These images were created as part of an “appropriate use” campaign concerning mobile devices at my school. Truth: It’s not much of a campaign at this point. In fact, I’ve just been throwing these things out there in hopes that something will stick to someone who cares. I mean, I’d like to see these posted in key spots around our school, but this isn’t my battle to win or lose. Frankly, if our staff decides to go back and ban all student cell phone access during the school day, then so be it.
Really, can my students grasp the structure and function of carbohydrates? How many “F’s” do my advisement students have this week? Can I skillfully facilitate a debrief of Monday afternoon’s collegial visit with two of my colleagues to a classroom across town? Really… those are the pressing issues for me. Someone else can decide whether or not we go back on an experiment within our building.
History
Our school allows limited use of cell phones during the school day. Students may use phone before school, after school, at lunch… even between passing periods. Instructional time, however, is considered sacred. Instructors may also allow access during a lesson if the use of mobile devices is instructional in nature. otherwise, phones must be kept off and out of sight during time in class.
That said- for some reason, a debate rages anew this school year where many faculty members want an outright ban on all mobile devices: cell phones, smartphones, iPods and other .mp3 devices, etc. A current bogeyman seems to be the threat of drugs being hidden in cellphone cases. Really? As if those particular hidden spaces were somehow more magical than boots or bras.
Just perhaps
I would argue that giving away all legal access to phones will only push cell phone use into the hands of the “criminals.”* I believe chasing down cell phones is a costly battle to fight in terms of teacher and administrator resources. I would suggest that our administrators and teachers have far better things to spend their time on… things that directly impact instruction, content learning and the overall management of a school. Turning our staff into the “cell phone police” will only turn the focus of our building away from improving instruction.
Inappropriate use of cell phones in schools is not a technology, nor a safety issue. Inappropriate use of cell phones is a management issue… much like passing notes or catching a nap during a lecture.
In my opinion, throwing out cell phone access during the day is to throw out one of the more powerful and relevant tools for teaching responsibility and appropriate use. If you want your city populated by rude people who possess zero cell phone etiquette- put a complete ban on phones in schools. School is a formal educational setting. Therefore, school is a perfect place to learn and practice appropriate adult use of these tools. It’s not rocket science… to me.
Contrary to what some folks have mentioned, I don’t actually see this as an instructional issue. I think very little instructional use of mobile devices is actually going on. Sure, I use Polleverywhere in class. Sure, I advocate whipping out a smartphone pretty frequently to run down a piece of trivia I can’t answer myself. But really… this isn’t about whether or not our classroom uses of mobile devices are instructional or not. Do many teachers use cellphones in an instructional manner? The answer is no. However, to me, a ban will make certain that we never hone the skills to help students utilize mobile devices in education. Among other things, I think it is an issue of vision. I actually think too much time connected to digits will melt your brain in some way. I’m forty years old. But does this mean we should further alienate ourselves from a new generation? If I’m not mistaken, I think we’re going to need them.
These posters were made as friendly reminders to be put up around the school. We could all use a reminder now and again, right? I guess the only thing that would bother me with regard to an about-face in policy is that we’ve never provided any solid instruction. We’ve never really said: “this is what it looks like when done correctly.” We’ve assigned “appropriate use” (with consequences for not doing so) … as opposed to taught “appropriate use.” We’ve never made an attempt to educate our students. We just hoped they’d comply with our ethereal wishes. Wait- aren’t we the professionals in the area of education? Can’t we do better than this if we try?
What is “fair?”
In my classroom, I’ve always tried to follow an idea I remember taking away from a Todd Whitaker talk from a few years back. In Whitaker’s book, What Great Teachers Do Differently, he asks administrators to consider the question, “What will the best people think?” prior to making any decision. He also advocates doing the same with regard to our students in the classroom. He makes the case that if we constantly make decisions via the lowest common denominator, we ultimately risk alienating the best of those around us.
Do we really want students who display model behavior and etiquette to suffer at the hands of those who do not? Wherever you are, ask yourself who runs the place.
In related news
Have you seen Wifitti? This is a pretty cool little web service that allows a digital bulletin board of sorts. Participants can either send a text message to add a thought (or image!) or reply by typing directly via the web link. I recently added one to our school’s wrestling network. This app certainly won’t make photosynthesis any simpler… but it is fun. That’s all I’ve got on this one. I’m battleworn.
Thank you, drive through………..
*I think that marks the first and only time I’ve personally used an NRA mantra in an argument. I feel the need to shower.
Artwork
All posters were created by me using CC artwork from Flickr. The original images are explicitly credited on each page of the set. Printable sizes are available for each.
I believe information literacy is the responsibility of all content teachers. The following piece is a bit about how I tend to kick off a new year, and how to easily aim at info literacy from very early on. As I have said here before, I do not like to go shy into the new school year. Our students are learning from us every second of every day. The real question then is what are they learning. As the lead learners in the classroom, this is under our control.
With this in mind, it is my goal to have my students leave the room on that first day with a few things spinning around in their heads like…
1. “Wow. This class is active. I was working with ideas and classmates the entire period.”
2. “This guy means business. He is infectiously passionate and serious about this class, and yet has room for humor within all of the intensity.”
3. “He seems to have a longview for us in the class. I can tell he has plans for us and cares that we are “in” as much as he is.”
4. “I might be headed for a music major in college next year, and this will likely be my last formal science course, but I am actually thinking this class might be built with people like me (as well as the biology geeks) in mind.”
5. “I had better get used to sharing my learning. This class is open. I will certainly have to step out of my comfort zone a little on this one.”
6. “Not sure how I feel about construc…. whatever he called it… but if it means I won’t have to sit while he talks all period, then I’m for it.”
I obviously believe in creating the ultimate mental model, and then working from there with my planning framed by those ideals. This year we started the school year with built-in early release days and short periods. Last Wednesday was our first full period of instruction. I just don’t believe that on that first day you can just go gently into your course. It is my philosophy to swing hard from day one.
So how can you teach your students who you are, what to expect, what you stand for, what and how they’ll be learning during the year… all in one day? As usual, I’m still debriefing the success of this one lesson, but I do believe that all of this is possible. Stick with me on this one. Here in a bit, I’ll ask you to help me assess some of this by scanning through the pages of online student writing about this lesson. Here’s a small sample as a preview:
I believe this type of learning is important… the activity split up our class in two sections making each side work together in a very short amount of time. This helps build chemistry between everyone in our class which I believe is very important since we’ll be around each other for a whole year. It was also important, because it made all of us think and learn about a topic we most likely hadn’t heard anything about. Science has a lot to do with the unknown and I believe this issue on shark cartilage really challenged us on something we had no clue about. We had to work to decide whether or not the shark cartilage was effective and for that matter whether or not the information we were given was reliable.” ~Kerstyn Bolton
Day one
I don’t do stand-alone “ice breakers” any longer. That’s not a criticism of those who do, but in my thinking that says to the students: “we had to construct a special event outside of our normal work in this class in order to talk to and learn about one another.” I design my first day to be authentic collaboration and sharing among students where classmates must rely on one another to complete a content-related task, or solve a content-related problem.
My learning goals for the day were rather broad. It was day one. They were as follows: 1. Setting classroom tone. 2. Building the foundation of a learning environment. 3. Proving the concrete, daily value of science. 4. Team-building. 5. Evaluating and debating a scientific assertion in the field of medicine. 6. Establishing an academic spirit for our first online work at Principles of Biology.
Shark cartilage?
So, to trim down a rather complex story… We divided into two large groups (10 students each side) to examine the idea that shark cartilage supplements can be used as a safe and effective treatment for some types of cancer. This is fringe alternative-medicine stuff. There is a ton of web chatter on both sides of this issue. Though the medical community is rather aligned on this issue, as with any “natural” treatment, there are many proponents on the fringes. The data found on the web is, in short, a big area of gray to most people.
The information on this issue is all over the board. There are a few freely accessible journal articles on the web, there are terribly crackpot e-commerce sites, and there are hundreds of examples in the gray area between the two. Because I had to have a brisk pace to finish in one period, I constructed two packets… one for each group. One group of ten got a packet full of public websites representing the “for” side of using shark cartilage supplements as a treatment for cancer. The other group of ten were given a packet representing sites that represented the “against” side of the issue.
With no formal instruction on argument nor debate, the students were led through a protocol to digest the content of the packet in short order and prepare a speedy argument aligned with their given viewpoint. I led them through a series of skimming, compiling, active reading, and sharing tasks to help them build structure for an argument in about 20 minutes. Considering this was a group of ten working with a subject they knew nothing about, that is saying something. The action was fast and furious. Frankly, they ended up engaging in a better debate than I had even anticipated. Battles over sources cited and inherent biases came out without being prompted.
“I LOVED learning like this because I think it gave everyone a chance to teach everyone else.” ~Hannah Rush
Ultimately, they were to take their thoughts from the day and reflect on both the content learning as well as the process of the day’s learning events. To me, I never go a day without sharing the strategic purpose for that particular event. If I don’t have a best-practice reason for doing what I’m doing the way I’m doing it… then I (and they by default) would quite possibly be wasting time. This keeps us all on our toes and makes the “game of school” completely transparent within my class.
So let’s see where the rubber meets to road on this one. If you haven’t been tempted to click through to the discussion thread on this already, please do so now. I think you’ll be pleasantly impressed by the willingness to dive head first into this one and really discuss the issues. As of this morning, there are seven pages of student discourse. I think you’ll appreciate this look into how students approach the task of reflecting deeply over their learning in this class.
“I really thought what you said about “You learn only 10% of what you read, but you learn 95% of what you teach” was very interesting… …This makes our activity in class so much more exciting to me! I remember a lot of what my section said about shark cartilage and that’s because I had to, because my team needed me…” ~Kerstyn Bolton
My LMS can beat up your LMS
Not only should information literacy not be an add-on, nor should your Library Media Specialist. At Benton, we are undergoing a true paradigm shift in library media services. By hiring Melissa Corey, we have in the span of a summer updated our services to bring the library’s digital tendrils into every classroom in our building. Last year, the physical space of our library was scrapped for a full redo to bring it up to date as a learning space for 2010. This year, we have the personnel to put the plan into action.
As this lesson was unfolding, I realized that I was setting up our new Library Media Specialist to fly in the next period, cape and all, to deliver the way to a more rigorous online research process. What I didn’t know is how personalized this service would be. Boy- were we in for a surprise. For starters, here is the slide show she used to help deliver our learning for the day:
What is amazing about this interaction was not the beautiful and informative slide set, nor her thoughtful and pleasant presentation. What was inspiring is the fact that she stayed up the night before to craft an absolutely perfect example of “just in time learning” for my students. Slides 4 through 7 show screenshot examples of the actual resources the students had used in this exercise on page after page of our discussion thread. These resources are marked up and annotated with questions aimed at the authority, accuracy, currency and content of the piece.
The students were then led through a lesson on the peer review process as well as online database searches through peer reviewed material. They were then to go back to the same thread and post some follow-up commentary after this latest search experience.
Extensions and infiltrations
As if polishing our lesson to a fine shine were not enough, Mrs. Corey (who as “BHS LMC” is a direct member of our classroom network) also took the time to post follow up connections and extensions to the lesson in the form of a blog post. She also took a spontaneous conversation from our day… discussion about a group of crows that were supposedly using cars to crack nuts… and created a completely separate extension in the form of a media-rich blog post (along the lines of info literacy in science) for our network.
I cannot tell you how exciting it is to have such a partner in crime in my own building. Forget the archetypal image of a librarian still etched into your brain. Rather than archiving books and telling students to “shuuush,” my LMS is deeply passionate about pushing out into classrooms to help our students find, evaluate, and manage information in all subject areas. My students now not only feel like they can walk to the library to visit our new librarian for help… they know that within a single click on our classroom network, they can tap our building’s very own information specialist. Did I mention the fact that she’s been working with students and staff here not for just two weeks?
Our “library” was until very recently defined as a “remodeled room in the annex… with books.” The following image now better represents the effective size of our LMC:
Pretty stately-looking library for a public school, eh? In reality though, like anything really useful… it is becoming invisible. Our media center and staff are now as ubiquitous as our student laptops. Once they begin to follow our students home, we will extend the reach of our learning environment even further…
*Image of Benton High School: me.
*Student comments (featuring Kerstyn & Hannah) courtesy of our class network.
*The collaboration of Melissa Corey, LMS at Benton High School, in Saint Joseph Missouri.
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What are the key elements required for a transformation of teaching and learning through the use of technology? There are obviously many reasonable ways to look at this. From what position do you view this issue? Are you a teacher, instructional coach, building principal, technology facilitator, director of technology, chief administrative officer of some flavor, superintendent, parent, or student? For you, this issue will likely run through the filter of your current position.
It will also run through the filter of your experience. Are you an eighteen year old student who lives a life that is highly digitally integrated, or are you a teacher of 20 years or more who is just now trying to become familiar with the Internet as it relates to teaching and learning? Are you a superintendent or head of school who is beginning to open to the importance of a smart approach to technology integration, or are you a technology facilitator who has been a digital evangelist for the past five to ten years?
Those filters should all be applied to the problem of how to retool schools along the lines of technological transformation. (Though I didn’t think it worked in the title of this post, you will see below that I would rather use the term transformation as opposed to integration.) At this point, the vast majority of school systems are behind the curve in this area. Being this far behind might just have one distinct advantage. If there is no way to see any of the individual trees in a forest, you are likely going to be forced to start your mission with a whole-forest view to begin with. This is not a bad thing. It allows you to realize two important things:
1) You don’t need a flashlight. It’s not that dark in there anymore. Trust that there are others who have proceeded down this path before you, and they have learned many important lessons. Collaborate. Learn from their successes and failures. Do not go it alone. Resist the temptation to slap a digital device in the hands of each student and call it success. Have a plan.
2) Rarely do we get to make decisions with the clarity that a little distance provides. Take your time (but hurry). Ask yourself: what can we do with these new tools available today that we couldn’t do before? If we could remake our curriculum any way we wanted, how would we do it? Think transformation of the way teaching and learning is done in your district, as opposed to integration into it as it exists.
Allow me to run this challenge through my own filter for the next several paragraphs. For more on my filter for these ideas, consult the About page. Also- I certainly do not profess to know all of the answers. I am currently sitting on top of a nice little foothill of educational technology leadership… and staring up at some pretty massive peaks ahead. Allow me to talk about a few things that make these peaks seem climbable from where I stand.
It is my belief that all schools (and/or school systems) need the following four pillars below any technology “integration” effort…
An Innovation engine
All systems need what I will call an “innovation engine.” Whatever the system, whatever the setup, schools and school systems need pockets of sponsored innovation. Without some folks directly charged with instructional innovation with digital tools, we will always be just trying to fit technology into what we do on a day to day basis. It is far better to build innovation directly into the system, and to foster it purposefully. I know this may seem somewhat fringe in the world of public education, but it can’t afford to be much longer.
“At enlightened, forward-thinking companies, managers understand the connection between learning, innovation, and higher productivity — in fact, employees at these companies may even be encouraged to spend time learning and experimenting with new technologies.”
~Joe McKendrick, FASTforward
So who will drive this engine of innovation in your school? Will this be a technology facilitator? Will it be a technology coach? Perhaps an instructional coach. A ad-hoc committee of teachers? A requirement of your leadership team or department heads? If you are thinking of this from a district perspective, where does this responsibility land? Will you just hope for it, or will you truly sponsor innovation in new approaches to teaching and learning afforded by digital technologies?
Administrative support
An innovative technology leader will be of little use beyond their immediate world without direct, purposeful and inspired administrative support. Administrators: join forces with your innovation team. Learn what they learn. Push them to new heights. Allow them to bring innovative approaches to the classrooms and teachers of your school. Support your teachers every step of the way as they slowly transform the classroom environments they create toward new and better approaches to learning…
…and then hold them to it. Hold staff accountable for bringing their skills up to the present realities of the 21st Century. We’ve been living passively in this century for almost ten years now. It is time for all of us to sit up and take a direct and active role in the changes happening within the learning profession. Without strong administrative support, advocacy, and supervision, no real and lasting changes of the magnitude are possible. Guidelines for such leadership aren’t exactly guesswork. Grab a copy of the NETS and familiarize yourself with these standards today if you have yet to. They come in three fine flavors: for students, teachers and administrators.
Unfiltered ubiquitous access
So now you have innovation closely coupled with administrative support. With those two things, you can get a pretty immediate return for your buck, provided one more terribly important thing: that you don’t filter the very usefulness out of the web. A school can have instructional innovation and local administrative support and still fail with regard to technology integration. How do you kill innovation quickly? Tie it down. Even today, many schools filter all of the good, interactive raw materials right out of the web. Figure it out, people. Ask a school who only lightly filters. Ask. Don’t assume there isn’t another way.
Our school system does currently block Facebook and MySpace. However, our general approach is to put the filters in place required by law, and then keep the real Internet open for education. Yes, that means we have open access to YouTube, Flickr, UStream, Ning, Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, etc… We have our hands on far too much fuel for innovation to even worry about looking at Facebook and MySpace at this moment. They are where our students already are. But for now, we are luckier than 95% of school districts I encounter. This fact has allowed us to move quickly toward figuring out the advantages and disadvantages of these powerful new tools in an educational setting.
Oh, and ubiquity. Access to these tools must be easy and everywhere. Soon after access is all around you, it doesn’t even feel like “technology,” it just feels like the way things are done. This is a good thing, for when technology becomes invisible, we can finally focus on the value added from new uses of these tools. The world is moving quickly toward wireless access in all corners. If your school isn’t wireless, then only your students have wireless access. That’s right- via their phones. You have a cell phone policy in your school? Don’t kid yourself. Your students are on the raw, unfiltered Internet via the 3G connection of their cellphone more often in the classroom than you care to admit. Why ignore this… or worse yet, why punish it? Embracing might just be the answer. Try it.
If your school isn’t at a 1:1 ratio of students to laptop computers… and the students don’t take them home with them night by night, all year long… then you don’t yet have an ideal learning environment for 2009 in my opinion. However, there are other ways until that time to assure ubiquitous access. Our school currently employs MacBook carts at a ratio of 2.5 students to one computer. 60 of these machines will be available for checkout from our Media Center in the fall. Our Media Center/Library will also be open well beyond school hours. It isn’t perfect, but it is allowing us to move ahead intelligently. We are moving quickly toward the 1:1 environment everyone knows is inevitable in schools.
Instructional model
So now you have innovation on the ground level, administrative support, and unfiltered access. Be proud. If you can honestly say this characterizes your school or school system, then you are in a very small but fortunate minority. You work with smart, visionary people who know how to plan and have been doing so for some time now. If your lone goal is to have students, teachers and administrators all gleefully pushing buttons and gazing at computer screens… then your work here is done. Congratulations. However, if what you were wanting out of this nationwide technology push was something a bit more… substantial, then you had better finish reading.
The fourth pillar of “instructional model” is more than a quick soundbyte allows. I see three levels of this notion with increasing value as follows: 1) You have thought about and encouraged good instructional practices in your building/district. 2) You have a well-articulated plan for effective instructional practice that is building or districtwide. 3) You have a true learner-centered instructional model in place in grades K-12 that credits the constructivist nature of human learning.
I am fortunate to say that though our district has awakened late to the call of real and purposeful transformation via educational technology, the toughest of our four pillars has already been built. The final pillar of a student-centered constructivist model for instruction that is carefully stated, professionally-developed, supported, and supervised… is in place.
As I stated earlier, we are looking up at some pretty tall challenges ahead of us. Locally, we have unfiltered access to all of the content and interactivity the web affords. We have pedagogical experts in district leadership positions who have put in place an ideal instructional model for the future. We have a quickly multiplying group of administrators at both the district and building levels who are responding to the call of the digital world, and we are making plans to foster innovation and creativity in our classrooms.
I feel like I am at the foot of a mountain that a handful of good people have climbed… 20,000 feet below the summit, yet armed with the best climbing gear and support I can get my hands on. Our immediate future should be interesting indeed.
Where are you?
So where does all of this leave you? How many of these pillars have been already constructed around you? What have you done to help in that construction? What do you see as the greatest challenges in this mission? What can I or others do to help? Are there other pillars that you believe I have missed here?
This post was initially intended to be a part of “Leadership Day 2009“ as conceived by Scott McLeod. I am posting it at 1:30am on July 13th instead of on July 12th. This is not to shabby considering my two baby girls thought that since it is technically summer here… it should feel like it today.
Three years ago I moved into a position of instructional coach for my building. The majority of my days are now spent as a content-generalist coach focused on helping teachers improve pedagogical skills. Our opt-in model keeps the conversation focused on one thing: pedagogy as opposed to content. This is a very smart model for honing in on the “P” sphere of Mishra & Koehler’s TPACK framework. However, perhaps even smarter is the fact that I am not completely removed from being behind the wheel of my own classroom. Teaching my own class is a way to assure my attachment to at least most of the day to day experiences of our folks in “the trenches.” My opinions on instructional practice and concrete strategies are only as good as my ability to pull them off in my own classroom. I say this for perhaps a different reason that you might think. The core of my role as a coach is to question, to advise, to consult, encourage, and inspire my colleagues toward better and better things. It really isn’t about “me.”
That said, my ability to move down any strategic path toward best practices in instruction with a teacher is directly tied to both my familiarity and comfort level with that mode of learning. Put simply: you can’t talk the talk without walking the walk. So during the day, I teach Principles of Biology during period three as well as Marine Biology. Marine Biology is a special case across the board. The program was created in 1999 and and includes night classes from 7 to 9pm on Mondays, a roster made up of students from our three local high schools, and a week-long field study on the coral reefs of the Bahamas each April. Did I mention yet that my district respects and fosters solid innovation? For that, my students and I are terribly lucky.
To my original point
Seriously. Blogging is such a reflective act for me. So often I start down a simple path and quickly realize there is far more under the hood to discuss. So with that out of the way, allow me to introduce you to two of my newest colleagues: Jennifer Toalson and Alex Paolillo. Interestingly, between the two, they teach quite a range of subjects: General Biology, Environmental Science, Microbiology and Genetics. More interestingly, they were (somewhat recently) Marine Biology students of mine. Our department has a total of less than seven FTE’s. Therefore, here are two-sevenths of my immediate world. Jennifer was a member of the 2002 Marine Biology class and Alex was a 2004 member.
Jennifer joined the Benton Science Department last year and was an immediate success. As the oldest of seven, she is a natural at building relationships and getting the most out of younger folk. Jennifer’s Dad is also a teacher of industrial arts at a high school across town. Alex, who will begin his teaching career this fall, also comes equipped with a teacher’s pedigree. Alex is actually the son of two teachers and his father was at one time the Director of Secondary Education in our city. And yes… in my prized image below, you’ll see Alex attempting to feed bread crumbs to seagulls from his bare chest in The Bahamas. Tell me this isn’t going to be fun.
How many of you have been lucky enough to have two former students as direct departmental colleagues? How fun is that?
I can’t tell you how excited this makes me. Again….. I am now only a really a small part of the science department at my high school. However, with a wife who is the Department Chair, it is even more exciting to see our immediate world become so infused with young, enthusiastic blood. One thing I can say for sure about Alex and Jennifer: they really want to make a difference in the lives of young people. With that, anything they want to work hard for in this profession will come to them. Not only do I remember their high school days as fun-filled, I now have spent time with them as colleagues. The following pics will give you a glimpse of them in their (recently) younger days as Marine Biology students. One might wonder if perhaps holding a sea urchin or encouraging sea gulls to feed from your belly makes one a likely candidate for biology educator in later years. I am staring to believe so. (funny now to see them so young again here in the next two images)
I recently thought about doing a quick and dirty post that mentioned these two coming on board as biology teachers. (as biology teachers, biology teachers in my hometown, and as biology teachers in my current school) The day it hit me was a few weeks ago when Erin, Jennifer, Alex, and I spent the day at a biotechnology workshop in Kansas City… (many thanks to Erin for organizing the day’s events.) Overall, we had a great summer day of re-connecting to the past and teambuilding for the future.
In closing
Since Marine Biology began in 2000, some of my former students are undergrad marine biology students. A few are even PhD candidates. People frequently ask about those. However, the demographic that isn’t often inquired about might just be those who have lived their entire lives in the center of the continent… who love biology… love the energy of youth… but cannot find a better reason to move that far away from a strong family/friends network. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this as of late.
See what this does? I start out with an idea to post a simple image from a recent workshop and I end up tacking it on to personal connections, people-to-people connections, coaching, and the TPACK framework. When I began blogging a just over a year ago in April- it was done as a “proof of concept” exercise. That has blossomed into the mess you now see. The bottom line is: You cannot imagine the effect blogging will have on your future learning unless you are actually doing it. This truly is a new genre of writing. It is more than empowering for the everyman who embarks upon it. Give it a try. What are you waiting for? And while you’re at it… give my two new colleagues a shout out from the masses. They will soon be getting an earful from yours truly about establishing their “digital footprint” and getting connected as a professional. I am excited about being a leader in the “T” (in TPACK) revolution in the Saint Joseph School District.
I am currently sitting in the NETS-A release celebration at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC 2009). The NETS are the National Educational Technology Standards written by ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education.
The NETS standards for administrators were created in 2000 and this refresh is a much-needed follow-up to the recent releases of standards for both students and teachers. In a later post I will go further into my thoughts about the necessity of administrative leadership in this area. This is a topic I have tapped on in the past, and will surely be one I continue to explore as we go forth. There is no doubt that carefully articulated transformational standards are needed. What is even more important is that these standards are for not only our students, but for teachers and administrators as well.
What do you think about the new standards for leadership in regard to educational technology? Do you think the focus is appropriate? Do you believe they have both appropriate breadth as well as depth? Check out the word cloud (Wordle) above that illustrates the standards. Please click to view the detail. What do you think this view says? Does this type of view provide a different look from the raw text? Any interesting first thoughts?
Yep, I just quoted myself. It’s OK, I’ll take that one. In fact, I think I’ll take it and run with it for a bit. Check it out. See, I don’t deal well with what one of my science department colleagues refers to as the “Negative Nelson.” These are folks who jump quickly to the most negative outlook possible to begin any task, discussion or debate. Now I’m certainly not talking about people who exhibit the valuable skill of being able to ferret out potential pitfalls in any new endeavor. Karl Fisch, in a recent workshop at MICDS in St. Louis, referred to those elements of a system as the “yeah, buts.“ His willingness that day to confront potential snags head-on is one of the marks of any successful project manager.
That said, negativity used as a strategy to push back from the table (whether conscious or unconscious) in order to avoid change or conflict is a very toxic thing. Life is too short and too difficult as it is. Stirring up extra negativity in such a challenging career field is more than a waste of time. In my 18 years as an educator I have had the benefit of working in environments that were so positive and supportive that I was constantly inspired. I have also had my years where “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right” is about the most polite way I can put it. Negative Nelsons. Thanks, Jennifer. That one is elegantly simple. It made me laugh, and it made me reflect. So obviously, I haven’t been able to get in here to write very much as of late. Please excuse the rapid-fire unloading of thought here. I’ll get back to succinct when I get more time.
“I would have written a shorter letter if I had more time.”
~Blaise Pascal
Why the “2.0?”
Now that I think of it, I probably could have just entitled this one “2.0″ because this is now what this phrase means to me. I’m not going to go off into the history of the quirk of using “2.0″ to signify the newest iteration of….. something. Heck it is now used for pretty much anything: Web 2.0, School 2.0, Library 2.0, Government 2.0, and on and on and on. Tack a two at the end and instantly whatever you are talking about, planning, or selling becomes better, newer, shinier. From my personal perspective, what at one point meant something to those pushing the envelope of using the Internet in education, now means means less. The more you use something, right? I get it. I know. After a while of having “2.0’s” ping-ponged about in the echo chamber of online communications… the meaning does tend to get stale. If you subscribe to the tweets of some of the more connected edtechers out there, you’ll find more than a few who are just plain ol’ sick of the term.
Why it doesn’t bother me
Let’s just get this out of the way first: According to Global language Monitor, “Web 2.0″ is the 1,000,000th word added into the English language. So there. It means something. For the “How’d they figure that?“, click here.
I’ll be honest. I hate it too by now. It is the height of cliche’ in my head. However, I think I am just sick of it considering how much I actually feel the need to use the term in my current job as an instructional coach in the middle of a constructivist reformation/technology integration pilot. I try to use a ton of helper phrases to describe this entity as well: read/write web, social web, participatory web, and other. Those are great, and do help, but I still need two-oh.
In a recent technology summit in our school district, an administrator actually started out one of the segments declaring that in terms of education, Web 2.0 “doesn’t really mean anything,” and that people really can’t agree on whether it will have an impact or not. This is one statement I had to disagree with point blank that day. Really, I get why it might seem less-than-concrete on the surface. With utmost respect, to an educator not using the participatory web in the classroom (or anywhere else professionally) “Web 2.0″ must look a bit like the wild west compared to the pricey and packaged comfort of a content management system like Blackboard, WebCT or E-Companion. But think about it- a constructivist classroom probably does look like Dodge City to the vast majority of people who were educated in the neat and tidy rows of desks in the American schools of our past.
What it means for me is that frankly… I don’t have to wait for anyone any longer. When I want to go, I go. When my students are ready for something better (that fits good pedagogy) we go. With a robust and lightly filtered network- no longer did I have to wait for more software to be decided upon, purchased, server space to be allocated, or passwords to be doled out. With Web2, I was able to immediately make a go at what I, my administrators, my students, and my parents thought was the right path to follow. I could hone a web tool to my liking in a weekend. I didn’t need to wait for a comprehensive plan filled with multiple opportunities for job-embedded professional development and one-on-one coaching. I was ready, and I rolled on.
All of a sudden, more than at any time previously in my career, I was able to model myself as a learner in the classroom right alongside my students. I was able to show them what it looked like to be a connected learner in the digital world of current information and communications technology. Now I am ready to go back and help build that comprehensive implementation plan for our teachers and students. I hope I am continually able to model those experiences in the other direction as well… still as a learner modeling the navigation of our newly-digital terrain, though not only for our students but also for those who make far-reaching decisions for each of the students in our town.
Positivity and possibility
I need positivity. My engine thrives upon it. I need open potential. I need new possibilities. Here’s why I decided today to “re-like” the terminology of 2.0: It is just so full of possibility. School 2.0? Seriously, who isn’t interested in reforming the future for the largest open-schooling system in the world? Don’t answer that. Good point. I’m sure there are plenty who aren’t. But look how many really are. Because of Web 2.0, the folks who want to step up and have a hand in the remaking of our outmoded schools, libraries and governmental participation models… can.
Web 2.0 is still a novel and effective tool for democracy. It is still a new way to interact via the Internet. Why not let it remind you of the shiny possibility of doing something better the next time you try? Sticking a two at the end of something doesn’t automatically make it better. However, possibility is as contagious as negativity. Spread some love, will ya’?
This post begins with a bigfat pointyfinger toward a recent post on Dean Shareski’s blog: “Ideas and Thoughts.“ The title was so fitting that I couldn’t bring the idea without it somewhat as well.
Nuts & bolts
Though I took the post pretty lightly through the first paragraph, I then started seeing the relevance of this in my world. The post rants away at the fact that so many people take technological tools at face value- rarely digging down beyond default settings to see what all the tool might actually be able to do. By actually changing each potential setting to fit the needs of the user, the device becomes a much better tool in the hands of the owner. Always seemed pretty simple to me. In fact, at one point in the post he describes working with students who were all using smartphones. He noted that the students in that setting who were familiar with the customization of the device were much more satisfied users.
“I told them to start thinking like hackers. I asked them to think of their devices in terms of what it should be able to do rather than only what it does.” ~Dean Shareski
These stories made my brain go in two directions, really. One was a nuts & bolts connection where I realized how purposefully I take teachers new to the MacBook Pro (our weapon of choice) almost directly to the System Preferences pane before beginning any real work. In my comment on Dean’s blog I spoke of this in a bit more detail. Towards the end of my rather lengthy comment, I took the idea of defeating default settings (much as Dean vaguely suggested at the end) to its other destination in my brain. That is, when we as teachers immediately jump purposefully and directly into a new world with new possibilities that we truly feel control over, then we can move into new dimensions.
And beyond
The next pointyfinger goes here. By the time I read this post, Will Richardson had just dropped a post that seemed to take the seeds of that idea into full-blown question. Entitled “If We Could Start Over, What Could We Build?“, the piece references a 2000 CITE article and looks at how nearly true reform is when it is retrofitted over the top of what we are currently doing. To me, the difficulties of this are immediately apparent. In fact, a book I am reading right now speaks, at least metaphorically, to the problems with building cumbersome entities on top of existing ones as a quick fix for the immediate moment. While the book, (Kluge by Gary Marcus) speaks about the human brain’s construction and modification throughout evolution, school leaders at any level will likely be able to draw parallels with their situation.
Again, repeating my deeper connections to some of these ideas here seems silly when reading the referenced post/commentary in context makes better sense. So therefore, I won’t do a repeat here. But suffice it to say, I state my quite practical belief in finding ways to make this sort of “system redo” possible. To me, the only practical way to hit reset and start anew within your own complex system today, is to build a pilot. Pilot programs that are allowed the charge of innovation can truly create a fishbowl of study in your neck of the woods. Do it differently. Do it now. Think hard, set something up… then set about doing it. Don’t just talk about what it would be like if you followed another approach, actually find out. In science, we call this a controlled experimental setup. In the rest of the world, we just call this smart practice.
“Pilot programs that are allowed the charge of innovation can truly create a fishbowl of study in your neck of the woods.”
Read both posts/comments. And if you’re really adventurous, get the book. Think of starting from scratch. Think of rebuilding your system. Think of rewiring your brain. Hey… if that all seems a bit much to you, at the very least think of changing the settings on your iPhone. You might be surprised what all it can do!
Modeling fluent reading. Introduction of outside text every period of every day in every class. The opportunity to bring relevance to adolescents. With whole-school immersion in text and reading, ideas and concepts naturally follow. The teacher reads, the student follow along a copy of the text. Content-area literacy expert, Janet Allen calls it “eyes past print with voice support.” At my school, we call it a requirement… one element of a building-wide literacy plan.
Two years ago, after our sit-down session with Janet Allen in Orlando, Florida, our leadership team decided on a school-wide implementation of this strategy as an element of our focus on literacy skills. Co-Principal in charge of instruction, Dr. Jeanette Westfall, was a former elementary teacher, high school communication arts teacher and instructional coach. There is no doubt that her background helped her decide that a non-negotiable approach to reading improvement across content areas was a valuable thing given our situation.
Why we went there
Data analysis in our school improvement planning sessions clearly indicated the need for a systemic effort to improve reading. However, witnessing and characterizing the problem is only the beginning. The ability to design concrete, strategic approaches to solving such a problem is a crucial next step. Bringing the teeth of accountability into the picture is the final piece of the puzzle in comprehensively addressing a systemic educational issue.
The accountability piece tied to EPP is a direct requirement from our building administration to employ this “read aloud” strategy for an absolute minimum of five minutes per class per day. For students this translates to a daily minimum of twenty minutes of engagement with rigorous text with a fluent reader. The next logical step of a strategic teacher is to quickly adjust planning to take advantage of this requirement to bring rigorous and relevant content-specific text into the beginning (or end) of each period.
For a teacher with traditional style, this also forces at least one transition within the daily lesson. In the hands of an effective teacher, these transitions help to keep kids actively engaged and using their brains in varied ways. Data showed that not only was there a need, but that our kids simply weren’t reading enough. You can make strong suggestions about what goes on outside of the classroom. Inside the four walls of a classroom is a different story. You can guarantee immersion within the walls of a school building.
Lit2Go
In other posts this year, I have suggested online services that might add to our implementation of EPP. In this post, I would like to introduce another interesting online resource from Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse. Lit2Go is a website I remember running across a year or so ago on Apple’s iTunes. On the USF site within iTunes you will find audio files for K-12 education organized by grade level.
However, in my opinion, the organizational website for Lit2Go is what makes it useful for the strategy described above as well as others. The main page allows many typical content searches for literature. Author, Title, Keyword, and Reading Level are all available search functions as well as a direct link to the files on the iTunes service for slipping smoothly into your iPod.
My first try was an author search- I pretty randomly chose Lewis Carroll. I ran down the list of ten offerings for the author and clicked to select The Two Clocks. The contents page for any selection has a nice set of overview information such as an abstract, word count, reading level, origin, genre, lexile level, theme, suggested educational strategy, Sunshine State Standards (of more use if you are actually IN Florida), and more. On this page, it is the collection of not only the .mp3 audio file of the work, but also the text in both .html and .pdf format that makes this a valuable resource. It also looks as if some pieces contain other “support material,” though the attached document for this particular story seems pretty useless.
Overall, the fact that this site provides both audio and clearly-printed text of a good number of classic pieces makes it valuable for efficiently selecting and managing EPP within a literature or communication arts class.
An easy win
The “clock that doesn’t go” in Lewis Carroll’s story is right two times per day. The other clock which loses a minute a day is only right twice per year. Surely, implementing EPP in a setting where reading immersion strategies are warranted is a way to be “right” at least four times per day. If this form of “being right” seems worthwhile to you in your own educational setting, then give Lit2Go a try and come back and tell us what you thought. Did it work quickly and easily for the described strategy? Even better… do you have another innovative use of Lit2Go to share? Bring it here, and help us all to be right more than two times per day.
What I have found particularly true in the past year is that even the fanciest website on the Internet doesn’t produce a solid educational event outside of the carefully-created framework of a skilled instructor. Compared to many of the applications/websites I have talked about on this blog in the past year, this one could be seen as one of the less “sophisticated.” However, any good teacher knows that what happens when you plug a device into the wall… pales in comparison to what happens inside the mind of a child.
Happy anniversary to “nashworld.“ This post is the 65th of the year, and it comes exactly one year after my first post on April 21st, 2008. Wow. Looking back at that post, it was quite clear I was full of questions for the coming year of study and reflection, but very shy of answers. In fact, this blog was initially titled “virtual southside” that first month. My first plan was for this space to be a group blog to facilitate PD for our brand-spanking-new tech cohort starting in June.
Forming a purpose
Then I found Ning. In one weekend, it was clear to me that this platform would be a far better, and more flexible, match for our school’s edtech PD mission. It also served to bring some comfort for our staff in the world of social media. Though we control membership to the site, it is certainly a more free-wheeling place than a simple group blog. It was the decentralized nature of a Ning network that I loved. I didn’t want to drive “virtual southside.” I didn’t want anyone to drive. I wanted to be merely another loud voice on a very enthusiastic and speedy bus.
So after a quick rename, nashworld became more of a personal place for reflection, sharing, and synthesis of thought. I do drive this bus. However, I had my first guest move up from the passenger section just this month. Though I certainly do have an amazing passenger list here, this is where the metaphor breaks down, for the readers of this blog certainly help steer my thoughts and words with their comments. To those of you who have put in your two cents here, I thank you greatly. You have helped to develop many of the thoughts and beliefs I currently own.
Year One Archive
A couple of months ago, when I started to really reflect on what blogging has meant to me over the past year, I decided to create a different type of archive for the blog. If you look up, you’ll notice that just to the right of the “About” page is a link to a new page entitled: “Year One Archive.” This page lists every post I have written over the course of the year by month- with somewhat of an abstract-like summary. I hope this provides yet another way to navigate the site. It certainly isn’t a quick and efficient way, but it does provide a bit of a different approach. The archive page also serves as an interesting chronological history of the past year.
Archaeo-blogology
In fact, after that first post in April… I didn’t write another that month. I didn’t even write one in May. During that month I was working hard on both Virtual Southside as well as my first shot at social media for an actual course I teach. June, my most prolific month, was the result of using the blog to fulfill the requirements of a really lame online grad course on “educational technology.” Truly the worst course I have ever experienced. You can easily tell this by the lame posts and lame books and movies and edtech articles from five and ten years ago. Jeeeez. I wish I hadn’t looked back over those just now.
Things got much better when school started and I began to feel a true mission for the blog. When November began, I followed along with Steve Dembo in his 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger adventure. That experienced helped tremendously. Also in November, I was actually even nominated for a 2008 Edublogs Award. You can imagine my surprise as such a green little blogger, but that was no doubt extrinsically empowering. I am certain to post several more reflective pieces on things I have experienced, learned and accomplished over the past year. Stay tuned for those. As soon as my grad program is completed in May… I have a lot of things to explore yet. Grad school, a new baby girl… it’s a wonder I could pull off any of this at all.
To community
Most of all- thank you. Thanks for coming here. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for joining in the discussion. Thank you for helping to steer my personal learning mission over the past year. I cannot thank each and every one of you enough. The thinking I do about the things you say… is worth a graduate course in something each time. In reflection over this past year, I can for certain that the biggest thing I have gained from blogging is people. I now have current and future collaborators on from all over the country. We have and will collaborate on projects that will no doubt extend not only my learning, but that of my friends and colleagues in Saint Joseph. I am humbled by the professionalism, creativity, and generosity of people in this newly-generated community. Thanks isn’t enough.
Not long ago, the MS Office suite comprised the bulk of computer applications in the world of mainstream business. I have to admit that as a career biology educator and instructional coach, I have precious little knowledge of the “real” business world. That said, this past year I have found my work overlapping many trends in business as I explore the efficacy of collaborative online applications in education. I am deeply interested in them as a framework for professional development as well as for classroom utilization.
“Yeah, but mainstream businesses aren’t using the Web 2.0 stuff… those are mostly a few cutting edge companies with money to burn.”
How much more “mainstream” can you get than Best Buy? Will Richardson pointed to the above video a couple of days back on Twitter, and I have held that browser window open since that time. I really enjoy some of the language found within. For example, one gentleman interviewed said that Web 2.0 applications allow the workforce to “…try a lot of different things, fail really fast, and then try things again.“ I dig that attitude in almost any endeavor. To me it is pretty clear that being fearless and willing to innovate is a big plus in much of the business world as well as in education. I also like the fact that another interviewee listed the following things as benefits to social media applications being implemented within the company structure:
better loyalty
less office politics
ability to meet other individuals passionate about the same things
ability to stretch an idea across an entire organization
Shifting schools
Now which of those things is not good as well for a school faculty? Of course blind loyalty leads often to the Abilene Paradox, and this is never a good thing. However, other than that, I’m betting that this list of four things is something all school administrators and staff would value in their world as well.
Those four items, as well as a few others, are a target of our school’s shiny new social network- Virtual Southside. This site was piloted by a cohort of 20 teachers and administrators at Benton High this year in the midst of an academic technology integration program. Starting next year, with our entire staff online in the program, this site will be a major part of how we conduct asynchronous staff professional development. Today I interviewed several cohort members about the benefits of working within our social network this past school year. A short list of their replies about our foray into social media is as follows:
develop general comfort with social media
ability to collaborate asynchronously
differentiated professional development
makes all staff a “professional developer”
makes professional work transparent
allows feedback from a wider dynamic of personalities
provides an archival record
creates an avenue for extrinsic motivation
Nearing the end of our first year employing social media in our school and in our classrooms, I am excited to see some of the benefits rolling in. In my opinion, the featured video showing similar strategies in a mainstream business model provides another interesting nod to the value of utilizing these strategies with our teachers and students as well. Are collaborative social tools being used currently where you work? What role do you see for social media in our schools and with our students?
Artwork thanks:
*Thanks to Stephen Collins for the “fail gloriously” slide image.
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