Finding a Niche

“This is so hard. Can’t we just go back to the classroom and have a lecture like in every other class? I don’t want to think this much…” I smile when I hear these statements from my students now. This is a shift for me. I have engaging lectures for the most part. I incorporate animated PowerPoint presentations into my classroom lectures. I have used interactive white boards to keep my students interested and engaged. I used document sharing on network drives…but this semester I have used technology to do different things with my teaching instead of doing the same things differently.

My focus has moved from information dissemination from the teacher to information exploration for my students. In class this semester my students have used online discussion boards across class periods and outside the school day, wikis for collaborative writing, templates for print media, authentic learning experiences in the real world that simulate the experiences of characters in literature, multimedia presentation of information, individualized skill development through online resources, cloud computing, email communication with students on individual skills, and an initial step into the world of podcasting. All of these activities helped me understand that students need to explore and learn in a fun environment if they are going to have meaningful learning experiences. I have moved away from an environment of regurgitation to a world of meaningful interaction.

I remembered what it felt like to be excited about teaching. I have been reenergized because teaching is fun and engaging for me as well as the students. This semester is the first semester in a long time that I feel like I am really preparing the students for the world they will be entering instead of the world that they were born into. At parent teacher conferences the parents were saying that my delivery methods have engaged their students in English again. Many parents said, “Oh, this looks exactly like the system I use as work,” or, “Oh, this looks exactly like the system I use in my college classes.” My students are excited about being able to go at their own pace or go deeper into assignments they are interested in.

One of the most exciting aspects of my adventure this semester has been the way that other teachers have been energized by my experiments. I have been asked to do trainings. I have been given access to additional technologies because of my successful trials. Because of my pilot program for district email for individualized instruction, all 30,000 of the students in my district have email accounts. There is discussion of implementation of a new class for technology instruction at the high school level because of my reflections and discussions about technology use. My school is looking at drafting a long-term technology plan based on my recommendations.

Much of this is due to the fact that information I learned in my Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society class was directly aligned with my goals as a teacher. I was able to implement the skills, activities, and ideas from class into my everyday practice. I was encouraged to look at professional education blogs, participate in professional discussions, and engage with the technologies I wanted to implement with my students. I have rarely had a class that had such a direct impact on my teaching. The activities I engaged in during this class are activities that I can continue to engage in to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology. I have already seen real world gains in student learning and critical thinking and expect that as more of the work is shifted to the students through engaging, well-developed activities, the more this trend will continue.

So, what are the next steps?

One of my goals is to work on expanding our course offering to include a 21^st Century Communications and Technology class. Through my use of technologies in class this year I have been approached to help write the course description and syllabus of such a course. Right now we are in the process of deciding what technologies would be included and the order that those technologies would be taught. The goal right now is to have this class submitted for approval by the end of the semester. I have been convinced through my use of technology in class that my district needs to have a plan for teaching the students how to use the technology without sacrificing time in content areas.

The next goal is to develop a technology plan for my school that is vertically and horizontally aligned with a lot of thought being given to how technologies are used in different subjects to enhance the learning environment for students. Much of the technology used in my building is used for the sake of using technology and not because the technology is supporting the learning of students. We also have many teachers using different types of technology, but we do not have any alignment so students are missing out on the benefit of using these technologies across the curriculum. Creating a technology plan that includes a matrix of technologies being used in the building and the types of assignments they are used with could help solve this.

At the end of this class I am more confident, intentional, and excited about using technology in my classroom. I have already started the process of achieving my goals. I have rallied the teachers in my English and technology departments so that we can begin to think about our long-term goals. I have worked collaboratively with a partner to develop activities that involve multiple aspects of 21^st Century Learning. I have begun to be a model for the teachers around me. The best part is though…I am just doing what I think is right. I did not set out to become a model. I didn’t set out to change the district landscape. It is kind of funny how sometimes the weight of leadership comes simply from following one’s conscience. I think I have finally found my niche in education and am looking forward to setting trends for my students and colleagues.

Podcasting whine and cheese

This week, we had an interesting assignment. We had to create our own blog, include student responses, and figure out how to post the blog onto a subscription service. I must say that this was a learning experience for me. I had to work on two platforms (Mac and PC) with two programs (Audacity and Garage Band) multiple types of technologies (microphones, speakers, software, etc.) and then find sites that I could post to.

At the beginning of the week I thought this would be a piece of cake. It turned out to be more effort than I was expecting it to be. I have been a listener of This American Life for many years and am only now realizing how much effort goes into a production like that. I had grand plans to include my own music, include more than the three students I had initially approached, and create a podcast of epic proportions. Instead, I eeked out a podcast of watered down proportions, the minimum of three students (one of which was a new recruit because of attendance), and no musical interpretation because I was working so hard to make the minimum requirements.

Such is the learning curve with technology. : )

Perhaps one day I will be like Ira Glass and make it all look easy!

If you would like to listen to my podcast you can access it here: Access my podcast.

or you could subscribe here: Subscribe to my feed.

21st Century Skills - What D&D class is public education?

Okay, you can say it after you finish reading my posting; I am a dork. The first thing that came to mind when I was browsing around on the 21st Century Skills website was that I wish life were a little more like Dungeons and Dragons. I wish that we could just assign a certain number of skills points to different areas in our lives and be automatically given the ability to use those skills. Now, real D&D buffs would tell you that that isn't how it works. There are elaborate stories of how you got those skills and time was spent by your character perfecting the action that those points allowed him/her/it to get. For people like me, I like the short version. I spent my skill points and got the skills without any real work. I think that many of our students are more like me.

When looking over the skills, the framework definitions, for the first time, I found myself a little surprised by how many there were. I found it interesting that technology skills were not listed as a category until the fifth page of the document. I was also a little surprised to see that many of the skills our students will need according to this document do not show up anywhere on the standardized test for my state. Of course, my state, Colorado, isn't listed as a 21st Century Learning partner.

So, what does that mean?

The simple answer is that I have questions.

I don't disagree with anything on their site (although to be honest I haven't read all of the fine print on every page), but I do wonder if some of the higher level decision makers in my state do. I know that Colorado is rewriting the standards that we have so that they are inclusive of this model, but I don't know what that means for me yet. I wonder about those support systems that are described, because I haven't seen them all be supported yet. I wonder how long it will take for people to stop looking at me like I am a dork when I talk about needing to change the way we do business. I wonder who is going to help me incorporate these teaching methods into my classroom.

The implications are huge for my students if I don't include these methods and thoughts into my classroom. Although no written record of this quote can be tied to Robert Kennedy, I believe his words are the perfect sentiment for this time in education, "If not us, who? If not now, when?" I will continue to beg forgiveness for teaching my students in ways that I think will prepare them. I will continue to beg forgiveness for preparing them for a life where they will be able to collaborate and think. I will beg forgiveness for preparing them for a life where they can use the new literacy skills as well as the old. I guess I will have to beg forgiveness for thinking that there is more to a student's life than a test score that measures their ability to answer standard questions rather than difficult ones.

I think that most of our students are like me, if I can get the skills without the effort then why should I put in that effort? If I could pass a state test and that's all I really had to do, then why would I want to think deeply and internalize the information I was presented? Oh wait, if I didn't even have to pass the state test in the first place because I wasn't penalized personally for it, what would make me want to come to school?

The answer for me, is that I would want to come to school if school was all the things they talk about on the 21st Century Skills website. So, regardless of what others might say right now, I will continue to engage in these behaviors in my classroom. I will roll the dice and try new ways of engaging my students in the process of learning. Who knows? I might even convince them that there is some value in using those skill points they have to prepare for their future.

On Professional Development

Today we had a professional development day. This was a day for teachers to come together to share information about what strategies they use in their classrooms. The presenters were teachers from my school who had volunteered (or been volunteered) because they had something that was really working with their students.

As teachers we need this time to teach and learn with our colleagues. We all have a tremendous amount of knowledge that could be shared if we only had the time.

As I was sitting in the first session of the day, which was run by our administration, I found myself getting frustrated though. Why is it that we feel we need to invent the wheel? We talked about RTI and the presenters were excited about their updated paper forms. Teachers have to fill out the forms with information about students. Then, someone has to take that same data and input it into a computer. Then we have to run reports, on paper, and have meetings where we are going to read the information. Why isn't this process electronic? with dropdowns? and maybe even the ability to file share and work collaboratively with other teachers across disciplines who share the same student?

That got me thinking about blogs and wikis. Much of the day was filled with information dissemination. The kind of information dissemination that could have been done through postings like this one. We could have read the information ahead of time. We would have been prepared to discuss and interact with the information. Then, we would have had enough time to learn about how to use our distance learning lab, the lab that we were told had over $100,000 worth of equipment, that is just sitting there because we don't know how to use it. Or we could have worked to develop activities that students could participate in. Or...

Then I started thinking about professional development in general. Why is it that teachers, who are skilled in the art of differentiation, can't seem to figure out how to differentiate our own professional development? Why did people who knew how to collaboratively write have to attend a session that included training they had already had, instead of extending the session on technology? How did all of the training we had today directly address our focus for the day, the achievement gap ? I don't know...because we ran out of time to talk about it.

That's okay though. I know that another day is coming for us to discuss this. We understand the importance of professional development to the growth of teachers and student achievement. That is why we have set aside time for those discussions. I also know that they are giving me time to formulate my questions and ideas so that I will be prepared for the next professional development day. In fact, I have until January to ponder the items we almost learned today.

Blogs in the classroom?

When asked how I might use a blog with my high school English students, I thought that the answer would be easy to write. It is a natural way for students to journal and post their thoughts to questions I would pose and topics that they might select. I might even be able to have them embed hyperlinks to articles they would use to help strengthen their posts. We would talk about the changing face of journalism. We would talk about how citations would work in an environment where they could link to original documentation, audiocasts, and videocasts. We could spring from that into podcasting and talk about the strengths of different types of presentation for specific reasons.

Then, I really started to think about the topic. I realized that I was coming up with some decent activities. I was even thinking of ways that the students could learn about content specific knowledge and display that knowledge to the world. What I wasn't thinking about was why I wanted to use blogging to do it.

What is it about blogs that I would find appealing for teaching students about American literature? What would the benefit be to teaching through this medium instead of working from a paper journal in the classroom?

The answer that I came up with is this: When students leave my classroom and move on in the world, they will need to know how to use this technology responsibly. They will need to know how to post information for the world to see. They will need to know how to link to sources of information. They will need to be able to produce written work on the web in addition to other ways of presenting information to the world and, by blogging themselves, they would have a better understanding of the ways that other people are communicating. They also need to internalize the fact that they are participants in the world and not just bystanders.

In some ways I feel like a kid at a candy store. There is so much technology out there to teach the kids about and through. We are at the beginnings of a new way of interacting with members of a global society and our students are already using these technologies without guidance.

Notice that I said a kid at a candy store. I don't necessarily feel like I am able to buy all those glittering, shining, colorful treats. I started thinking about blogging and standardized tests. I haven't seen any multiple choice questions on our state assessment that ask about the benefits of blogging or which technological source would be the best to use if trying to get information across to Generation N. Blogging is to _________ as paper is to __________...etc.

In a high stakes testing world with an emphasis on the basics, I find myself wondering where the line is between preparing my students to be able to complete the items on a typical standardized test and preparing them with the skills they will need to be successful as members of a digital society. While one could make the argument that if I taught my students effective writing through blogs, they would make gains on standardized tests, one could also argue that the time I spent teaching them how to blog is time I did not spend teaching them grade level content as approved by my district.

Understanding literature and literacy is a journey of discovering how the written word has changed and been shared over time though. It is not simply a set of multiple-choice questions about grammar. When looking at standardized testing versus the skill of blogging, I find that I want to include blogging as an essential tool in my classroom because the Internet is changing the way that we understand information in much the same way the printing press did.

Blogging is a way for us to take students from a basic understanding and limited exposure to a different level of processing and producing information on an extensive scale. How does a blog enhance a lesson? Well, on the simplest level, it adds a measure of accountability. Every student has a voice and that voice is heard by more than just a teacher. It is a showcase for the student. The student's mind and thought process are out there for the world to see; it is a number of steps beyond a simple spelling test posted on a classroom wall. It is also a place for students, and others, to interact on a whole host of topics. Participation is not limited to a classroom anymore, and that is liberating in many ways.

After thinking about this topic for a while I came back to the idea of high stakes testing. When I really thought about the “high stakes” world of standardized testing versus the (low stakes?) world of interactive blogging, I found a conundrum. With high stakes standardized testing from the federal government, students hold virtually no responsibility for their actions, while the world of blogging puts their thoughts out on the web for the entire world to see and comment on. High stakes means something different in my book than some others' apparently, because I figure that potentially having 6.67 billion people looking at our students while they speak on a virtual stage just might fall into the high stakes category. I guess that value in learning is really a matter of perspective...and for me, blogging is worth the time.

To post or not to post

In my limited experience in public schools, I am finding that I question the way we are working. I have questions about how well we are preparing our students for the world they are inheriting. In a world filled with looming pressures, unstable economies, and significant social questions, I find that cracking open a textbook with questions about dictionary use seems a little behind the times. In fact, on this very site if a word is highlighted a dialog box will open and provide the user with a list of the top definitions for that word and provide a link to learn about words that are associated with the highlighted word. This is a different world than the one I grew up in. It is a different world than the one that our schools are preparing students for.

With that in mind, I wanted to get my thoughts out there into the cyberverse. This is not a blog about the mundane existence of everyday life. It is a blog about what these changes mean to the people living those lives though. I hope to be able to capture some of my questions in a way that will foster dialog about the world that we are preparing our students for and the way that we are preparing them. So, with that in mind, here is a question:

Just what does it mean to be literate in the world that our students are entering?

It is clear that one needs to be able to do more than simply read and write. One needs to do more than produce egocentric comments about their daily lives. One needs to be able to do more than simply create a simple presentation.

What is not clear is just what one does need to have the skills to do. Newspapers and book manufacturers are feeling the change and are desperately trying to rework their products in order to convince people that they are still relevant in the world today. They are not sure how to make that argument though. If these types of businesses, who need to rework themselves to stay in business, are unsure of just what steps need to be taken, where does that leave the public education system that is training students to go out and work in these fields?

How do we, the educators in the system, prepare our students to be literate in a world that we can't predict and that we don't mirror as a system? Just what does it mean to be literate in the 21st century? Once we have answered that question we just might be able to start preparing ourselves for how to teach literacy to our students.