Links for My Presentation

Here is a list of links for the presentation today and a number of the tools I use and showed:

Presentation on Prezi - Has links to research, extra sites, resources, videos, ect.

Questions during the presentation: Linoit
Social Bookmarking: Diigo, 21st CenturyTechbox (a place for us to share resources)
Advanced Searching: Google Searches, Hakia, Wolfram Alpha
RSS Reading: Google Reader
Blogging: Edublogs
Professional Development: Twitter, My Twitter Account 
BackChanneling/Chat During Video: Cover It Live
Video: YouTube, Screencast.com, TeacherTube
Concept Mapping: Mindomo, Webspiration (unfortunately now a subscription service)
Calendar: Sharepoint
Discussion board: Sharepoint
Shared Document Library: Sharepoint
Wikis: Wikispaces,  Example of Wikispaces
Satellite Photos: Google Earth, Lit Trips
Presentation Software: Prezi, Brainshark, VoiceThread
Visual Literacy: Glogster
Timelining Software: Capzles
Creative Commons Pictures: Stock Exchange, WikiMedia Commons
Doherty Staff Resources: Doherty Exchange

Professional Networking: Sean Wybrant

So here it is in a nutshell:

Getting your staff to come along with 21st Century Teaching is a matter of showing them the dire need for including technology in education because of the changes that are coming. At Doherty we had a phased approach that included the following steps:

1. Form a group of people in the building that are interested in sharing ideas about 21st Century Learning and that are open to new ideas.
2. Define a vision for what that would look like at your school.
3. Make the commitment to devote part of your professional development planning to 21st Century Learning.
4. Do a needs analysis with your staff and find out what they are most interested in.
5. Develop opportunities for staff to select their own professional development on 21st Century Skills and provide that PD at various levels of proficiency.
6. Check in with your staff and highlight great uses (Celebrate the successes)
7. Provide resources and connections for sustained PD and a network of teachers to provide a safety net.
8. Encourage the staff to have fun and continue to create an environment open to and supportive of risk taking.

That is what we tried to do at Doherty. We also archived our PD for people to look at later and review.

It started with showing the staff the kinds of technology that are coming and pointing to the research explaining how pervasive technology use is going to be. We started with questions and then provided solutions to the barriers identified by our staff. We also provided a teaser PD where we introduced a variety of tools and asked for feedback on which additional pieces the staff wanted us to look at.

Then, a few of us started showcasing what we were having students do to show people what was possible.

At the end of the presentation I was asked about what I do in my class. That was the overwhelming direction people wanted to go, so I talked about it...but it was a little disorganized. So here is how all of my tech was rolled out and connected:

I introduced email and my classroom calendar so that my students had the ability to contact me and look at classroom resources and plans. After they knew how to do this, I asked them to participate on discussion boards across classes so that they could communicate on classroom information and collaborate on ideas from/for the class. Then, I introduced my dropboxes so that they could turn in traditional assignments like word processed docs or PowerPoints. All of these steps were fairly traditional and worked off of the Sharepoint platform. I included screencasts of all the steps to access these tools so that students could review on their own time or when necessary. The selling point for your staff is that all documents and student assignments are housed in one location that can be collaborative and all resources are archived so that students can check in/review the work being done in class. 

Then, I went to web tools. I showed them how to do concept mapping online so that they could organize thoughts for their discussions, work on vocabulary, and organize thoughts for their reflections/class writings. We then signed up for blogs and the students started publishing their information. I had them post the feeds to their blogs on a wiki and then created a reader account on Google so that I could subscribe to their blogs. They started doing weekly blog postings and set up reader accounts of their own to subscribe to each other. I then showed them creative commons media sites so that they could include visuals on their blogs. We then worked on citing sources using an online citation maker and we discussed the differences between written and embedded citations. After this, I worked with them on advanced searches on Google and other search engines. The students then learned how to use different presentation tools like Prezi and Brainshark to visually communicate ideas and wrote reflections on the process on their blogs.

All of these tools led to the use of a wiki and online forms to organize their information for each other. Eventually we talked about ways to research and share information and that a wiki was a good way to inform others about information that has been found but can become cumbersome when you want to share something quickly on the go, so I taught them how to share resources through Diigo. I showed the kids how to take the information from their advanced searches and share them quickly with tags and groups. I also showed them how to access programs that would allow them to podcast like Aviary and Podbean.com. We also learned about file conversions using online conversion sites. We talked about the differences between a presentation and a poster and used Glogster as a way to share information and resources interactively. Then, we talked about microblogging as a way to share resources to subscribers, a way to provide status updates, and a way to engage in social marketing.

All of this was in preparation of my end of year projects. My students created presentations for the class where they identified issues that they cared about (after using the appropriate tools above to conduct research) and they tried to persuade their peers to select their projects for us to do as a class. In these projects the students gathered resources, conducted additional research, made a plan for events to share out their research with authentic audience, partnered with community/business groups, created an online presence for their groups, and worked to address social issues in real and meaningful ways.

They are discussing the projects, interacting with self-made calendars, mapping their proposal processes, using email to engage each other/outside groups, using social bookmarking to share resources, taking pertinent information and sharing it on wikis, taking that same information and repurposing it on classroom blogs, providing status updates with Twitter, creating group pages on Facebook, conducting surveys using forms, making presentations on various platforms and making audio/video files to highlight their issues.

Each of the tools I taught in order made it possible for them to create a whole marketing campaign for authentic audiences on real issues of importance to them. Each step in the process helped give students a better understanding of the complexities of communication across platforms and audiences. At the end of the process they will be relating the process and steps to the academic content from my classes and using a web editor to create an online portfolio that highlights their skills.

In the future I plan to bring in distance learning experiences as well...

but I am a little out there. It is important to have a big picture though so that your staff knows how these pieces work together. The way I did it might not work for everyone, but it worked for me (mostly) and allowed me to take the students to a new level with their content and the interactivity in my class. As I showed what I was doing, others in my building came on board with pieces and parts. It is a long process though and it must be intentional.

It starts with the vision. I knew from the outset what my eventual goal was going to be. That is where you start with your staff and then you address their fears one at a time until you get through them all. You also need to work things slowly...it goes one step at a time. 

Weaving?

So last night I was thinking about a series of assignments that one of my coworkers was having her students do and thought I might give it a try. The assignment was to write a poem in the same fashion as The Lost Generation and produce it in a video like this. The poem had to be a palindrome and had to be meaningful. In some ways I thought it would be easy; it wasn't. Creating a poem that has meaning and can be read down and up with different meanings is really difficult.

This is my first crack at it. I wanted to get across the fact that a focus on tools and a focus on external responsibilities is not acceptable in a true 21st Century classroom. I had two people proof it and they gave me the thumbs up...so here it is. Any comments would be appreciated!

Challenging

A challenge was thrown down yesterday. In some ways it took me by surprise and left me feeling like I'd been punched. As a parent, hearing about the loss of a daughter, a friend, a niece, and a unique soul hit me in a way that I have never experienced before. I just kept thinking, "What if it was my daughter?" The thoughts left me reeling as I walked out of the auditorium talking with our band director about the ways that people deal with loss. I can only hope that I react the way that Rachel's family did. That was the challenge: Make a difference with the life you have.

I am reflecting today about how that message has influenced my life, before I ever heard the challenge. Last year my students saved lives in Africa. This year, my students have been arranging a safe driving campaign with the same goal, organizing a musical aid event to benefit the Japanese, and planning to make wishes come true in partnership with the Make-A-Wish foundation. I am part of that process and it makes me contemplative on a day like today. Listening to my students arrange for these events, I can't help but feel amazed that we are able to change the world when we decide to. I am actually awed that when we have a cause to rally around, that we tend to. My goal in life is to make a difference and to "start a chain reaction" in those around me. I want to pay it forward and help to save the world.

A few weeks ago we had "SuperHero" day at school. I did not dress up like Spider-man on that day...partly because I feel like a superhero every day. I don't save the world every day, but I try to save a piece of the world every day. I wonder what would happen if we all tried to save the world every day, even on the days that we felt beat down and overworked, maybe even especially on those days. When looking at my students, I think that they would be inclined to do so if we gave them the chance.

I accepted the challenge, internalized it, and it is a part of who I strive to be. In my classes this year, I have had my students choose their own hero projects. I haven't really told them that I have my own. Teaching them how to be heroic is my hero project. The funny thing is, I don't think I am very heroic myself...so perhaps I am not the best person to teach this quality to the students. At the end of the day though, I don't know if anyone else will step up to do it and the consequences of no one trying to take on that responsibility outweigh the benefits of waiting for a more qualified candidate...so I try to save the world one piece at a time by guiding my students towards doing so and hope that when all the cards are dealt I've made a difference and started a chain reaction that I will most likely never get to see.