for our students. For example, most of the time the C4K is a one shot comment on a blog post. Yes, it is social but it is not very engaging for either party. In fact, the best use of the meme happens when teachers and classes develop long term relationships through it. Even then, the relationships are usually created by the teachers, not the students.

When I started to use Twitter as a way to connect and share with other educators it was a natural process that developed over time through our shared passion. It worked for me because it engaged me on that level. There was no mandate to use it, no artificial society created by others that I was forced to engage in.

Instead of focusing on creating these artificial societies, perhaps our time would be better spent introducing the tools we use to our students and allow them the time to start to develop their own societies based upon their passions and interests. What do you think?

An Evolutionary Idea: Students Opt Out by Opting In

A few weeks ago my elective class decided they wanted to work on their own projects. One group decided to create a video news show which worked very well. The other decided to do comedy skits. That one didn't work out so well. The problem was they liked the idea of doing the skits, but had no idea how to (or any desire to find out.)  As you can imagine, this was a problem.

I decided to go back to the normal lessons where I direct their learning. They were instantly back into their comfort zone and enjoyed the return to normal. Tuesday the students learned about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yesterday some of my students were expecting the same type of lesson on the death of John Lennon. I didn't have one prepared so I created one for today. When the students came in some were excited, others not so much. Really, this realization has become a game changer for me.

I realized that I could design lessons for the students, but I could also allow them to design their own lessons. So tomorrow we will begin plans to create a way for students to design their own lessons, their own learning. When a student isn't interested in a lesson I present, they will be able to pull out one they have designed (and reviewed with a conference with me) and work on it instead. Students will still be able to follow what interests them and opt out of what doesn't. We will be able to individualize learning and still get in the skills I want them to learn and because we will have set up guidelines (I am thinking a template using Google forms) they will not be left without a purpose, directions, or goals.

I will share the template and the students efforts when this gets rolling.

An Accident of Geography Won't Save Us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ggas_human_soc.jpg

 In Jared Diamond's impressive book Guns, Germs, and Steel the author ascribes the the fall of the Incan empire not to the superiority of the Spanish, but by the accident of geography. The proximity to domesticated animals shared throughout Europe and Asia as well as the shared knowledge and innovation by those people. This is a very simplified explanation of the book. I highly recommend you read the whole thing.

As I was explaining this concept to my class today I realized that this is how classrooms are today. Some classrooms are like the Spanish, of which the Flat Classroom Project is a great example.  These teachers are facilitating the sharing of knowledge and innovation in their classrooms.

Most classrooms are like the Incan empire. They are isolated, not realizing what is outside their classroom. They assume they are the masters of learning using the same techniques that have worked for generations. They do not even know that they are being passed by.

Now that the problem is identified, what is the solution? I think that we must not only expose our classrooms to other classrooms, we must find ways to create learning communities with them. I am not espousing "quick hit" projects where students work together with others for short periods of time. Instead I believe we need to create long term communities that share knowledge and innovation through longer periods of time. We shouldn't rely on an accident of geography to get us where we need to go, we need to reach out and learn from others.

Netflix is a Great Resource for the Classroom

My students are watching Guns, Germs, and Steel a great documentary by National Geographic base on Jared Diamond's book by the same name. My school library doesn't have this video (I looked). My county library doesn't have it either. I could have bought it, but I didn't have to because I have a Netflix subscription. I didn't even have to have them send me the disk, this documentary is one of many that is streamed online.

If you have been thinking about getting a subscription to Netflix, now you have one more compelling reason to spend the $9!

If Your Students Posts Are Not Being Commented On By Other Students, Their Audience is Not Authentic!

I had a great and very valuable discussion with Melanie McBride a couple days ago. It centered around commenting on students blog posts. Melanie made the point that students need to be creating peer networks through their blogging and commenting just like we adults do. She wrote that teachers using their social capital to generate comments is "an artificial model of how community works...peer developed networks are what kids need to learn."


This brought to the front something that has been bothering me for a while. The original idea was for Comments4Kids to be a way to identify student work that could be commented on. My plan was and still is to have my students leave comments on these posts. Of course I like to leave comments on the posts too, but the value in the process needs to be experienced by my students too. 


Do you really believe that students writing for other teachers is any different than writing for their own teacher? How authentic is the audience when they are virtual teachers? For our students to write for an authentic audience, that audience has to be their peers. Peers that have no "educational" agenda. Peers that are reading the posts because they are interested in what the author has to write.


I am not saying you should not comment on student blogs. What I am saying is the students won't find the value in your comments like they will from another student. Make time for your students to comment.

EdCampKC: A Rather Painful Reflection

I guess it is my turn to reflect on the unconference that was edcampKC. A few weeks before I went I wrote a post about what I wanted to get from the conference. While I really feel that my goals were realistic and that they were met, I was not ready for the let down that has happened this week. 

I really wanted to meet my online friends, and I did and they are wonderful. What I didn't see coming was the letdown from going back to my building where I have no one to share my passion with. I had no idea (although in retrospect I should have) that meeting and conversing with people face to face would mean so much to me. 

A couple years ago a new teacher came into my building. He shared a real interest in how I was using tech in my classroom. He was someone I came to depend on to talk about tech, tools, and how to best leverage learning from them. Unfortunately he only stayed one year. It was a tough transition to go from having someone to share with to being without, I didn't realize how much I missed him until this week. 

I guess what I want to express is that online connections are not a good enough replacement for the relationships we develop off line. I really want to spend more time connecting with those I met on Saturday, but I realize that this simply won't happen anytime soon. It hurts.

I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to create relationships online and to foster others creating their own relationships. I think I need to move some of that effort back to my school district. I also need to find ways to help my students learn the same lesson. There is no more important community than the one you are with every day.

Stanley Is Flat and He is Making the World Flatter Too!

In the mail Monday I had a surprise, Flat Stanley! Jason Schmidt's class in Omaha, Nebraska sent him to us. 

I decided to post the letter I was writing on my class blog and sent it out on Twitter. After Jason talked to me aand Theresa Murray, he decided to create a wiki for his class and those that he sent Stanley to.

While Flat Stanley has been around and has been a successful teaching tool for years, the ability to get almost instant information back from wherever Stanley is sent is very compelling. Creating a more permanent record is also very useful. Now Jason's students have access to the information at their fingertips with all the added benefits that the internet provides with information that can be found about each place. Flat Stanley is flattening the world!

Should I Punish Students for Bad Behavior in Another Class?

My school has in-school suspension for students that behave inappropriately. I am not sure if it is because of not doing homework or because of what they have said or done. As the "computer" teacher I have never given any work for those students to complete, not much of a punishment if I let them use a computer in my opinion.

Today a teacher asked me if I ever sent any work for the student to do. When I replied I didn't she implied the student was "getting off" from doing the work in my class. My reply was that it would be hard for them to do the work in ISS when we are using the computers. I could figure out some make-work for them to do, but our administration is just as capable of that as me.

Thinking back over the exchange I have a different response. I really don't think I should punish a student by giving him/her make-work for improper behavior in someone else's class. What do you think?

Journaling Using Pen and Ink

In my media history class I have been having my students create journal entries detailing events that happen during the American Revolution. Here is a link to our blog where you can find the posts.

A few years ago I received a calligraphy kit to use for teaching an after school class. It has a class set of pens and points that we used to create handwritten journals entries. While the students enjoyed the activity (I may let them continue to do them that way if they choose), they did have a problem with the pens. They are extremely messy and since my students are not used to working with this new medium, there were a lot of spills.

I think that having the students use the old-fashioned tools helps them to understand a little more about the complexity of the process of writing that the soldiers would have had. Imagine having to carry around all that material just to write a journal entry!

Using a Comic Book Creator with Character Education

This week my students will be using the Marvel Create Your Comic web application to illustrate this month's character education word peace.

Originally I thought I would have the students use the application to create a fractured fairy tale. That entails re-telling a fairy tale from the point of view of one of the characters. I start that lesson by reading The True Story of the Three Little Pigs an amazing story by Jon Scieszka. Unfortunately, the application does not allow the comics to be saved. The students would have to create a couple pages in class then download them. I think this would really alter the flow of the story (even if they had already written it out.) That is when I decided to go with the character ed. word.

This may sound like I am trying to fit a lesson around a web app, but that is only because I am :)

Why EdCampKC is Important to Me

On Saturday, November 6 my wife and I will be attending EdcampKC at the University of Central Missouri. EdcampKC is an unconference where the attendees are also the presenters.

Many districts, including mine have focused all or a very large percentage of professional development money toward communication arts and mathematics. Unless the conference can be tied directly to either or both of those areas, there is no monetary support from the district. Obviously, this means that I must pay my own way to any conference I wish to attend that deals with technology, even unfortunately technology that can be tied into those areas. Thanks to the sponsors, this conference is free. All it will cost my wife and I is a hotel room, gas, and some money for food. When you consider how expensive other conferences such as METC or ISTE are, you can see how inexpensive this conference really is.

Speaking of METC and ISTE, are you aware that presenters are still required to pay to get in to the conferences they are providing the professional development for? While METC gives a discounted rate for presenteres, ISTE requires payment in full! If you choose to present at edcampKC it will cost you nothing. If you choose to just attend edcampKC the price is still zero!

I will be presenting this year at METC on the importance of commenting on student blogs. While I have never been to this conference before I gather it is a rather large conference. When I went to the ISTE conference in San Antonio I was overwhelmed by the number of people attending. My point is, I am looking forward to edcampKC because it will be small enough for me to make real connections with others. I went to ISTE to attend, I am going to METC to present, but I am going to edcampKC to meet people. These are people that share my passion for student learning who I will not only learn from them at the conference, but I will be able to continue to learn from them online throughout the year.

Ever since I really started to participate on Twitter, my goal was to find passionate educators that care about their students and want to focus on learning. While I have made many contacts and even a few good relationships I cannot wait to develop the types of relationships I have jealously followed others making at unconferences they attended.

I also want my wife (a pre-service teacher) to develop a few relationships to that can help guide her through the rest of college and into her teaching career as well. :)

I Got Your PD Right Here!

I am receiving the best professional development I have ever experienced at school. I am "team teaching" a math class.

Math is definitely not my strength. I got through by following patterns. I am very good at identifying them. I am not good at being able to understand the "why" of math. Does it make you wonder why I was placed in a math class to team teach?

So, I find myself sitting in a class that I do not feel comfortable in. Not only am I unfamiliar with the objectives (even after reading/studying them over the summer) but with the vocabulary used. Students are expecting me to be able to help them identify why they don't "get" something.  How can this be great professional development for me if I am not comfortable?

I have become a student again. I am learning the math concepts and definitions with the students. I ask more clarifying questions than they do. I am remembering my student roots, learning in a classroom.

The first full week I taught the math lessons. I wanted to pull my own weight and show that I could do the job. After teaching a lesson my teaching partner broke the lesson down for me and we talked about what I could have done to make it better. For some veteran teachers this would be a problem, but not for me. I know I am in over my head and I am grateful to have an experienced teacher help me out.

Although the team teaching has been difficult and we have not yet found our comfort zone with the shared responsibilities I would still say this has been successful for me. I am learning math and how to be a better teacher.

A Work in Progress?

My goal this year was to use my lab to extend learning from the core curriculum. The eighth grade students have an assignment they are working on where they create a presentation about the European explorers from the 15th and 16th centuries. Here is a link to the actual assignment information. (Please note I did not type the assignment;)

Is this an incredible, transformative assignment? No, it relies too much on factual information which my students are getting online (not that there is anything wrong with using the net to gather info). If you looked at this assignment at face value it probably would be considered inadequate, but is it? What non-assessed things will my students be doing through this process?

They will have to analyse the information they gather for accuracy. One of my students found an explorer's birth date on Wikipedia to be in the 1800's! She brought this information to my attention and started a good conversation about reliability of all information.

They are working on their presentation design. Will their choices work with the assignment? Will they create their own Death by PowerPoint? How will the other students react to their choices?

They will have to present their PowerPoints. Will they read the information off of the slides? Will they speak with a loud, clear voice? Will they show sings of nervousness or even refuse to stand up in front of the class?

We often discuss the importance of grades, here is an example of where the most important parts of the assignment are not graded. This is a work in progress, but it is much farther along than it first seems.

Classroom Hack: Creating Postcards Using Student Work

Here is a quick way to let your students show off their artwork and get in a quick lesson on writing postcards. The picture above is a postcard I made in class from picture a student drew to go along with a media history assignment. I took the pictures and printed them onto card stock and cut them out. Then I had them write a postcard explaining the assignment and had them mailed. Soon the parents will get a surprise in the mail!

You can do the same thing with pictures of the students as well. Why not take a picture of the science experiment they are doing, the activity they are doing in their PE class, or them working on a computer? There is something special about receiving handwritten mail and it is even more special when it is from someone you love!

Please note: If you are using a laser printer you need it to heat up before running card stock in it. I print 25-30 blank pages first before I run the card stock through so it heats up enough that the toner sticks to the paper.

Universal Design Tool: VozMe.com

While I have had the VozMe code on my blog for several years, it has just been brought to my attention that VozMe can be used in two other wonderful ways.

VozMe allows text to be read aloud. One way to do this is for the publisher of a site to add html to the site that allows a button to be placed on the site. You simply highlight the text you want read aloud and then hit the button. The text is then read to you.You can also download the audio as an mp3. This is great for accessibility when the site owner has the technical skill to add the code. 

Another way to use VozMe is to copy the text you want to have read to you and go to the VozMe website. Paste the code into the box and hit the Create MP3 button. You can even choose between a male or female voice. Very simple to do and the audio can also be downloaded this way.

The third way, and in my opinion the best, is to add VozMe as a favorite or bookmark to your browser. You will need to find the instructions for your preferred browser on this page. Once you have the bookmark, all you have to do is highlight the text and click on the bookmark. It will open a new page and read the text too you. You can again choose from a male or female voice and download the mp3. How cool is that?!

Special thanks goes to Ira Socol for pointing these functions out to me. If you are interested in Universal Design (and you better be!) read Ira's amazing blog SpeEdChange.