I really should be….

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grading papers and planning. Instead, I am:

  • learning how Lisa turned over control of class discussions to her students.
  • catching up on the international part of our international PLP!
  • responding to discussions about teaching and learning on the ning
  • finding that Seth continues to motivate and inspire me
  • figuring out how to share this bit on storytelling with my kids
  • preparing for a committee meeting on our tech philosophy by re-reading this

What I can't find time to do much of anymore:

Now I really need to finish preparing for tomorrow……………

Walking the Walk

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Bigfrickinwall

Creating Passionate Users

Before I realized I would be teaching full time this year, I agreed to help organize the VA-International Powerful Learning Practice cohort and to present at the Virginia Association of Independent Schools annual conference next month. The first complicates my schedule but enriches my professional life in valuable ways. The second has been like an annoying mosquito buzzing around my head as I haven't had any free moments to think about it.

Well, it's time to slap that bug and get organized.

But knowing that people who attend the conference have high expectations for what my colleague Jennifer and I might say about "using online collaborative tools in the classroom," I want to deliver. There's nothing worse than attending a worthless session.

Applying what I am learning from my colleagues in the PLP, my network, and from much reading, I want this session to not only engage, enrich, and possibly inspire, but also to reflect what I wish I could do in the classroom on a day to day basis. So far, I haven't been able to make that happen for a myriad of reasons (including that BIG wall pictured above), but it's not too much to ask of myself, is it?

When things do click in my ninth-grade English classroom, it's often because of ideas I've borrowed from Kathy Sierra's "Crash course in learning theory."

She says:

This is not a comprehensive look at the state of learning theory
today, but it does include almost everything we think about in creating
our books. And although it's geared toward blogs/writing, virtually
everything in here applies regardless of how you deliver the
learning–you can easily adapt it to presentations, user documentation,
or classroom learning.

Here's a brief list of some of her points:

  • Learning is co-creation
  • Use visuals, engage senses, repeat-repeat-repeat
  • Maintain interest with variety and surprise
  • Show don't tell
  • Show failures
  • Use chunking
  • Use suspense to build curiosity
  • Context matters
  • Use Emotions, Fun, Stories, Pacing

Spiralexperiencemodel_2
Remember, it's never about you. It's about how the learner feels about himself as a result of the learning experience…she says.

And that applies to teachers who come to my session as well as my own students.

What would you want to take away from my session? What's the best session you've ever attended? Why?


A reader’s questions

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Melissa recently asked me some questions about blogging with students, so I thought I would answer them here. Thanks for asking and giving me an opportunity to share what I do!

-What tool do you use for your
student blogs? Is it secure? I am up against admin that want to make
sure that our kids are safe using blogs and I have to battle with them
not understanding the richness of a read/write web.

It depends upon what you mean by secure, Melissa. I use 21 Classes, which allows me to set up a teacher's blog with links to all the students' blogs. No one but students may leave comments, but anyone may read what they say. I am beginning to see some dialogue back and forth between the students, but this mostly happens when I give them time in class to respond. Also, their blogging to date has been assignment driven. For example, I ask them to respond to a reading or answer a question.

I hope to move to a different form of blogging second semester, when I will give them more leeway. In fact, I hope they will begin using the blog as a place to reflect on class or school issues.

Our entire English department has embraced NCTE's literacy standards that encourage us to use the technology tools that allow us to collaborate, create, and publish in a connected environment. Of course, we do try to protect students' online profile by not using last names or pictures on the site.

– What type of lesson do you do with your students prior to launching the blog? Blog etiquette…etc.?

We typically do at least one session with all Upper School students on "developing a positive online presence," where we talk about the trail of footprints they can leave behind. Before we begin blogging in class, we talk about not using first and last names in ninth grade. (Older students are obviously taught/treated differently.) We also spend time talking about how we respond to one another–and discussing how writing online is different from communicating face to face.

I don't know that I have protected my students from any possible scenario they might face. But I also believe this is the time to use these experiences to teach them how to handle being online. Most are there anyway; whatever we can do to guide them in managing information, connecting and networking with friends and others, and thinking about the kinds of images they are creating for themselves will benefit them down the road.

One of those days……

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  • This morning, I tried to get my 9th grade students logged into Diigo, and it was blocked.
  • My colleague unblocked it right away, and then my bookmarking tool wouldn't work for the students.
  • I then tried to show them to use Wordle to see how often they used certain words in their short stories, but many students couldn't get java loaded on their laptops to make it work.
  • During my sixth-grade tech class, the students were ready to upload their photos to Animoto and compare the design and choices of technique to PhotoStory. At the exact moment they were ready to upload, Animoto went down. Is it EVER down?
  • This afternoon, I prepared to start grading the students' drafts of short stories, which they had sent me via MS Word, and I realized I would need to download the documents from my Gmail account to my Mac's Text Edit program, then copy and paste the stories into Mac's Pages in order for me to add comments.
  • The yearbook's online design program wouldn't create the kind of split screen photo the editor wanted so we had to call tech support. No luck.
  • After school, I tried to show several teachers Voice Thread, and I was so tired, I couldn't remember how to add students to the education account we have.
  • At dinner, I said to my husband, "You know, opening up a textbook and asking the students to read and answer questions in their notebook sounds pretty good right now."

Tomorrow's gonna be better.