My Learning

Finland’s approach to education & the corporate ed reformers

2010-10-07T07:26:00.006-05:00

Finland’s approach to education & the corporate ed reformers

It has now become commonplace to hear glowing mention of Finland’s student test scores and international rankings, and about its fabulous educational system which was reinvented a generation ago. However, there is never a follow-up conversation about how the U.S.'s current education policy is heading us in the exact opposite direction.

A complete disconnect seems to exist between what has been proven to work (and what we should be adopting), and what is currently being forced upon districts and schools. For this, we can thank the corporate ed reformers and their ilk who, having attacked and marginalized educators, cleverly acquired occupation of important federal and state ed central offices so they could set the policies. For the sake of our country’s future, these people need to be unseated...now.

Pasi Sahlberg of the Finland Ministry of Education has been doing his best with trying to help us see the light. He compares the two approaches in his PowerPoint presentation “Lessons from Finland: The evolution of the Finnish school system and its lessons for other nations.”

Global educational reform movement (germ)

Teaching core subjects

Standardization

Test-based accountability

Race to the top

Renting reform ideas: Adopting educational reform ideas from corporate world and scientific management. Hiring private sector experts as leaders.

Education policies in Finland

Broad and creative learning

Customizing

Professional responsibilities

Slow learning

Owning a dream: Building a shared inspirational vision of what good education system school and teaching look like. Appointing education professionals to leadership positions.

From this list of priorities, it looks to me as if Finland is on another planet. And who knew that 40% of Finnish secondary school students are in vocational school/apprenticeship training (slide 23)?

Even if we adopted Finland’s approach, we’ve got HUGE problems that will probably get in our way from achieving similar success. For instance, Finland’s child poverty rate is one of the lowest of all OECD countries at 4.3%. The child poverty rate in the U.S. is one of the highest at 22.4%. Child poverty rates in U.S. public schools are certain to be substantially higher.

Would Finland's academic success be the same if its child poverty rate was sextupled? There is no way to gloss over this disturbing difference.

Finland’s trade union membership is 76% of its employed population, ranking it at #2 of the OECD countries (tied w/Denmark). The U.S. is near the bottom of the ranking (#17), at 13% and dropping.

So maybe what we need to simultaneously be doing is focusing on reducing our despicable child poverty rates as well as providing security to families a la union-type protections. And we’ll also need to deal with the impact of our family-destroying incarceration rate (# 1 United States: 715 per 100,000 people; #113 Finland: 71 per 100,000 people).

For more comparisons see HERE.

You can read Sahlberg’s 2009 paper “A short history of educational reform in Finland” HERE.

Watch another report on Finland’s schools on this NBC Nightly News piece HERE.

What do Administrators Need from Teachers?

2010-10-05T06:50:00.001-05:00

What do Administrators Need from Teachers? [guest post]

OCTOBER 5, 2010 0 COMMENTS

When Scott asked me to contribute a post in answer to the question, “what do administrators need from teachers?” I was happy to comply. As superintendent of schools, I spend a significant amount of time thinking about and developing what we can do as an administrative team to support learning in our district and that includes influencing the thinking and practices of our teachers.

I’ve held a number of different administrative positions within four different districts and am fond of saying, “I’m a teacher but currently I’m working as a superintendent.” We hold different roles within the organization, but we’re all on the same team working towards the best learning experience for everyone.

So as an eleventh year administrator (after ten as a classroom teacher), what do I need from teachers?

1. Speak up. Why did everyone suddenly agree with everything I said when I became a superintendent? I need to know what you think, I’m comfortable with disagreement, I learn through discussion. I don’t have all of the answers. Hell some days I don’t feel like I’ve got any of the answers. I need your thinking, your ideas, your daily experience, your feedback to make good decisions. I promise to listen, maybe to debate with you and that doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong and I’m right. Somewhere in the middle we’ll find the answers together.

And don’t be afraid to give me the benefit of the doubt from time to time, even asking me if you hear something that doesn’t sound quite right. I won’t believe everything I hear about you if you’ll do the same for me.

2. Shared Leadership. You say this is what you want but then you often look to us to make the decisions anyway, to make the call. It feels like you want us to make the decision so you don’t have to share in the responsibility. Shared leadership means you are present in the discussion, you tell us your ideas, you listen to everyone else, you share in the decision and you have the courage to stand behind it. If an idea fails, so what? We’ll be better for having learned from our mistakes together than from you standing across the room pointing at us saying, “I don’t know where they get this stuff!”

3. Testing. Yes, it’s important that our students do well on the state assessments. Yes, I expect you to prepare them, to teach to the state and local standards, to use your best strategies to help our students achieve proficiency +. But I expect you to do so much more than just teach to those tests. I promise if you provide our students with opportunities to learn with passion, innovation and leadership as you teach the state standards content, they’ll do well on the assessments also. Our kids are not going to be successful beyond our doors because they did well on the assessments. They’re going to thrive if we give them a voice, teach them to problem solve, if we provide them with practice to analyze, to collaborate and to communicate effectively. That practice will serve them well beyond test question practice.

4. Trust. I trust you to be professional, you know what that means. You self selected your PLCs and the topics, tied to our vision of “learning with passion, innovation and leadership”. We’ve provided you with every imaginable resource you’ve requested. We gave you one of our two opening days to work in your PLCs and we’re releasing the students early almost every month to provide you with time to work together. Don’t let me down. Make wise use of the time, try something new and impact learning for our children in powerful ways. I expect you to learn, to bring your best game every day, to talk about best practices with your colleagues and to adapt your lessons where appropriate. Be open to each other and learn. We’re better together than each of us is separately. Be creative, take a risk, try something new. Help kids to learn, “it’s my job to teach and your job to learn” doesn’t cut it!

5. Stop judging each other so harshly. This is the number one impediment to our growth as a team. As I said to our teachers on the first day of school, you’ve got to give up thinking about ‘best teacher’ if we’re going to talk together about ‘best teaching’. You’re probably not as great as you think you are and that colleague down the hall from you probably isn’t as bad as you think either. We all bring something to the conversation; these judgments impede our ability to learn from each other. And really, what are you basing those judgments on anyway?

When we celebrate what we do well or when someone speaks up about an opinion or an idea, quit knocking him down. Don’t send emails calling the teacher a “kiss ass” the next day or demean her in the faculty room. Who do you think you are anyway? The ‘let’s keep everyone the same and celebrate mediocrity’ sergeant at arms? Enough. You may teach in a high school but you aren’t in high school. It’s mean spirited and does nothing to help us grow as an organization. And elementary teachers, you’re guilty of it too. You’re just more subtle than the high school staff.

6. Love our kids, show them you care even when they don’t and that you expect as much of yourself as you do them. When you do this job well, it’s incredibly hard work. And it’s worth it, every day. Provide our students with opportunities to learn with passion, innovation and leadership.

Kimberly Moritz is learning and leading as the Superintendent of the Randolph Central School District in rural Western New York. She has been blogging for just over four years, having first written G-Town Talks as a high school principal and now writing Kimberly Moritz BlogPosts as a superintendent. She can be reached at kmoritz@rand.wnyric.org.

Inquiry Learning

2010-10-04T14:25:00.002-05:00

Inquiry encourages students to be actively involved in and to take responsibility for their own learning. Inquiry learning allows each student’s understanding of the world to develop in a manner and at a rate unique to that student. The starting point is students’ current understanding, and the goal is the active construction of meaning.

The more we plan, the more teacher directed it becomes. If we have a very detailed idea in advance of where the lesson (or the unit or the semester) will go then it’s not inquiry. What we do need to plan is really strong provocations to get students engaged in the big ideas, so that they’ll be motivated to question, wonder, inquire, explore… and learn.

Waiting for Superman

2010-10-04T10:30:00.001-05:00

What ‘Superman’ got wrong, point by point

This was written by Rick Ayers, a former high school teacher, founder of Communication Arts and Sciences small school at Berkeley High School, and currently adjunct professor in teacher education at the University of San Francisco. He is the co-author, with his brother William Ayers, of the forthcoming "Teaching the Taboo" from Teachers College Press. This post is long, but it is worth your time.

By Rick Ayers
While the education filmWaiting For Superman has moving profiles of students struggling to succeed under difficult circumstances, it puts forward a sometimes misleading and other times dishonest account of the roots of the problem and possible solutions.

The amped-up rhetoric of crisis and failure everywhere is being used to promote business-model reforms that are destabilizing even in successful schools and districts. A panel at NBC’s Education Nation Summit, taking place in New York today and tomorrow, was originally titled "Does Education Need a Katrina?" Such disgraceful rhetoric undermines reasonable debate.

Let’s examine these issues, one by one:

*Waiting for Superman says that lack of money is not the problem in education.
Yet the exclusive charter schools featured in the film receive large private subsidies. Two-thirds of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone funding comes from private sources, effectively making the charter school he runs in the zone a highly resourced private school. Promise Academy is in many ways an excellent school, but it is dishonest for the filmmakers to say nothing about the funds it took to create it and the extensive social supports including free medical care and counseling provided by the zone.

In New Jersey, where court decisions mandated similar programs, such as high quality pre-kindergarten classes and extended school days and social services in the poorest urban districts, achievement and graduation rates increased while gaps started to close. But public funding for those programs is now being cut and progress is being eroded. Money matters! Of course, money will not solve all problems (because the problems are more systemic than the resources of any given school) – but the off-handed rejection of a discussion of resources is misleading.

*Waiting for Superman implies that standardized testing is a reasonable way to assess student progress.
The debate of “how to raise test scores” strangles and distorts strong education. Most test score differences stubbornly continue to reflect parental income and neighborhood/zip codes, not what schools do. As opportunity, health and family wealth increase, so do test scores.
This is not the fault of schools but the inaccuracy, and the internal bias, in the tests themselves.

Moreover, the tests are too narrow (on only certain subjects with only certain measurement tools). When schools focus exclusively on boosting scores on standardized tests, they reduce teachers to test-prep clerks, ignore important subject areas and critical thinking skills, dumb down the curriculum and leave children less prepared for the future. We need much more authentic assessment to know if schools are doing well and to help them improve.

*Waiting for Superman ignores overall problems of poverty.
Schools must be made into sites of opportunity, not places for the rejection and failure of millions of African American, Chicano Latino, Native American, and immigrant students. But schools and teachers take the blame for huge social inequities in housing, health care, and income.

Income disparities between the richest and poorest in U.S.society have reached record levels between 1970 and today. Poor communities suffer extensive traumas and dislocations. Homelessness, the exploitation of immigrants, and the closing of community health and counseling clinics, are all factors that penetrate our school communities. Solutions that punish schools without addressing these conditions only increase the marginalization of poor children.

*Waiting for Superman says teachers’ unions are the problem.
Of course unions need to be improved – more transparent, more accountable, more democratic and participatory – but before teachers unionized, the disparity in pay between men and women was disgraceful and the arbitrary power of school boards to dismiss teachers or raise class size without any resistance was endemic.

Unions have historically played leading roles in improving public education, and most nations with strong public educational systems have strong teacher unions.

According to this piece in The Nation, "In the Finnish education system, much cited in the film as the best in the world, teachers are – gasp! – unionized and granted tenure, and families benefit from a cradle-to-grave social welfare system that includes universal daycare, preschool and health care, all of which are proven to help children achieve better results in school."

In fact, even student teachers have a union in Finland and, overall, nearly 90% of the Finnish labor force is unionized.

The demonization of unions ignores the real evidence.

*Waiting for Superman says teacher education is useless.
The movie touts the benefits of fast track and direct entry to teaching programs such as Teach for America, but the country with the highest achieving students, Finland, also has highly educated teachers.

A 1970 reform of Finland’s education system mandated that all teachers above the kindergarten level have at least a master’s degree. Today that country’s students have the highest math and science literacy, as measured by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), of all the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) member countries.

*Waiting for Superman decries tenure as a drag on teacher improvement.
Tenured teachers cannot be fired without due process and a good reason: they can’t be fired because the boss wants to hire his cousin, or because the teacher is gay (or black or…), or because they take an unpopular position on a public issue outside of school.

A recent survey found that most principals agreed that they had the authority to fire a teacher if they needed to take such action. It is interesting to note that when teachers are evaluated through a union-sanctioned peer process, more teachers are put into retraining programs and dismissed than through administration-only review programs. Overwhelmingly teachers want students to have outstanding and positive experiences in schools.

*Waiting for Superman says charter schools allow choice and better educational innovation.
Charters were first proposed by the teachers’ unions to allow committed parents and teachers to create schools that were free of administrative bureaucracy and open to experimentation and innovation, and some excellent charters have set examples. But thousands of hustlers and snake oil salesmen have also jumped in.

While teacher unions are vilified in the film, there is no mention of charter corruption or profiteering. A recent national study by CREDO, The Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, concludes that only 17% of charter schools have better test scores than traditional public schools, 46% had gains that were no different than their public counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse.

While a better measure of school success is needed, even by their own measure, the project has not succeeded. A recent Mathematica Policy Research study came to similar conclusions. And the Education Report,"The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts, concludes, “On average, charter middle schools that hold lotteries are neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement, behavior, and school progress.”

Some fantastic education is happening in charter schools, especially those initiated by communities and led by teachers and community members. But the use of charters as a battering ram for those who would outsource and privatize education in the name of “reform” is sheer political opportunism.

*Waiting for Superman glorifies lotteries for admission to highly selective and subsidized charter schools as evidence of the need for more of them.
If we understand education as a civil right, even a human right as defined by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, we know it can’t be distributed by a lottery.

We must guarantee all students access to high quality early education, highly effective teachers, college and work-preparatory curricula and equitable instructional resources like good school libraries and small classes. A right without a clear map of what that right protects is an empty statement.

It is not a sustainable public policy to allow more and more public school funding to be diverted to privately subsidized charters while public schools become the schools of last resort for children with the greatest educational needs. In Waiting for Superman, families are cruelly paraded in front of the cameras as they wait for an admission lottery in an auditorium where the winners’ names are pulled from a hat and read aloud, while the losing families trudge out in tears with cameras looming in their faces – in what amounts to family and child abuse.

*Waiting for Superman says competition is the best way to improve learning.
Too many people involved in education policy are dazzled by the idea of “market forces” improving schools. By setting up systems of competition, Social Darwinist struggles between students, between teachers, and between schools, these education policy wonks are distorting the educational process.

Teachers will be motivated to gather the most promising students, to hide curriculum strategies from peers, and to cheat; principals have already been caught cheating in a desperate attempt to boost test scores. And children are worn out in a sink-or-swim atmosphere that threatens them with dire life outcomes if they are not climbing to the top of the heap.

In spite of the many millions of dollars poured into expounding the theory of paying teachers for higher student test scores (sometimes mislabeled as ‘merit pay’), a new study by Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives found that the use of merit pay for teachers in the Nashville school district produced no difference even according to their measure, test outcomes for students.

*Waiting for Superman says good teachers are key to successful education. We agree. But Waiting for Superman only contributes to the teacher-bashing culture which discourages talented college graduates from considering teaching and drives people out of the profession.

According to the Department of Education, the country will need 1.6 million new teachers in the next five years. Retention of talented teachers is one key. Good teaching is about making connections to students, about connecting what they learn to the world in which they live, and this only happens if teachers have history and roots in the communities where they teach.

But a recent report by the nonprofit National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future says that “approximately a third of America’s new teachers leave teaching sometime during their first three years of teaching; almost half leave during the first five years. In many cases, keeping our schools supplied with qualified teachers is comparable to trying to fill a bucket with a huge hole in the bottom.”

Check out the reasons teachers are being driven out in Katy Farber’s book, "Why Great Teachers Quit: And How We Might Stop the Exodus," (Corwin Press).

*Waiting for Superman says “we’re not producing large numbers of scientists and doctors in this country anymore. . . This means we are not only less educated, but also less economically competitive.”

But Business Week (10/28/09) reported that “U.S. colleges and universities are graduating as many scientists and engineers as ever,” yet “the highest performing students are choosing careers in other fields.” In particular, the study found, “many of the top students have been lured to careers in finance and consulting.” It’s the market, and the disproportionately high salaries paid to finance specialists, that is misdirecting human resources, not schools.

*Waiting for Superman promotes a nutty theory of learning which claims that teaching is a matter of pouring information into children’s heads.
In one of its many little cartoon segments, the film purports to show how kids learn. The top of a child’s head is cut open and a jumble of factoids is poured in. Ouch! Oh, and then the evil teacher union and regulations stop this productive pouring project.

The film-makers betray a lack of understanding of how people actually learn, the active and engaged participation of students in the learning process. They ignore the social construction of knowledge, the difference between deep learning and rote memorization.

The movie would have done a service by showing us what excellent teaching looks like, and addressing the valuable role that teacher education plays in preparing educators to practice the kind of targeted teaching that reaches all students. It should have let teachers’ voices be heard.

*Waiting for Superman promotes the idea that we are in a dire war for US dominance in the world.
The poster advertising the film shows a nightmarish battlefield in stark gray, with a little white girl sitting at a desk in the midst of it. The text: “The fate of our country won’t be decided on a battlefield. It will be determined in a classroom.”

This is a common theme of the so-called reformers: We are at war with India and China and we have to out-math them and crush them so that we can remain rich and they can stay in the sweatshops.

But really, who declared this war? When did I as a teacher sign up as an officer in this war? And when did that 4th grade girl become a soldier in it? Instead of this new educational Cold War, perhaps we should be helping kids imagine a world of global cooperation, sustainable economies, and equity.

*Waiting for Superman says federal “Race to the Top” education funds are being focused to support students who are not being served in other ways.
According to a study by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and others, Race to the Top funds are benefiting affluent or well-to-do, white, and“abled” students. So the outcome of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top has been more funding for schools that are doing well and more discipline and narrow test-preparation for the poorest schools.

*Waiting for Superman suggests that teacher improvement is a matter of increased control and discipline over teachers.
Dan Brown, a teacher in the SEED charter school featured in the film, points out that successful schools involve teachers in strong collegial conversations. Teachers need to be accountable to a strong educational plan, without being terrorized. Good teachers, which is the vast majority of them, are seeking this kind of support from their leaders.

*Waiting for Superman proposes a reform “solution” that exploits the feminization of the field of teaching; it proposes that teachers just need a few good men with hedge funds (plus D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee with a broom) to come to the rescue.
Teaching has been historically devalued – teachers are less well compensated and have less control of their working conditions than other professionals – because of its associations with women.

For example, 97% of preschool and kindergarten teachers are women, and this is also the least well-compensated sector of teaching; in 2009, the lowest 10% earned $30,970 to $34,280; the top 10% earned $75,190 to $80,970. () By comparison the top 25 hedge fund managers took in $25 billion in 2009, enough to hire 658,000 new teachers.

Waiting for Superman could and should have been an inspiring call for improvement in education, a call we desperately need to mobilize behind.

That’s why it is so shocking that the message was hijacked by a narrow agenda that undermines strong education. It is stuck in a framework that says that reform and leadership means doing things, like firing a bunch of people (Rhee) or “turning around” schools (Education Secretary Arne Duncan) despite the fact that there’s no research to suggest that these would have worked, and there’s now evidence to show that they haven’t.

Reform must be guided by community empowerment and strong evidence, not by ideological warriors or romanticized images of leaders acting like they’re doing something, anything. Waiting for Superman has ignored deep historical and systemic problems in education such as segregation, property-tax based funding formulas, centralized textbook production, lack of local autonomy and shared governance, de-professionalization, inadequate special education supports, differential discipline patterns, and the list goes on and on.

People seeing Waiting for Superman should be mobilized to improve education. They just need to be willing to think outside of the narrow box that the film-makers have constructed to define what needs to be done.

Thanks for ideas and some content from many teacher publications, and especially from Monty Neill, Jim Horn Lisa Guisbond, Stan Karp, Erica Meiners, Kevin Kumashiro, Ilene Abrams, Bill Ayers, and Therese Quinn.

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School dances- Washington Post

2010-10-04T10:22:00.001-05:00

School dances: Another baby boomer failure

With the new school year in full swing, school dances have begun in earnest. This can’t be what Patrick Swayze had in mind in “Dirty Dancing.”

For those of you fortunate enough not to have had experience with this yet, here’s what kids do today at many school dances (as well as at parties, formal and otherwise): They provocatively grind their pelvises into each other on the dance floor, sometimes standing face to face, sometimes with the boy behind the girl. It's called grinding.

Sexually suggestive dancing was hardly invented by today's kids. Young people say it is harmless fun, and sometimes it is.

But sometimes there is something more troubling going on: Boys often walk up to girls who don’t already have a boy thrusting his genitals at them and just start right up, no permission sought. Many girls, who even in the 21st century will do nearly anything to win a boy’s attention, allow them to go ahead without a word. Of course, there are some girls who initiate it themselves. That’s no better.

What this points to is the failure of many baby boomers to teach their daughters to respect themselves and their bodies and make their own choices, and to teach their sons to view women and girls as something other than sex objects.

The objectification of women in American society is at least as strong today as it ever was. It is unfathomable that girls, sometimes 13 or younger, can feel that the culture demands they allow boys to push themselves on them or risk ridicule.

There is also the developmental issue: Even though today’s teens are bombarded with sexual messages far more than previous generations were and may seem culturally mature at earlier ages, they aren’t any more psychologically ready to deal with the consequences than we old folks were at their age.

Some schools around the country have banned grinding.

At Downey High School in Los Angeles, for example, parents and teens have to sign a contract before a kid can attend a dance that says, in part, that there will be "no touching breasts, buttocks or genitals. No straddling each others' legs. Both feet on the floor." According to thisLos Angeles Times article, offending students get two warnings before being thrown out.

The same article reported that Mickey Blaine, the dean of students at private Pacific Hills School in West Hollywood, warned students last year that if they crossed the line he would turn up the lights and play Burt Bacharach music or William Shatner singing "Mr. Tambourine Man."

That may be a better way of dealing with the immediate problem than an outright ban that kids go out of their way to defy. What is really needed is education for both sexes (that starts early and doesn't end) about gender and respect, for self and others alike.

This is one thing the boomer generation should have gotten right.

Comfort Zone and ZPD

2010-09-29T07:09:00.001-05:00

This is not a place for an extensive discussion of Vygotsky’s many contributions to cognitive psychology but his central theories are worth introducing. His concepts of the zone of proximal development; of the role of the teacher in learning; and of the essentially shared and social nature of the learning process have much to tell us.

Vygotsky investigated problem solving, and how the mind goes about acquiring and mastering new skills and knowledge. According to Vygotsky the learner has two areas of development. The current area of development encompasses all that the learner can do independently – those skills and that knowledge that are within our grasp and compass. The “comfort zone” – if you will. Beyond that area lies what he termed the zone of proximal development, or zpd – those skills, knowledge and abilities that are within our reach but not yet grasped.

Learning he claimed is an essentially social activity. The role of the teacher is not that of simplifying new knowledge and doling it out in measurable doses, but of providing new content, and the context within which the learner may safely step from the current level of understanding to a higher level. In this model the learner and the social situation are interdependent and the teacher is the skilled mediator. The teacher’s role is to act – in Vygotsky’s phrase – as the “loaned consciousness’, as one who is able to help students on an as-needed basis and to introduce the content and create the context. It is very easy to observe this process in outdoor education. The learner, confronted with a challenge- say rappelling, works out how to accomplish the task. The support of peers and the guidance and security of the loaned consciousness of the teacher enable the learner to take the risk of stepping out and trying something new.

Granny Cloud

2010-09-26T17:16:00.002-05:00

You may have heard the story of the Indian slum children who taught themselves how to use computers when someone embedded a computer in his Delhi office wall for them. It proved so successful that all around the world the same experiment was repeated and each time, children taught themselves complex tasks easily – with little supervision.

But, and here is an even more interesting fact, they did even better when a ‘granny figure’ stood behind them offering encouragement – not teaching them, but just positively encouraging them and engaging with what they are doing.

So an encouraging and positive older person standing behind children who were working out how to do something themselves made them achieve more. Does that sound familiar? It is a pretty good description of good parenting and particularly in parent engagement in education.

The granny figure was not a specialist teacher, or a computer expert but an adult whose job was just to stand and encourage young children in what they were learning – just like a parent or any involved family member would. The man who came up with the original idea for the ‘computer in the wall’ in Delhi is Professor Sugata Mitra and he has taken the concept even further now and added to it with the concept of the ‘Granny Cloud’.

Professor Mitra is proposing an idea for schools called SOLE or Self Organised Learning Environments. These learning environments consist of a computer with a bench big enough to let four children sit around the screen. “It doesn’t work if you give them each a computer individually,” he is quoted as saying.

Professor Mita is now professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK) and has also been a speaker on the TED stage

The children are then backed up by a “granny cloud” – 200 volunteer grandmothers who can be called upon to video chat with the children and provide encouragement. He has tested the spaces successfully in the UK and Italy, and now believes they should be tested more widely. Infact, during an earlier stage of his experiments, Indian children actually asked to be read fairy tales by UK grandmothers via Skype! Professor Mitra, who now lectures at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom, told the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford in the UK:”I think we have stumbled across a self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour.”

And all of those grannies are clearly helping too. Long term research in the UK has proved that the existence of one older person in a child’s life who has a passion for the child and wants them to do well in their education is enough to ensure they make the most of their schooling, regardless of the quality of their school or their economic circumstances.

SOLE

2010-09-26T17:16:00.001-05:00

"My work with self organised learning by children shows that groups of children can learn to use computers and the Internet to answer almost any question. This happens everywhere and is independent of what language they speak, where they live and how rich or poor they are. All they need is free access and the liberty to work in unsupervised groups. The most effective group size seems to be 4-5 children.

So, we really need one laptop for every 4 children (OLF4C?)

This will reduce the project costs by 75% !

The ideal computer would be one that is about as big as the present OLPC, but with a built in, micro projector. This will enable children to share a screen by projecting it on any white surface. There are new micro projectors that use hybrid LED and laser technology to produce a bright image at low power."

Meaningful work

2010-09-23T13:41:00.000-05:00

Many people believe that the key to an improved lifestyle is less work. I think it’s better work. I believe that most of us want to work hard, but we want to do the kind of work that energizes us and makes a positive impact on others. That kind of work is Many people believe that the key to an improved lifestyle is less work. I think it’s better work. I believe that most of us want to work hard, but we want to do the kind of work that energizes us and makes a positive impact on others. That kind of work is worth working for, and the other kind of work is worth letting go of, finished or not. (The Art of Non-Conformity, p. 10)

I think that pretty much sums it up for our students, doesn’t it? It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to expend too much energy on work that isn’t meaningful. When we see reports of rampant plagiarism or tales of students who want to do as little as possible in order to get a grade, isn’t that an indication that they’re doing work that’s not meaningful to them? When students are working on something that they’re passionate about, rather than apathetic, don’t most of these so-called generational ‘values’ or ‘character’ issues disappear? Contrary to what many believe, our students don’t want to just get by. They just want better work. The preceding was taken from Scott McLeod’s blog (dangerously ! irrelevant) (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/our-students-want-better-work-not-less-work.html)worth working for, and the other kind of work is worth letting go of, finished or not. (The Art of Non-Conformity, p. 10)

I think that pretty much sums it up for our students, doesn’t it? It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to expend too much energy on work that isn’t meaningful. When we see reports of rampant plagiarism or tales of students who want to do as little as possible in order to get a grade, isn’t that an indication that they’re doing work that’s not meaningful to them? When students are working on something that they’re passionate about, rather than apathetic, don’t most of these so-called generational ‘values’ or ‘character’ issues disappear? Contrary to what many believe, our students don’t want to just get by. They just want better work. The preceding was taken from Scott McLeod’s blog (dangerously ! irrelevant) (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/our-students-want-better-work-not-less-work.html)Many people believe that the key to an improved lifestyle is less work. I think it’s better work. I believe that most of us want to work hard, but we want to do the kind of work that energizes us and makes a positive impact on others. That kind of work is worth working for, and the other kind of work is worth letting go of, finished or not. (The Art of Non-Conformity, p. 10)

I think that pretty much sums it up for our students, doesn’t it? It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to expend too much energy on work that isn’t meaningful. When we see reports of rampant plagiarism or tales of students who want to do as little as possible in order to get a grade, isn’t that an indication that they’re doing work that’s not meaningful to them? When students are working on something that they’re passionate about, rather than apathetic, don’t most of these so-called generational ‘values’ or ‘character’ issues disappear? Contrary to what many believe, our students don’t want to just get by. They just want better work. The preceding was taken from Scott McLeod’s blog (dangerously ! irrelevant) (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/our-students-want-better-work-not-less-work.html)

Call it the Fisch Flip

2010-09-23T07:38:00.000-05:00

Karl Fisch is a 20-year veteran of Arapahoe High School, located south of Denver, Colorado. For the past 14 years, the one-time maths teacher has been the school’s technology

co-ordinator. But a round of budget cuts forced him to take on extra duties – and a few weeks ago, he returned to the classroom to teach an algebra course to 9th and 10th graders (14 and 15 year-olds).

However, instead of lecturing about polynomials and exponents during class time – and then giving his young charges 30 problems to work on at home – Fisch has flipped the sequence. He’s recorded his lectures on video and uploaded them to YouTube for his 28 students to watch at home. Then, in class, he works with students as they solve problems and experiment with the concepts.

Lectures at night, “homework” during the day. Call it the Fisch Flip.

“When you do a standard lecture in class, and then the students go home to do the problems, some of them are lost. They spend a whole lot of time being frustrated and, even worse, doing it wrong,” Fisch told me.

“The idea behind the videos was to flip it. The students can watch it outside of class, pause it, replay it, view it several times, even mute me if they want,” says Fisch, who emphasises that he didn’t come up with the idea, nor is he the only teacher in the country giving it a try. “That allows us to work on what we used to do as homework when I’m they’re to help students and they’re there to help each other.”

When he puts it like that, you want to slap your forehead at the idea’s inexorable logic. You wonder why more schools aren’t doing it this way. That’s the power of flipping. It melts calcified thinking and leads to solutions that are simple to envision and to implement.

Five Classroom Discipline Strategies

2010-09-10T06:32:00.001-05:00

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” is my

favorite cliché phrase as a teacher. It comforts me to recite it on

days when I spend hours on a lesson plan only to have an

unauthorized, off-color dance and giggles from the crowd upstage

my efforts.

This phrase not only eases my anger, it keeps me going.

Allen Mendler, Ph.D. shares my philosophy. He says he’s

discovered you “can't change anybody else's behavior.” Mendler’s

goal as a teacher and a school psychologist is to try to influence the

child’s behavior, not change it. To do this, Mendler says we must

“maximize the 10, 20, maybe 30 percent of the influence that's ours

and to make our voice as interesting, melodic, harmonious … even

as seductive as we possibly can, because as we all know, there are

always voices that compete for the hearts, minds and souls of our

kids.”

Mendler offers many ways for teachers to influence student

behavior. Below are five ways that you can use in your own

classroom to encourage on-task behavior.

PRESE RVE DI G N ITY

When discussing discipline, Mendler says the most important thing

is to “pick strategies that at the very least preserve dignity.” He

questions the tactic of putting students’ names on the chalkboard

when they are misbehaving. By publicizing a student’s misdeeds,

teachers put the student’s competency into jeopardy and set the

stage for a power struggle.

Instead, when dealing with an in-class disruption, Mendler suggests

using P-E-P, which stands for Privacy, Eye contact, and Proximity.

This strategy helps balance the control between the student and the

teacher.

For example, Mendler says if a student mumbled something during

class, the teacher would “get as close as you can to the student with

as much eye contact as that student can tolerate and with as much

privacy as realistically is available in a public setting of a classroom,

(and) convey your message of correction.”

He suggests you could also write your correction on a sticky note

or an index card. “With some students, it works even better to use

a Post-it note or an index card, and instead of saying what you

would normally say your correction to be, write your correction

down on a piece of paper,” Mendler said.

BASE YOUR RULES ON P R I N CIPLES

Prevention is the key in many aspects of life; education is no

different. By having effective rules, teachers can limit disruptive

student behavior.

Mendler suggests focusing on a values-based classroom. At the

beginning of the year, Mendler tells his students his three values:

take care of yourself, take care of each other, take care of this place.

He then invites his students to be important participants in coming

up with rules that represent examples of these principles.

“I like to give the lion's share of the responsibility for the

development of rules to students,” Mendler said. “One thing

certainly not to do with regard to rules is to have many, many of

them. Quite frankly, the good kids don't need a million rules. And

the bad kids, the more rules you give them, the more ideas you

might actually give them to break rules.”

HAVE EFFECT I V E CONSE QUEN CES

In my classroom, the students develop the four rules (a tactic

Mendler recommends). I also have a list of sequential consequences

(a tactic Mendler does not recommend). After this year, I see why

he doesn’t recommend the list; not every strategy works for every

kid and sometimes I give ineffective consequences.

“I think that's the wrong way to go about doing things, because as

an educator, it locks you into doing something based upon what

the system says, rather than based upon what you think is going to

most effectively work with that particular student,” Mendler said.

Instead, Mendler suggests checking in with the students and asking

their opinion about what consequence or consequences they think

might work.

HAVE A PLAN

Before ever stepping into a classroom, teachers should have a plan

for crisis situations and they should count on teaching the plan to

their students. When dealing with a crisis situation, like a fight, it is

important that students know what they should do: Stay away and

don't join in.

“The teacher, or the authority person, needs to reassure him or

herself, as well as everybody else, that since you're the person in

charge, you're going to be the primary person to deal with the

issue,” Mendler said.

In addition to a plan for crisis situations, have a plan for less

destructive behaviors, such as yelling out. This way you will be less

tempted to kick students out of class over annoying, yet

manageable conduct.

“I want it to be hard for kids to throw their education away,”

Mendler said. “I want to make it difficult for them to get

themselves kicked out of a class.” Instead, Mendler suggests

ignoring minor behavior infractions and addressing possible

consequences after class with the student.

BE F A I R A N D DEF I N E FA I R N ESS

One of my least favorite things to hear as a teacher is: “That’s not

fair!” I have to fight the urge to yell back, “Life’s not fair!” But, the

truth is: It’s not.

To combat the “That’s not fair!” cry, Mendler tells teachers to

address the fairness issue the first day of school. “It's very, very

important to make a distinction between being fair and treating

everybody exactly the same way,” Mendler said.

At the beginning of each school year, Mendler tells his students he

wants them to all be successful. But, he explains the definition of

“successful” is different for each student.

“What I mean by 'success' is you getting better in whatever

academic area we're doing — you getting better today than you

were yesterday…not necessarily better than everybody else in the

world or even in this classroom,” Mendler said.

When teachers embrace the individuality of each child from the

beginning, students will be more willing to accept different

consequences for each student without complaint.

S T R ATE G IES AREN’T ONE- S IZE FITS ALL

Whatever strategies you decide to employ in the classroom,

Mendler suggests that you keep one thing in mind: working with

students is a roller coaster ride. A strategy may not work

immediately or the student may slip back into old behavior.

“Before you decide whether or not something works or doesn't

work with a student or a group of students, try it at least five times

for over a trial period of two to three weeks, and evaluate it on this

basis,” Mendler said.

From: Pencils, Progress and Perfection

2010-09-09T07:27:00.001-05:00

Pencils often lie, erasing mistakes in the gray matter of memory, turning stories, once etched in ink, into new shades of half-truths. Pencils promise perfection, keep erasing the mistakes and slowly we evolve (or is it "descend with modification?") into something stronger and more efficient. The word "efficient" is, in itself, deceptively inefficient with vowels and double letters reminding even the most ardent linguist that form sometimes trips up function.

I yelled at a student today after he told me to "fuck off." For the record, I don't think he literally wanted me to fuck off. He just wanted to win an imaginary battle he was having with me or with the system or with whatever the Universe throws at a twelve year old.

I didn't "raise my voice." I screamed. Red faced, eyes bulging, monster in the classroom. I scared him. I scared myself. When it was over I cried. I think my crying scared him even worse. Then I apologized. I think the apology was the scariest part. I get the sense he wants to believe that grown-ups aren't as vulnerable as this.

Pencils promise perfection, but as long as I'm around, imperfection abounds. If I were a sentence, I'd be a past progressive turned imperfect tense. Always imperfect. Sometimes tense. Pencils provide a mythology that the education factory can turn out a series of codified best practices and with just the right amount of training, we'll never screw up again.

This evening, my daughter, now three, throws a temper tantrum when I tuck her doll in wrong. I try to comfort her, but she kicks me in the stomach and slaps my face. I cry like a baby, feeling broken down by a broken world. She stops me and says, "It's okay, daddy. It's okay." I'm supposed to be strong here and prove that I'm her protector and here I am holding a child who gets angry for no particular reason and I cannot help her. "I love you even when you cry," she says.

"I love you even when you're angry," I answer.

I go to bed tired, but not sleepy. So I light the gas lamp and pull out the paper. Edison is promising to replace teachers with motion pictures and phonographs. At some point, we'll have no purpose. A lesson is much more efficient when produced by a corporation. Some day learning will be customized to every student and teachers will be obsolete. Gray films, gray lines, gray matter expanding with the march of industry - a concrete tabula rasa etched with steel. Either embrace the machine or become the machine.

I am not a Teacher of the Year. I am not an award-winning mega-star. I will not have my picture on the gray print newspaper or start in a monochromatic motion picture. But I'll be here, in my classroom, vulnerable and broken and ready to cry and apologize and forgive. I can't offer progress. I can't offer perfection. But I can offer myself, inefficient, sometimes even ineffective, but always real.

Pedagogy

2010-09-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

Any pedagogic method can be used well or poorly. Depending on what one is trying to teach, some methods will be much easier to use well than others. Blanket evaluations of pedagogic methods—for example, participation equals “active learning”—are inaccurate.

A Different Drug Problem

2010-09-08T08:48:00.000-05:00

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, “Why didn't we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I replied, I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom's garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of dad's fields. I was drug to the homes of family, friends and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood, and, if my mother had even known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say or think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

Guest Post: Letter to a High School Teacher

2010-09-03T14:06:00.001-05:00

This post is from a Middle School student to their future High School teacher. Have you seen that movie “American Pie”? You know how Jim thinks he knows “things”, but only knows apple pie?
Remember that when I walk into your class for the first time. I will likely have what my old social studies teacher calls my “bravado mask” on much of the first quarter. Whatever that is…I don’t get it. We watched a lot of movies. I had an English teacher that talked about how he didn’t expect us to be professional writers because, well, none of us were. That gave me confidence to take risks in my writing (he always told us to do so!). Please don’t expect me to write like Lois Lowry or Jordan Sonnenblick. But, they’re cool.
Oh, here are a few things I’d like you to know before I get into your class. I still care a lot about what people think of me. My school counselor says that is my most adult-like trait. I don’t get it. I still have to move around a lot in class. I’m addicted to teachers allowing us to work in groups. I kind of get why. I see the workers at Target always talking (my math teacher said he likes to dress up in khaki pants and a red polo on weekends and walk around at Target answering people’s questions) My PE and computer teachers used sarcasm and, for the most part, I understood what was going on. However, I did get in trouble a few times when I was trying to be sarcastic but it came across as me being a jerk. I’m still learning how to use sarcasm. I understand that you are trying to treat me like I’m an adult. But, I’m not yet. Point to the older students for me to look up to. Especially if they are cute. In all honesty, I’m not too afraid of the school work and homework because my middle school teachers have trained me to only think about that lame test we take every spring. Seriously, that is all they talk about. The only thing I have mastered is how to bubble in circles. I think that is sarcasm.
I’m still immature and my parents say I will be until I get a real job other than handing out flyers for the local ice cream shop. You should try their mint-n-chip…it’s a party in your mouth! Especially if you put rainbow sprinkles on top of the ice cream! Now that’s sarcasm! Right? The only remaining curiosity I have is related to my social life: both my real and made up one in my mind. Sometimes I get the two mixed up. I want friends, but I want to be left alone – both make life easier. Even though I may look annoyed when you talk to me, I am listening to what you are saying just like Jason Biggs’ character in “American Pie” is outwardly annoyed with his dad giving him advice on “things”, but inside is intently listening. Oh, I secretly like Justin Bieber.

Everyone has the potential to learn.

2010-09-03T11:34:00.001-05:00

We learn in different ways, depending on abilities, learning styles, preferences and interests.
Learning takes place through inquiry: questioning, exploring, experimenting and problem solving.
Learning takes place when we make connections between previous and new understanding.
Learning for understanding occurs by acquiring skills and knowledge, constructing meaning and transfer to other contexts.
Learning is active and social and best takes place through collaboration and interaction.
Learning takes place when we feel secure and valued and are able to take risks.
Learning needs to be challenging, meaningful, purposeful and engaging.
Learning includes meta-cognition and reflection, and requires learners to take ownership of their learning.
Learning is continuous, lifelong and ever-evolving.

Beliefs-Coach G

2010-09-03T11:29:00.000-05:00

When teachers ask me what I did to turn things around, I stress at first that it wasn't what I did so much as what I believed. In particular, even in my darkest moments, I clung to the belief that there was something I was doing (or not doing) to contribute to if not cause my classroom woes. This may seem like a lot to put on any teacher, let alone a new one. Yet this sort of ownership over classroom outcomes has been a hallmark of successful teachers I've known over the years. And if you think about it, to believe otherwise is to accept powerlessness over your situation.

From Seth Godin- again

2010-09-03T09:46:00.001-05:00

Check-in, Chicken

One way to start every morning with your team is to have them check in. Go around in a circle and let people update and contribute. It's not a silly exercise, in that it helps people speak up and it communicates forward motion.

Another way, probably a better one, is to have each member of the team announce what they're afraid of. Two kinds of afraid, actually. Things that might fail and things that might work.

What are you, chicken?

Yes, we're chicken. We're afraid. The lizard has us by the claws.

So, tell us. What are you afraid might happen that would destroy, disintegrate, or dissuade--that would take us down? And what are you afraid of that might work, thus changing everything and opening up entirely new areas of scariness?

From Spencer's scratchpad

2010-08-31T09:35:00.000-05:00

"So, it makes me think of the school year. I'm going to encourage my students to be free and to speak up and to go places emotionally and intellectually that might be uncomfortable. Yet, I also want to create a safe environment with a community who cares about them. Parenting has taught me that these two goals are often in tension with one another, but still worth pursuing. I want my students to feel safe enough to be free and free enough to be safe."

How about this for a school culture goal?

Learning - Technology

2010-08-17T07:51:00.001-05:00

“What is the best technology for the learning experiences we want to craft?”

the learner develops the habit of “asking questions about the answers that he finds.”

A literacy machine enables us to communicate, not merely with words, but with pictures, sound, and motion. It enables us to get the attention of those who can help us accomplish our goals.

What is going to help students learn to become literate, resourceful, and habitual learners — engaged in a learning lifestyle?

Quotes

2010-08-17T07:48:00.001-05:00

We don't talk this game, we play it.

Your certainty must be greater than everyone's doubt.

The gift is your presence of feeling good and being happy and bringing this to others.

PLC

2010-08-17T07:46:00.002-05:00

If there is anything the research community agrees on it is this: the right kind of continuous, structured teacher collaboration improves the quality of teaching and pays big, often immediate dividends in student learning and professional morale in virtually every setting.

The Committed Sardine

2010-08-16T11:03:00.000-05:00

http://www.committedsardine.com/sardines.cfm

why we're called committed sardines

First, an aside - a blue whale is the largest mammal on earth. An adult blue whale is the length of 2 1/2 Greyhound buses put end to end, weighs more than a fully loaded 737, has blood vessels large enough for an adult to swim down, a heart the size of a Volkswagon Beetle, and a tongue 8' long that weighs 6000 lbs. A baby blue whale is estimated to gain more than 50 pounds an hour from birth to the end of it's first year (now that's a high fat diet - certainly not Atkins). In addition, the blue whale is not only the biggest but also the loudest animal. At 190 decibels, a blue whale's call is louder than a jet (140 decibels), and much louder than a person can shout (70 decibels)

A little known fact is that a blue whale is so large that when it decides to turn around, it can take 2 to 3 minutes to turn 180 degrees so that it can swim in the opposite direction. As a result, some people have drawn a strong parallel between blue whales and our school systems. It just seems to take forever for schools to turn things around. Our ability to adapt to changing times helps explain at least in part the rise in demand for vouchers, charter schools, home schooling and virtual schools. There are some people who just don't believe, or don't want the public school system to turn things around in time.

But compare the cumbersome way a blue whale turns around to how a school of fish turns around - specifically a school of sardines - which has the same or even a greater mass than our whale. A school of sardines can turn almost instantly. So the question that comes up is - how do they do this? How do they know when to turn? Is it ESP? Do they use cell phones? Are they using the Internet?

The answer is both a little simpler and quite a bit more complex. If you take a careful look at a school of sardines you'll notice that, at first, the fish all appear to be swimming in the same direction. In reality, at any time there will be a small group of sardines swimming in a different direction, one that tends to move against the flow or against conventional wisdom. As they swim in another direction they cause conflict. This creates some friction and general discomfort for the rest of the school.

But finally, when a critical mass of truly committed sardines is reached - not a huge number like 50 percent or 80 percent of the school, but 15 to 20 percent who are truly committed to a new direction - the rest of the school suddenly turns and goes with them - almost instantaneously!

Isn't that what has happened with our attitudes towards drinking and driving? Isn't that what became of our feelings about smoking? Isn't that exactly what happened to the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union? Isn't that what caused the Internet to suddenly appear overnight? Each and every one of those events was an overnight success that took years in the making. Overnight successes that took a small group of people who were truly committed despite the obstacles, challenge, yabbuts, and TTWWADI (That's The Way We've Always Done It) to make the necessary change.

Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead once wrote "never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever has." That's why we're Committed Sardines.

The Committed Sardine Blog ... Thinking outside the can.

Dan Pink RSA

2010-08-16T08:38:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year

2010-08-16T08:12:00.001-05:00

MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2010

11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year

The new school year is here for many teachers. For those who haven't started school yet, the new school year will be here soon. If you've set the goal of trying something new in your classroom this year (shouldn't that always be one of our goals), here are eleven techy things teachers should try this year.

1. Build a Blog or Build a Better Blog
Blogs can serve many purposes for teachers. You can use a blog to communicate information to parents and students. You can use a blog to create a running journal of classroom activities and lessons throughout the year. Blogs can be used by students to record and reflect on their own learning. Make your students contributing authors on a class blog and have them write a weekly reflection on their own learning.

Three good platforms for classroom blogging are Blogger, Edublogs, and Kid Blog. All three of those platforms are very easy to start as they don't require any technical knowledge on your part. All three of those platforms allow you to control your blog's visibility settings. Get directions for creating Blogger and Edublogs blogs here. (Disclosure: Edublogs is an advertiser on Free Technology for Teachers.)

2. Build a Wiki With Your Students
Building pages on a wiki is a great way for students to record and share knowledge about topics they've researched. Last year one of my classes created a wiki about 1920's culture in the United States. When everyone was done contributing one of my students made the observation that the wiki had more information than the textbook, he was right.

Teachers and students can also use wikis to create digital portfolios. Students can create and edit their own pages to show-off the work they're most proud of.

Wikispaces, PB Works, and Wet Paint provide free wiki hosting. I prefer Wikispaces because they provide free advertising-free wiki hosting to teachers. Learn how to use Wikispaces here.

3. Build a Website
So a blog doesn't provide quite what you're looking for and a wiki doesn't either? Try building your own website. On your website you can include calendars of assignment due dates (tryGoogle Calendar), post reference videos and documents for students and parents, and even collect assignments.

Building a website used to be a difficult, technical process. That is not the case anymore. There are many free website creation and hosting services available on the web. Google Sites can be used to create a website containing blog and wiki elements. Learn how to use Google Sites in my publicationGoogle for Teachers II. Some other website creation and hosting services you might want to try are Weebly, Webs, and Yola.

4. Create Videos Without Purchasing any Equipment
Video is a powerful form of communication. It wasn't that long ago that classroom video projects required possession of expensive editing software and other equipment. That is no longer the case. Today, anyone with access to the web can make a high-quality video production. Two of my favorite web-based video creation services are Animoto and JayCut. Of the twoAnimoto is the easiest to use while JayCut offers the most editing options. Learn how to use Animoto in my free publication Making Videos on the Web.

5. Create Maps to Tell a Story
Maps are obviously useful for Social Studies teachers, but did you know that you can also use multimedia maps to tell a story? Google Maps and Google Earth can both be used to create a multimedia story. Try having your students write the biography of a famous person by plotting points on a map and adding text, images, and videos about that person to each placemark. Visit Jerome Burg's Google Lit Trips to learn more about using Google Earth in a literature course. Visit Tom Barrett's Maths Maps to get ideas for using maps in mathematics lessons. Need some general directions for using Google Maps or Google Earth please consult my free publications Google for Teachers and Google Earth Across the Curriculum.

6. Try Backchanneling in Your Classroom
As staffing cuts create larger class sizes, it is becoming more difficult for some teachers to hear every student's question and or comment. Some students are reluctant to verbally share their thoughts in the classroom. And some students just have to blurt-out every thought or question they have as soon as they have it. Creating a backchannel for your students can address all three of those problems.

A backchannel is another name for a chat room in which your students type their questions and comments whenever they have them. You can then address those questions and comments immediately, have students reply to each other, or address the questions when time permits. Learn more about the uses of backchannels in my presentation about using backchannels in the classroom.

Here are some school-friendly services that can be used to host backchannels: Today's Meet, Chatzy, Edmodo, and Present.ly.

7. Join a Social Network for Your Professional Development
Social networks can be used for much more than just sharing pictures of your kids with you old high school friends. Twitter,Classroom 2.0, and The Educators PLN are great places to connect with other teachers around the world. Use these connections to gather ideas for improving your lesson plans, share and find great web resources, and perhaps virtually connect your classroom to another classroom. Check out the Flat Classroom Project for ideas about connecting classrooms around the world. View my resources to learn how to build your own personal learning network.

8. Use an Online Service to Save Your Bookmarks
Every spring just before school lets out for the summer and all of the school-issued computers are re-imaged, some of my colleagues come to me in a panic wondering how to save all of the websites they have bookmarked on their computers. This problem could be completely avoided if they would just try using an online social bookmarking service like Diigo, Delicious, or Google Bookmarks.

Using an online bookmarking service allows you to access all of your favorite websites from any Internet-connected computer anywhere. All three of these services offer browser add-ons that allow to save bookmarks just as easily as you would with the bookmarking features in Firefox or Internet Explorer. These services also allow you to share your bookmarks with others (your students for example) and to add comments to your bookmarks so you remember why you saved each one. Learn more about online bookmarking services in this video from Common Craft. Learn how to use Google Bookmarks in my free publication Google for Teachers II.

9. Get Your Students Searching More Than Just Google.com
Give students a research assignment and the first place that most of them will go to is Google.com. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if that's all your students do they're not likely to find the best possible information. One of the ways you can do this is by introducing your students to Google Wonder Wheel and Google Timeline. Both of those refinement tools are built into Google Search. You should also show your students how to use Google's advanced search options. If your students are searching for information that contains numerical data such as distance and time, introduce them to Wolfram Alpha. Learn more about Internet search strategies and tools in my free publication Beyond Google. Learn how to build your own search engine in my free publication Google for Teachers II.

10. Have Your Students Create Podcasts
Creating podcasts is a great way for students to preserve oral histories or to hear themselves practicing a foreign language. Open source program Audacity and Apple's Garage Band are excellent platforms for recording podcasts. You can also record podcasts without installing software by using Aviary's Myna service or Drop.io's voicemail service. If you need a free place to host podcasts check out PodBean or Blubrry.

11. Eliminate Inbox Overload
Get all of your students using Google Docs or Zoho Writer this year to eliminate the need for them to send you document attachments. Simply have them share their documents with you. You can edit their documents and grade their documents without having to open attachments. Using Google Docs or Zoho Writer will eliminate issues associated with students sending attachments that you cannot open. Getting your students to use either of these services will free up a lot of storage space in your email inbox.

Stay tuned later this week for a free PDF guide on how to use the tools mentioned above.

If this is your first time visiting Free Technology for Teachers please consider subscribing.

Gump- teachers

2010-08-16T08:03:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqmLiWvoRfA&feature=related

Bob Sullo's Rant

2010-08-16T07:59:00.001-05:00

Does Academic Rigor Matter? (What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You)

Most of us blindly accept that students preparing to be doctors should be subjected to the most demanding, rigorous, God-awful course of studies as undergraduates. I mean, that soft, liberal arts, humanistic stuff is OK, but “real” professionals – like doctors – need to be tested by fire and lesser candidates “weeded out.” Applying to med school is the academic equivalent of survival of the fittest. My college roommate was pre-med. I saw what he had to get through. I have to admit that as a health-care consumer, I’m glad he endured a hellacious course of studies. I want to have confidence that my doctors have been prepared well. Knowing they were pushed to the limit somehow provides reassurance.

Oops! Hang on a second. A study reported by David Muller, MD and Nathan Kase, MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of New York University in New York challenges the prevailing wisdom that “tougher is better.” Their findings appear in the August 2010 volume of Academic Medicine(Volume 85 – Issue 8 – pp 1378-1383) and compare the performance of those medical students who followed the more traditional, “rigorous” undergraduate program – organic chemistry, physics, and calculus – with those who took “softer” undergraduate courses and majored in liberal arts. Their results? “Students without the traditional premedical preparation performed at a level equivalent to their premedical classmates.” In fact, the authors say there is a need to “remove content that is ‘irrelevant to medical practitioners, researchers, and administrators’ and that serves only as a mechanism for weeding out students in a ‘trial by fire.’”

Yikes! All along I thought rigor helped me get the highest-quality medical care. Seems like all I got were stressed out docs no better prepared to care for me than their counterparts who pursued a less demanding course of studies. (And those humanity-types probably can engage me in some interesting conversation!)

What does all of this mean? For one, forget the whole “rigor translates into enhanced performance” mantra that permeates the educational landscape. Creating “hoops” does nothing to promote quality, even in professions traditionally viewed as the most demanding. A much better predictor of success is reasonable capacity laced with heartfelt motivation to be the best you can be. I wonder how many potentially wonderful doctors (or lawyers, or teachers, or accountants, or auto mechanics, etc.) we have “screened out” for reasons that may be capricious. Looks like higher standards may have little to do with increasing capacity.

By Bob Sullo.

"Dogs and School Reform" Article

2010-08-16T07:42:00.001-05:00

Dogs: An unusual guide to school reform

My guest today is Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.

By Marion Brady
Driving the country roads of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, I have sometimes been lucky enough to be blocked by sheep being moved from one pasture to another.

I say ‘lucky’ because it allows me to watch an impressive performance by a dog – usually a Border Collie.

What a show! A single, mid-sized dog herding two or three hundred sheep, keeping them moving in the right direction, rounding up strays, knowing how to intimidate but not cause panic, funneling them all through a gate, and obviously enjoying the challenge.

Why a Border Collie? Why not an Akita or Xoloitzcuintli or another of about 400 breeds listed on the Internet?

Because, among the people for whom herding sheep is serious business, there is general agreement that Border Collies are better at doing what needs to be done than any other dog. They have ‘the knack.’

That knack is so important that those who care most about Border Collies even oppose their being entered in dog shows. That, they say, would lead to the Border Collie being bred to look good, and looking good isn’t the point. Brains, innate ability, performance – that’s the point.

Other breeds are no less impressive in other ways. If you’re lost in a snowstorm in the Alps, you don’t need a Border Collie. You need a big, strong dog with a really good nose, lots of fur, wide feet that don’t sink too deeply into snow, and an unerring sense of direction for returning with help. You need a Saint Bernard.

If varmints are sneaking into your hen house, killing your chickens, and escaping down holes in a nearby field, you don’t need a Border Collie or a Saint Bernard, you need a Fox Terrier.

It isn’t that many different breeds can’t be taught to herd, lead high-altitude rescue efforts, or kill foxes. They can. It’s just that teaching all dogs to do things which one particular breed can do better than any other doesn’t make much sense.

We accept the reasonableness of that argument for dogs. We reject it for kids.

The non-educators now running the education show say American kids are lagging ever-farther behind in science and math, and that the consequences of that for America’s economic well-being could be catastrophic.

So, what is this rich, advantaged country of ours doing to try to beat out the competition?

Mainly, we put in place the No Child Left Behind program, now replaced by Race to the Top and the Common Core State Standards Initiative. If that fact makes you optimistic about the future of education in America, think again about dogs.

There are all kinds of things they can do besides herd, rescue, and engage foxes. They can sniff luggage for bombs. Chase felons. Stand guard duty. Retrieve downed game birds. Guide the blind. Detect certain diseases. Locate earthquake survivors. Entertain audiences. Play nice with little kids. Go for help if Little Nell falls down a well.

So, with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top as models, let’s set performance standards for these and all other canine capabilities and train all dogs to meet them. All 400 breeds. All skills. Leave No Dog Behind!

Two-hundred-pound Mastiffs may have a little trouble with the chase-the-fox-down-the-hole standard, and Chihuahuas will probably have difficulty with the tackle-the-felon-and-pin-him-to-the-ground standard. But, hey, no excuses! Standards are standards! Leave No Dog Behind.

Think there’s something wrong with a same-standards-and-tests-for-everybody approach to educating? Think a math whiz shouldn’t be held back just because he can’t write a good five-paragraph essay? Think a gifted writer shouldn’t be refused a diploma because she can’t solve a quadratic equation? Think a promising trumpet player shouldn’t be kept out of the school orchestra or pushed out on the street because he can’t remember the date of the Boxer Rebellion?

If you think there’s something fundamentally, dangerously wrong with an educational reform effort that’s actually designed to standardize, designed to ignore human variation, designed to penalize individual differences, designed to produce a generation of clones, photocopy this column.

If you think it’s stupid to require every kid to read the same books, think the same thoughts, parrot the same answers, make several photocopies. And in the margin at the top of each, write, in longhand, something like, “Please explain why the standards and accountability fad isn’t a criminal waste of brains,” or, “Why are you trashing America’s hope for the future?” or just, “Does this make sense?”

Send the copies to your senators and representatives before they sell their vote to the publishing and testing corporations intent on getting an ever-bigger slice of that half-trillion dollars a year America spends on educating.

NOT to do on the first day

2010-08-16T07:35:00.002-05:00

This year, I promise my students to not:

Sit behind my desk and wave at you, but instead be in the hallway, smiling.
Expect you to put everything away and stay organized, after all, learning can be kind of messy.
Hand you a folder with paperwork to fill out so that I can get to know you better. Real community comes from conversation.
Give you a list of my rules; we will make expectations together.
Welcome you to "my room," it is our room!
Talk about all of the homework you will have, instead I will share the great knowledge we will uncover.
Tell you how you can earn rewards; no stickers, stars or trinkets in here - knowledge is our reward.
Pretend that I know what you are going to say or only partially listen; you are my focus and will be the whole year.
Run to the teacher's lounge and share stories about those kids that I have. Instead I will share just how phenomenal this year will be.
Pretend that I have all of the answers or am the absolute authority in the room; this is a journey we take together and you get to teach me as well.
Hide that I am nervous. I don't know you either so, of course, I am nervous.
Tell you how to get an "A." Learning is not about grading, it is about learning, so grades will not be a main focus.
Second-guess everything I said or did; I will trust in myself and hope you do the same.
Be afraid to try something you suggested; after all, what is the harm in trying?

So ask yourself, what do you not want to do on the first day of school?

Care first

2010-08-16T07:35:00.001-05:00

I learned that teaching is more than just following a curriculum. We get to touch people’s hearts; we get this unique opportunity of making someone’s life different by giving them tools to be better, by teaching them to believe in themselves and by showing them they are special and unique. It’s by showing them we care that we’ll get to do the most. It’s by loving them that we’ll be able to make them flourish.

Ravitch

2010-07-29T13:44:00.001-05:00

So, here is my alternate vision: Respect teachers as adults and professionals. Give them the time and opportunity to refresh their intellectual energy. Provide opportunities for professional development that promote their intellectual, spiritual, and professional renewal. Take concrete steps to strengthen the profession. Avoid policies and programs that imply quick fixes to serious problems.

From Ben Johnson

2010-07-29T07:09:00.000-05:00

"So do you have a problem with me?" the student asked.

"Yes I do." I testily answered. "You need to be quiet and listen to the teacher!"

"What do you care? Just keep fixing that computer!" replied the student.

Unfortunately, I was only a visitor in the classroom that day (there to fix the computer). The above exchange occurred when I just couldn't stand it any longer and turned and looked for the student who was making all that noise while the teacher was trying to teach high school biology.

I must have had an angry look on my face when I turned to look, and that single look got a nasty reaction. It didn't get any better between that student and me. But it did get me thinking: What would I have done differently to diffuse the situation if I were the teacher?

I'm not going to talk about the sad state of society where students can feel comfortable being rude to adults, nor will I discuss any specifics about the student. I am also not going to address that the teacher seemed oblivious to what was going on between the student and this visitor. (My reason for not tackling any of those topics? If we are to fix education, we have to stop blaming and making excuses. We just need to fix it starting with ourselves!)

As I mentioned above, my facial expression may have cued the response. Perhaps when I looked in a perturbed fashion at this student it was viewed as a challenge. I wonder if it would have been any different if I had kept my face passive. Probably. But, after all, I communicated what I really wanted to communicate. With just my look, I told this student that I was displeased.

Then I thought, what could I have said that would have made things better? I know that humor is the best thing to deflect angry situations, but I was peeved. I wish I had recalled in that moment all the research that shows when you are irritated, your brain basically shuts off.

Maybe I should have said with a wry smile, "I'm sorry, the teacher is speaking so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying." Or perhaps I could have stated, "Nope, I am just sitting here listening to you enjoying the Kreb cycle." If I had had my wits about me I could have -- and probably should have -- stood up and introduced myself to that student: "Oh, I'm sorry, we have not been properly introduced. I am the all powerful and wise adult. And you are?" All of these would have either made the student laugh or at least embarrassed the student enough to keep the student quiet. They would have had a more desirous outcome than what I did say.

Although I'm in classrooms daily, I typically do not have the pressure of getting students to do what they do not want to do. However, something I do know for certain: By allowing negative student behaviors to continue, teachers are not doing anyone a favor. We have to do something.

That is why I felt compelled to do something, so I gave the student "the look," and my authority as an adult was then challenged. Then, wisely or not, I decided to assert that authority. Both of us lost our dignity that day. And I admit I played my part in this.

I am curious to know: What would you have done in this situation? Please also share successful strategies for diffusing unnecessary conflicts. We are all in this together. I look forward to your suggestions and ideas.

Why Don't Students Like School?

2010-07-29T07:06:00.001-05:00

Give Time to Explore, Think, and Discover

I am reading an interesting book by Daniel Willingham called, Why Don't Students Like School? that I think will help you reignite the flames of curiosity. Willingham gets to the crux of the matter right away: It is not the state testing that is doing the damage. It is the teacher's reflexive response to state testing. Too many teachers assume that the best and quickest way to get information into students' brains is to tell them what they should know and then expect them to know it.

Willingham also introduces in his book the concept that, "Memory is the residue of thought." This means that we remember most what we think about most. If the students are interested and inspired to think about things for prolonged periods, then memory is enhanced. This is where inquiry, constructivism, and curiosity come into play -- providing opportunities for students to think about what they are learning. In this way, memory is improved, students do better on standardized tests, and, guess what? Students enjoy learning! Problem solved.

Comments regarding National Standards Adoption by Iowa

2010-07-29T06:58:00.001-05:00

Ann Berger, an English teacher at Pleasant Valley High School in eastern Iowa, wants state officials to slow down.

"It truly is a waste of taxpayer money, time and energy because quite honestly the professionals know better," she said. "It's my job to figure out what each of those kids needs. We all should be differentiating, instead of standardizing."

Iowa officials say the state and national blueprints are compatible because they tell schools what to teach but not how to teach it.

"We like the specificity of it," said Phyllis Staplin, the West Des Moines school district's curriculum director. "The art form of instruction will still continue. It has to."

action drives belief

2010-07-27T07:49:00.000-05:00

Douglas Reeves says that “action drives belief,” not the other way around. He contends that it’s usually difficult to see the benefits of something before we do it because it’s too abstract. We have to start doing it - and thus turn the conceptual into something more concrete - before we actually see the benefits and buy in. This is why, for example, many school districts require educators to be in professional learning communities (PLCs). At the beginning, most educators aren’t clear what the benefits of PLCs will be to them. Over time, however, if the initiative is done well (and, unfortunately, in education that’s a big if), the idea is that educators will start seeing - through their ongoing PLC activities - the benefits of belonging to such a group. Does action drive belief or does belief drive action?

Zen Student Story

2010-07-26T11:55:00.001-05:00

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ."  The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?"  Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

From Seth Godin- again

2010-07-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

Type 1. You can take a class where you learn technique, facts and procedures.

Type 2. You can take a class where you learn to see, learn to lead and learn to solve interesting problems.

The first type of teaching isn't particularly difficult to do, and it's something most of us are trained to absorb. The first type of schooling can even be accomplished with self-discipline and a Dummies book. The first type of class is important but not scarce.

The second kind, on the other hand, is where all real success comes from. It's really tricky to find and train people to do this sort of teaching, and anytime you can find some of it, you should grab it.

The sad thing is that we often conflate the two. We think we're hiring someone to do the second type, a once in a lifetime teacher, someone who will change the outlook of stellar students. But then we give them rules and procedures and feedback that turn them into a type 1 teacher.

Even worse, we often pay as if we're getting the scarce and valuable type 2 teachers but we end up hiring and managing type 1 teachers.

I spend a lot of time in colleges and other teaching institutions. Over and over I see the same thing--organizations that have painted themselves into a corner, keeping themselves busy but refusing to do the difficult work of teaching people to see. The dean of one college was so stuck in his type-1ness that he couldn't even bring himself to participate in a session run by a gifted type 2 teacher.

Is there anything more important to you and your organization (or your kids or your town) than figuring out how to obtain and share the wisdom that real teaching can deliver?

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing

2010-05-24T06:50:00.002-05:00

We all went to Brittany's graduation reception and Christy reminded me of the quote from my Valley days. It deals with focus. I used to remind the kids that their academic focus was most important as we spent hours practicing for extra curricular activities. Stephen Covey origin.

I also remember WIN? What's Important Now? That has a Lou Holtz origin.

And Gretzky- "Skate to where the puck will be"

Lance Armstrong- "Are you riding or hiding?"

Viktor Frankl

2010-05-20T07:22:00.001-05:00

Found a youtube of a 4:22 speech in which Viktor uses an analogy from flight school to help understand how we should treat people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1512_XJEw

From David Warlick

2010-04-08T18:42:00.000-05:00

Here are just a few suggestions for administrators for promoting these conversations:

Hire learners. Ask prospective employees, “Tell me about something that you have learned lately.” “How did you learn it?” “What are you seeking to learn more about right now?”
Open your faculty meetings with something that you’ve just learned – and how you learned it. It does not have to be about school, instruction, education managements, or the latest theories of learning.
Make frequent mention of your Twitter stream, RSS reader, specific bloggers you read. Again, this should not be limited to job specific topics.
Share links to specific TED talks or other mini-lectures by interesting and smart people, then share and ask for reactions during faculty meetings, in the halls, or during casual conversations with employees and parents just before the PTO meeting.
Include in the daily announcements, something new and interesting (Did you know that a California power utility has just gotten permission to start buying electricity from outer space?).
Ask students in the halls what they’ve just learned. Ask them what their teachers have just learned.
Ask teachers and other staff to write reports on their latest vacation, sharing what they learned – and publish them for public consumption.
Ask teachers to devote one of their classroom bulletin boards to what they are learning, related or unrelated to the classroom.
Include short articles in the schools newsletter and/or web site about research being conducted by the teachers – again, related or unrelated to the classroom.
Learn what the parents of your students are passionately learning about, and ask them to report (text, video, Skype conversation, or in person to be recorded).
—————————————- added later ————————————–
Find ways to be playful at your school — and perhaps feel less grown-up. (see Do Grown-ups Learning?)

1 to 1 Institute

2010-04-08T18:33:00.000-05:00

First, The keynote speaker surprisingly was a 1985 W-SR Graduate. Angela Maiers (maiden name – Fink) is an educational consultant from Des Moines. She presented well.

Her website is http://www.angelamaiers.com/

She spoke about Web 3.0. The slides and notes from her presentation are on her website.

Second, http://vimeo.com/7416500 is a video explanation of a School for One pilot from New York. It is interesting in that they have developed an algorithm that automates some of the instructional decisions teachers make daily and customize each students learning experiences. It’s way out there.

6-Word Stories

2010-03-25T14:52:00.001-05:00

6-Word Stories - R Enough

by Dr. Z

6-word stories could be considered eXtreme short stories. It is said that Ernest Hemmingway once proclaimed his 6-word story, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn.", as his best work.

Wired Magazine asks sci-fi, fantasy and horror writers to write their own 6-word short stories.

The sun explodes . . . eight minutes left. - Maximus

Pete Berg launched a Six Word Stories blog in Dec, 2008. This is where he stores thousands of 6-word stories. He has these catagorized by subject and author. It is possible to submit your own and receive comments from the readers.

For Sale: Guitar. No strings attached. - Mathijs hoitsma

Visual six-word story group project on Flickr

Bearded pensioner held over yuletide breakins - 5/10

Writing 6-word stories is not easy. You must first envision an event or tale that you want to tell. Then you whittle away the words it would take to convey your ideas about this story. Finally, you have the true essence of your dissertation.

Lemov's taxonomy

2010-03-25T14:21:00.002-05:00

have had friends ask me what I think of our neighborhood school, and my answer is quite simple. I tell them, "The school is only as good as the teacher your child has that year."

When Doug Lemov conducted his own search for those magical ingredients, he noticed something about most successful teachers that he hadn’t expected to find: what looked like natural-born genius was often deliberate technique in disguise. “Stand still when you’re giving directions,” a teacher at a Boston school told him. In other words, don’t do two things at once. Lemov tried it, and suddenly, he had to ask students to take out their homework only once.

It was the tiniest decision, but what was teaching if not a series of bite-size moves just like that?

Lemov’s Taxonomy. (The official title, attached to a book version being released in April, is “Teach Like a Champion: The 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College.”)

The article describes the work of Doug Lemov, a teacher, principal, and charter-school founder who has written a book called Teach Like a Champion: The 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College.

Nichification E. Abbey

2010-03-25T14:18:00.001-05:00

In the classroom, teachers have thought about this issue, at least subconsciously. When teachers allow students to choose their own groups, students will pick groups that make them comfortable and that have similar interests. This can be a very productive strategy. But on the other hand, many teachers see they have a responsibility to pair students with those they don't normally visit with in order to extend their thinking.

But, have you ever had this discussion with other educators? How to get students out of their clique-boxes and learning from other students in the class? I haven't in all my experience in teaching, which makes the issue of online nichification more dire and more pressing.

What's your sentence- D. Pink

2010-03-25T14:14:00.001-05:00

What is your sentence? (Curacao edition)

by Dan Pink

3 people liked this

At the International School of Curacao, teacher Danny Kinzer asked his Theory of Knowledge students to undertake the “What’s your sentence?” described in Lindsey Testolin’s remarkable video and on page 154 ofDrive. Then each participant posted his or her answer on the school bulletin board.

Money/Value

2010-03-25T13:41:00.000-05:00

Rather than stressing about how you can get more money for money’s sake, focus instead on how you can provide more value to more people. All sorts of wealth will flow from this mindset.

Have you seen this? Prof "freezes" laptop

2010-03-19T07:45:00.000-05:00

Professor Destroys Laptop as a Warning for Students

by Dr. Z

Popout

Talk about an ego-maniacal professor. This professor has serious issues with student-based learning. Watch thevideo above and you will see Kieran Mullen, a physics professor at the University of Oklahoma, bathe a laptop in Liquid Nitogen and then shatter the computer on the floor with the threat, "Don't bring laptops and work on them in class!"

What does this mean? Why is he scared of students bringing computers to class? Laptops in class can be a distraction, but it can also be an amazingly interactive tool that will enable the students to find new ideas to integrate with the discussion. Robin Galloway writes about how we run a backchannel in our lecture classes so that students are able to discuss the ideas that are covered in lecture.

What do you think?

Do you allow laptops in your lectures or classes?
Do you encourage students to use their laptops in class?
How do you use laptops to engage your students in the classroom learning experience?

Purple Cow

2010-03-12T07:34:00.002-06:00

Purple Cow- Seth Godin

Products with a future are those created by passionate people.

Create remarkable products that the right people seek out.

Do you have the emails of the 20 percent of your customer base that loves what you do?

Sneezers are the key spreading agents of an ideavirus. It's useless to advertise to anyone (except sneezers with influence.

Otaku- more than a hobby but a little less than an obsession- it's what gets some people to take extra efforts to try something and then tell others.

Learning and Performance - Fan impact

2010-03-12T07:23:00.000-06:00

Fewer of the athlete’s peers are in attendance at away games.

Do young inexperienced teams play better on the road? If so, is this due to less worry by the athletes about what their peers may think of their performance?

If we use up a part of our limited attention worrying about what other people think of us, we have less attention to spend actually performing the activity.

If so, then if we can convince our student fans (the group that some athletes are most worried about) that their positive support is crucial in relieving this worry and subsequent draw on the athlete’s attention, then the athlete will feel supported and have more attention to give to his/her performance.

Carol Dweck Notes

2010-03-12T07:16:00.000-06:00

Mindset

"To my mind, it's the balance that counts -- keeping a balance between valuing learning and performance. Let's face it, grades often matter a lot, and many students who want to go on to top graduate and professional schools need good grades. Problems arise when students come to care so much about their performance that they sacrifice important learning opportunities and limit their intellectual growth.

Problems also arise when students equate their grades with their intelligence or their worth. This can be very damaging, for when they hit difficulty, they may quickly feel inadequate, become discouraged and lose their ability or their desire to perform well in that area.

For me the best mix is a combination of (a) valuing learning and challenge and (b) valuing grades but seeing them as merely an index of your current performance, not a sign of your intelligence or worth.

Students can be taught that their intellectual skills are things that can be cultivated -- through their hard work, reading, education, confronting of challenges, etc. When they are taught this, they seem naturally to become more eager for challenges, harder working, and more able to cope with obstacles. Researchers (for example, Joshua Aronson of the University of Texas) have even shown that college students' grade point averages go up when they are taught that intelligence can be developed.

Students who are taught that their performance simply measures their current skills can still relish learning challenges, for mistakes and setbacks should not be undermining.

By the way, this stance characterizes many top athletes. They are very performance-oriented during a game or match. However, they do not see a negative outcome as reflecting their underlying skills or potential to learn. Moreover, in between games they are very learning-oriented. They review tapes of their past game, trying to learn from their mistakes, they talk to their coaches about how to improve, and they work ceaselessly on new skills.

What has intrigued me most in my 30 years of research is the power of motivation. Motivation is often more important than your initial ability in determining whether you succeed in the long run. In fact [as I mentioned earlier], many creative geniuses were not born that way. They were often fairly ordinary people who became extraordinarily motivated.

By motivation, I mean not only the desire to achieve but also the love of learning, the love of challenge, and the ability to thrive on obstacles. These are the greatest gifts we can give our students.

The Fourth Way- notes

2010-03-08T07:27:00.003-06:00

Inclusive, inspiring and sustainable future

Making sense of the ICC- communities with teacher leadership making sense of them together in relation to the particular students we teach.

Both/and thinking --both phonics and whole language, both rigor and relevance, both unilateral and distributed leadership, both memorization and improvisation.

Everyone wants the smartest, most personable individuals to become their children’s teachers.

The ability to release strength to release. P .28

Recover the missionary spirit and deep moral purpose of engaging and inspiring all students. Put the passion back into learning and the pleasure in learning.

Tangible hope – a culture of optimism and inspiration

Greek philosopher, Heraclitus “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

Finland p. 52

Replace the fear factor with the peer factor.

Developing and achieving purposes in positive relationships.

It is easier to be resilient when you know that there is someone- even just one person-who is on your side.

We all long for an inspiring purpose that connects us to each other and to an ideal that is greater than ourselves.

More investment in community and family development.

Students are highly knowledgeable about the things that help them learn- teachers who know their content, care for them, have a sense of humor, and never give up on them.

Do you have a passion? Are yo good at it, or can you become so? Does it serve a compelling social need?

Meaningful learning and mindful teaching Mindful teacher project- google?

Lateral learning that celebrates persistent questioning and celebration of the art and craft of teaching.

PLC 88

Tuning protocol developed by the coalition of essential schools.

A test-centered curriculum of memorizable content crowds out more interesting areas of learning and speaks less and less to them. Narrower and less-engaging.

TSL

2010-03-08T07:27:00.001-06:00

In his previous book, Making Schools Work, William G. Ouchi reported on school decentralization, aided by a grant from the National Science Foundation. He found that when principals were given autonomy over their schools, the performance of those schools improved measurably. Picking up where that book left off, The Secret of TSL explains what it is that autonomous principals do to improve their schools. Drawing on the author's study of 442 schools in eight urban school districts, The Secret of TSL demonstrates that there is a direct correlation between how much control a principal has over his or her budget and how much that school's student performance rises. School organization reform lone produces a more potent improvement in student performance than any other single factor.

When principals control their budgets, they tailor their expenses to fit their schools, and they invariably hire more teachers. With fewer students to teach, teachers are able to develop a stronger and more personal relationship with their students. TSL, or Total Student Load -- that is, the number of papers a teacher must grade and the number of students he or she must get to know each term -- declines, and student performance, as measured by federally mandated tests, improves, often substantially. TSL is the key to improved student performance.

From Seth Godin- he sums it up well

2010-02-28T15:09:00.000-06:00

It's easier to teach compliance than initiative

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It's difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it's a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They're pretty good at it.

To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.

Of course, now that's all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

DRIVE

2010-02-17T11:17:00.003-06:00

Just finished Daniel Pink's latest book Drive. Check it out at http://www.danpink.com/

I am intrigued as to how his X and I theory applies to how we relate to students and engage them in their learning.

He also mentions the work of Dweck (Mindset), Gardner (Five Minds for the Future), Csikszentmihalyi (Flow), Seligman, and plenty of others. It all helps to lend credibility, but more importantly puts perspective and connectedness to their respective works and ideas.

If you are interested, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y&feature=sdig&et=1251728132.58

Personal Listening Devices (PLD's)??

2009-08-29T09:08:00.002-05:00

Why should or shouldn’t they be allowed? When and where should they be allowed in school? Should we decide what students listen to? Are PLD’s a distraction to learning or do they assist some learners? How would we monitor what students are listening to? How does listening to music affect student behaviors? Should we have one policy/rule for the building or allow individual teacher discretion? Is there any research that “proves” listening to music increases learning?

My thoughts as of today- (not strong, I could be persuaded) But right now, I would support the absence of PLD's in schools. I have not been convinced of the student learning benefits at this time. Student learning is the main thing and in an attempt to keep the main thing the main thing, I will suggest that students fully engage in the learning experience that we offer and not be "engaged" in whatever learning their PLD is offering.

One site and a few quotes

2009-04-23T09:05:00.001-05:00

Classblogmeister.com

We are learning to be literate in new dynamic ways. We have a deeper ability to engage literacy.

We use technology to connect ideas and learners in safe, relevant, authentic ways to answer questions , share ideas, and develop community.

My personal growth as a learner has been exponential as a result of my exploration of technology and connectivity to some of the best and brightest.

If we want people’s intelligence, support, and trust we must welcome them as co–creators.

Change is defeated by anxiety almost every time. In fact the odds against change --even when change is a matter of life and death—are a staggering nine to one.

Most people must engage in a behavior before they accept that it is beneficial; then they see results , and they believe that it is the right thing to do.

A new Blog for me: The Changing Face of Education in Iowa

2009-04-16T07:59:00.000-05:00

I just discovered a new blogger from Iowa. His name is Evan Abbey and he works at Heartland AEA. Here is an interesting excerpt from his blog

So, I asked who the head basketball coaches were (they were sitting together on the other side of the auditorium). So I asked them as a group "Do you teach the defensive position? The duck-billed follow through? How to run your offense? And, do you have a sequence of these things?" The answer, yes to all of them... you can't get to the fine details of the motion offense and the half-court trap defense without hitting the building blocks first.

So, then I asked, "Do you teach hustle? Awareness? Improvisation?" One coach who was very interested by this train of thought had a great answer. "Yes, we do, but it's different.""How so?""Well, it isn't cut and dry. It isn't step-by-step teaching, but it's much more coaching. You see it, then you point it out and process it with the kids. Saying, you made an excellent move there that wasn't part of the offense... what did you see? Then the kid answers, and it makes everyone want to do it. And what hustle looks like to the post is different than the wing."

And another coach:"Yeah, and we're never done teaching those things. Up until the last day, you are looking to work on those. And the first day as well."Those are the "21st century skills" of basketball. And, that's what it should be in the classroom as well.You work on things like creativity, analysis, and problem-identification on all days, at all points in the lesson, at all grades. You never stop. You coach them more so than you teach them. You find examples of them in the classroom, point them out, and have kids learn from each other. The skills look different in different situations. But they are absolutely vital to a child's success.

So the answer is, you don't teach 21st century skills before the 20th century. You teach them at the same time, infusing them together.

Hmmmm.....

Sites and one quote

2009-04-06T13:06:00.000-05:00

Just a few sites I have been learning from:

Dangerously irrelevant http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
www.edutopia.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHiby3m_RyM Learn to change Change to Learn
www.ceschangelab.org

And one quote: You cannot lead strangers, you can only coerce or bribe them.

Enjoy.

Tony Wagner’s New Book

2009-03-26T08:41:00.001-05:00

The title: The Global Achievement Gap doesn’t necessarily catch my attention as a good read, but I am finding it to be an enlightening vision of what high school could be- schools where students are taught to think and be curious. He has observed that the longer our children are in school, the less curious they become. I would contend that they also tend to be less engaged.

One quote from the book from the CEO of Siemens Hearing Instruments:

“If you want young people to be scientists, it’s not how much they can retain but how much they can explore. It’s how you ask the next question. I can look up anything, but I can’t take it to the next level without pushing and exploring. And that’s what I want young people to learn to do. I want them to never stop asking questions.”

The thesis of his book is focused around teaching Seven Survival Skills:

Critical thinking and problem-solving
Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
Agility and adaptability
Initiative and entrepreneurialism
Effective oral and written communication
Accessing and analyzing information
Curiosity and imagination

I’ll conclude with one more quote; “but even in the best districts the focus is always on test scores, not student learning. They don’t seem to understand that the two aren’t necessarily the same thing.” Hmmm…..

Few more snippets from Marc Prensky.

2009-03-18T07:10:00.001-05:00

Technology should be used to support the students learning on their own. Technology makes it possible to embrace constructivist learning which assumes that children are naturally motivated to learn, read, and write. The role of education is to provide them with the tools and guidance to acquire skills in a developmentally appropriate way in a student driven approach.

Do we help each student find their passion? We can’t just do the same stuff better; we must do different stuff.

How can we get students to pass the tests doing something that they (or we) all enjoy?

Our kids’ education is splitting into “school” and “after school” outside of school students have found a better way to learn. We must engage with students about their learning.

The anology of nouns and verbs. The nouns (tools for education) change, but the verbs (thinking processes) are more constant.

“Video is the new text.” Have you learned from youtube or teachertube yet?

“Phones are the new textbook.” Evaluating students with their own tools.
Open phone tests.

1. Know the right thing to do. 2. Get it done- goal setting. 3. Do it with others. 4. Do it creatively. 5. Constantly seek to do it better.

The world is “birthing” a new person who requires digital tools. Remember it is only technology if it was invented after you were born. Do you still see your TV as technology?

Power Teaching

2009-03-12T06:53:00.000-05:00

I listened to Marc Prensky speak twice yesterday about teaching and learning in the 21st Century. One thing that he briefly alluded to was “Power Teaching”. You can find it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTwjFHorQhk

Suffice to say that it is an interesting piece on student engagement. The piece emphasizes the ability to compare and contrast and the high level of learning that comes from developing the skill.

Marzano (Classroom Instruction that Works from McRel) advocated Comparison/Contrast skill development as one of the classroom instruction strategies with the highest impact on student learning. What do you think?

From The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra

2009-02-26T08:01:00.000-06:00

Interesting book to be included in my class at UNI about leadership and systems change. I have included a few choice parts just to give you a feel for his message.

"We need to revitalize our communities-including our educational communities- so that principles of ecology become manifest in them as principles of education, management, and politics.

During more than three billion years of evolution the planet’s ecosystems have organized themselves in subtle and complex ways so as to maximize sustainability. This wisdom of nature is the essence of ecoliteracy.

Understanding ecological interdependence means understanding relationships. Nourishing the community means nourishing those relationships.

Sustainable patterns of production and consumption need to be cyclical.

Solar energy in its many forms—sunlight, for solar heating and photovoltaic electricity, wind and hydropower, biomass, and so on—is the only kind of energy that is renewable, economically efficient, and environmentally benign.

Economics emphasizes competition, expansion, and domination; ecology emphasizes cooperation, conservation, and partnership.

The survival of humanity will depend on our ecological literacy, on our ability to understand these principles of ecology (interdependence, recycling, partnership, flexibility, diversity—sustainability) and live accordingly."

Survey Results

2009-02-24T09:29:00.000-06:00

Back in January I asked the teaching staff to fill out a brief survey to provide feedback to me. Following are the results. Feel free to draw any conclusions and share them with me.

Results of Administrative Survey- 23 responses January 9, 2008

Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
1 2 3 4 5
2.2 When problems arise, the associate principal offers choices for solutions.
2.2 The associate principal provides opportunities for staff to work together.
2.1 The associate principal makes clear what I am expected to know and be able to do.
2.1 The associate principal asks for staff input in enforcing rules and discipline plans.
2.1 The associate principal lets me know my work is appreciated.
2.1 The associate principal encourages me to be innovative in my teaching.
2 The associate principal models the staff development strategies that we are expected to use in our classrooms.
1.9 Teamwork skills are modeled by the associate principal, not just expected.
1.8 It feels safe to express my thoughts to the associate principal.
1.8 The associate principal allows me the opportunity to solve my own problems before offering help.
1.8 The associate principal is an effective communicator
1.8 The associate principal is a self- reflective practitioner who works hard to continually improve in his job.
1.7 The associate principal asks questions that are interesting and connected to our work as a K-12 school system.
1.5 The associate principal interacts positively with staff.

2.3 I let the associate principal know that I appreciate his work.
2.2 I ask questions that are interesting and connected to the learning in our K-12 school system.
1.9 I ask for clarification when I am not sure how our team should proceed.
1.9 I implement staff development strategies in my classroom in meaningful ways to increase student achievement.
1.8 I realize that communication is a two-way street, and I ask questions when necessary to improve communication between staff and administration.
1.7 I strive to be innovative.
1.7 I do my part to make collaborative work successful.
1.7 I respectfully ask questions when I am unclear on what I am expected to know and be able to do.
1.7 I take an active role in supporting school rules and discipline plans.
1.6 When problems arise, I am willing to consider different options for solutions.
1.5 I am a self-reflective practitioner who works hard to continually improve in my job.
1.5 I make it safe for the associate principal to express his thoughts to me.
1.3 I interact positively with the associate principal.
1.3 I accept the responsibility for helping to solve problems in my classroom.

Coach Thomas

2009-02-24T08:42:00.000-06:00

Coach Ed Thomas from Aplington-Parkersburg High School spoke at the Wartburg Chapel over the weekend. He shared several bible references, but this one stuck with me:

1 Timothy 4:12
Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

It represents how Coach Thomas empowers his students and players.

The Influencer

2009-02-18T07:37:00.000-06:00

This blog is worth the time to read today: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2009/02/great-reset-crisis-in-k-12-education-is.html

I have been reading The Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by five authors. It has aligned interestingly with our CORE activity about Talent and deliberate practice. It actually refers to “deliberate practice” and the researchers behind the label. The book also refers to Carol Dweck’s work on fixed and growth mindsets. It’s like things just line up sometimes. The work that intrigues me the most is the Delancey Street Foundation and its success in taking thieves, prostitutes, druggies, and other criminals and helping them become contributing workers. So my train of thought is if someone out there can do it then we can to.

Postville Visit

2009-02-13T07:59:00.000-06:00

Just a couple notes and pics of what I learned during my participation in the DE Site visit in Postville. But first thanks to all for covering for me in my time away learning.

Postville's k-8 school has more Hispanic students than white students, yet the high school has only about 18% Hispanic.

There are only two jewish students that go the the public school. The Jewish Community has their own "school" with about 100-150 students. We toured the Jewish school. This pic is of the boys' part of the school. The boys have male teachers and the girls have female teachers. Their classrooms are on separate floors of an old hospital building. The average class size is around 6.

The follwoing pic is a sketch by one of the senior Hispanic studnets.

It was an interesting and rewarding three days of learning with some great people both at Postville and from the local AEA and the Dept. of Ed.

Face to Face, too

2009-02-05T08:46:00.001-06:00

Many of you have indicated a desire to discuss this issue "face to face". I assure you that we will make time to discuss it as a staff.

This blog is a beginning that allows everyone the opportunity to be heard and gives us all a reason to learn from each other- about our opinions and about the technology of collaboration. It also helps with the time issue of finding enough time to collaborate as a staff. But it will not replace group discussions in person.

Another interesting aside, the blogging also presents an opportunity for us to continue developing as writers as we "think on paper" about genuine issues that matter to us. Enjoy the experience.

Cell Phone Policy Revision?

2009-02-04T08:55:00.000-06:00

The student senate has presented us a possible revision and their thoughts about the policy and the process of change here at W-SR High School. Following is what they are proposing. Please read and respond. Thank you.

Electronic Device & Cell Phone Policy Review Committee

The Electronic Policy Review Committee was formed by the W-SR Student Senate to assess the current Electronic Devices & Cell Phone Policy of Waverly-Shell Rock Senior High School and recommend ways to update the school’s policy to respond to the integration of technology in today’s society.

Current W-SR Electronic Device & Cell Phone Policy (W-SR Student Handbook ‘08)
Electronic devices such as cell phones, I-pods, blackberries, portables (DVD, cassette, or radio) headset and other such devices and the use of, are prohibited.
Cell phones may be kept in lockers with the devices turned off.
A student in violation of the electronic device/cell phone policy will receive two (2) detentions and a parent will need to pick up the device at the High School Office.

Committee’s Research, Input, and Findings
The committee took input from various sources on possible policy changes including student, teacher, administrator, other school districts, and journal research on this topic.
Students were in favor of a change to the policy which has become outdated. Students offered ideas of policy revisions including: Cell phone use between classes, during lunch, during study hall, and/or assessing the punishment. Students also responded with a desire to use personal audio devices (IPods, MP3 players, etc) during study hall as a way to focus and/or relax. Students feel that carrying their cell phones and audio devices with them is more secure.
A teacher email was sent out that received little response regarding the subject. Teachers who did comment expressed concern for loosening restriction too much regarding cell phone policy. Many teachers when asked about their opinion on the cell phone policy admitted to it being outdated. Study Hall Supervisors also were asked their opinion about the use of personal listening devices during study hall. They commented that they thought that personal audio device usage would be acceptable as long as they were not disruptive.
Through communication with students and faculty of other schools and an article in the Des Moines Register, information was collected on other school’s policies and their assessment of their effectiveness. The Des Moines Register Article specifically was about a school whose cell phone policy allows for students to carry cell phones and use them between classes and during their lunch period. The article mentioned that teachers and administrators thought that the cell phone policy was effective at addressing the current issue of integrating technology in the real world, while still providing for a learning environment. A student from a school in the Cedar Rapids area was also asked about their personal audio device policy. They commented that they were allowed to use personal audio devices during study hall and also teachers could permit the use of audio devices during work time in their classes.

Summary of Proposal
The proposal that the Waverly-Shell Rock Student Senate has developed incorporates various aspects of various policies.
The main points that are included in our proposal are:
Ø Cell phone use between class periods
Ø Use of personal audio listening devices during study hall
Ø Revision of the electronic device carrying policy
Ø Increased student accountability for actions
Ø An Increase in Punishment for Policy Violation
Benefits from Proposal
The Waverly-Shell Rock Student Senate Electronic Policy Review Committee sees many benefits in revising the cell phone policy.
These benefits include:
Ø Increases student responsibility by making the student more accountable for their action with more freedoms and harsher penalties. By requiring students to pick up device from office, it makes them accountable for their own actions. It will help students learn how to responsibly possess a cell phone in society
Ø A reduction in hidden phone usage during class by allowing students a time to use their cell phones during passing. Discourages classroom use with stricter policy.
Ø Integrating technology will keep our school current with the technology advancements of the new millennium. With nearly 90% of students owning a cell phone and/or personal audio device, this technology could be utilized in a learning environment to teach students about the etiquette of phones, demonstrate social networking, research, or even connect with other students from around the world.
Ø Use of cell phone applications like calendars can be utilized to help students stay organized and eliminate paper consumption in planner production in future years.

Proposal for Revised Electronic and Cell Phone Policy
Use of electronic devices such as cell phones, blackberries, I-pods, MP3 players, portable (DVD, CD, cassette, or radio) devices, and other such devices and the use of are prohibited during class.
Personal audio listening devices (I-pods, MP3, and walkman; excluding cell phones with music capabilities) may be used with approval from study hall supervisor during study hall for personal listening. The device may only be used during study hall and should be kept off for all other class periods. Use during other times of the day will result in three (3) detentions, parent notification of policy violation, and confiscation of item. The item may be picked up by the student at the High School Office.
Cell phone use is prohibited during class periods of the school day. Cell phones may be used between class periods in the hallways. Students will be allowed to carry their cell phones with them to class but cell phones may not be heard or used during class periods. Cell phone use may not be used as an excuse for tardiness to a class and may not be used during class. If a student’s cell phone rings or is used during class, it will be confiscated, the student will receive three (3) detentions, parents will be notified of policy violation, and the student will need to pick up the cell phone from the High School Office at the end of their school day.
A student in violation of the electronic device/cell phone policy will receive three (3) detentions, parent notification of policy violation, and the student will need to pick up the device at the High School Office.
Recommended Plan of Action
The Electronic and Cell Phone Policy Committee of the Student Senate recommends the adoption of these policy amendments. The committee recommends that the policy amendments be formally presentation to the High School Administrators for review, critic, and assessment. Furthermore, the policy should be presented to faculty at a Staff In-Service Meeting for staff input. The policy would be presented to the High School Student Body at a General Assembly and/or gone over in CORE group, but an assembly preferred. The committee recommends the policy should be put on a ‘trial run’ for a two week period with assessment of policy following this trial period to determine if the policy is adequate and should be adopted into the student manual.
Additional Thoughts:
Camera phones/locker rooms policy
Harassment policy
Notification of Privilege (like in HB section for Lounge)
Possible issues and how we are addressing them

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

2009-01-26T09:50:00.000-06:00

This is the title of a new book I'm reading that speaks to the promise of technology in helping us teach in new ways.

This is what one expert had to say about the book.

"Provocatively titled, Disrupting Class is just what America's K-12 education system needs--a well thought-through proposal for using technology to better serve students and bring our schools into the 21st Century. Unlike so many education 'reforms,' this is not small-bore stuff. For that reason alone, it's likely to be resisted by defenders of the status quo, even though it's necessary and right for our kids. We owe it to them to make sure this book isn't merely a terrific read; it must become a blueprint for educational transformation." --Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education

A couple of parts that I noted:
Definition of intelligence: 1. The ability to solve problems that one encounters in real life. 2. The ability to generate new problems to solve. 3. The ability to make something or offer a service that is valued within one's culture.

Are we teaching students to do these three things?

Technology enables us to offer education "any time, any place, any path, any pace"

What can we do to maximize learning using technology to match student learning styles and engaging students?

2009-01-21T07:37:00.000-06:00

Uncle Mark's Almanac http://unclemark.org/ was mentioned in Bit Literacy. I encourage you to check it out. Not much that applies directly to teaching, but it's an interesting collection of techie stuff and some other odds and ends.

2009-01-19T07:17:00.000-06:00

Monday morning and post #2. Over the weekend I have been reading a little book called Bit Literacy. The basic thesis of the book is that all the bits of information that we now receive are causing us stress and loss of productivity because we have not learned the technology and discipline to assist us in managing all this information. The author is Phil Terry and his company's website is www.creativegood.com

A couple of things that I am going to explore are the use of a Dvorak keyboard (supposedly more efficient and easier) and a few of the organizational suggestions he makes. For instance he advocates clearing your email to ZERO each day by filing and deleting. He also advocates a specific filing system and that we begin to think of the information coming in as our "media diet" and that we need to consciously decide what we consume.

Did you know that you can type some math into the google search bar and get a calculation and calculator?

The beginning

2009-01-16T09:22:00.000-06:00

OK, I have taken the first step. I hope that this blog will become a collaboration among learners as we strive to integrate technology and meet the learning styles of our students.

Let me begin by directing you to two sites of interest. First a blog by Karl Fisch the creator of "Shift Happens" a popular YouTube video about technology and the future. If you like "Shift Happens" then I suggest viewing "20/20" also. His blog site is: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/

Karl Fisch is the Tech Coordinator at Arapahoe HS in Colorado.

There is also a Wartburg Connection at Arapahoe this semester. Randon Ruggles is student teaching in the English department. Randon was a student tech ass't at Wartburg. He is blogging about his student teaching experience. His blog is http://fiftynineminutes.blogspot.com/