The meme

I hate internet memes.  I have to be honest in saying that I never respond to them.  The place they feel especially strange is on my blog.  This is one of the few places where my learning is allowed to run about unfettered.  Perhaps the meme concept feels like high school did back in my day when I was given really specific things to perform for a particular assignment.  We all know that growth occurs from many of those situations where we have been forced to think within the guidelines of a particular set of “rules.”  However, I have always seen the inside of my Edublogs dashboard as a place where I run the show, dictate the pace, put forward the agenda, and set the course for my own growth.

With all that said, I felt since Tania Sheko tagged me in this one…  it was one I couldn’t refuse.  Tania writes Brave New World from her home in Australia.  Tania is a faithful contributor here at nashworld, and someone whose work and opinions I respect deeply.  So really, that makes it pretty easy to see why this was my first official play-along with a blogging meme.  I can’t quite think of a better reason to step to the plate for such a thing, for this is a meme of reflection.

This meme is the “4R’s” meme for bloggers.  I am to troll through all of my old posts and pick one that fits each of the following R’s:

RANTS

RESOURCES

REFLECTIONS

REVELATIONS

I am to point to a post that fits each of the categories and tell why it was important, why it had lasting value or impact, and how I might update it for today.

Reflection

Actually, I spent some time back in April around the time of my first “blogversary” pulling an excerpt from each post throughout my first year behind the wheel of this blog.  I stuck the outline on a separate page entitled: Year One Archive.  So actually…  I had a pretty slick little tool for surveying all of my posts for this reply.  Still, this little exercise did require some pretty deep reflection to pick just one for each of the R’s.  So for that-  thanks Tania.

Rants- this could fit any number of posts here.  However, I chose a post from last November for this one.  Increasing Our Level of “Vitamin A“ was a post about the need for administration at all levels to step up and improve their support and modeling of current educational technology within the profession.  I challenged administrators to book a trip to Washington D.C. for NECC 2009 and the unveiling of the refreshed NETS-A standards for leaders in this area.

This one was posted at 10:00pm on November 13th.  At noon on November 14th our district’s Chief Operations Officer, Rick Hartigan, was sitting at the table in my principal’s office to let us know that, “he has heard the call” and that the district “was supporting this ideal and behind us 100%.”  I had received timely feedback here before then, but I think you can see how impactful that little post was.  What was the follow through, you ask?  Mr. Hartigan booked a trip to NECC and attended like a pro.  In fact, I remember one particular afternoon when he accompanied me to the “blogger’s cafe” to chat with some of the member of my burgeoning PLN.

The blogger’s cafe at an event like this is the most locale on the premises.  I quickly introduced him to Wesley Fryer, Dean Shareski, and Terry Kaminski.  The five of us stood and chatted about some of the more crucial aspects of an educational technology “upgrade” in schools today.  Rick stepped up and asked as many questions as were sitting on the forefront of his brain, and those three graciously took the time to share their input.  That one set of events did potentially more than anything else I have done on nashworld to date.

Resources- this one was tough.  In the end, I chose the one single post with the most comments to date, Trolling my PLN for Edtech Vision.  In all seriousness, this is a classic post to demonstrate the fact that sometimes the comments on a post are far more valuable than the initial content.  This was, of course, the goal of the post to begin with.  You should proceed through that comment field with a pen & paper (or your stickies app) and record as many titles and names as you can.  This is a true wealth of information and opinions from what I consider to be some really top-notch thinkers.

Reflections- This category could mean many things.  Nearly all of my posts fit this one in some way.  Yet, Inspire First, Instruct Later required perhaps some of the most personal reflection.  This post was written close on the heels of a family death and the birth of my youngest little girl.  As Clay Burrell noted in the comments, “Good luck on the newcomer, and sorry about the loss of the old-timer.  Quite a cycle you’re experiencing.” The meat of the post speaks to the affective needs of our students.  I argue here that these needs must be met before trodding down any sort of prescriptive curricular path.  The closest competition (and this one treads awfully close to “revelations”) is the poem-post I dropped after the birth of our youngest daughter, Neve.

Revelations- Since the first three speak to the educational technology and instructional coaching elements of my life as an educator, I thought it apropos to toss in one from the world of biology.  Where are the seeds in an orange? speaks to the disconnect our children have with the very food they nourish themselves with on a daily basis.  That day, a student of mine confessed during a lab that he had never seen an orange with seeds.  In the real scope of things, this scary fact is likely is as important, if not more, than any of the aforementioned.  Not only are young people detached from the food they eat as actual biological entities, we as educators may as well be increasingly detached from the world our students have grown up immersed in.

So in keeping with the spirit of virality (if I may coin that term) I am to tag a few others to continue the meme.  No, this will not keep you in God’s graces.  It will certainly not bring you great wealth from the shores of Nigeria.  It may not even make you happy upon first considering it.  However, I do respect these folks, and would certainly enjoy seeing their responses to this project.  It did make me reflect, Tania.  So thank you.  Oh….  and don’t forget to tag your post with:  #postsofthepast.

My turn

I hereby tag Michael Doyle, “Science Teacher” who constantly inspires me; Punya Mishra, “Punya Mishra’s Web” who is about as creative a person in our field as can be; Shelly Blake-Plock, “Teach Paperless” who has recently been one of my favorite bloggers; and Steve Dembo of “Teach42” who put us “on assignment” with his 30 Days To Being a Better Blogger challenge last Autumn.

Artwork

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.

Artwork:

My Sunday morning started with these words from Walt Whitman:

GOING SOMEWHERE

My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave–and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk–”The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
learning, intuitions deep,
“Of all Geologies–Histories–of all Astronomy–of Evolution,
Metaphysics all,
“Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
“Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
duly over,)
“The world, the race, the soul–in space and time the universes,
“All bound as is befitting each–all surely going somewhere.”

…long, organic, rhythmic free verse.  Ahhh…

Back in September I wrote a post about an interesting little web service called DailyLit.  I had just signed up and received the first of 423 installments of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass via email.  I spoke of how you could integrate small chunks of text like this into your school’s literacy program.  Given that from age 14 to 18, and from AP Physics to PE, we read for different reasons and in different ways.  For these reasons, I saw this service as an interesting and free way to add rich sources of text for classroom analysis, or even simply for volume or pleasure.  As of today, it is the “pleasure principle” that made me check back in on this web entity.

Fast-forward to today’s email (you can also choose RSS) which contained installments 368 and 369 from Leaves of Grass.  Grounding.  Things like this can help to keep my head in check.  I love it when the wisdom of brilliant and creative people from ages gone by is held up to the present for inspection, reflection-  and in this case: inspiration.  And by the way…  which “Evolution” is he speaking of here?  His capital “E” puts it on level with Geologies, Histories, Astronomy, and Metaphysics.  Thus, in my mind, he speaks of Darwin’s fresh theory of biological evolution.

So this led me to a quick inquiry.  What year again was Leaves of Grass first published?  A quick check returns 1855.  Now, I remembered reading about how Whitman constantly revised his works again and again.  However, one only need know that the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was in 1859, to want to question this text a bit more.  So apparently, between the first edition of Leaves in 1855, and the final in 1882, he changed not only verse and style…  but content.  I now have something to research for myself.  Find the text from 1855.  Do a comparison.  I wonder what I will find.  I wonder if any of you feel like helping me out in this endeavor. (?)  Did I ever notice this date interplay prior to blogging about this poem today?  No.  No I didn’t.

Chalk up another win for the synthesis found within the act of blogging.  I love it.  I love what it does to my brain.

As I sat down to tap out the post this evening, I realized something really cool.  What began as a rather humble re-blogging of a famous work of art from the 1800’s, has led to me evaluating text, inferring intent, and questioning context.  Hmmm…  I wonder if these are behaviors we seek to foster in our students.  I wonder if blogging can help deliver this.  In reality, this wonder contains less doubt and more certainty than it did less than a year ago for me.

So I leave you with installment #369 for your evening of March 22nd, 2009.  God, I love these words:

SMALL THE THEME OF MY CHANT

Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest–namely, One’s-Self–
a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.
Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone,
nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse;–I say the Form complete
is worthier far. The Female equally with the Male, I sing.
Nor cease at the theme of One’s-Self. I speak the word of the
modern, the word En-Masse.
My Days I sing, and the Lands–with interstice I knew of hapless War.
(O friend, whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I
feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.
And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and
link’d together let us go.)

*Artwork thanks

“OK Sean, I am ready to start reading some blogs.  Can you tell me where to start…  give me a few places to begin?”

Connecting

The above question is one I have begun fielding more and more often from faculty members as of late. Many teachers at Benton, and a growing number from other schools in town are ready to start tapping this powerful resource. In my opinion, this is a fantastic way to begin. Read. Read. Read. The best way to understand blogs is to read them.

The second step in the process is usually making your mark publicly and actually commenting on a few blogs that stir your interest. This is a very important move because it is the step that actually defines you as a contributor. This is no small thing, for this is a contribution to what has become a vibrant and global conversation.

For some, the final step in joining this conversation is to set up a blog, which is a place to guide a community of conversation of your own. Sure, some folks will say that they blog “for reflection”, or to “sort out their thoughts”, or even to “create an archive of what is happening in my life or work.”  To this, I agree completely. 

My perspective

Blogging fulfills many of those things for me as well. However, if that was all I really wanted to do, I certainly wouldn’t need to go to the Internet for it- much less do it in global public spaces. I would simply download one of the available free journal applications… or just tap away at MS Word. Right? Okay, perhaps Pages for me… but you get the point.

For me, the act of blogging has been responsible for more synthesis of thought than I have experienced in a really long time.  For me, this is not only a place to put together professional thoughts, life experiences, and opinions, it changes the way I experience things.  I find that I am now engaged in the act of “blogging” even while away from my laptop during most waking hours (and likely a few while asleep). I have always composed in my head, and this exercise makes it happen often.  That said, for me personally, it is also very much about the interaction with those who reply to, link to, or blog about the ideas that I present there. That interaction between interested people from many countries not only changes the conversation after I post to the blog, but it also affects my future writing as I once again consider the audience that unfolds there.

It is exactly that mental exercise that pushes me to develop this tool as an educational strategy for my kids.

Start simple

So, where do I tell folks who ask where to look? The first place I suggest looking is down the right-side column of my blog under the header “blogroll.” This is a list of bloggers who, for differing reasons, have compelled me to plaster a permanent link from my site to theirs. Looking through someone’s blogroll is akin to mining the bibliography of a really super journal article.  My blogroll is my “go to” list when I get a hour to read. How did I find those names in the first place? The answer to that question is as diverse as is the list.

However, more and more I realized that before you fill up Google Reader with a ton of blogs you may or may not read later on, there might be a better place to begin.  And really…  if you are just starting to open up to blogs as a learning resource, you probably aren’t ready to mess with RSS just yet.  I really do like Alltop.  I still use it.  I came pretty close to titling this post: ”RSS for the masses.”  When I want a visual version of the latest posts from the best blogs, I scan the screen there and click at will. In the words of Alltop, their service “is an ‘online magazine rack’ of popular topics. We update the stories every hour. Pick a topic by searching, news category, or name, and we’ll deliver it to you 24 x 7.” There is also a nice little explanatory video linked near the top of the main page.

In fact, just this past week, Alltop has now added a feature called “My Alltop.”  As you can probably guess, this is a user-customized screen showing only the latest posts of the blogs you choose from all categories.  I created my personal page the day it went live, and it bookmarks tons of blogs on the topics of education, science, neuroscience, literacy, news and even a few humor and “being a daddy” -type blogs.  To me, it feels like something between that of a beefed-up blogroll and an aggregator.  Another cool feature is that you can share the URL to your personal page with others.

Give Alltop a go. Clicking here directly will take you to the “education” page. There you will see some of my favorite blogs by Will Richardson, Karl Fisch, Clay Burrell, Michael Doyle, and many others.  You will also see EdNews, the US Dept. of Education, and Boardbuzz: The National School Boards Association. Technologically, this site is really basic stuff. Geeks will tell you this is nothing special. But think… have you ever heard Mick Jagger sing? The guy sucks as a vocalist. He can’t sing a lick, and yet the Stones sound awesome. Much like Apple touts its products, it just works.

Shamelessness

In fact, as of a couple of months ago, you can also find my nascent little blog there.

The day my link first appeared on the site, I received a message that invited me to go to Alltop and download a badge to adorn the blog. I’m not above badges.  Badges are fun.  Steeenking badges.  The one you see just above is the one you’ll see in the right sidebar of my blog. However, if public education wasn’t my business of choice, I might have been inclined to choose the more playful one shown modified below:

Add Alltop Education to your bookmarks toolbar. Click when you have a slot of time that couldn’t dare handle the latest print release by ASCD, but certainly could slide in a blog or two. Oh and of course, look for me there:

Oh yeah… I almost forgot: My name is Sean, and I approve this message.

*Artwork thanks:

You know you wanna

Before I roll out the details of this little mini-project, allow me to summarize.  This project was the first of many in an attempt to characterize the differences between online writing and more traditional formats.  Students in my Dual-Credit Biology course were divided into two groups upon culmination of a biochemistry unit.  Half of the class wrote a comprehensive unit summary in a traditional format which was turned in directly to the teacher.  The other half of the class composed a summary in an online forum for a much wider audience (Ning network).

Summaries were analyzed for word count, readability and effect on content-based exam scores.  Exam scores and readability were closely aligned.  However, strong differences were noted in average word count.  Students writing in online forums used significantly fewer words to achieve the same overall impact.  Implications of using online forums for future enhancement of student summarization are discussed.  My take?  Writing online is a potentially powerful tool for summarization of course content.

The set-up

A building-wide focus for instructional improvement in my high school this year, has been to launch and maintain an instructional technology integration initiative.  The school year began with a cohort of twenty teachers who were willing to engage in training above and beyond the professional development for all staff.  I began meeting with these teachers in mid-June for three-hour technology training sessions.  The first meeting consisted of a “care and feeding” session for the 15″ MacBook Pros, Olympus digital cameras and iPod nanos the cohort teachers received.  From that session forward, training sessions integrated this hardware, as well as emerging online technologies, with solid instructional best practices for classroom learning.  These twenty teachers have followed a prescription of immersion.  New technological tools were presented alongside potential uses in a classroom setting.  An online social network was set up to facilitate learning between face-to-face meetings.

I teach one course during the regular school day.  Principles of Biology is a course in which students earn 101-level college credit through Missouri Western State University.  This course is populated by students who enjoy learning.  Work conducted by these students formed the basis of comparison in this study.  Our course network is also based on the Ning platform.  Though this network features discussion forums as well as blogs, both are examples of online writing in some form or other. As you will see, in this class, I utilize the forum much more than the blog.  This will certainly have an effect on the results of this project.

The main event

What effects, if any, does a move toward online writing generate? Actually, little has been done to characterize the impact this new “genre” of writing is having on student achievement.  In fact, blogging has been said to be different enough as to warrant a new genre of writing called “connective writing.”  As Will Richardson has said:  it is

“…a form that forces those who do it to read carefully and critically, that demands clarity and cogency in its construction, that is done for a wide audience, and that links to the sources of the ideas expressed.”

In fact, I mentioned this idea earlier this year in this post on blogging.

How was this done?

This project began at the culmination of a biochemistry and nutrition unit.  Class sessions throughout were widely varied and ranged from cooperative work in small groups, guided webquests, lecture and discussion, and wet-lab investigations.  The final strategy prior to the unit exam was to have students engage in writing a comprehensive summary of their learning throughout the unit.  Students were randomly divided into two groups.  They were then informed that they would be doing one of two types of comprehensive summary.

The only difference between the two groups of students was writing “environment.”  The “odd” group was to compose the summary on a word processor, and then print as well as e-mail the final copy directly to the instructor only.  The “even” group was to write their summary online, as a blog post, to our classroom network.  Based on previous work with the online class network, these students knew that their work would be accessible online to virtually anyone.  This group of students knew that they were writing for a potentially wide audience, while the students of the first group were writing for me alone.  Since this class is largely an inquiry-based biology class, data was analyzed by the students themselves.  Students were asked to infer from the data and make conclusions online based on the findings.

So what happened?

Overall, 20 students participated in the study- out of a total of 20 enrolled in the class.  Each student in the table is listed only by initials in order to preserve anonymity.  (Table 1) Students who constructed a comprehensive summary of nutrition unit via online blog post for a wide and potentially global audience (even group):

(Table 2) Students who constructed comprehensive summary of nutrition unit via MS Word document handed in directly to teacher (odd group):

An examination of the data will show average exam scores differed less than one-half of a point across the two groups.  Average readability was also comparable, with the average score differing less than one Flesch-Kincaid grade level.  Easily the largest difference between the two groups was the average number of words used per summary.  Students writing online summaries used an average of 239 words less (399 opposed to 638) than those writing in Microsoft Word for me alone.  Variability in all data seemed fairly low for human studies.  Word counts were tightly clustered around the mean for online writers.  Though the results here seem fairly simple to interpret, there are many factors that must be considered in any analysis and subsequent application.

Jibba-Jabba

In this study, students were instructed to create a comprehensive summary of a unit on biochemistry.  The only instructions given were that the summary should provide an understandable context for the main topics of study, and that any source used should be cited.  It was also suggested to students that the mere creation of this summary would help to prepare for the upcoming exam.  Therefore, the only difference between the groups would truly be whether the summary was composed in an online forum or in a word processor.  Also- the online group knew their summary would gain a potentially global audience while the MS Word group knew that their summary would be read only by me.

Before extrapolating too far, it is important to note that when planning to implement any new teaching strategy, the first consideration should be to do no harm.  With that philosophy in mind, the data in this study immediately suggests that when students worked online, they certainly performed no worse than their counterparts who spent their time offline.

With that in mind, the fact that both groups showed no measurable difference in exam scores, is encouraging.  Therefore, even if an instructor wanted to use online writing as nothing more than a novel approach that might excite a few reluctant learners, they would likely do no harm toward content achievement.  I had initially hypothesized that due to the connective nature of this form of writing, students would better assimilate the content of the unit and show higher exam scores.  When considering this initial study alone, that hypothesis was not supported.  Though it is also important to note that the individual classroom climate and culture could impact these results heavily.  Not only would the feel of a classroom influence these results, it is easy to see how previous instruction could change things to a large degree.

To this point, few significant differences have been shown between the two study groups.  However, when looking at raw word count per summary, things quickly diverge.  It was anticipated that the group engaging in online writing would be stimulated to write a higher volume of words.  Hey-  it’s a novel approach.  Writing online is in contrast to a traditional approach where the work is done in isolation from start to finish.  In fact, this is the opposite result seen in the trial.  The group writing online submitted a much lower word count (avg. = 399) than the word processing group (avg. = 638).  This is no small difference and would certainly register as significant on any statistical test.

Why so many fewer words per summary when writing online?  Many of the participants had an idea about this when analyzing the results after the fact.  The following statement by student “RH” typifies a common student response:

“It appeared that the papers had a higher readability and word count, which I kind of expected because I think people tend to write more formally on papers, whereas the blog posts tend to be more opinion and informal writing.”

The aspect of formality is something that was not considered to be a factor prior to the study, and yet it makes solid sense.  The type of online writing these students had engaged in prior to this study was largely of a reflective nature.  Our work online has tended to center around written reflections that helped to synthesize classroom sessions.  A more formal approach to blogging has simply not been utilized as of yet with this class.  This is something that could certainly affect the results of this study.  Online writing has been approached in many ways for many different reasons in classrooms across our building this year.  It is very interesting to think about furthering this study to investigate the details of this interaction between instruction and writing.

First phase data is soon due in from three other participating teachers.  In contrast with the class in this study, several of the other participating classes feature some “reluctant” learners.  It will be interesting to see if the results of those trials differ from these in any way.  I would guess that they will.  The analysis of this new data, will certainly provide a jumping off point for the next round of research in our school.

Wheww… finally

To conclude, this brief study demonstrated several things.  For one, the mere act of writing of a comprehensive summary prior to a unit exam seems to be an effective strategy for a class of mature high school students.  Furthermore, the nature of this summary did little to affect scores in this study.  Students writing in online forums showed an average score almost exactly equal to that of students writing in a more traditional (printed) format.

The most signficant result of this study was the analysis of word count between the study groups.  Students writing online submitted significantly more concise summaries with smaller word counts.  The implications of this data are very interesting.  Furthermore, students who wrote less (when writing online) performed equal to those students who wrote many more words.  This could directly point to the power of online writing in helping students to summarize effectively.  This is no small feat considering the difficulty many of today’s students tend to have with summarization.  Hotshot ASCD guru, Robert Marzano, makes the case that “summarization has a robust and long history of research,” and is one of the “nine most effective instructional strategies a teacher can employ.”  These final results will likely have implications for not only future research trials at our high school, but for immediate classroom action in the area of content summary writing.

You?

What do you think about writing online?  You obviously read online.  You likely even write online.  We would love feedback about what goes on in your mind when you write online in different settings.  What happens when you blog?  How are discussion forums different?  What difference does a global audience make- if any?  Weigh in.  What does change when you write online?

Artwork thanks:

*Remainder:  me.  

Snow falls.  My fireplace coats one half of me in cozy radiance.  Across the room, Erin animates a book for my curious babe.  School is still a solid day and a half away.  As I sit here inspired by the art of Vladislav Gerasimov’s studio, I ponder physical space.

I catch myself in full muse about the spaces in which I usually write and how they might influence tone, mood, volume, and mission.  Of course, I am sometimes sitting in my office at 3:00pm pecking keys that reflect the day.  Other times still, I am stuck to a conference hall wall -hugging an outlet- allowing my laptop to drink while I scribble electronically.

Though given my choice, it would look much like today.  The mission-inspired rocker where my butt is planted-  was meant for a nursing mother just two years ago.  Since this chair didn’t seem to inspire her “mission” after all, it has lately become my writing chair.  Her lack of love for this spot has become my pirate’s loot.  Here I sit feet up -gliding in the golden glow of flames- tapping on letters for fun.

The more serious posts in waiting:  our school’s use of the Ning platform, tech strategies for increasing writing fluency, etc…  well, they’ll just have to wait.

Actually, there is a plenty about our artistic stick blogger friend that doesn’t concretely resemble me.  My head isn’t that big, I’m not a big fan of Digg, and far more than letters fill my head.  A conversation with my Communication Arts department the other day revealed a multitude of mental strategies for writing.  Most seemed to rely heavily on a stepped-draft approach.  I thought it interesting that my pal Kelly Lock and I both tend to compose in mental spaces before encoding onto the page.  You can thus imagine the stress we felt while fabricating those incremental “rough draft” assignments in high school.  I bet the little fella above would create his “outline” assignment after-the-fact as well.

Come to think of it, there might be many similarities between he and I.  He does have a slender build.  He does lean intently into his superthin laptop.  He does love dim lighting, and his silly feet seem to be less than planted on terra firma at times.  Hey, you can’t always be practical, right?

So where do you write?  Not when you have to…  but when you can.  What is there with you?  Where does it take place when you get to choose?  Tell it.  Draw it.  Photograph it.  Blog it.  Come back and share it.  You know you want to.

ps- If you care that your screen is beautiful and creative, then check out the art at Vlad Studio.  With the Holiday season fast approaching, I think Christmas Volcano is my current fave.  Wow.  No one on Earth would care enough to pay for an ad on this site, so consider this merely a nod in a cool direction.  Image above is entitled:  Blogger (digg it digg it digg it).

History was the talk of the day today.  It all started with Barack Obama’s inspirational late-night victory.  It evolved into a lunchtime chat with the Apple folks about an educational technology revival in our district.  The icing arrived in a conversation about writing and publishing in the aisles of a local grocery store.  I don’t know… if yet another dose of motivation comes my way, I might just just pinch myself for a bit of reality check.

I don’t know when I’ve seen so many Americans so happy on so many television stations.  I didn’t realize what a breath of fresh air this would really be.  There is power in inspiration.  There is power in promise.  There was a snap in the step of a real majority of Americans today.

Lunchtime brought conversations of revival.  However, this was a revival of purpose surrounding the implementation of rigorous technology-integration standards within our school system.  I attended an Apple “21st Century Learning Leadership Institute” in Omaha.  I was a member of a team of three.

Our technology curriculum specialist, building principal and I spent two days learning about Omaha Westside High School’s journey into a 1:1 computing environment over the past five years.  We could have certainly used a few more members in our study group, but the trip was an overall success in learning.

I capped the evening in a conversation while grocery shopping at the local HyVee.  Near the frozen foods section, I ran into a retired communication arts instructor who worked for years in my building.  I never did get the opportunity to be a true colleague of Donna Jean Boyer.  Her career in education ended at about the time mine was beginning.  She is a beloved teacher and was a well respected member of the Benton High School faculty for 38 years.  Donna Jean has since been a St. Joseph Councilmember since 1998.  She is now the senior member on the current city council.

Donna and I know one another, but mostly from afar since there was no real overlap in our careers in education.  So, you can imagine my surprise when shortly after “hello,” she greeted me with, “I have been reading your blog.”  Wow.  I have to tell you, that was weird.  I know my current colleagues at Benton read these entries.  I know folks in states and countries afar read them as well.  I have electronic data and warm commentaries to document those interactions.

However, running into someone local who “accidentally ran across” this blog and started to read, is not something that has happened to me.  How fun is that?

We chatted for some time about writing, teaching and technology integration.  It was a fun conversation.  Not only did I get to share the new technology staff development network at my school, we talked about the value of publishing.  In fact, Ms. Boyer related the past impact of simple computer-based word processing on writing education.  She explained how she saw a huge increase in student engagement when -all of a sudden- student writing could look instantly-professional.  The very act of seeing their own words and ideas in an instantly glossy format was empowering at a point in history.

Of course, there would never be a substitute for substance, but never discount the power of a nice sheen of gloss on a rigorous piece of work.  Paying $100 for a fresh coat of wax on a ‘76 Maverick might be a waste, but it certainly looks compelling on a Ferrari.  There has been some discussion of these ideas in my community as of late.

Towards the end of our conversation, I explained to Ms. Boyer about how I believe I am seeing a very similar reaction to my students given the still-recent phenomenon of instant publishing.  The fact that web 2.0 features are now being used to leverage student empowerment via publishing is exciting.  The novelty of on-screen writing has likely worn away long ago, but this next edge is always just around the corner.  I ended our chat by relating my enthusiasm toward professional writing on this blog.

I starkly remember the stinging feeling of the rejection letter I received in response to the first poem I ever submitted for print publication.  I can be a pretty stubborn person, but that hurt.  I am a biologist.  I am a teacher.  I am a colleague.  But that experience pointed toward the fact that I was not a writer.  Rejection was tough.  I didn’t feel any less of a person, but I certainly didn’t feel like a writer.

Driving home from the store, it hit me:  post it, Sean.  You tell people every day about the virtues of today’s instant web publishing.  Yep.  I’ve been writing here since April and this one never occurred to me.  I think I will post it after all.  Who cares about its merit?  It meant something to me.

So here’s to healing.  Here’s to healing myself as a creative writer-for-fun.  Here’s to a potentially nation-healing election.  Here’s to the birth of true technological pedagogy in our school district.  Here’s to swallowing your pride and giving a nod to the century of the everyman…

AND YOU ARE SO SMALL

I bathe in the pale silver moonlight

I smile as it looks

Down upon me

The moon feels my mood

Tomorrow I celebrate the burning of the sun

As it casts its radiant glance

Down upon me

Largest of all things

And you, you are so small

Yet when your smile burns

Its way into my heart

You seem larger than the heavens.

So take that, 20th Century.  You hold us all back less and less as the days go by.

Artwork thanks:

I now fully feel like I’m one of Tyler Durden’s minions from Fight Club.  I’ll never forget the night Tyler (played by Brad Pitt) implored his followers to all go out and get in a fight with a total stranger…  and of all things: lose.  Watching a clip from the movie will tell you it wasn’t all that easy.  Ok, wait.  I’m not actually engaging in any sort of urban terrorism here.  This is just blogging.  Edu-blogging.  Coaching from afar.  Connecting.  And today…  telling folks about me.  I wonder if Steve Dembo has ever thought of himself as Durden.  Here’s me:  betting that he hasn’t.

However, Mr. Dembo certainly is putting the edublogosphere, and anyone else who cares to read, on assignment.  Today’s “assignment” comes as part one of thirty in the “Thirty Days to Being a Better Blogger” series.  Now this is one ambitious task.  I feel particularly giddy if I roll off more than one post in a week.  And the assignment for day one:  the “About” page.  Seems simple enough.  However, even though this page comes complete in nearly any readymade blog theme, few people capitalize on it.  Reading today’s post at Teach42 made me a believer in the importance of this page in any blog.

“…when you get right down to it, the About page is absolutely critical to a blog. It provides visitors insight into who the author is, what they can expect to see on the blog, and what sort of lenses the information is being viewed through.”  ~S.Dembo

So be sure to fix up your About page in the very near future.  I would expect a few folks might even pay a bit more attention in the near future.  Actually, when you think about it, you have likely already tapped this page on any blog I have pointed you toward already.  Think about it.  Have you?  Be sure to check out the pages in the blogroll on the lower half of the right column here.  They are all huge references for me.  It might be good to scan a few of those to see how they let their readers know who and what they can expect to read there.

I do hope the next twenty-nine assignments stay as far away from the “Fight Club” list as possible…  I’m way too out of shape for that kind of battle.  Anyone care to play along here with me?

If the act of web surfing might keep dementia at bay, then blogging might just allow your brain to outlive your body.

The Context

I found this brief, but intriguing article from MSNBC interesting enough to engage a read-aloud with my Dual-Credit Biology class this past week.  This classroom of curious minds is full of nascent bloggers.  We have begun our journey into the blogosphere within the relatively safe confines (if the global web can be seen as “confined” in any way) of a classroom network on the Ning platform.  Here we have recently dabbled with  online discussion forums, mini-project publishing and blogging as it relates to the dynamic nature of science in general.

One must also be aware that these forms of learning are quite novel at my school of around 900 students in Saint Joseph, Missouri.  I, along with a small cohort of teachers at Benton High, have taken a step into the world of online interactivity and publishing within the standard curriculum of our courses.  After just a month and a half, we have realized the fact that the doors of our classrooms no longer lock tight at 3:00pm.  During even late nights throughout the week, many of our classrooms are still abuzz with content discourse while the mice come out to frolic in the hallways of our aging school.

I have to say, my students have bought in.  I have tried to deeply embed the daily work we do in class with the digital tendrils that run throughout the global web.  It is fun to think of these conversations happening invisibly about our heads as radio signals.  For years I have peppered my classroom mission with this ideal, but this year I have taken a full windward tack toward digital conversation.  The experimental nature of it all tends to dovetail well into the two science classes I teach (Dual-Credit Biology and Marine Biology).  Students seem to come to these classes fully prepared to confront ideas and phenomena they have yet encountered.  I have never taken that mindset lightly in what I do on a day-to-day basis.

The Article

So it is within this framework that a little article like this can get some serious play.  The suggestion that web surfing itself could prolong the cranial excitement that leads to long brain life is powerful.  The main detail that stuck out to me is the fact that fMRI scans of subjects surfing the web were more diverse than a control group who were merely reading books.  In this study, the book-reading participants showed significant brain activity in the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes of the brain.  As the article states, these regions are involved in controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities.  This surely comes as no surprise to any reading expert as many of our current comprehension strategies are designed to take advantage of this.

However, the brains of those participants who were web surfing showed the same activity.  What is more is the fact that they also excited the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of their noggins.  These areas of the brain control decision-making and complex reasoning.  More still is the fact that this effect was only noted in those subjects who had prior Internet experience.

“Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading.”

If ever there was a solid suggestion that a non-webbite should get on the Internet…  and now…  this could be it.  The fact that a discussion of these ideas can take place for fifteen minutes in the lives of open-minded teenagers is pretty stimulating.  To know that what you do now can effect the neural wiring of your future brain is pretty compelling.

Going Beyond

If mere web surfing can be such rich exercise for gray matter, then the act of blogging just might build the kind of active brains we strive for in education-  for blogging, is not your garden variety writing exercise.  My first experiences with blogging last March were personally empowering for many reasons.  Not the least of which was the fact that I soon felt like I was engaging in a type of writing that went way beyond anything I had done to date.

After authoring a few trial pieces to see what the phenomenon was all about, it occurred to me that I was engaged in far more than I had ever been while solely journaling.  I remember talking this out with several of my closest educator friends.  I remember making a comment that what I was doing felt like some type of “connective” writing-  perhaps even a different genre.  Of course, what felt like a shiny new endeavor to me was already a published entity.  In fact, in Will Richardson’s 2006 book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, “connective writing” is mentioned as somewhat of a new genre starting on page 30.  Finding this little gem made me feel a little less of an explorer, but was certainly validating.

Richardson describes this type of writing as being, “a form that forces those who do it to read carefully and critically, that demands clarity and cogency in its construction, that is done for a wide audience, and that links to the sources of the ideas expressed.” He goes on to drive home the point that good blogging requires far more critical reading than might be immediately noticed by the casual reader of a blog.  There is far more rich goodness in this chapter than can be related in this post, and I highly recommend the book to anyone looking to engage students in the pedagogy of blogging.

Bottom Line

Academic blogging is rigorous synthesis.  It is an activity than can certainly enhance your classroom, and potentially extend the life of your brain.  As I finish up this post, my wife @erinNLY just chimed onto the Twitterverse with a somewhat-related line from a Flobots song:  “There is a war going on for your mind.  If you are thinking, you are winning.”

Perhaps this is a better mission statement for our school than the one we last authored.

Artwork thanks:

Mao, Isaac. “Brain.” Flickr. 13 June 2005. 18 Oct 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/isaacmao/19245594/>.

“tmcnamee”, “Old World Brain.” Flickr. 03 APR 2007. 18 Oct 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/mcnamee/445793409/>.