What Not to Do on the First Day of School

It is that time of year again. I am not writing of back to school sales, clothes shopping, or even the great first day of school. It is the 'What I am doing on the first day of school' post time.

What I am going to do is so much more important. I am going to write things you should absolutely, positively, definitely not do on the first day of school. Heed my warning or be prepared to pay the consequences.

1) Do not play the Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK

I am not suggesting that the Sex Pistols aren't worth listening to, they are. I am not suggesting that playing this song will result in anarchy in your classroom because it won't. The reason you absolutely should not play this song on the first day is that some student will ask you where the UK is. When you try to explain it is England you will soon be down a rabbit hole. Of course you will never get the student handbook read if you go there. 

2) Do not try to get the students to sing along to the incredibly cute Jimmy Fallon show's version of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines

Unless you are a music class you really have no business wasting time on today's popular music. Instead I suggest this video of Brian Williams rapping to Good Vibrations

Let's face it Marky Mark is history and Brian Williams is a well respected journalist. This video has you covered with at least 3 different learning objectives!

3) Do not show The Goonies

Yes, The Goonies is a wonderful film from the incredible 80's. Yes, Goonies never say die! Unfortunately The Goonies are practically impossible to follow. Don't shoot off your best fireworks at the beginning of the show, save it for the end! If you absolutely must share your love of The Goonies, might I suggest Cyndi Lauper's opus music video?

This advice also applies to The Princess Bride.

4)  Don't wear a Hawaiian shirt.

Even Tom Selleck can't pull this off. (Especially with the Detroit Tigers hat. I mean, seriously?) 

5) Do not reference Saved by the Bell

Every boy that ever saw an episode knows exactly how John feels:

@thenerdyteacher I grew up wishing I was Zach Morris and feeling more like I was Screech.
— John Spencer (@edrethink) August 11, 2013

Hard Questions

This probably won't make me the most popular guy on the blogosphere.


1)  What if genius hour or 20% time are just unconscious bribes that teachers use to get kids to 'toe the line' the rest of the day?

2)  What if we work really hard to be better teachers because we don't believe that what we teach is important enough to stand on its own merit?

3)  What if we let students choose their own learning and they decided to learn things that won't help them long term, or worse they just decide to actively not learn anything?

4)  What would change in our classrooms if we really decided that the first, most important thing we had to do was love the students?

5)  What if we really bought into the idea that high stakes testing wasn't important? Grades? Social status? Beauty? Race?

6)  What if we spent less time arguing about what works best in the class and instead spent that time making what we do better?

7)  What if we attend conferences or edcamps to be seen more than to learn?

8)  What if we are invested so heavily in social media because we have an isolating, difficult job and are really lonely?

It's EdCamp, not TechCamp

I am planning on presenting at #EdCampKS this Saturday and it will be a reprise of a session I did in St Louis on ukuleles. While it is true that I really enjoy playing the ukulele and sharing that interest with others, that isn't the only reason why I do this presentation. As unbelievable as it seems, most EdCamps are tech-centric.

We often complain about how we have trouble getting colleagues involved in online educational social media. The truth is probably as simple as they aren't the #Gerds we are. They don't feel comfortable with the technology and we talk way too much about the tech. Yes this is oversimplified and rife with generalities, but that doesn't mean it is wrong.

I have been called a rebel, a rabble rouser and one guy insists on calling me #thatguy, all of which I wear as a badge. We need to be in the learning business, not the tech business.

#geek+nerd

We Can't Solve the Nation's Education Problems, We Can Solve our Communities Education Problems

This post came about from reading David Stewart's post Where's the Passion? Please go read it for some context.

I often get frustrated by problems that are seemingly unsurmountable. I can't solve racism, misogyny, or bad eating habits. I applaud those that try or at least try to add to the discussion. I have found that my global and national reach are nonexistent, but I can have an impact in my community. 

The reality is, we don't need to fix the nation's public education system. We need to fix our local education systems. 

I believe that every school community is different and that no one (or two or three) solutions can be the best fit for all. We don't live in a small country with a very stable, heterogenous population (cough cough Finland) nor does my school have the same needs as the closest school five miles away. Just like individual students, individual schools have specific needs.

Besides, I have a vested interest in my school. That is where my students are. 

What Does It Mean to Be Literate? My Response

I created this video in response to Alec Couros' call for crowdsourced opinions. As always I would love for you to leave a response. 

Taboo: When You Hate Your Students

Just finished recording an episode for BAM Radio Network 's new show Taboo. The premise of the show is to talk about things that are usually avoided by educators. This episode was on hating/disliking students or classes. I will post a link when it is up.

I know I have had students/classes that made looking forward to being with them pretty difficult. I have had my share of nights spent crying because I felt disrespected and abused by them. Even now I have days when I just want to leave and take an emotional break from the room.

I will say that when I decided to shift from trying to be in control of the classroom to trying to develop relationships with the students I found that not only did many of the students' behavior improve, but that I became more empathetic to their needs and their acting out. I am now much less likely to punish them and much more likely to discipline.

What do you do when you have students that make your class less inviting? How has your behavior towards them changed (or has it not changed?) I would love for you to leave your thoughts. 

More Thoughts on Blogging (With or Without Students)

The value in blogging is twofold. The first is the actual act of writing and thinking while writing. This can help crystallize thoughts or ideas. The second is the ability to share what you are thinking with the community outside of your area. Of the to values, the latter is the reason to blog instead of journal on paper.

Students, or adults for that matter, who are posting on a blog do not necessarily see the value in creating a larger community. I think we, educators on social media, used to be able to articulate that better. Now we seem to be more preoccupied with making that a narrative about only Twitter or Facebook.

As an adult, I often get more excited by an 'outside our community' comment on one of my students posts than the student does. I believe this is the new normal for them. They expect to talk to people they don't know.

Worrying about online safety with student blogging takes up too much intellectual capital. Use an easily moderated platform like Kidblog. Nothing goes in and out without approval (if you want to set it up that way.) Honestly, you should worry more about your students being jerks on social media than being picked up  by a stranger trolling for kids.

I often tell people I write only when I can't not write. I rarely give my students the opportunity to opt out of writing. Sometimes we have to make them practice what they really don't want to practice. That is part of being an adult, making decisions that may not be popular with everyone. Yes there are other ways for students to create content for blogs. We still need our kids to be literate which means able to read and write.

There are a hella lota resources for student blogging on the net, reach out and get you some. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you can just innovate and make it better.

Sometimes Teaching Really Is About the Content

As I begin to prepare myself mentally for my new junior high social studies position I have been doing some content reading. I have been a history buff for a long time, in fact the first series of books I remember reading were on famous American Indians when I must have be 7 or 8. I particularly enjoy the colonial and American Revolution time periods

I asked for some input on twitter, love #sschat, and got some recommendations for both geography and history. So I bought Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present and pulled out my copy of Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. In a lot of ways they are pretty similar texts. Their purpose is to take a hard look at the history that has been taught in schools and compare it to history from other people's perspectives. Fortunately, a lot of the information I am reading I have already been exposed to through other sources or even in college classes.

As I read through these texts I can't help but think that we really can't separate how the students learn with what they are learning. We can use best practices and get our students to learn to the best of their abilities, but if we don't critically view the content and allow students to see different perspectives and points of view we are not doing our jobs. It isn't enough that they learn, they need to learn how to learn critically.

The Next Big Thing? Galaxy Note 8

So I got rid of my Nexus 7 tablet and moved to a Galaxy Note 8. Ever since I had an Acer tablet back in the early aughts I have been looking for something I could afford that I could take notes on with a good stylus. After playing with a Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy Note 8 I decided to take the plunge.

A few of the apps that I am really enjoying right now is S Note, a note taking app found only on the Samsung Galaxy series and S Planner, an easy to use made for Galaxy calendar app. All the great apps I had on my Nexus 7 work great on the Note and the screen is HD and brighter so they even look better!

Although my Nexus 7 was a good tablet, eventually I was only using it for reading Kindle books. I have already quit using my iPad 3 and the Note is my now go-to device. (I even moved my MB Air into the office, only bringing it into the family room when I want to chat on Twitter.) Honestly, the widgets you can put on your Android desktop is so much better than anything an iPad can offer.

How can I use this in the classroom? Well the best upgrade from the Nexus was with the forward facing camera. Now we can use it to take pictures and video, not just selfies. Really, the Note is more of a personal device for me and not bought with my classroom in mind. I will use it often though to read plenty of ed related books

Why I Chose the Fitbit One (and What I Like About It)

My wife and I recently signed up to prepare for a 5K. I had been planning on using my summer mornings to start walking/jogging to start losing a little weight. (You know it is time to lose weight when your students poke you in the belly and attempt a Pillsbury Dough Boy giggle.) Of course this was the perfect excuse to buy a new toy.

I did some research into different distance trackers including the Nike Fuel Band (because I use the Nike Running app on my iPhone which I really like.) I chose the Fitbit One over the Fuel Band because the Fitbit app is also on Android, unlike the Nike Running app, which I will be moving back to if/when the Galaxy Note 3 comes out. I also like that I can look at the device and get more information than just a few lights like with the Fuel Band.

The Fitbit One measures steps, floors climbed, miles traveled, calories burned and even records your sleep movements if you wear it to bed. When I use it in conjunction with the Nike Running app on my phone the distance travelled on both devices are very close.

I live on a hill and walking up and down it replaces climbing stairs, just a few trips up and down the hill easily meets my basic goal for now. The sleep recording doesn't mean a lot, although according to the information I have viewed I sleep pretty consistently with an average wake up number of 12-15 times a night. I have no idea if that is good or bad.

A really nice bonus for me is the calorie tracker. The device keeps track of the amount of calories burned and if you use it in conjunction with app, either online or on a mobil device, you can keep track of the food you consume and see where you stand at any time with your calorie count. Since my goal is to lose weight, that really comes in handy.

If you are wondering about the durability of the Fitbit One, I can attest that it can survive a trip through the washing machine, at least 20 minutes in the wash cycle. I left my Fitbit in my shorts after running and my wife through them in the washer. Twenty minutes later I realized I had left it in my shorts. When I pulled it out it was wet and soap, but it was still working. I think water couldn't get into it because it was still in the rubber clip which seems to cover any of the cracks water might seep in through. I wouldn't suggest recreating this in your home, but it is good to know that if it gets wet it may not be the end of the device. 

I won't know if this purchase was the right one for a few more months. If I continue to use it and it continues to encourage me to get into shape and lose some weight it will be a definite success. If not, it will not be because of the device's shortcomings but because of my own. 

Am I Becoming a Digital Luddite?

So I have spent some time working on this blog today. I needed to add a page for workshop information since I don't want to continue using random Google Docs for that purpose. It is surprising how much time I waste trying to find stuff I made because I am too lazy to organize it.

I updated my About Me information on my class blog, Mr. C's Class Blog, and then copied/pasted it in a new page here. It seems like I just updated it but I still had lots to add. I also added My Teaching Manifesto to this blog since this is where I plan on keeping all my professional stuff.

As I see all the digital tools that are being used (and I found a bunch of new ones from my research for my session Friday at the Joplin Technology Summit on useful digital tools) I keep thinking there is just too much new stuff. I used to be able to keep up with the new tools. Of course it wasn't too long ago a new digital tool only came out every month or two. It seems like there are new ones weekly, if not daily, now.

Do teachers who are new to online digital tools have the advantage of no online baggage? Will my inability to move from platform to platform hold me back? Am I becoming a Digital Luddite?

(By the way, I didn't originate the phrase digital luddite, but I was unaware it was 'a thing' before I used it. Ain't Google searches grand!) 

Whispersync for Voice

 If you love to read, and by reading I mean reading or listening to books being read to you, hen you should know about Whispersync for Voice. The gist is if you own a Whispersync for Voice enabled ebook and audio book from Audible.com they will sync up as you read through them. For example, if you read the ebook and get into the car and turn on the audio book, it will sync to where you stopped reading the ebook. It works really well and is a very nice perk, but it isn't what makes this such a great deal.

In the picture below you can see where the book The Name of the Wind is Whispersync for Voice ready. Notice the ebook is $8.99.

In the picture below you see the same book on Audible.com where the price is now only $3.99 instead of the member price of $22.04. This means you can get both books for $13 which is quite the savings over just buying the audio book. 

Even more impressive is the price of A Tale of Two Cities below. I 'bought' the ebook for free on Amazon and can get the audio book for only $1! If you like audio books or use them in your classroom, you should definitely take a look at this promotion. 

It Would Have Been More Fun If It Was Figuring Out a Trip for Us: Mr. C, What Is a Real World Scenario Part 2

The students finished figuring out the expenses to my baseball trip in July yesterday. Depending on the price of hotel and tickets it will cost between $1,000 an d$1,100 dollars for a three day trip. Apparently you need to be a major league baseball player to afford going to back to back to back games :(

After the students all shared their totals I asked them if they liked the activity. I had two very interesting responses from two different students. One student asked me if I liked the activity. I told them I really enjoyed their enthusiasm for the project. Another student then told me that she would have liked the assignment more if it had been a trip she wanted to go on. (This is what we in education circles call a teachable moment ;) So we immediately started making plans for a trip they will research.

I gave them some guidelines to help them:

• The trip would be five days long. We picked a week in July so they wouldn't miss summer school :)
• I told them they needed to budget $75 a day for food per person.
• I also had them spend $50 a day on souvenirs. 

I learned a lot in just the first day:

• Several students planned the trip around a real trip they are going to take later this year.
• Many students wanted to plan the trip together so they could share the experience (although I don't know if they want to share the actual trip or just the planning.)
• Most of my students have a very limited view of where they can go on vacation. I had to emphasize many times that they could go anywhere for those five days. Money was not an issue. Most still tried to find bargains with their hotels. 
• Many of the students wanted to visit relatives that don't live nearby. Isn't that wonderful!

The reality is this has been a great way to get our minds off of test prep for a few days and get them engaged and rejuvenated for math. 

Mr. C, What Is a Real World Scenario?

"Mr. C, what is a real world scenario?" asked Stephanie. This question yesterday caused me to completely change today's math lesson. Instead of more test prep/review which we have been doing, I decided we needed to do something different.

I have been really excited about baseball this year, probably more excited than I have been in 25 years when the Royals were really good. After reading about the Edutour I checked the baseball schedule at KC to see if the tour stop coincided with a home stand. Yes, that was a random thought but that is how I roll.

I then had the inspiration to see if there were a way to get to meet Nick and Tim and combine that with a couple games. I noticed that the Royals had a home game the day before the pit stop and then I looked at the Cardinals schedule and found they were also playing a home stand at that time. I could do back to back games in different stadiums! Next I checked the Chicago Cubs schedule, but they were playing away at that time but the White Sox had a home stand then too. I could actually pull of three games in three different stadiums in three days!

Of course when I approached my wife with this all she wanted to know was how much it was going to cost. Seriously, I am excited about the stars aligning like a sign from heaven and she just wants to know about the Benjamins! I knew I was going to have to figure out what it would cost to do make the trip. Can you imagine what I decided to do? Yup, I created a real world scenario!

Today in math I told the students about how I wanted to make this trip and I gave them the dates of the games. I told them I wanted them to figure out how much it would cost me to go. I gave them the following data to use:

• I estimated gas in July at $4 per gallon.
• I estimated my car's miles per gallon at 25 .
• I told them I wanted to stay in each city after the game at a hotel.
• I told them I wanted the hotel to cost no more than $80 a night.
• I estimated I would spend $100 a day for food.
• I estimated I would need $70 a game for souvenirs. 
• I told them I wanted 2 tickets for each game. 
• I told them I wanted the seats to be on the bottom deck and not way out in the outfield.

We went into the computer lab and they got started. As they worked I gave them advice such as using maps.google.com to find the driving distances between the cities and how I really enjoyed staying at the  hotels in the Choice chain. Not all of them took my advice and I noticed a lot of different online tools being used to get the information they needed. How cool is that?

I spent an hour today running from student to student (ok, I was actually slowly sauntering) helping them pick out good seats, okaying or nixing their choice in hotels, looking at Google Earth images of the different ballparks, and in general answering the small questions that come up with this type of activity. 

Things I noticed during the class:

• The kids were asking good questions like "Do you want a free breakfast at your hotel?" and "How far away are you willing to stay from the baseball stadium?"
• The normal loud social buzz that my class seems to thrive on this time was centered around the task. That is a big #eduwin for my students. 
• A few times I caught myself thinking that my students sounded like professional travel agents.
• Everyone was engaged and most were really excited. 
• There are a lot of hotels around the baseball stadiums.

They Had to Fail to Prepare for Success

I am observing my class work on an assignment due yesterday. They spent 4+ days pretending to do what they were supposed to. I say pretending because they obviously (today) weren't prepared to share. For all intents, they failed. The obvious question is "Why?"

I am sure that the responsibility lies with me. I intentionally keep my mitts off the students work. If they ask questions I send them to other students to have them answered. Typically this works very well. It requires the students to get over their fear of asking others for help (others who are not the adult in charge.) It didn't work this time because none of the groups really understood what to do.

It wasn't that they were not capable or that I didn't show them (several times). Their problem is they excel at school so much they don't know that they can't figure it out even when they aren't really paying attention. Basically they get started before they hear the instructions and assume they can figure it out.

I have known this and yet I am still surprised by the failure. I could have lost it; I could have blown up. I didn't, instead I redirected them to work and now I am watching them finally work together like they should have done in the beginning. I suppose they had to fail to prepare for success.  I guess the next question (or extension as I call it in science) is 'Will they remember this or will they repeat it?'

This post was inspired by @Philip_Cummings's post: Asking for Help

Lunch Project Days 6-10

I haven't forgotten the project, we have just been working through a bit of the drudgery. The first thing we had to do this week is get our survey and instructions created. I wrote the instructions intending for them to sound like the instructions students during our high stakes test. I was hoping the tone would convey to the students the survey was important and they would then take it more seriously.

Link to the Instructions

Instructions to be read to the students taking the school lunch survey.

Thank you for participating in our lunch program study. The survey that will be handed out has a list lunch choices. These are actual lunch choices that have been given this year. You will look at all of the lunch choices and then pick your favorites.

You will assign your most favorite choice to #1, your second favorite choice to #2 and so on. When you have chosen your top ten favorite choices you are finished with the survey.

You must be silent from the time we hand out the survey until everyone is finished. If you or anyone in the room talks during the survey, it may become invalid and the whole groups’ surveys may be thrown away. Are there any questions?

At the top of the survey you need to write your grade on the line next to the word ‘Grade’.  I am going to hand out the survey now, please write ______(grade) as soon as you receive it. You may begin as soon as you write the grade number on your paper.

(Make sure you circulate the room and check that the correct grade is entered.) (If there is any talking during the survey, note what the speaker says so we can decide if the survey is compromised when you bring it back.)

The survey included all of the items that had been offered over the period we looked at. The students read the instructions and then handed out the surveys.

Link to the Survey

We discussed the number of surveys we needed to take to get a good 'sample'. Many of the students wanted to survey every student in the school. I explained how impractical it would to be survey all 360+ students. I convinced them that getting 20 surveys at each grade level would be enough, that is still 120! I think after having to go through the surveys they would agree.

One of the things I wanted the students who gave the survey to watch out for was students sharing their choices aloud. I really stressed to the students before they gave out the surveys the need to emphasize to the students they should not talk while the survey was being filled out. Interestingly, we actually had two classrooms where one or more students 'shared' what they were choosing during the survey. We decided to throw out those surveys and give another survey to a different class. 

We spent three days collecting the surveys, working around the schedules of each classroom. This week we will finish going through those surveys and on Wednesday the plan is to aggregate the datum. 

Why Blogging Isn't Transformational for Our Students Yet

Dr. Chris McGee wrote a blog post wrote a post on his blog Coaching in and out of the Classroom on the importance of blogging. It helped me verbalize some thoughts that had been swimming through my head for some time:

There are many things more important than blogging, especially how it is often used in the classroom. As you know I argue that blogging and other forms of social media have the potential to be transformative when they are used to connect students with others around the world. Unfortunately this isn't the norm of blogging or social media use by our students. 

When teachers refer to authentic audience they often confuse it with a larger audience. Authenticity means that the readers want to read the writing. They choose it, they don't have it chosen for them (even when they are assigned to do it through comments4kids). We don't develop authentic audiences with our students because that requires we give up control of where the students go and what they read.  

If we want blogging and commenting to be transformative we have to let students choose to blog, choose to respond, and choose to not participate. Then the power of connections can truly transform our students thinking. I truly believe that connections made by future generations online will help bring about a more peaceful and caring world, the question is will educators lead the way or will we continue to stifle it through our lack of understanding?

What do you think? Is this right or am I full of crap? I would love some dialogue about this.

Interesting Student Observation About Peter Pan

While discussing the movie Peter Pan (2003) I asked the question, "Why is Mr. Darling and Hook always played by the same actor?"

One of my students came up with a brilliant observation. He said that because Mrs. Darling had given her secret kiss (read the book Peter and Wendy) to Peter, Peter was jealous of Mr. Darling and imagined him as the villain of Neverland.

If that is the only thing any of my students discover during our year long project, it will have been totally worthwhile! This is why sharing a long term project is so valuable, students have opportunities to revisit information and draw conclusions. Here is a link to our project. 

Lunch Project Day 5

Today was a turning point day, after we figured out the mean, median, mode, and range for each choice  we discovered that the first choice (average) was picked 62% while the second choice was picked 24%, the third 7% and 8% on average brought their lunch. There was a large discrepancy between the ranges of the first and second choices, while the third and fourth choices were very consistent.

After we discussed that I decided to let them think about where we need to go next, this is where I got into trouble. Instead of making a statement that steered them into one direction, I left it too open ended. I had that deer in the head lights stare looking at me. Then everybody had an idea, but it was about changing specific items or how often items were on the menu. None of which we can control, especially since we have no data showing that a large number of students care.

I decided to take over the show and pick an activity we could do to gather more data that could be used for decisions they wanted to make. I didn't want to do it, but they simply aren't ready to understand what is needed to move to through the process. In retrospect I should have had them think about the project overnight and come up with a plan of action to be submitted in the morning. While I don't think most would have come up with something, there might have been a few who did and because I didn't give them time to think about it I won't ever find out.

To tie the math we are doing with science I pulled out my old standard the steps of the scientific method. I identified the problem, we don't know what entrees the students like the most. We came up with a plan. We will survey a random sampling of the students. We decided that sampling 20 students per grade level will give us enough information to work from. Tomorrow we write the survey and the instructions the students will give when they administer it.

Because I made a mistake and didn't let my students attempt to come up with a plan of their own, I have decided that after this survey is complete the students will come up with an extension that they can follow up with based upon the information we receive. Hopefully this will engage a few of the students to really think of something interesting for us to do next.

I can think of a few things they could choose to do next:

• They can come up with a new menu with different choices.
• They can create a petition for the students to sign that addresses the choices that were liked least.
• They could survey the kids to see what choices are liked least. 
• They could research the nutritional value of the top 10 choices to see if they are healthy enough to want to eat.
• They could design vegetarian or vegan entrees to be added. (This may seem strange, but there was a lot of discussion about vegetarianism and veganism this week.)

Maybe This Is Why We Don't Share Our Failures

Photo by RusselDavis

I presented a session at METC on students creating video reflections. As you can (if you know me at all) imagine the emphasis was less on the technology, more on what the students were reflecting. I also spent a large percentage of the time discussing my mistakes and failures throughout the process.

Today I received the feedback from the session. These are the two comments that I received:

Terribly boring. No new information. Hardly any technology.

The presenter showed us examples of video reflections but they weren't good examples. He even admitted that they were bad! No instruction was given on how to record the videos or how to upload them. He also didn't share how these reflections could be an instructional tool but just a fun project. I wish this session went deeper and was more meaningful and applicable.

No wonder so few choose to share their failures.