Jeff Utecht has me thinking about this today:
"Do we encourage our students to wonder? I see it all the time in Kindergarten classrooms, see it a lot in 2nd grade, not so much in 5th grade and by 8th grade? I don’t think I’ve ever hear a middle school or high school teacher say “I wonder…….”
Instead we ask students to make decisions. We as them to decide between this answer and that answer. We ask them to decide between fact and opinion."
Although this conference consumed most of my time for about two weeks last fall, it was so worth it.Plan to spend some time online this fall, and be prepared to LEARN.
Here is some information from the blog:
The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 13, 2008. The following two weeks, October 20-24 and October 27-31, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations. More information about podcast channels and conference web feeds is available!
I can't say it like Sheryl. Or Will. Or David.
Often, after I've tried to articulate my feelings about how we learn or how we ought to teach, I wish for a do-over. Somehow the passion of what I believe garbles the words, and I come off sounding like some kind of an idiot.
That's not to say I can't hold my own in a one-on-one conversation. But in front of a group or on a Skype call, I never seem to lay my argument on the table without babbling or getting overly excited.
When asked why we should embed technology into our classes, often what I WISH I had said was....
...because we can.
The answer is simple yet complicated.
Why do I believe this? For ten years, I have watched teaching with technology work. From the time I let my sixth-graders first learn to organize their research into visual presentations, or my journalism students play with the design of their newspaper pages to frame the articles on which they had spent extra time because of an audience, I have believed in the power of technology to transform education.
Ten years later, and I haven't changed my mind.
Today's students gain even more as they find a writing voice on a blog, share ideas with others on a wiki, or practice their language skills on a Voice Thread.
That's not to say technology can do it alone. No teacher or administrator worth her salt believes that. Throw tech at a weak teacher, and you have a weak teacher who uses technology ineffectively.
Put the power of technology in the hands of a teacher who knows how to engage her students, to create invitations to learn, and you have magic.
I am lucky to work in an independent school, where we are not constrained by federal or state guidelines, where our access to information on the internet is essentially open, and where teachers are encouraged to participate in programs such as the Powerful Learning Practice. I am also buoyed by watching our graduates, including my own sons, make their way in the world as confident learners, ready to tackle whatever comes their way--technology or not.
I suppose in my own case, that I encouraged my two boys in technology early on didn't hurt. When the first wireless access points appeared years ago, we literally strung them around the house so we could get enough "juice" to login! Not pretty, but it worked. We were chatting online when the web was still only text-based. Today one is employed by a firm in Texas, but works from his home in Virginia. He has had at least four jobs since graduating college (two of them tech start-ups). The other son took his love of art and music and rolled it into working for a video/internet company, where he also telecommutes three days a week. Pretty cool.
I want our students to be curious. To question. To collaborate.To take risks, even if it means saying something stupid or failing. Put it out there.
Using technology seamlessly to teach and learn brings the world to us and us to the world. Sure, there are definitely times when we say "close the laptops."
But more often than not, I say, bring it on.
That's what I would have said.
Knowledge: An understanding of the transformative potential of Web 2.0 tools in a global perspective and context and how those potentials can be realized in schools
Pedagogy: An understanding of the shifting learning literacies that the 21st Century demands and how those literacies inform teacher practice.
Connections: The development of sustained professional learning networks for team members to begin experimenting and sharing with other team members and online colleagues from around the world.
Sustainability: The creation of long term plans to move the vision forward in participating districts at the end of the program.
Capacity: An increase in the abilities and resources of individuals, teams and the community to manage change.
I also look to colleagues and friends to help me continue to put into place the foundation that makes teaching successful at FA. For example, Patrick Woessner has been writing much about the process his own school is going through as they begin a tablet program. In this post, he talks about the "search and research process" so necessary to teach our students. Perfect timing for me, as we are having the same discussions.
After a short trip to Quebec next weekend (a combination anniversary/birthday present), I'm looking forward to digging into these ideas, fleshing them out, and seeing how we can clarify our own procedures.
Are you still confused by Twitter? I never seem to explain it well enough to my colleagues.
But this video (found on Simon Evans' blog this am) featuring the developer of Twitter is an interesting look at how and why it was started--AND what you can do with it.
Jack Dorsey Presents Twitter from biz stone on Vimeo.
Summer is book time. And I can't wait to catch up.
Taking a cue from Antonio, here is a list of some of the books I hope to read soon. Let me know what you think!
Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, Peter Senge
From Amazon: In a Cambridge, Massachusetts living room, four organizational learning
leaders met for a year to talk about how transformational change is all
in your mind. With Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline
as ringleader, the authors ask us to examine organizations and self by
asking, "What question lies at the heart of my work?" and "How can I
set aside my narrow view point and understand the whole?"
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dwek
From Amazon: Mindset is "an established set of attitudes held by someone," says the
Oxford American Dictionary. It turns out, however, that a set of
attitudes needn't be so set, according to Dweck, professor of
psychology at Stanford. Dweck proposes that everyone has either a fixed
mindset or a growth mindset.
School Leadership That Works, Robert Marzano
From Amazon: What does research tell us about the effects of school leadership on
student achievement? What specific leadership practices make a real
difference in school effectiveness? How should school leaders use these
practices in their day-to-day management of schools and during the
stressful times that accompany major change initiatives?
Brain Rules, John Medina (see previous post)
From Amazon: Most of us have no idea what's really going on inside our heads. Yet
brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent,
and teacher should know--such as the brain's need for physical activity
to work at its best.How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why
is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget--and so important
to repeat new information? Is it true that men and women have different
brains?
Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice, Kylene Beers, Robert Probst, Linda Rief
From Amazon:This is the time to think boldly about adolescent literacy. So much of
what we know about adolescents and their learning has changed in the
last decade, and since then both the world of education and the world
at large have become very different places. Adolescent Literacy convenes
a conversation among today's most important educational thinkers and
practitioners to address crucial advances in research on adolescent
learning, to assess which of our current practices meets the challenges
of the twenty-first century, and to discover transformative ideas and
methods that turn the promise of education into instructional practice.
:
Re-thinking how students learn and how teachers teach is not a new subject. Piaget influenced us to move toward student-centered learning in the 1970's and 80's. I remember taking education courses in the early 70's and also being heavily influenced by Ivan Illich, John Holt and Jonathan Kozol among others. I wanted my students to be self-directed, and I wanted to be the kind of teacher that created learning opportunities that meant something.
The reality is, though, my classroom management often took precedence over my teaching. Having to ensure 30 students were "getting it," I often fell back on tried methods of control: seats in a row, teacher in the front, "let me tell you what you need to know." And as educators, we all made many mistakes--remember open classrooms that changed the design but not the pedagogy? Sad.
Journalism, however, was a different story. With real-life application, student editors serving as mentors for other students, a monthly product (the newspaper), and an audience, the class became for me a vision of what learning and teaching could be. We took great pride that in 1988, our newspaper staff designed our paper with Pagemaker on one of the first Macs, long before our local paper moved to computer-assisted design!
I would constantly ask myself--how can I move this practice of learning to my English classes? I had moments that worked, but overall, I ended up back in the traditional role of teacher directing her students, and students spitting back whatever information I deemed important.
Fast forward to 2002, and my role as Director of Technology at an independent school about to embrace a 1:1 program, and suddenly I could see putting into practice all I believed about teaching. I believed the laptops would truly enable this paradigm shift that I had been unable to accomplish myself in a traditional classroom.
Ah, if only it were that easy.
Time management, differing philosophies, and lack of professional development all played into why our success was spotty. In classes where teachers saw the technology as transformative, the laptops enhanced student learning. In classes where teachers had little time to learn how to teach with technology or simply viewed the laptops as distractions (or had no laptops), fewer changes were seen.
This year, our Head of School asked me to resume my role as instructional tech coordinator, but he asked that I do it full time--with no distractions of other classes, managing of budgets, or technical hardware support. With his support, I wanted to approach technology in terms of 21st century learning, as this was also the year the internet exploded with a wealth of opportunities for sharing and connecting for teachers and students.
What a year it has been. I've outlined many of our successes in earlier posts, and with teachers willing to take huge leaps of faith using some of the tools of student engagement, we've seen strong examples student-centered learning. I've learned much from our great faculty.
I hope next year's Powerful Learning Practice with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson will help take us to the next level. As Sheryl says, "the pace of change is going to demand us to unlearn and relearn."
Our school is also undertaking a shift in our schedule, one that will allow time between classes for students and teachers to meet, share, plan, work, and think. More reflective time for all--if it works as it should.
I am encouraged by discussions from Carolyn Foote here, Patrick Higgins here, and Antonio Viva here, and I am filled with a new enthusiasm, a belief that we can help students face a future of rapid change.This is a long post, but I also want to share some suggestions Viva lists in his post to "catapult innovative teaching and learning in the 21st century":
Much to think about. I love ending the year on a positive note.
Image:www.flickr.com/photos/44124472651@N01/47169667
For FA students and teachers--Do you remember when Robert Ballard visited our school? I thought you might enjoy a recent Ted Talk video, where he asks why we don't spend more time exploring the oceans...
Sacha Chua, who works at IBM as a social intranet consultant (did you know there was such a job?), put together this brief slideshow for Web 2.0 at work. Take a look!
After two days of cold,pouring rain, the skies are beginning to clear in Virginia. It's mid-May, and it should be hot and sunny. Normally, the warm weather signals a winding down of the school year for all of us.
This year, though, I feel like we are gearing up.
We are finally putting finishing touches on our involvement with the Powerful Learning Practice led by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson. I had hoped for more Virginia schools, however we have a strong contingent to join Elizabeth Helfant from St. Louis, several schools from New England, and 10 schools from New Zealand. The Virginia schools are Christchurch School, Randolph Macon Academy, St. Christopher's School, and Fredericksburg Academy. We are the host school, so all face-to-face events will be held here.
To say I'm excited is an understatement. This is a great opportunity to put into practice what we've been working toward all year--a chance to collaborate professionally with schools around the world and to create a professional network of teachers all working on the same goals.
This summer I hope to arrange several opportunities for teachers to get up to speed on using various tools to enhance their collaboration. My short list includes:
Watching these teachers learn to blog and network with others online shows me how powerful this reflective practice can be. But even those not blogging yet have started using wikis and Google Docs for class collaboration and video creation for student-centered learning. I miss having a class of my own!
Richardson commented about two schools he visited in Australia recently, saying...
Both are ripe for the ways in which technology can supplement real learning in the classroom, not just information processing. Obviously, there is much more about the culture and the infrastructure and the climate that goes into all of this.
It is that connected culture and climate at FA that will allow us to continue this work with our students.
Image: 'The Brindabella Light Show'
www.flickr.com/photos/13237839@N00/392829645
I've always loved change. I move my furniture around constantly. I've changed jobs many times over my lifetime. Heck, I moved constantly as a kid and attended 13 schools in 12 years.
So it's often difficult for me to understand why some people don't like change. And, frankly, I often feel like the odd one.
After reading pwoessner's blog post, though, I feel vindicated!
Seriously, he makes some excellent points about creativity, our children's future, and change.
I love when companies respond to a request for help. Especially when the request wasn't obvious.
This morning I was playing around with Apture and had some difficulties getting the links to appear. I used the "automatic add" available for Typepad, so I assumed the issue wasn't with coding (since I hadn't coded anything).
But my day was busy, so I left the issue to resolve later. If ever. You know how when faced with difficulties, we often just move on?
Tonight, I arrived home to discover an email from the folks at Apture explaining that, in fact, the issue may have had something to do with the automatic add button--AND giving me a suggestion to make it work.
Wow. So here I am, testing again. I do want to make this work. We plan to start blogging in earnest soon, and I am excited for students to try using this tool as they gather resources for research like the recent student-created videos on Jefferson, The Depression, and World War I they did for the AP review.
Now, if you see links in this with small icons placed next to certain words, you'll know it's up and running!
There we go! Thanks, Apture.
I am trying my best not to jump on every new thing these days. It's time consuming. And most new tools are just that--new tools.
However, Will's post this morning caught my eye. And in two seconds, I had signed up for Apture and added a link to my post on John Medina.
The program allows you to add videos, text, and images to your posts with a simple click. I am envisioning all kinds of use for student research. I added the link for John Medina while I was installing Apture. I'll need to exit this post.
Ahhhh, I just discovered something. Only I can see the link and the video that goes along with John's name. I just asked my colleague, Susanne, to check to see if she could see it. No luck.
Hmmm, more figuring to do on this one.
Edited: Ahhhh, so when I published the post, the link I had added to the previous post appeared on John's name in this new post. Interesting!
Edited: And now the link in the previous post has disappeared, but all the links in the new post are working.
Starting Over.
That's what John Medina says we need to do with our schools and offices IF we want to live and learn in an environment most conducive to what we know about the brain.
I first read about Brain Rules, on Glen Weibe's site. But I wanted to know more.
Today, I spent some time reading John Medina's posts and watching his fascinating videos on his Brain Rules blog.
He says:
Though we know precious little about how the brain works, our evolutionary history tells us this: The brain appears to be designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment, and to do so in nearly constant motion. I call this the brain's performance envelope.
If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over.
In many ways, starting over is what the book is all about.
He also says I can't multi-task effectively....
And I need a nap at 3 p.m. Plus, teachers only have 10 minutes to keep their students' attention.
I need to read this book!
"For the Google generation, what happens to the concepts of truth and
knowledge in a user-generated world of information saturation?"
Monica Hesse, Washington Post reporter, takes a fascinating look at how we view the truth in an age when information is readily available and abundant.
The discussion of knowledge vs information is also interesting. "Information has replaced knowledge," says author Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto, quoted in the article. He says information is about crumbs of data, while knowledge is knowing what to do with accumulated information. What worries people (teachers, included) is that students are now information gatherers but not critical thinkers.
"That's the most profound change," said Corbin Lyday, professor at George Washington University about many of his students compared to 30 years ago. "The way they manage information. There's a growing impatience and a real passivity."
Also, people are too easily convinced that the information is correct and true and "use information to reinforce their own beliefs," Hesse says in the article, listing as an example the 9,000 hits in Google for "The moon landing was staged."
We at FA are also trying to navigate through these muddy waters as we work with our students. But it becomes even harder when we consider that research says, "we believe what we want to believe."
"People are very insensitive to where they hear things," says Norbert Schwarz, a University of Michigan psychologist who worked on the study. If one quack repeats the same piece of information to you five times, it's nearly as effective as hearing the sound bite from five different reputable sources.
Same goes for reading e-mails -- if you get three spam e-mails relating Abraham Lincoln's folksy wisdom about truth and dogs, you'll eventually believe it as strongly as if you heard it from the reference desk at the Lincoln Library.
"The basic psychological process is the same" as it's always been, Schwarz says. "But in the olden days you might have seen something once in your newspaper . . . now the likelihood that you'll see it again and again and again" -- on blogs, in your inbox, on YouTube -- has exploded."
All of this, of course, reinforces the need for our students to participate in the discussions of their learning. And is makes me realize how complicated teaching has become.
Beginning with Sheryl's 9 principles for implementation in this shift is an excellent start. As Sheryl says, "it's not business as usual."
Image: 'need to know basis'
www.flickr.com/photos/86176561@N00/124771501
