tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3724330610781771132024-02-18T23:04:28.425-08:00Lessons LearnedThere's always another lesson to be learned in the life of a teacher.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-78276431331238753632016-03-02T13:07:00.001-08:002016-03-02T13:07:11.048-08:00The Ups & Downs of Organizing Edcamp Phoenix 2016<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5LKqWJKg6CQJuijY0Iw2svTxOyqmc1_cM3z4cnUJ1jQNYR38593NMkv4dY0akC7BdxhyphenhyphenEk7snSXiiHNCn9RqYDAuCQMCSfUKKk-9Y-DapmoaY9kS709Yjj9gCaXJZqFdFfVco2YIQn4v/s1600/EdCamp+Phoenix+Logo+2016.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5LKqWJKg6CQJuijY0Iw2svTxOyqmc1_cM3z4cnUJ1jQNYR38593NMkv4dY0akC7BdxhyphenhyphenEk7snSXiiHNCn9RqYDAuCQMCSfUKKk-9Y-DapmoaY9kS709Yjj9gCaXJZqFdFfVco2YIQn4v/s640/EdCamp+Phoenix+Logo+2016.png" width="640" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After much hard work, a lot of collaboration, and EXTENSIVE emailing, Edcamp 2016 is in the books. In many ways, I believe this was our best event yet, from an organizer’s perspective. It is the 4th Edcamp I’ve put on, with a spectacular team of planners to assist. Here are some of the challenges we worked at and some of the big wins from the event. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9baa24b3-3925-2624-fdc3-2e1472a73143" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Challenges</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had a really difficult time getting financial contributions this year. However, this was also the first time we specifically stated that we were mainly looking for financial contributions. We did have two groups step up about 10 days out and donate a large chunk of money between the two of them, and that helped immensely. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Getting the word out is always our biggest challenge, because social media cannot be counted on to draw a large audience (at least not in our neck of the woods). Hence, we rely on contacting districts individually and hoping they pass the information on to their teachers. Out of the 30 districts valley-wide, I’m guessing the information was only communicated to the staffs of maybe 8-10 of the districts. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google has served as the backbone of a lot of what we do, from our Google+ Hangout meetings with organizers to our Google Site to our collaborative documents among team members as well as participants. However, this year, since Google separated all of it’s editing into standalone apps, it added a significant number of steps between clicking on a Google link and being able to edit it. This was a huge headache and detracted from people wanting to use the collaborative documents. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our caterer, who was great last year, misunderstood the time and was planning on delivering the food at 1:45 instead of 11:45, which I had even confirmed earlier in the week. So when I called at 12 because the food wasn’t there, they apologized profusely and started it right away, which meant it didn’t arrive until 1:00. So, I told our hungry Edcampers even more apologetically that our food wasn’t here and to go do session 3, and come back for lunch afterwards. </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Wins</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was so nice to talk to first year teachers and know that they were walking away with a wealth of resources, information, and contacts. That’s exactly what they need to carry them through the rest of difficult first years.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had Heather Jancoski and her student assistant conducting short sit-down interviews with participants about why they like the Edcamp model. This happened during lunch time. This will be woven together by her journalism students into a new promotional video for us next year, which should be lovely. This should also be an inspiring piece for us to use in our promotion tools next year. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My favorite thing about Saturday was the number of people asking how to do this in their district. Some had come with the express intent of finding out how this might look in a school or district setting, and others came and were inspired to find out how they could use it in their own setting. We’ve never had people ask about that before, so I’m taking that as validation that we’re doing something right :-) </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The whole process of dealing with the prizes was so much better this year, from an organizer standpoint. We have so often spent tons of meeting time trying to figure out what was the best way to hand out prizes to make it so that people got useful prizes to them, but didn’t take tons of time during the day with people sitting around not winning, and didn’t allow people to take things they didn’t win. So, based on other Edcamp organizer feedback from the Edcamp Organizer Voxer group (another one of my favorite things), we decided that we weren’t going to solicit prizes from companies. Those prizes that were offered anyway would simply be given away as incentives for participating in the video. People who were interviewed got to choose any prize they wanted. This was the quickest, easiest, least stressful distribution of prizes we’ve ever had, and all parties involved were happy. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One funny story during the day: One of the sessions was about Lego Robotics and Makerspaces. One of my 8th grade Lego Robotics students was serving as a volunteer for the day so I told him to go get his kit and participate in the session, so people could see the kit and what it could do. He did it and thoroughly enjoyed himself. (Another of my students that was there refused to step foot in the door.) He enjoyed himself so much, that I told him to go to one of the next sessions just so teachers could hear student input on the topic (social media in the classroom), even though I knew none of his teachers used social media in the classroom. When he came back, he said it was great. I asked what happened and he said, “I lead the whole session. I talked about how you could use Kik and Snapchat in the classroom.” (which of course doesn’t happen in his own classroom). So I’m very curious about the feedback from that session :-) But he was inspired himself and really enjoyed being a resource for grown-ups :-)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another first: According to our lead session collector and organizer on the screen, Session building was easy and went super smoothly. I am usually the one talking participants through what Edcamp is at the time, so I’m not participating in the organization of the session board, but it never looks fun. So I was thrilled to hear how well it went this year. One of our ideas was that it might have been that the sessions came in slowly instead of all at once. Whatever we did, it worked well :-) </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I asked how many people had been to an Edcamp before, a lot of people raised their hands, which was exciting, because it is still a very foreign concept to most in our area. So, slowly but surely, we’re spreading the word. </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And finally, a great list of participant </span><a href="http://padlet.com/myroom111/volmsg5sr0iu" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">takeaways from the day</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Lots of positives :-) </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-14497871612289176932016-03-02T12:58:00.001-08:002016-03-02T12:58:41.072-08:00Edcamp Phoenix 2016 Recap<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edcamp Phoenix has come and gone, and what an event it was! Participants came in to a sponsor-supported breakfast of Chompies bagels and bananas. They were grateful for a Squirrels lanyard with a 20% off coupon for Reflector 2, an app to project mobile devices to a classroom screen. Upon arrival, participants spent some time discussing in small groups what ideas created sparks for them, and began generating session ideas, which the Edcamp team assembled into our session board for the day. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<img height="234" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/P8DsfgwTFTf6Uks1m61qNt4gMq089vBA8PViGSarpRrEo4GjQ7N4IralYw2L_-2WjlkvJU6ucWxKrGlFhZxTcT0Pa1CBCdjwpP4uv9RbD3TZ-kuQa7aFeCmjl5W4hheGYJDUtfPv" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="353" /></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e5cfd000-391d-f136-d849-a682f49c2ac3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After I (Dierdre Shetler, lead organizer) explained the basic principles of Edcamp (share what you know, vote with your feet, take responsibility for your learning), participants made their way to their first sessions. Topics for the day included the following (</span><a href="http://www.edcampphoenix.org/session-matrix" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and then some</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">): </span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google Classroom</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Makerspaces</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Digital Portfolios</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Literacy and Assessment</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guided Reading</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Building Classroom Community in Middle School</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After-School STEM clubs</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Socrative Seminars</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the original plan was to do 2 sessions, come back for lunch, and then finish with one more session and a sharing round, plans changed. A snafu on the part of the restaurant meant our lunch was unexpectedly an hour late! Hence, we did a quick switcheroo, and thanks to the Gumby-like flexibility of our teachers, we just went ahead and did our third session and had a lovely lunch afterward. Over a meal of taquitos, rice, beans, and excellent salsa, our participants networked and discussed our learning of the day with each other, and generally made great professional connections. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To close, participants shared their Wows, Hows, and Nows of the day (Wow-a big takeaway, How-a remaining question, Now-something to implement Monday), These were captured on a </span><a href="http://padlet.com/myroom111/volmsg5sr0iu" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Padlet</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, one of our featured and modeled tools for the day. And finally, we ended with </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ht61It8eRRx8Se2_kerfyefM8nBpPYAAq4seDjVMHGk/edit" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lightning round</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sharing of web tools, which included the likes of </span><a href="https://www.audiotool.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">digital music creating sites</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to going on </span><a href="http://www.mission-us.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">online historical adventures</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to creating </span><a href="https://www.tes.com/lessons/dashboard" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">blended learning lessons</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> using a variety of technology tools. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of our </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ht61It8eRRx8Se2_kerfyefM8nBpPYAAq4seDjVMHGk/edit" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lightning Round sites</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were collected in an editable Google Doc, where people can continue to add more to share with the group over time. This was not the only use of collaborative writing that we did. We used shared Google Docs as well to create </span><a href="http://www.edcampphoenix.org/session1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">session notes </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for the day. These remain a source of knowledge for those in the sessions, who can continue to add to them over time, as well as for those that wished they could be in two great sessions at once. And finally, for a little levity (because believe it or not, kids, teachers like to smile!), we had an </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QMPBhjap402cw51DD97tEuf6LA_2TkfjmXSC7Q-OXRQ/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edcamp meme contest</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (via a shared Google Slides presentation), which resulted in a win for Alexis Brady, a newbie teacher but an Edcamp veteran. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="332" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/W3_6kvsralMrBSNuGP6PxJ6eUb02eFLjMnpRk8JPRxoKIB_wLsNe74DQwFMfosz6OVkCIBE8TWNwDPJSKhbUfhmeb58f42DnxFy_Y6AH1PYPkPvpVSjiNImSH6YnQeGtoMn0Xu83" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="332" /></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And to close, a word of affirmation to one of our organizers: </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I just wanted to tell you how much fun I had a Edcamp on Saturday! It was so informative, a great way to learn new tricks for the classroom without the boring professional development feel and it was FREE! The day flew by! As you know, I was a little hesitant going with me being an art teacher but I learned so much! I endorsed the Edcamp PD to my Student Achievement Teacher, my Instructional Coach and to the rest of the district art teachers, hoping to get more people to go next time!!! Thanks again for sending out the email!"</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks again to our major sponsors! Without the contributions of </span><a href="http://piktochart.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Piktochart</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="http://home.edweb.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edweb.net</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><a href="http://www.airsquirrels.com/reflector/features/mac/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Squirrels</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, we would not have been able to keep hungry tummies happy! </span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our sponsor, Squirrels LLC, developed an affordable classroom screen mirroring app that is used in more than 100,000 classrooms in more than 200 countries. Reflector 2 is an app that runs on a teacher’s computer and receives a real-time “mirror” image of classroom iPads, iPhones, Chromebooks, Android devices, and Surface Pros.” </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-60619351724567445642015-10-14T15:18:00.000-07:002015-10-14T15:22:14.858-07:00Figure it out!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv2YDGET5ZbMiDcQbxAcMWnmQfk8i5MKcuAn3QDlEO3k0LVdIq20v4nWwfrAmVcxr_cG2aEWgUR3reGvWvg64remVHKNlM0q0SMrCNEe9CVbPiXVJxxONkwOQZ3r0XFuMMhOxdflvfoL_Z/s1600/3346906435_25b7de7962_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv2YDGET5ZbMiDcQbxAcMWnmQfk8i5MKcuAn3QDlEO3k0LVdIq20v4nWwfrAmVcxr_cG2aEWgUR3reGvWvg64remVHKNlM0q0SMrCNEe9CVbPiXVJxxONkwOQZ3r0XFuMMhOxdflvfoL_Z/s320/3346906435_25b7de7962_o.jpg" width="320" /></a>I teach in 4 computer labs as a traveling teacher, and on all of my classroom walls, I have a hand-written poster that says "Figure it out!" in giant letters. I realize that it sounds a little rude, however I think it is one of the most critical skills we can teach students, because it is something that has caused so many <i>adults</i> to struggle with technology.<br />
<br />
Older generations did not grow up with technology, so it is a bit of a miraculous mystery to them. While they like the things technology can do for them, how it works is a total mystery to some. And here's where the key problem comes in. They are terrified to poke around on the computer to try to find an answer to a technology question. I have met so many adults who are literally afraid (whether or not they'd admit it out loud) that the whole device will go up in flames in front of their eyes. They lack the confidence and basic knowledge to explore what the possible solutions are on a digital device.<br />
<br />
Students these days don't harbor the same fear of technology going up in flames in front of them. They have the necessary background knowledge to look around in an app until they "figure it out" without much assistance. The problem is that they are rarely pushed to the point that they <i>need</i> to figure something out.<br />
<br />
Here's the rub: When people (students or adults) don't have to try new digital environments, they won't notice patterns and be able to apply those to other things. It reminds me of why it's so important to teach conceptual math along with the algorithms. If all students ever get in terms of math instruction is an algorithm, they'll only be able to solve problems that look exactly like the examples. This is exactly what happens to people with technology. They get really good at the 3 tools they use every day, but once a new digital environment is in front of them, they are completely lost. I try to teach my students the rationale for technology things, like why menus exist (for example, in any program if you want to modify a toolbar, go to View, because it relates to how things appear; File always relates to the entire document itself, etc.) Then, when they want to accomplish a similar task in another program, they have a structure in their head for how to go about accessing that information.<br />
<br />
So, these days in my computer labs, I work very hard to not answer every question students come up with, not to be mean or rude, but because I want them to practice using the resources available to them, like:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>exploring in the digital environment (clicking around)</li>
<li>asking a friend</li>
<li>using Google to help them find answers to questions (a crucial skill that I teach very intentionally)</li>
</ul>
I have been frequenting some forums lately for some of my commonly used digital tools, and I'm constantly amazed at how many questions people ask that could be answered with a simple Google query. I generally go with the theory that if I have this technology question, someone else probably did too, so there must be an answer somewhere.<br />
<br />
While some motivated students will figure out the things they need, most are perfectly happy to just sit where they're already at, until they are prompted into something new. I believe it is one of our duties as educators to (kindly) force students out of their comfort zone enough to have to practice the art of figuring it out on their own. There is a necessary time and a place for teaching new skills obviously, but this can't our only mode of operating. When students figure out a tech problem on their own, not only does it answer their question, it empowers them to pursue further learning, which should always be a primary goal of education.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-73767737378718781492015-10-02T10:08:00.001-07:002015-10-02T10:43:50.652-07:00Technology: No longer optional<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><i></i></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><i></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><i>The scene</i>: A room crammed with 40 eight-year-old desktops, and an equal number of cramped 8th graders, literally elbow-to-elbow as they begin taking the AzMERIT test, the first fully online, standardized test they've ever taken. It's late April and they are beginning the first section of the test, the writing section. Their classroom teacher has just left the room, and I, the special area teacher, am covering while the teacher takes her prep. </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>The comment that reminded me why tech can't just be a shiny, fancy thing we use as a reward: </i></div>
<div>
The students have just started, and a girl raises her hand, points to the text box on the screen, and asks, "Is this where we write our rough draft, do our proofreading, or our final draft?" I was dumbstruck, but slowly responded, "That's where you do all of it, all in that box."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vBTgyZmUTC3bLczt9GFqSZdggoZj3ereXmA1RiDB_ietTrkLhJmwRsSJX0Fa3PVtz7Dca4-wXWzlLUkl3gwS-023fPBD6mrtvV5rAL319zKDEvEIEPwEsWzdQsIwLAsAsipEmRpUitHu/s640/blogger-image-1984064790.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vBTgyZmUTC3bLczt9GFqSZdggoZj3ereXmA1RiDB_ietTrkLhJmwRsSJX0Fa3PVtz7Dca4-wXWzlLUkl3gwS-023fPBD6mrtvV5rAL319zKDEvEIEPwEsWzdQsIwLAsAsipEmRpUitHu/s320/blogger-image-1984064790.jpg" width="320" /></a>Folks, that moment right there, communicated to me that we have done our students a massive disservice by allowing teachers to use technology as an option. The world our students live in is saturated by technology. It's not optional, it's simply the way the world works. When we exclude technology from school, not only do we not move students ahead, we are crippling them. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In terms of writing, we need to teach students to write digitally, because it is fundamentally different. Would you write differently if you literally had to hand-write every word? For me, absolutely yes. (This blog post would be much shorter!) Would you edit differently? Yes. For students, it means, they correct 1 misspelled word, and put a comma in somewhere and call it a day. Then they start the arduous process of either re-hand-writing it, or the painstaking process of looking up and down after every word as they type it out, one letter at a time. We need to teach students how to write with their keyboards and with some speed. Typing quickly is exactly the same thing as one's reading fluency. It allows your brain to keep up with your comprehension. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But that is not the only basic skill that kids don't have. Knowing how to locate and attach a file is essential to knowing how to fill out a job application. Saving things in different file formats is a critical skill as well, if a company requires a pdf resume and not a document, and the list of imperative skills goes on. That doesn't even begin to touch on the necessity of being able to evaluate online information. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In our world, technology literally touches everyone. You can't apply for a job anymore without knowing how to use a computer. You can't participate in college without knowing basic technology skills. You can't be a citizen of the world, unless you interact with technology. You may say, "Oh, but students these days know so much about technology already. Do I really need to teach them basic things?" Yes!! </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Students are just like adults. They are really good at getting to the 3 things they use every day (in my students' cases, Snapchat, Youtube, and Minecraft) and that's it. I literally have 13 year olds ask me every single day, "How do I get to the next line in my document?" (hit enter) or who don't know why they don't need to google Google. They have next to no understanding of fundamental concepts of technology, because we think it's just a nice thing to do once in a while to use a bit of technology to let kids play games or type a paper.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
By failing to teach kids even fundamental technology skills, we are truly hurting them in both the short and long term. Technology is how our society functions, and we do our students more than just a disservice to treat it like a cool extra when you have time. Technology is Not. An. Option. It is a life skill.</div>
<br />
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43317782@N00/4577921847Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-78882758687532743282015-09-25T09:27:00.002-07:002015-09-25T09:27:28.234-07:00The benefits of reinventing the wheel<i>"I can't do that. I don't know...this is scary. Really scary! How do you do it?" </i>These are words of productive struggle. From teachers. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Productive struggle has become the new phrasing of choice for the point where kids have to learn something new, based on something they've already learned. It's when they get pushed farther than what they already know. Other variations on this theme include teaching with scaffolding, and getting students in Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. As teachers, we specialize in getting students to this point, and helping students realizing they really can do what we're helping them accomplish. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Roue_primitive.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Roue_primitive.png" width="303" /></a></div>
<div>
However, as teachers, we're really good at NOT reinventing the wheel. Sometimes the wheel needs to be reinvented though. (In case you haven't noticed, wheels have changed greatly since the stone age. I imagine folks in the tire industry could verify this!) In education, we find something that works, and we stick with it. We save it, file it away for next year, and laminate it. This saves us work and brain power, so it's a good thing, right? Not always. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm in my 6th year of teaching technology, which for 8th grade meant photojournalism. This year, 8th grade has been changed to a STEM course. They already have science and math, so we're working heavily with the robotics/engineering side of STEM. As a technology teacher, who really prefers educational technology in the regular classroom, the technical side of my job is not my forte (i.e., "Why isn't it printing?" ".... I don't know.") but I've muddled my way through. Now, teaching programming with robots, I've been given a significant push out of my comfort zone. However, when push comes to shove, you make it work. So, I've been learning about robots and programming right along with the students. And I tell students this is as new to me as it is to them, and I won't have all the answers for this. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Every day, I truly feel the productive struggle. As out of my element as it makes me feel, it reminds me that we ask students to do this every day. This empathy reminds me to be patient and as explicit as I can with directions, because it's all they have at the moment. The productive struggle is meaningful for us as teachers because of the empathy it creates, but also because it means we are becoming the lifelong learners we encourage our students to be. By expanding our horizons to something new, even if it's hard, we're gaining valuable knowledge and experience to help us with other things we might attempt. Most importantly, when we admit this learning to students, they witness us modeling trying new things, occasionally failing, and getting back up and trying again. They have to see this if we ever want them to venture out, imagine, and do great things. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The words at the top of this post are from teachers at a professional development session I taught this week about using social media in the classroom. For some folks, it was an easy transition to say, "I have my own Facebook account, but I'd like to make one for my class to share with parents what we're doing." For others, it was literally scary. But they were willing to take that leap, knowing that there were baby steps they could take and they had a support structure to help them when it was needed. This is what a true productive struggle looks like. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So as you go through your school year, try something new. It could be something little or something big, but try <i>something</i> that is a little out of your comfort zone; something you're not sure if it'll work yet. You'll understand your students a bit more, learn something new, and model the productive struggle for our students, that they may be inspired to learn as well. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So go out and reinvent that wheel! :-) </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-42974701282275279722015-09-18T10:16:00.003-07:002015-09-23T13:40:42.904-07:00Teachers Teaching TeachersAre you an innovative educator? This question was posed to me recently, and of course, my first honest answer was no. But then I thought about it and realized it was a leading question. The answer that a person SHOULD give is yes. Too often as teachers, we assume we have nothing to share with others in education, and that all of our learning should come from administrators, specialists, and consultants. Please don't believe this. It is categorically untrue.<br>
<div>
<br></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WjxCm4757fD62cwQXhI0A1NflZnvjR5KA4hiHK6g1hBcDZUMmaVqB7P9DQGR0gUhmhPb8RvPB33lYcTizWG7uAKjEKfrOPHxtIl3wVBplVqkJc8mwQbBsip57CQfZZN3gElfKpxcSrE2/s1600/fire-776838_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WjxCm4757fD62cwQXhI0A1NflZnvjR5KA4hiHK6g1hBcDZUMmaVqB7P9DQGR0gUhmhPb8RvPB33lYcTizWG7uAKjEKfrOPHxtIl3wVBplVqkJc8mwQbBsip57CQfZZN3gElfKpxcSrE2/s320/fire-776838_640.jpg" width="320"></a>Every teacher, no matter their experience level, has something they can share with others. It may be something little, like a trick they've used to get students back into a lesson after lunch, or something big like using Genius Hour projects to change the world. I have become so passionate about encouraging teachers to share what they know because it so rarely happens, and we are so rarely given forums in which to do this. </div>
<div>
<br></div>
<div>
So, I encourage you to find some way to share what you know. Obviously, it will benefit others, but it will benefit you even more. When teachers teach teachers, they gain confidence in what they are sharing and doing in the classroom, which in turn, encourages them to try more new things, and share more. Sharing leads to more sharing. Some ways that teachers can share their knowledge include sharing ideas and links on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/dierdreshetler" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, offering to present on a subject for a professional development session at their own school or district, submitting an article to a journal for inclusion, or proposing a session at a workshop or conference. You'll be surprised what you'll be able to do when you ask. </div>
<div>
<br></div>
<div>
Another way that I highly recommend is going to an Edcamp unconference. No matter where you are located, there is likely an Edcamp somewhere near you. (I coordinate our local <a href="http://www.edcampphoenix.org/" target="_blank">EdcampPHX</a> event, though there are hundreds of <a href="http://edcamp.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">Edcamps around the world</a>.) These unique gatherings feature teachers as the sole content source. There is no sponsorship and no presenters determined in advance. When participants show up in the morning, they gather together and make a list of sessions they would like to participate in that day. From there, those sessions become the schedule for the day. Anyone who suggested a session simply agrees to get the discussion going on the chosen topic, and everyone in the circle is encouraged to share their expertise. No consultants, just teachers talking to teachers. At every Edcamp I've been a part of, teachers are floored at how good it feels to be validated for the knowledge that they do have, and to learn from other educators. </div>
<div>
<br></div>
<div>
One of the first lessons I learned in teaching is, "Close your door and do what's right for kids." Please do what's right for kids, but the best way to get better at what your doing is NOT to close your door. Share your hard-earned knowledge with others, to save them the sweat and tears. Then listen to them, and learn from their wisdom as well. I want to say, "Next time someone asks you what you can share with other teachers, I hope you have a positive reply." However, unfortunately, our system doesn't often encourage teachers to share with others publicly, so you'll likely have to speak for yourself. So instead, I say, be bold. Your knowledge and insight could change another teacher's (and student's) world. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-61754047654737492012015-04-16T14:22:00.001-07:002015-04-16T14:22:56.739-07:00EdTech: A Recipe for Success<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYudkUgyJ5kGEjfF0NNr4_akmcNIiNZRRD7spNrUtWuhV3uSIf-iH-Sjq5D_IeeQf51ra4j_XuSnG6vFP1i9nQD2iqspVmeZxGANrXPc-2SuEouS1IjLIy7nAfBxCCc-eOh1yTovKYyf2c/s1600/10014416_44e7a6c849_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYudkUgyJ5kGEjfF0NNr4_akmcNIiNZRRD7spNrUtWuhV3uSIf-iH-Sjq5D_IeeQf51ra4j_XuSnG6vFP1i9nQD2iqspVmeZxGANrXPc-2SuEouS1IjLIy7nAfBxCCc-eOh1yTovKYyf2c/s1600/10014416_44e7a6c849_o.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have you ever had a colleague suggest a website, digital tool, or app that has worked wonders for them? And then you try it and its a total disaster? And you try it again to give it another chance and it feels like pulling teeth? If so, don’t feel bad. It doesn’t mean you did something wrong, and it definitely doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Using technology in the classroom is a bit like cooking. A flopped recipe doesn’t mean you can’t cook or that you should never make that food again. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-4277f0b3-c410-b53f-e8c2-4e264d385d87" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A cookbook has many recipes, and we all gravitate toward different things. Naturally, what tastes good to some people won’t necessarily taste good to others. Some of us like Indian food, but stay away from Korean. Some people prefer Mexican food but run from African foods. Not only that, some recipes are more complex, and others more basic. We tend toward those that match our current skill level best. Additionally, some foods are much easier to “throw things into” rather than meticulously following every step of the recipe. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we all opened the same cookbook, we’d likely all choose a different recipe. And that’s ok. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is sort of how users of classroom technology are as well. Not every tool is suited for every person. Some people find and stick with one particular app that has worked well for them that is simple and basic. Some people like to try lots of different tools, until they find a handful that work best. Others are more drawn toward full-featured, extensive pieces of software that allow them to do many different things. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we’re allowed to choose our tech tool, we’ll likely all choose a different tool. And that’s ok. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even though we all have different preferences for digital tools, this isn’t an excuse to just give up and use the same thing you’ve always used. If and when tools don’t work the way we want them to, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the activity becomes a waste of time, until we reflect on the experience</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and assess what didn’t work, why it didn’t work, and whether or not the issues were related to the tool itself. Here are some questions to ask after trying a new tool: </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Digital Tool Reflection Questions</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Key: Was the learning objective met?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (or at least on the way to being met)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What worked well?</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What didn’t work well?</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If there were problems, </span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was it because the tool was difficult?</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was it because of inexperience with the tool?</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Will more experience with it make things go more smoothly?</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you use it again,</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What pieces of information should students have/know BEFORE the tool is in use?</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What classroom management pieces should be put in place for future uses?</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What questions do you need answered from someone who has used the tool before?</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when you try a tool that has been successful for someone else, but it doesn’t work for you, try again. And if still seems like it doesn’t fit your purpose and skills, remember, what your mom made well isn’t always going to be the dish you excel at. If that tool doesn’t work, try something else. You never know what tool will spark creativity and critical thinking in your students!</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-22576358744575444122014-03-27T14:03:00.001-07:002014-04-03T08:33:18.068-07:00Taming the Flood<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ever heard this one? “I hope I die during an inservice session, because the transition between life and death would be so subtle.” While many people understand professional development to be drudgery at best, many others have discovered a spring of excellent PD, to the degree that it can feel like one is drowning in a flood of options. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Educators around the world are using online resources to connect with others like them (</span><a href="http://classroomtech.tumblr.com/post/80703088433/why-im-thankful-for-my-pln" style="line-height: 1.15; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or not like them</span></a><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">!) With this ongoing source of personalized, 24/7, usually free professional development at everyone’s fingertips, the broader issue has become how to manage all that information continually springing up anew on a daily basis. Exhibit A recently seen on Twitter: </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><img height="70px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/gC6ZHuzOHe7kGPX9qIQU1EiuLxvTCu5euXQUufB6pqyjZhm1EUAHsx121On-dQ4i7N0Mz09668mADurkdsWRHPOIfodv90kKGZytUStdD7wsc1wSfRcUBLXYkZPjVQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="485px;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Try these strategies to help transform the flood into the most useful information for YOU!</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjcmHIhwjmLV0vAfyhDv_ANXCEzXE_vVM1Xk2P5Jl0jvJVSz-6zyIDpw20k0ZY38ocK8KRoj0OCa1FscJ0x8KOo6lci2o6o11KDKoHCJVjG3CFeFq8RQVO2SzQcDhqO4k1YeH9EStTi9-/s1600/large_6146154620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjcmHIhwjmLV0vAfyhDv_ANXCEzXE_vVM1Xk2P5Jl0jvJVSz-6zyIDpw20k0ZY38ocK8KRoj0OCa1FscJ0x8KOo6lci2o6o11KDKoHCJVjG3CFeFq8RQVO2SzQcDhqO4k1YeH9EStTi9-/s1600/large_6146154620.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1-</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Choose ONE topic</b> that is giving you the biggest headache right now or a type of teaching/project you’re dying to try. Maybe it’s project-based learning, how to deal with unruly kiddos, the flipped classroom, or a good app for making digital posters.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Search </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on Google, Twitter, Youtube, and sources of free webinars, like edweb.net.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://home.edweb.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edweb.net</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is an awesome source for free, hour-long webinars on various educational topics, but even with great sources like these, it can be an overwhelming amount of information, only to be forgotten when the next class walks in the door.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve reached the flood. Time to narrow down the river of results. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Set limits through curation. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is plenty of useful information out there, but it’s hard to organize and make sense of it. Do this by choosing a tool that you can save good ideas through. I always think I’ll somehow miraculously remember that awesome resource for teaching about </span><a href="http://csunplugged.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">technology without any computers</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> exactly when I need it, but even if I do, I don’t remember </span><a href="https://delicious.com/dierdrejaine/search/unplugged" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">how to find it</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That is when content curation tools help. There are a </span><a href="http://gettingsmart.com/2014/03/content-curation-samr-lens/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">plethora of options</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but here are three:</span></span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://delicious.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Delicious.com </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- installs a bookmarklet on your browser that let’s you save sites with descriptions and tags, for easy reference and search later on (</span><a href="https://delicious.com/dierdrejaine" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my favorite</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">)</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.symbalooedu.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Symbaloo</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - saves web content into a tile format on a specific topic </span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.livebinders.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">LiveBinders</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - save web content into an old-school binder format with tabs for different topics</span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, save the best sources you come across to that tool. Notice the sites above are not simple “bookmark” tools, that add everything to one gigantic list. They let you categorize and organize </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">where</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> each item is saved, so you can actually find and use it later, (i.e., when you come around to teaching fractions again next year and have run out of ideas.)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Set a time limit</b> of 30 min, 60 min, etc. to look for resources on your chosen topic, so you aren't swamped in the possibilities. Another option is to set a target number of resources to find; e.g., “I’ll stop when I’ve bookmarked 10 things regarding flipping the classroom.” </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5. Analyze your findings. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do not skip this piece! Otherwise, its just a waste of time. By actually sitting down and determining how you can (or can’t) use the information you just found, you’re getting a refreshing drink of spring water, instead of just dipping your hand in the flood of information, drying it off, and forgetting about it. We all reflect and analyze information differently. Maybe you blog about it, talk with a friend, list possibilities, etc. But either way, decide if and how you could adapt that strategy to fit your setting, and try it soon. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How often does a PD meeting actually make a beneficial improvement to your teaching tomorrow? By using the tools already available, you can pull ideas out of the flood of information, organize, and implement them to become a better educator. Isn’t that what sound professional development should be?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/onesevenone/6146154620/">onesevenone</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com/">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-91051378225643629512014-03-24T14:55:00.001-07:002014-03-24T15:07:49.257-07:00Critical Thinking is Critical!<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Shakespeare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Shakespeare.jpg" height="200" width="156" /></a>Last week, I taught my students about Facebook. Not how to use it, they know that already. Not how to be safe and smart, we're getting to that. I taught them a few basic etiquette guidelines for using social media. The biggest revelation for the kids was not that we were talking about Facebook in school (which is generally not done), but that we could have a (relatively) intelligent conversation about how we use social media, and how to be interesting people to digitally be around. We talked about the most annoying things people do on social media, we talked about how often to post to be polite, and how not to be boring. But my point is not the social media. It's thinking critically about the world around us.<br />
<br />
For most students, they'd never sat down and thought about HOW they used social media. They just do it and don't ask questions. It is our job as educators to teach students how to think critically about how they interact with the world. It is one of those 21st century skills that gets lip service all over the internet, but for good cause. Critical thinking and metacognition (thinking about your thinking process) help kids develop a more analytical eye to the world. Without this skill, they just get carried along by the waves of the most popular idea in the room at the time.<br />
<br />
Today, I began a project with my 8th grade photojournalism students regarding identity. We talked briefly about how part of growing up is figuring out who you really are, behind the identity you project (particularly as it relates to social media. Then, we watched these two videos <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGVWEvUzNM" target="_blank">depicting how people hide behind masks</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxg7DvRVaTc" target="_blank">what types of identities we hide</a>. If we don't provide opportunities like this for kids to examine and question their assumptions, many will not choose to do that on their own. As educators, we must foster the type of environment that <i>welcomes </i>questions and critical thinking. Not all of our lessons have to be based around the obvious. We don't just have to limit them to critical thinking about Shakespeare through close reading. We can incorporate the world they live in, and help them begin to analyze why things are the way they are. This is imperative for all of us. Without this skill, how will they be able to envision and create a better world?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">[img: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Shakespeare.jpg]</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-73463054017898871902014-03-17T15:01:00.000-07:002014-03-24T15:02:00.455-07:00Common Core & Technology: Does it taste good?I keep seeing bits of the new Common Core Standards (CCSS) showing how much they incorporate <br />
digital media. This is very true.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Research to Build and Present Knowledge, Writing Standards Grade 7 </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>8. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation. </i></blockquote>
<a href="http://openclipart.org/image/300px/svg_to_png/24929/Degri_Apple_Core.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://openclipart.org/image/300px/svg_to_png/24929/Degri_Apple_Core.png" height="200" width="128" /></a>If that isn't the definition of teaching kids how to do online research, I don't know what is. I've spent much of my last 4 years trying to teach this skill to 7th graders (some more effectively than others). Like any good tech teacher, I didn't read every word of the standards, but did a keyword search for a few important terms to see how prevalent technology really is in these new standards. These are what I came up with (in the ELA standards): [The number in parentheses is the number of times it appeared in the document.]<br />
<br />
Media (55)<br />
Audio (9)<br />
Digital (46)<br />
Technology (24)<br />
<br />
It turns out they're pretty important. Upon perusing how each of these terms was used, it describes exactly what many educators have referred to as 21st Century Skills for several years now.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Publish writing online</li>
<li>Collaborate and interact with others online</li>
<li>Link to other information</li>
<li>Gather information from multiple sources</li>
<li>Tailor online searches</li>
<li>Identify strengths and limitations of online media</li>
</ul>
<div>
As I reflected on these skills that truly are crucial for how we interact, and how we go about teaching them to kids, it kept reminding me of my son. He is 15 months old. Like any good toddler, he learns about his world by putting everything in his mouth. Speck of paper on the floor? In the mouth. Graham cracker from mom? In the mouth. Dog food? In the mouth. Egg shell? In the mouth. Book? In the mouth. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner), he'll start to discriminate what tastes good and what doesn't. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Students learning to use the internet are the same way. At first, everything goes down the hatch. If it's on the internet, it must be true. But then, as they learn more about HOW it works, they start to identify signs that a site might not be beneficial to them and focus on others.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I hope that teachers don't brush off the digital aspect of these standards. Teachers need to stop and evaluate how they use technology in their own lives, personally and professionally, and realize that students do and will use technology even more than that. We must teach them how to use it wisely and to their own benefit, and not just shove everything they find online into their mouth. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-31853220244434621782013-10-03T18:49:00.002-07:002013-10-04T11:01:05.121-07:00Give Credit Where Credit is Due<div>
[Note: Much of the following is more directed at the upper elementary grades.]</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
I've written on more than one occasion about why teaching kids to<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=372433061078177113#editor/target=post;postID=7159877781674702577;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=4;src=postname" target="_blank"> use real world tools</a> (like how to search online) is critical, and I keep becoming more and more convinced of this. Too often, I think the problem is that we don't give our students enough credit. We assume they 1) won't be interested in the same things we are, and 2) aren't capable of understanding things like adults. While these things are both true, particularly at the early ages, I think there are definitely times when students have to be given a chance to understand what it looks like to be a cool adult who likes learning about new things they are passionate about.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcIsRlmaPzjvwTSNWMAqcceGXCqyZk4Rntu_MY-TMB4LV9UOY_iYZdKBJEx-56b9GmJmZcnfI434RWjOThqIDO6SS7Db7zFkx-4agt6Tr_Krz8HWv3RrpimCHZDg2Vm3gsBCaYlvBgbS_C/s1600/medium_2099710671.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcIsRlmaPzjvwTSNWMAqcceGXCqyZk4Rntu_MY-TMB4LV9UOY_iYZdKBJEx-56b9GmJmZcnfI434RWjOThqIDO6SS7Db7zFkx-4agt6Tr_Krz8HWv3RrpimCHZDg2Vm3gsBCaYlvBgbS_C/s320/medium_2099710671.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a>Like I said, this is a topic I've been passionate about for a while, but I was reminded of it in another iteration today. Instead of teaching my photojournalism class, I went and watched my students take a grammar benchmark test, while their teacher was on prep. Basically, this meant lots of pointed looks at shifty-eyed students, while reading from <a href="http://getpocket.com/" target="_blank">Pocket</a> on my phone. (I had already cleared out my junk email box and played on <a href="http://pinterest.com/dierdrejaine" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> for quite a while yesterday while in other classes. Good solid teaching here.) </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Pocket is one of my favorite apps for storing longer articles that I want to read later, particularly in times when I don't have an internet connection. Either way, the articles I read today were about how <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/" target="_blank">sports have impacted American education</a> in positive and negative ways, and the science behind <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/the-science-of-choice-in-addiction/280080/" target="_blank">how addicts are still capable of making choices</a> about their addiction, despite society (and most science), assuming that they can't. Both of these articles were absolutely fascinating. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other thing I do when I'm in classrooms is to look around at the walls and assignments sitting around to see what students are doing during regular classtime. Many times, it includes basal readers and accompanying information, Weekly Readers (with provocative articles like "Why This Adorable Dog is Doomed" and so on) or "informative texts" about things like a page of random facts about the brain. While these things are ok, there is just SO much more interesting information out there (or at least more interesting angles to take on the same topics)! I'm fairly certain that my 8th graders would have found just as much interest in sections of what I was reading, as well as many other things I read about. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Why don't we give them a chance to do this? Immersing kids in actual texts that are meant to be interesting to the general population has all kinds of benefits. I have no data on this, but it seems like giving them something interesting, but slightly above their reading level would encourage them to make sense of what they're reading, even if they don't know every word. This would, in turn, breed confidence in students to try more in-depth writing. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We need to give kids permission to not feel out of place looking in the "grown up" section of the library. They need to know that there are plenty of fascinating things to read about. Why aren't we bringing TIME magazine (not Time for Kids) or the like into the classroom, instead of specially-designed, millions of dollars worth of 4 page excerpts of stories written for the basal? There are experts out there writing about everything they are interested in. They just have to learn to look for it! Teach them about Twitter and curating their own list of experts to track. For example, show them the articles that National Geographic is writing about that endangered species their interested in, and petitions that have been started on it's behalf. Help them know that there are tons of sports analysts writing about their favorite team. And so on. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That is our job as educators in the older grades. We have to teach them how to use their reading skills to become a more knowledgeable, fascinating human being, and not just only read what they are told to read. </div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jody_art/2099710671/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/jody_art/2099710671/</a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-36371875632180225312013-04-19T11:28:00.000-07:002013-04-19T14:17:23.415-07:00Why Webinar? They're a great snack!Last year, before our professional development hours were due, I was short. I had been at plenty of PD sessions, I was just teaching them all, and you don't get credit for that. (Strangely enough.) So, I scrambled and found a few cheap workshops in the area that I could attend, though I did end up having to take a personal day to attend one. I knew there had to be a better way.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBw_Q7XfOkyP7jHjOwVHv5TC443U0WuVYiVmHrc00Cr6_ifgd-L70JkZnZ3jMFm2URmZqLOBZ6fR-qAi9d7YE4XlNg5MFeKgHLlUPVwSHImkid9ZmRJzx0nJsza53nP3SzsZaAYEqvgC24/s1600/medium_36595362.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBw_Q7XfOkyP7jHjOwVHv5TC443U0WuVYiVmHrc00Cr6_ifgd-L70JkZnZ3jMFm2URmZqLOBZ6fR-qAi9d7YE4XlNg5MFeKgHLlUPVwSHImkid9ZmRJzx0nJsza53nP3SzsZaAYEqvgC24/s200/medium_36595362.jpg" width="196" /></a>Then, many thanks to my favorite source for professional knowledge, <a href="https://twitter.com/dierdreshetler" target="_blank">my Twitter feed</a> brought up a tweet from someone referencing <a href="http://edweb.net/">EdWeb.net</a>. I clicked the link, and discovered that <a href="https://twitter.com/edwebnet" target="_blank">EdWeb</a> is a relatively new website with many burgeoning teacher communities all putting on free webinars (with the help of generous sponsors of course, like <a href="http://www.edweb.net/emergingtech" target="_blank">Follett</a> and <a href="http://www.edweb.net/epals" target="_blank">ePals</a>). You just have to log in and view the webinar (live, or to the archived version) and then you get an emailed PDF with the hours certificate. Not only that, but the topics were very up-to-date, relevant, and led by people in the know (classroom teachers, working administrators, well-respected librarians, content specialists, etc.) As a sample, some of this week's topics include: Shakespeare from PBS, 21st Century Skills with 1:1 iPads, How Exercise Can Transform Skills, Expanding Fraction Understanding, Twitter in the Classroom, Flipped Learning Primer, etc.) `<br />
<br />
The more I participated in these webinars, live or archived, the more I realized that for a certain part of of teachers' professional development needs, it is exactly what we need. Short, on-demand content, directly related to what we know we need (as opposed to whoever shows up in our weekly school PD session). I also love that the live webinars have a chat feature that allow teachers to discuss the topic, their own experiences with it, and questions and comments that benefit others. Not only that, it's free and accessible anytime, anywhere. This alone is huge. Teachers don't have the time or money to be paying for expensive workshops and conferences around the country. These fit the bill :-)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Professional development is an active, dynamic process that can take place anywhere, anytime through the Internet. With the Internet, we are no longer bound to four walls and a guest speaker in front of us to tell us what we should learn. In fact, the more actively you take part in designing your own PD, the more evident the results will be in your teaching practice. </i>--<a href="http://twitter.com/kairosedtech" target="_blank">Isaac Pineda</a></blockquote>
<br />
While I am a huge proponent of higher-quality, teacher-chosen, job-embedded professional development, I also believe that there are times for different kinds of PD. (My colleague John Spencer has <a href="http://www.educationrethink.com/2013/02/why-professional-development-should-be.html" target="_blank">written about this very eloquently</a>.) One of those is the unconference model, or as it relates to education, <a href="http://edcamp.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">Edcamp</a>, which I can (and have) <a href="http://amiagoodteacheryet.blogspot.com/2013/03/become-better-teacher-at-edcamp.html" target="_blank">talked about this</a> ad nauseum as the planner for the first <a href="http://edcampphoenix.org/" target="_blank">Edcamp Phoenix</a>. These annual meeting of the minds are a fantastic tool for sparking new innovation and collaboration. However, sometimes teachers need a little snack of PD, just enough to help them refine a particular practice, give them a boost of energy in a particular area, and keep their minds thinking about professional matters, not just the day to day craziness of being a teacher (gotta call his mom after I enter these grades, I forgot to turn in that form, what? an assembly today??) Generally, these little snacks help me stay focused on why I teach, and how to do it best.<br />
<br />
As it turns out there are quite a few resources for free, online, on-demand PD. One of my Edcamp Phoenix co-planners, the venerable Dr. Peggy George, even put together an excellent <a href="https://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=804872" target="_blank">Live Binder</a> (collection of links) documenting these options. So I would highly encourage you all to go get a PD snack! Just open the proverbial fridge and look!<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-36652079875227690372013-04-15T09:04:00.000-07:002013-04-15T09:04:07.922-07:00Edcamp Do's & Don'ts for Organizers<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.15; text-align: center; white-space: normal;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQo1IJBdxgA0blpMDs32rAIm4jVPO1oCRWlNXEecxdNYAaSeulzGQrzR3NPc5pFLSYs3olRLfY-bz8QYMHRmLJ4w8GA8R_PhOYybDAbuFci2WiLXHpPx1b037nk8gBS8cYEvn3Ht7kIiW/s1600/EdCamp+Phoenix+Logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQo1IJBdxgA0blpMDs32rAIm4jVPO1oCRWlNXEecxdNYAaSeulzGQrzR3NPc5pFLSYs3olRLfY-bz8QYMHRmLJ4w8GA8R_PhOYybDAbuFci2WiLXHpPx1b037nk8gBS8cYEvn3Ht7kIiW/s400/EdCamp+Phoenix+Logo.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It can’t be that hard, right? I knew that wasn’t going to be the case, but I was still amazed at how much time all the details took. In retrospect, these are a few things that I loved, and wasn’t so in love with, about the route we took to arrive at Edcamp Phoenix 2013. </span></b></b></span></span></div>
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;">
</span>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; white-space: normal;">
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.3597129073459655" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Loved!</span></div>
<br /><ul style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; white-space: normal;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sponsors that contacted US!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Thanks to the </span><a href="http://edcamp.wikispaces.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">edcamp.wikispaces.com</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> page!) Make sure you make a page on the wiki for your Edcamp, since this is Grand Central Station for all things Edcamp. Many sponsors look through these pages looking for Edcamps to sponsor (6 groups contacted us) as well as potential attendees looking to see if there is an upcoming edcamp in the area. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXYXMn4XG5hnv4jaIJvKlgOYWQ6i2OYLfaTW7ZB6b2xR3vFiQ0B6fdfr1D71MOO5HlKL0CzPcwddcbW6e9TmY83Igzk62ukae0gkoOCsp8eR6S283M5ahSmL7ZLOM853-6mn9ZNAyo6BMZ/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXYXMn4XG5hnv4jaIJvKlgOYWQ6i2OYLfaTW7ZB6b2xR3vFiQ0B6fdfr1D71MOO5HlKL0CzPcwddcbW6e9TmY83Igzk62ukae0gkoOCsp8eR6S283M5ahSmL7ZLOM853-6mn9ZNAyo6BMZ/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using Google for planning. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We used Google’s FREE services for everything. </span></div>
</li>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google+ Hangouts for meetings at home</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google Drive for TONS of shared documents and collaboration (specifically one massive spreadsheet with a bunch of tabs covering every aspect of Edcamp)</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google Docs for note-taking in sessions on the day of Edcamp. They were open for anyone to contribute. Here’s one </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1izCjvifMR5ssLOY-TNOBHw0Lq_qw3Mlk7Or9gX689X0/edit?pli=1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">great example</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Go to <a href="http://edcampphoenix.org/">edcampphoenix.org</a> for Google Doc notes, under the session tabs. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google Sites for our website, </span><a href="http://www.edcampphoenix.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">edcampphoenix.org</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having multiple intelligences on the planning team.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> By including people in different fields, locations, and with different skills, we were all able to focus on areas of specialty. One person used his technical skills to create and maintain our fantastic website, develop a cool logo, and a pretty spectacular promo video called </span><a href="http://youtu.be/H1JhT51_clw" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Most Interesting Teacher in the World</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Another member, a retired principal, was able to call on many of her professional contacts to help us promote the event, as well as keeping an eye toward the details of the event. A third person made it his mission to get a bank account set up, which meant setting up a non-profit. And another person ran clean up, filling in many other gaps, always volunteering for all the little things that needed doing: posters that needed to be made, organizing the registration table, etc. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Picking the brains of other Edcamp organizers.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=edcamp" target="_blank">Twitter</a> was a lifesaver as we debated many Edcamp issues, particularly how to go about doing the session suggestion time. When we had questions about contacting sponsors, <a href="https://twitter.com/dancallahan" target="_blank">@dancallahan</a> was immensely helpful. Many other organizers were quick to jump in with suggestions as well, since many follow the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=edcamp" target="_blank">#edcamp</a>. (Hence, definitely tag any Edcamp twitter posts with that tag.) Blog posts about organizing the event were also immensely helpful, such as </span><a href="http://coachinandout.blogspot.com/2012/01/countdown-to-edcamp.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this one</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that nearly gave me a heartattack with all the things I needed to be doing when I found it 3 weeks before the day!</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4NQd-KzrwQoGCT0Ww7Fj-cOyFzzwJcUOH_z0wADLjR66j1oBZMU8boetnGSZG66NPe5PCZV1jtLcCjMq2jKVaG1yNZksN8mS1LnoyspoKpMtcOR683HduKYgKpDp_vIvrxnOor3FhZO3E/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4NQd-KzrwQoGCT0Ww7Fj-cOyFzzwJcUOH_z0wADLjR66j1oBZMU8boetnGSZG66NPe5PCZV1jtLcCjMq2jKVaG1yNZksN8mS1LnoyspoKpMtcOR683HduKYgKpDp_vIvrxnOor3FhZO3E/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unexpected sponsors. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do not assume that certain groups will sponsor and certain ones won’t. Assume nothing. The ones that seemed like a perfect fit for sponsorship, I never heard back from. The ones that seemed like a total shot in the dark, ended up being very committed sponsors, and can lead to lasting connections. My best sponsors were the ones I could explain how I used their product in my classroom or in the district, education-related or not. So contact anyone you can think of. You’ll be surprised who says yes!</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; white-space: normal;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did NOT love: </span></div>
<br /><ul style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not enough organizers: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 5ish people who worked on our team were amazing, but we could only do so much. Next time, I’ll aim for about 8 people, who can focus on specific tasks and run with them. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Attrition Rate: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My initial goal was 150-200 people. (I always aim high :-)) That was a bit much for the first time around, but I had no idea what to estimate, and am generally a terrible estimator. We ended up having about 125 people register, which I felt pretty good about. Either way, as I did my research, I read in multiple places to anticipate an attrition rate of 40-50%. This was very true. We ended up having about 75 attendees, which equals exactly 40% attrition. I just don’t understand how people can plan to attend something and not go. I know a few people will have things come up, but the number always boggles my mind. One tip I read online suggested emailing attendees 1-2 weeks in advance asking for any advance cancellations. This did help, as I had about 10 people cancel in advance, which helped me to give better projections for the food. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Session Creation time: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since I was apparently not crystal clear enough in my description of the session creation time, our people that helped consolidate session ideas into the allotted slots had a difficult time. We had a number of suggestions of things like, “Virtual classrooms” or “Retirement” that were 1) unclear/vague, and 2) had no name attached so we couldn’t ask the person what they were referring to. In retrospect, we definitely want to make 100% sure names are listed, as well as encourage people to write a 1 sentence explanation of their topic. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Participant misunderstanding of the purpose of Edcamp: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Upon reading the evaluations, I was disappointed to see a number of people comment on the fact that there wasn’t necessarily an expert in the room on every topic. I can see how this might be frustrating, but that’s also part of the purpose of Edcamp, is that everyone can choose topics </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on that day</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, anyone can lead a session on anything, and anyone can suggest a session. Part of me wanted to respond with, “Then try a regular conference,” but at the same time, there may be ways to massage the system to help make sure the purpose is well-understood, and provide for ideas in this case. As we talked through some of this as a planning team afterwards, we decided that these were some possible suggestions for that situation: </span></div>
</li>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make a major point of encouraging teachers to come prepared to share on a topic</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use the registration form to indicate interest in topics and presenting</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make the registration form public on website, which allows other participants to see who’s coming and what topics are of interest to people</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use the session time to do research together and report back your findings in 30 minutes (become experts!) </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have a number of people on hand who might be able to share on a wide variety of topics (specialists, etc.) who you can send out to sessions that may be big (Common Core, iPad use, etc.) </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall though, Edcamp Phoenix was a fantastic experience. Now that it’s over, I realize how much time it was taking up, but it was 100% worth it. The enthusiasm that people had for the event was stunning to me :-) I have no doubt that next year will be even better! </span></span><br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZx6RuBfjZBkF9By91zyBZLtGr3yGoY8xtcXxyVCLyS1O7egIEf684Z5IeWdHNL2x6SQTulhMXFiyVJpLlxnVuAeeIHuTk0zRTnZGFHV1xZMnyL3_Ebs01BSvaPvuXHMefga5kRuoqTXks/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZx6RuBfjZBkF9By91zyBZLtGr3yGoY8xtcXxyVCLyS1O7egIEf684Z5IeWdHNL2x6SQTulhMXFiyVJpLlxnVuAeeIHuTk0zRTnZGFHV1xZMnyL3_Ebs01BSvaPvuXHMefga5kRuoqTXks/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
[The posters were made by our awesome, slightly bored during sessions, student volunteers :-)]</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-71598777816747025772013-04-09T15:18:00.000-07:002013-04-09T21:03:26.236-07:00Is this real?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS10ixkc_0rze2YfJP9VV8XKQOcdjouj7G1YZ4fn58Fs0EmQw_CKqQ1X-pEkicX2HSfgYAh5n8w1cO9wxVI9oypX1ZgP0VUO2eohHxceDQ9f8ZnYorRGqpy7La72vayJfbk8EORG7dK3n5/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-04-09+at+9.02.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS10ixkc_0rze2YfJP9VV8XKQOcdjouj7G1YZ4fn58Fs0EmQw_CKqQ1X-pEkicX2HSfgYAh5n8w1cO9wxVI9oypX1ZgP0VUO2eohHxceDQ9f8ZnYorRGqpy7La72vayJfbk8EORG7dK3n5/s320/Screen+shot+2013-04-09+at+9.02.33+PM.png" width="320" /></a>One of my groups of 7th graders has been blogging with a group of students from Iowa after their teacher and I connected via Twitter (one of my favorite methods of professional development). I explained to the kids what we were doing and what the other class was doing. (They're a writing class, and mine is a technology class. The IA class was doing some interview practice and were asking questions of my students. Mine were learning to blog and comment.) I was floored when, after reading questions from the other students, my kids kept asking if the other students were real. What?? Of course they're real!<br />
<br />
As I reflected on how ridiculous I thought this question was, I realized that it wasn't ridiculous at all. Why WOULD they think this was an interaction with real students? Everything we do with students tends to be a <i>copy</i> of real life. <i>Pretend</i> you're writing a letter to the mayor. <i>Imagine </i>you are a soldier in the Civil War and explain their thoughts. Create a <i>fake</i> newsletter for animals about to hibernate. Play this <i>simulation </i>game showing what happens when rabbit populations explode. Why would students even consider that what they're doing is something actually real with other people in the world?<br />
<br />
I've started to be more and more aware of the "unreal" things I ask students to do; things that have no real value in the world. As I see myself giving these assignments, the question of "Why" keeps wriggling in the back of my head. In high school, I was always the one asking "Why do we have to do this?" If I had a good reason, no problem. If the teacher had no good reason, I had a very difficult time motivating myself to finish. Today, I think that I (and many in education), have forgotten how to create authentic tasks that matter for students.<br />
<br />
I was reminded about this today, when I saw the tool <a href="http://www.ifaketext.com/" target="_blank">iFakeText</a> come across my <a href="http://twitter.com/dierdreshetler" target="_blank">Twitter</a> feed, as a new and exciting tool for kids to create fake text exchanges between people, i.e., book characters, historical figures, etc. (Another example: <a href="http://www.myfakewall.com/" target="_blank">Fake Facebook pages</a>.) I understand the purpose this is trying to serve, helping students put themselves in the place of others. However, as a student, I would have hated this. There has to be more authentic assignments out there than creating unreal versions of real life. Wouldn't it be better for students to actually find primary sources from the Library of Congress or other sources showing what <a href="http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3324" target="_blank">Franklin Roosevelt's writings said</a>? Or to create another ending to a story and then send them to the book's author?<br />
<br />
If the work that kids are doing matters, we should treat it as such. If the technology how-to videos my 7th graders are making are important, than I should post them on a site for teachers to use (because let's face it, my 7th graders could teach many teachers a thing or two about technology). If students are learning about the periodic table, contact a scientist online and see if they can Skype with students and answer questions about how it impacts their job. If my students need to make a presentation about something, maybe I should have them create a Powerpoint or Keynote about about something they're trying to convince their parents of (what they want for Christmas?) and then use appropriate information (graphs showing allowance vs cost, images demonstrating the benefits to both, etc.) Or even presentations showing something that needs to be changed about the city and then pass them on to the mayor's office!<br />
<br />
We have to show kids that they are learning things that matter to important people and that help our society function. Again, if the work that kids are doing matters, we should treat it like it does.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-2176091135204528782013-03-25T22:26:00.001-07:002013-04-21T21:28:04.501-07:00Rubber Meets the Road: Ed Tech for EveryoneJust like many other areas of life, we in the education world (and often the educational technology world) are guilty of using acronyms and jargon. ELL, CCSS, scaffolding, personal learning network, and the one I'm addressing today: Web 2.0. What does that even mean? To people who only have vague aspirations of using technology, it's a scary techie word that sounds complicated.<br />
<br />
Good news folks! It's not nearly as complicated as it sounds! That's why I developed the online class that I'll be teaching again this spring called Rubber Meets the Road: Web 2.0 For Real. What does it actually mean? This course explains to participants what Web 2.0 is (the participatory, creative internet), gives participants a chance to test out 3 parts of the 2.0 internet (blogs, wikis, and videos), and then the opportunity to actually implement one of the three in the classroom. If this sounds like something that'd be of interest to you, please register below. Details are as follows:<br />
<br />
<i>Rubber Meets the Road: Web 2.0 For Real</i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>April 22-May 19, 2013</li>
<li>4 week online course </li>
<li>Completely asynchronous (no deadlines, except the last day of class)</li>
<li>$20 (pay below registration form) <i>[malfunctioning button has been fixed] </i></li>
<li>12 hours of continuing education available</li>
<li>Registration is available up through April 25. </li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="1000" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://docs.google.com/a/csd83.org/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dGVtY1VnZF9aOU14LWg5bE9kVnpCcXc6MQ" width="760">Loading...</iframe>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
<br /></form>
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
<input name="cmd" type="hidden" value="_s-xclick" />
<input name="hosted_button_id" type="hidden" value="YSX68GL45FBHA" />
<input alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" border="0" name="submit" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_buynowCC_LG.gif" type="image" />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" />
</form>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-54690957910429899452013-03-21T14:27:00.002-07:002013-09-06T13:17:06.506-07:00When life gives you lemons...Take pictures!On Tuesday, I was informed that my computer lab was going to be used for testing, and that I could use a newer lab instead for the day. This would be great if there was a server my kids could save information to, so they could get it from any computer. But we don't. This would also be great if the kids could get over the novelty of new computers that aren't "theirs" for one day. But they can't. The one other time we did this, virtually no learning occurred because they were so excited with the new computers. So, when I was told that I could use this lab again, I decided it wasn't worth it, and we went outside.<br />
<br />
When I was a classroom teacher, I used to take kids outside on gorgeous Arizona spring 85 degree days. I forgot how much more I loved my classes when they were spread out over a football field. So much more tolerable!! Of course, I couldn't just let them play, we had to be doing something curriculum -related. So, we implemented our own BYOD-type activities :-)<br />
<br />
My 8th graders worked in groups of 3 or 4 (they had more devices) and chose a vocabulary word from class. They then looked for each letter in the environment and took a picture with a phone or ipod. Below is my example (ACE--not a vocabulary word, but the quickest example I could find). The rules were that it had to 4 letters or more, couldn't be printed letters, and had to have at least part of it that was in the existing landscape (i.e., you can't make an O with your arms). They had a great time :-)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr4eRrBQ28pFoV2-zITPlAoscmJRy7_a7cDubitDhIcgjZLeZZxXNwJeQNicCNwyBUVN6hg_S4m9jKqOObTxCZZAGumqzLubJBDH5V1X7BeU7s7htNFgYSkNbB1wDUV6SNPKw_TsUYC8bh/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr4eRrBQ28pFoV2-zITPlAoscmJRy7_a7cDubitDhIcgjZLeZZxXNwJeQNicCNwyBUVN6hg_S4m9jKqOObTxCZZAGumqzLubJBDH5V1X7BeU7s7htNFgYSkNbB1wDUV6SNPKw_TsUYC8bh/s200/photo+3.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIyUyQDrVPjEUIYqPgv9mCq8-mdl_YnutGAR7BjGHOkpJCjjEzQ85PtKAruaiV90R9K6ln8i_LnkOOzwrhoDvyNFIU1Zdtxt0EJQi0OdA_c8Y9mQeH2FYnnR6HSS4Rt9gOv5zXEqTakpZj/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIyUyQDrVPjEUIYqPgv9mCq8-mdl_YnutGAR7BjGHOkpJCjjEzQ85PtKAruaiV90R9K6ln8i_LnkOOzwrhoDvyNFIU1Zdtxt0EJQi0OdA_c8Y9mQeH2FYnnR6HSS4Rt9gOv5zXEqTakpZj/s200/photo+1.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOfEjo8_wJue_7a4gYcJS65Udssxd8SCTQQsqIHo3277lrEd4sZWB8Pto94WRkGje6p_e22mW7yMK4jcR5_5rcZBA4BzHl6g49OO792Ask9dJDuVKcKvX9h6-bW05ueTMKqlW7XBey7n4c/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOfEjo8_wJue_7a4gYcJS65Udssxd8SCTQQsqIHo3277lrEd4sZWB8Pto94WRkGje6p_e22mW7yMK4jcR5_5rcZBA4BzHl6g49OO792Ask9dJDuVKcKvX9h6-bW05ueTMKqlW7XBey7n4c/s200/photo+2.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
My 7th graders had an even better time :-) Their assignment was to work in groups of 5 or 6 (they had fewer devices among them) and choose a fairy tale. They were then to identify the 5 plot points (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), re-enact a scene for each plot point, and photograph it. First I had each group identify their fairy tale (following brief, but intense debate over what a fairy tale was: Jack and the Bean Stalk? Yes. Tangled/Rapunzel? Yes. The Avengers? No. Harry Potter? No. The Wizard of Oz? No. The Lord of the Rings? No.--The goal was SHORT, since we only had 45 minutes.) Then they retold it to each other to make sure they knew the ending. (Also, brief, but intense debate over the endings of Jack & the Beanstalk and Beauty and the Beast.) Then, they went out to take their pictures. Here's one of my favorite versions of Cinderella I saw acted out. (Captions below photos.) The kids had such a ball, and asked if we could do it again :-) Must have been a success! (Minus my intense sunburn.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zWTzeJbgViOGyZFyuZZ3_IaU0cPrD5U-lbGYIZWpS14LOnmV32aacqrcVpTdskGgb41XHD7o7gYZ9UsFqbIUFGuPAxxth-D8MHrDXkImfErli2Inb78WTgD6YQ9K3YrrG45Gb6TgZD2H/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zWTzeJbgViOGyZFyuZZ3_IaU0cPrD5U-lbGYIZWpS14LOnmV32aacqrcVpTdskGgb41XHD7o7gYZ9UsFqbIUFGuPAxxth-D8MHrDXkImfErli2Inb78WTgD6YQ9K3YrrG45Gb6TgZD2H/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
1. Cinderella. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwA8uLDmB-pQXVy-Y3YLcVDpncdoN8b8lUfg0-hhimtH_pIX8yJcHvWUAiOy3YyFTPg_IN8EpWKMfvIXYjc9Lt5BCSR9mM1H-GvAoKIe-x7mF-hEXjYcNzxlZYSrO-F0Hg4_Kb4Nob6uDD/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwA8uLDmB-pQXVy-Y3YLcVDpncdoN8b8lUfg0-hhimtH_pIX8yJcHvWUAiOy3YyFTPg_IN8EpWKMfvIXYjc9Lt5BCSR9mM1H-GvAoKIe-x7mF-hEXjYcNzxlZYSrO-F0Hg4_Kb4Nob6uDD/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
2. Gus the mouse :-) </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFvH5s_Sry6soZBzAWT5XteuUzulISgbFcuMG3lxiSL7qc0ur1dZig5tfXG6KPZWx9XqtifrQtfMXMvhU5OFHp1-z4laFXDsORhi3_izm9gjT-re1-aYa-9X_aOMJoiM7YUFhaX5K3YPgG/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFvH5s_Sry6soZBzAWT5XteuUzulISgbFcuMG3lxiSL7qc0ur1dZig5tfXG6KPZWx9XqtifrQtfMXMvhU5OFHp1-z4laFXDsORhi3_izm9gjT-re1-aYa-9X_aOMJoiM7YUFhaX5K3YPgG/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
3. Cinderella cleaning. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkY1UpSkC0Q2kBJ0NX_tmIXVgNrzneQCJzPdlS-Pyk6OvHol3bECE3Kqx-2dOjY3LNVlf1zXDvVbEAafc_jKQkIUyMDS_rT7OCvStfBPKX3B-FcQu-IS63-FJKFeSvVXj0y7Er3m0fHgI/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkY1UpSkC0Q2kBJ0NX_tmIXVgNrzneQCJzPdlS-Pyk6OvHol3bECE3Kqx-2dOjY3LNVlf1zXDvVbEAafc_jKQkIUyMDS_rT7OCvStfBPKX3B-FcQu-IS63-FJKFeSvVXj0y7Er3m0fHgI/s320/photo+4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
4. Enter the evil step-mother. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9eo9Cuxgk862rxbQpYVil3z8AFnhhZia2li4GUXlDR22WzquoLoKMm_9kGIYjsNUDam2kUsME6Vto7ySzJzQwyJFM6_5mCipTe7934qYNh1MA1SKvexKj5xhlQnrT2x-4P94CPZGHbqx/s1600/photo+5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9eo9Cuxgk862rxbQpYVil3z8AFnhhZia2li4GUXlDR22WzquoLoKMm_9kGIYjsNUDam2kUsME6Vto7ySzJzQwyJFM6_5mCipTe7934qYNh1MA1SKvexKj5xhlQnrT2x-4P94CPZGHbqx/s320/photo+5.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
5. Prince invites Cinderella to the ball. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtvHLts3VRFqxu2tgEg9oHklLwh4DVp-yYub0mXVNN1x70GfbM5ZMKH4OUrbTmwy8CwCxKX_gNP3_m1Fozt0GQdEsrTqpCgk-HBbrfRdFQezCSlgvAJustsIbc7kuTJYJkzQPce3PtSsrr/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtvHLts3VRFqxu2tgEg9oHklLwh4DVp-yYub0mXVNN1x70GfbM5ZMKH4OUrbTmwy8CwCxKX_gNP3_m1Fozt0GQdEsrTqpCgk-HBbrfRdFQezCSlgvAJustsIbc7kuTJYJkzQPce3PtSsrr/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
6. Smooth carriage ride for the prince!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VLM56snk8jbLau7Y_DEZ4wJy_DyrJbR5kjWVZ2CSdGeUKIqWt28TugY9-9HdF1z0NrY8gSJmnkGFIk37dfHFgR6YJZDzNpkd3D9L6x1ldpjrFQD2eQ_pRw5q83TYvoUCgYkBsbJF9QBN/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_VLM56snk8jbLau7Y_DEZ4wJy_DyrJbR5kjWVZ2CSdGeUKIqWt28TugY9-9HdF1z0NrY8gSJmnkGFIk37dfHFgR6YJZDzNpkd3D9L6x1ldpjrFQD2eQ_pRw5q83TYvoUCgYkBsbJF9QBN/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
7. Cinderella loves the ball. (Turns out the top of the jungle gym is a great place for a ball :-)) </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkw4IKJkEWsAANZTMSyaMFBH8zB7icx0aCt1faVMPiufZD_C3k6LDEF6CN5mqfvCgJo979Xwf9ZhM5ogZ_mks5q8UCQR1HRYR-wUmhMIJGlp17NRBKxWNmydNpK04oXsLhE3ddVFrNMPz2/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkw4IKJkEWsAANZTMSyaMFBH8zB7icx0aCt1faVMPiufZD_C3k6LDEF6CN5mqfvCgJo979Xwf9ZhM5ogZ_mks5q8UCQR1HRYR-wUmhMIJGlp17NRBKxWNmydNpK04oXsLhE3ddVFrNMPz2/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
8. Cinderella loses her slipper. (top of the stairs in the shadow)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHbSX9UCVh947YhibxsiWLt6It5fEbV_cfTojx4czAh_ZCAjPdZYmOqKS3nx7HkUvFERyVQfyOknD3PpTE3tAJTZeLs0PW6sp6AKVuN2_pBvXESbR8U3jiryKpmtIOtH2shUGRGXnhSTE/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHbSX9UCVh947YhibxsiWLt6It5fEbV_cfTojx4czAh_ZCAjPdZYmOqKS3nx7HkUvFERyVQfyOknD3PpTE3tAJTZeLs0PW6sp6AKVuN2_pBvXESbR8U3jiryKpmtIOtH2shUGRGXnhSTE/s320/photo+4.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
9. Prince findes the shoe. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXL00M1v6Il_l_Od52L9tsDYFnS4spPbpjF1_lX8oVNoSfJFCDfybOChL05hpMgvOKdlyGrekUFk34k03jRfO7PmvW_d5NJLNXyWiK38KEnqhrwLsat3bQA5JjXVMllrOAtN-8VHB5FhC9/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXL00M1v6Il_l_Od52L9tsDYFnS4spPbpjF1_lX8oVNoSfJFCDfybOChL05hpMgvOKdlyGrekUFk34k03jRfO7PmvW_d5NJLNXyWiK38KEnqhrwLsat3bQA5JjXVMllrOAtN-8VHB5FhC9/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
10. Prince (and Gus) deliver the shoe. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs3Du5J4J3O0QzC2sOWvGGUu56jePyayqUIOGXe2gOe3fImokw0Mn_xQB-65qEHO633hBHYW9pTCAlxzRASbXHENUX3RB3B2pDSy5IyrXfntXHwvEj0oFTjSNxajRvNeYbwtT7sR2x5kkB/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs3Du5J4J3O0QzC2sOWvGGUu56jePyayqUIOGXe2gOe3fImokw0Mn_xQB-65qEHO633hBHYW9pTCAlxzRASbXHENUX3RB3B2pDSy5IyrXfntXHwvEj0oFTjSNxajRvNeYbwtT7sR2x5kkB/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
11. (Drumroll) Will it fit? </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OYGwpKtdohND3k8pFdiOAHd7YylW3Fn6xX4j64NFHQ8kifXsMxYgJdscDS43xsW-AXosQnXmq9kaYLcH_CVOjyAdsk4qtZiZA-j0BxhGg4r0t42_Dp48LBqqwWmCKdyhQF_ZML0snOXV/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OYGwpKtdohND3k8pFdiOAHd7YylW3Fn6xX4j64NFHQ8kifXsMxYgJdscDS43xsW-AXosQnXmq9kaYLcH_CVOjyAdsk4qtZiZA-j0BxhGg4r0t42_Dp48LBqqwWmCKdyhQF_ZML0snOXV/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
12. It fits!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgagm_YvaIhPM7p8_7h2WfL5XtVHl9UKAjMfmWj-rLC4NiA4jLtMWjMIWn-qIqh081IRef0Xve-kKZ6ordIHS-0iuuLn6ufYcTaXvf0XQTLYgoitStq2EFPRW9NjqATCruYM08kJLIaZE4v/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgagm_YvaIhPM7p8_7h2WfL5XtVHl9UKAjMfmWj-rLC4NiA4jLtMWjMIWn-qIqh081IRef0Xve-kKZ6ordIHS-0iuuLn6ufYcTaXvf0XQTLYgoitStq2EFPRW9NjqATCruYM08kJLIaZE4v/s320/photo+4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
13. Cast photo :-) </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-69046200103270612812013-03-21T12:13:00.002-07:002013-03-21T12:15:36.256-07:00Online ReliabilityFor several years, I've taught students about how to decide if something is reliable online, a skill that I think is beyond essential in the world of higher-education and the general job market. It has taken many times of teaching this to refine what actually makes something trustworthy or not, and much examination of how I make these decisions myself. (Try it. Next time you Google something, analyze how you decide what to click on, and once you get there, how you decide if it's something you should trust.) I finally decided to compile all this information into a Google Doc and <u>would love anyone else to add in their own input!</u><br />
<br />
Please note: I don't use websites like the <a href="http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/" target="_blank">tree octopus</a> to teach students about reliability. The vast majority of websites are NOT trying to trick people. However, they are trying to persuade them, from various perspectives, and it's critical for students to know how to identify those perspectives.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rK90EowrksIakUVBBR9zc_9oBHbYcbs3dYyP-uKCVaM/pub" target="_blank">(Can also be accessed here.)</a><br />
<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rK90EowrksIakUVBBR9zc_9oBHbYcbs3dYyP-uKCVaM/pub?embedded=true"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-56440742709141057422013-03-04T09:58:00.000-08:002013-03-04T09:58:32.509-08:00Become a Better Teacher at Edcamp<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixfyaGX_fSIUR-yGi7Bd0ZjUda9r820OQHkFzarM_xdU_7KjuJgtRQM7iYYsSX_YNugXrlvbqNKtbu5vFgdPeUgA9k7b1_44JeSxCBzRC7dwO0BuwddF3Cmjr36Zi_aQ51IV1IIIh4m_Rn/s1600/medium_2938187870.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixfyaGX_fSIUR-yGi7Bd0ZjUda9r820OQHkFzarM_xdU_7KjuJgtRQM7iYYsSX_YNugXrlvbqNKtbu5vFgdPeUgA9k7b1_44JeSxCBzRC7dwO0BuwddF3Cmjr36Zi_aQ51IV1IIIh4m_Rn/s320/medium_2938187870.jpg" width="320" /></a><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6186895919963717" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An unconference. No speakers brought in, no sessions planned in advance. Planning an Edcamp can’t be that hard, right? Ha! It turns out there are a lot more logistics than one might think.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, when all the logistics were set up, and people began arriving on Saturday, February 23, for the first ever Edcamp Phoenix West, some might say magic happened. I however, would not call it magic. What happened is exactly what one should expect when teachers get together on their own time in their own way. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They became better teachers. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They shared ideas, successes, and perplexing issues. They wrote down others’ great ideas, websites, and names. They exchanged contact information so they can keep working together. This is what professional development should look like. We don’t have to force teachers to do this. We don’t have to pay them to do this. We don’t have to bring in an expert. They’re already here. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did we do to encourage this kind of a gathering? We supplied a location, coffee, pizza, and prizes. That’s it. Yes, the details of coordinating all of this involved more than one meeting. But witnessing the energy, excitement, and passion for education in the building made it all worth it. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So. Do you want to be a better teacher? Do you want to engage with others passionate about their craft? Come to <a href="http://www.edcampphoenix.org/" target="_blank">Edcamp Phoenix</a> 2014. (Dates to be announced soon.) </span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabab/2938187870/">a.e.ray</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com/">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-79825829165504083652012-09-13T08:15:00.001-07:002012-09-13T08:15:52.213-07:00The Real Internet
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
To begin, an analogy: </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYuVxo-Yewq4HLpRtrf5ZZKO3khSZGLjbawXjHwnakXxbfreKB-cBKtzSzxr2e_l8a7O8moppk7Km5Zy-MggSU7Y0eeTuvy3F_nkAyMyNIkJ6fz396kt739VOwnxZMVYL5PuUneWqZ16F/s1600/IMG_0569.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYuVxo-Yewq4HLpRtrf5ZZKO3khSZGLjbawXjHwnakXxbfreKB-cBKtzSzxr2e_l8a7O8moppk7Km5Zy-MggSU7Y0eeTuvy3F_nkAyMyNIkJ6fz396kt739VOwnxZMVYL5PuUneWqZ16F/s320/IMG_0569.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you have a toddler, you tell him or her to stay away
from the street because it’s dangerous. And it is, for someone who doesn’t have
any knowledge of the things that could happen. However, as the child grows, you
help him or her learn how to cross the street safely. No longer is it something
to avoid, but something that is usable and helpful, as long as the child knows
what to do and what to look for. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The same thing applies to our students and the internet. As
they grow older, they must be allowed to access the real, unfiltered internet;
so that they know what to do when they arrive at online scenarios that leave
them with choices to make. Too
often, when we as teachers aren’t sure ourselves how to deal with online
citizenship, we gloss these situations over by relying on web filters to “keep
our students safe.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In reality, this only serves to make them unaware of what
to do when they encounter the real internet (which they certainly will). In
essence, to go back to our previous analogy, it’s as if we were to never teach
a child how to cross the street, but to continue to tell them to stay away from
the street because its dangerous, even as they become young adults. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our job as educators is to give our students the skills they
need to navigate the internet with eyes wide open, using caution as well as
research skills. In my technology courses, we use very little filtering. We
spend a significant portion of time talking about how to effectively use
Google. If we only give students a list of pre-approved websites to do research
from, they’ll never learn which types of sites give them reliable, unbiased
information, and what websites look like that they should NOT trust. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even more, it’s important that we don’t shield them from
inappropriate comments online. We need to point them out, identify the issues
with behaving that way, and then discuss together how you could participate in
the conversation in a civil, respectful way, even when you disagree. (A key
distinction!) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These are crucial skills that will impact how effectively
our students use the internet, which will go on to be one of the biggest
technological influences in their lives for years to come. The majority of us
never had any formal education in these skills, and look at where it’s gotten
us. To an internet showcasing useless information, rude comments, and lots of
time wasters hiding the actual gems of knowledge. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we, as teachers, don’t teach our students these skills,
who will?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Photo: Student photo from 8th grade Photojournalism class]</span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-48398422942146006032012-04-12T13:56:00.002-07:002012-04-12T13:56:39.181-07:00Face to Face Big Ideas<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaQPxM86SABn0-1yx5tpvNJoPjtBl8Fpha4hq2sLqO6FuYBQZ-LwyOgHIICQ2sywXpgv6vdLpv3a5arvgQdd8KI4ufTzuwqs8nKNQYrcsSR3J7DF9OfLID7DhhGfPqIuUAFEhmtjHLoy3n/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-12+at+1.37.09+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="70" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaQPxM86SABn0-1yx5tpvNJoPjtBl8Fpha4hq2sLqO6FuYBQZ-LwyOgHIICQ2sywXpgv6vdLpv3a5arvgQdd8KI4ufTzuwqs8nKNQYrcsSR3J7DF9OfLID7DhhGfPqIuUAFEhmtjHLoy3n/s320/Screen+shot+2012-04-12+at+1.37.09+PM.png" width="320" /></a>This week, while I attend the<a href="http://mobile2012.org/" target="_blank"> Mobile 2012 </a>conference, I am lucky to be able to take the light rail to the event each day, which gives me time to use one of my favorite apps, <a href="http://readitlaterlist.com/" target="_blank">Read It Later</a>, (is very similar to InstaPaper). In it, I save all the things that I want to read, but will probably forget about if I don't save them. Added bonus: it saves them in an offline mode so I can read them anytime (usually when I'm waiting on something). What I usually pair Read It Later with is the <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/longreads" target="_blank">LongReads </a>twitter feed. LongReads makes it its business to promote longer-form essays, which don't tend to be too popular in this day and age of two-paragraph news articles and 24 hour news tickers.<br />
<br />
The essay I read today during my light rail ride was an opinion piece from the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/" target="_blank">New York Times</a> called <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-elusive-big-idea.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">"The Elusive Big Idea."</a> It's main premise is that we're living in the Information Age, where we can know anything with Google, Wikipedia, etc. and where we can know everything about our friends through social media. However, there are very few big ideas or "big idea"-type people around anymore, and the ones that are around, aren't heard.<br />
<br />
It makes excellent points about how social media especially leads us to focus on the short, distilled form of knowledge about a topic, rather than anything that deeply explores the ideas that can lead to new inspiration. The author quotes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra" target="_blank">Yogi Berra</a> who said that you can't think and hit at the same time. I have found this to be quite true at this conference (and conferences in general). When I sit and listen to a keynote, I rarely just sit and listen. Often I'm taking notes and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/" target="_blank">tweeting</a> quotes from the speaker throughout the process. While I'm glad I do this on some level, I'm fairly certain it doesn't encourage me to actually thoroughly digest the ideas that are being presented to me, because I'm too busy tweeting that fascinating statistic the speaker just mentioned, etc. In fact, the author of this article describes it as not just a form of distraction, but "anti-thinking."<br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Stevejobs_Macworld2005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Stevejobs_Macworld2005.jpg" width="192" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;">However, I do draw encouragement from conferences like this, because it is an incubator of big ideas. One speaker yesterday quoted <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs" target="_blank">Steve Jobs</a>, who is obviously a technology guru, as saying,</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"There's a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That's crazy. <b>Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings</b>, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they're doing, you say 'Wow,' and soon you're cooking up all sorts of ideas."</blockquote>
When we take time to sit down with other people and talk about how we go about doing things, and thoughts we've been pondering of how to make our teaching better, those big ideas can become real practices that can fundamentally change what we do. As the author states, "While social networking may enlarge one's circle and even introduce one to strangers, this is not the same as enlarging one's intellectual universe." I feel that gathering, idea-discussing, and brainstorming are the incubators of today's big ideas. In many ways, the face-to-face conference is from the last generation, but it serves a critical purpose for today. Direct contact is what inspires the big ideas of the future.<br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'century gothic', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><i><br /></i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'century gothic', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><i>[Img: </i></span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><i>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Stevejobs_Macworld2005.jpg ]</i></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-77342137900515718152012-04-11T12:49:00.000-07:002012-04-11T12:50:18.239-07:00Oh the places Google will take you...Since I'll be at a <a href="http://mobile2012.org/" target="_blank">conference</a> for most of this week, the few 7th graders I did see spent their class period this week doing a <a href="http://bit.ly/Hj5wri" target="_blank">Google scavenger hunt</a> I compiled from <a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfzj36ng_294htgfd6" target="_blank">a few sources</a>. Its meant to have them practice the <a href="http://amiagoodteacheryet.blogspot.com/2011/10/7th-grade-reliability.html" target="_blank">search skills we've discussed</a> all year (use keywords, choose reliable sites, use multiple sources, etc.) However, as I was putting the scavenger hunt together, I ran across <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html" target="_blank">Google's search features page</a>, which describes many of the reference-type features Google has integrated into their search results. For example, if you want to know the score of your favorite basketball team's last game, you simply type in the name of the team, and the score appears at the top of the search results; you don't even have to go to a website. (See below.) It was good practice and the kids enjoyed seeing that Google will do math for you, tell you stock prices, and even offer it's best guess.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiczH7ChB9ssDzivoiI7nBIHP8GwsQYYZSSdzhIc_fWuhNuQJaceZ310G_skBAwMgHnQDY_ebps_rubeDMdKyDRAtcNO92AOaPbGiE4kgHVetNNsvZtknajbY3q0Oq64KF-cNIZsGHmWN5P/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-11+at+10.04.59+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiczH7ChB9ssDzivoiI7nBIHP8GwsQYYZSSdzhIc_fWuhNuQJaceZ310G_skBAwMgHnQDY_ebps_rubeDMdKyDRAtcNO92AOaPbGiE4kgHVetNNsvZtknajbY3q0Oq64KF-cNIZsGHmWN5P/s400/Screen+shot+2012-04-11+at+10.04.59+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwU7cqOCZENrvYol2vRVpMQipSHWHNIlDekQdP6EiBJwc5mKaThzMWAQnd-EEViSIR4keO6skmvNYP7nd45g9dCwtBpml0o4NHGwhH1HNvMMjkbpiozU_eKsSdiwiYxG3OHZZr8kwpjqmd/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-11+at+10.05.43+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwU7cqOCZENrvYol2vRVpMQipSHWHNIlDekQdP6EiBJwc5mKaThzMWAQnd-EEViSIR4keO6skmvNYP7nd45g9dCwtBpml0o4NHGwhH1HNvMMjkbpiozU_eKsSdiwiYxG3OHZZr8kwpjqmd/s400/Screen+shot+2012-04-11+at+10.05.43+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The "best guess" feature was something I'd never seen on Google before. I was quite interested to see that if you type in a fairly generic question/keywords, Google will offer it's best guess. Basically, it takes several of the top hits and combines their answers into one obvious answer posted at the top of the page. For example, if you type in "length of Mississippi River," it offers it's best guess as 2,320 miles, based on information from National Parks Service, Wikipedia and others. (See below.) I especially like that it tells you where it's taking it's information from. (This helps my students learn what is and isn't a trustworthy source.) This particular feature seems to have been rolled out with absolutely zero fanfare, as I can't find anything online about it, but I like it so far! :-)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlk_bW9AquTgV3HybH35Vz2NKakHnL9Ce8ol1ykPUYBSR82iXxPzWr9xZwJK79JXNU1ie0ARt3E-RGO3To5FCXhUJ3DByUxnrOMoPMxaOg__TLMzImfLg4Vx0akd-2nEStC5UuRS9308Uq/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-04-11+at+12.23.36+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlk_bW9AquTgV3HybH35Vz2NKakHnL9Ce8ol1ykPUYBSR82iXxPzWr9xZwJK79JXNU1ie0ARt3E-RGO3To5FCXhUJ3DByUxnrOMoPMxaOg__TLMzImfLg4Vx0akd-2nEStC5UuRS9308Uq/s400/Screen+shot+2012-04-11+at+12.23.36+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
As my students were discovering all the cool things Google can do, I noticed a student struggling with the first answer. The problem wasn't difficult, but he is a special education student who I knew was going to spend the entire class trying to remember the first four letters of the answer while he clicked back and forth between tabs. So, I taught him how to copy and paste.<br />
<br />
Some teachers would totally cringe at this thought, since they think all students will begin copying everything from the internet. However, I knew this student 1) was too sweet to even think of doing that, and 2) needed it too badly not to teach it to him. When I showed him, he was blown away! Changed his world. He was so excited that he literally came back after class to ask for the link to the scavenger hunt so he could finish it on his own time! How often do kids come back asking for more work?? As he left class, he offered to show his teacher how to do it (who doesn't know how!) :-) [Another skill that falls into this category is the "search" function available on any webpage. This saves SPED and ELL kids from thinking they have to read and understand every word on a webpage to find the answer.]<br />
<br />
Too often in education we assess students on something that isn't what we actually need them to know. For example, oftentimes word problems end up testing a student's reading ability, more than their skill at adding fractions. In this case, I would have thought the student didn't know how to use Google, given that he only would have answered a few questions. However, offering one simple skill enabled him to focus on the content. Not only that, but he was able to enjoy the content as well.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://amiagoodteacheryet.blogspot.com/2010/11/plain-english.html" target="_blank">[More on tech adaptations for SPED</a> and <a href="http://amiagoodteacheryet.blogspot.com/2011/08/accessibility-for-visually-impaired-and.html" target="_blank">ELL students] </a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-46044524776724333332012-03-26T08:32:00.004-07:002012-03-26T08:32:34.343-07:00Welcome Back with a Laugh<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnv1QBPyZV9GfK1HbMFXNtCWr5gvUyJv6e0th0lI_bKMYuEyKvNuSAxdwpMRTNMkjENkzqGQrsFjI-n5Bzc6jxmAMTXIEpJHSHfeOiGrTJAddu9c0laB5nUZd6iSVNKdcGuu2r3dwbJBpa/s1600/P1040064.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnv1QBPyZV9GfK1HbMFXNtCWr5gvUyJv6e0th0lI_bKMYuEyKvNuSAxdwpMRTNMkjENkzqGQrsFjI-n5Bzc6jxmAMTXIEpJHSHfeOiGrTJAddu9c0laB5nUZd6iSVNKdcGuu2r3dwbJBpa/s320/P1040064.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></a>Hi everyone! I took a break from blogging for a while since I had all things baby on my mind for the last trimester of my pregnancy and have been absorbed into the lovely face of my new little one (Pax Jacob) since he was born in January.<br />
<br />
However, I just returned from maternity leave and have been "enjoying" discovering the chaos that ensued during my leave in all 4 of my labs. These are some of the things I have found as I went through last week weeding my way through my labs:<br />
<ul>
<li>3 out of 4 printers were not working (broken, out of ink, etc.)</li>
<li>at least one or two computers in each lab were completely non-functioning and in need of repair or replacement</li>
<li>there were so many new students that I ran out of computers in one class</li>
<li>in one lab, there were about 5 chairs missing</li>
<li>in another lab, there were two new giant tables in my way that were being used for an intervention program</li>
<li>at one school, the blog I'd been using had been so abused that the administrators took the initiative to shut the entire thing down</li>
</ul>
On the positive side,<br />
<ul>
<li>I actually had a sub</li>
<li>kids had actually done the work I'd left for them</li>
<li>the sub left grades (as I'd asked) so I didn't have to make up 3rd quarter grades</li>
</ul>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXbQDRJFI5aN0hpIbyy6VcX9_9N4WKu5f4jeRA-Y5XNuDC4ADE4tGXYudXAvoUQir9SU9_uimTvvY9SlhKZqONImMEYfWtA-tPN-P_i2pPjPYwZkupy0PIWwzFhPjbK9rDrstA5JZ6r4fZ/s1600/Spellcheck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXbQDRJFI5aN0hpIbyy6VcX9_9N4WKu5f4jeRA-Y5XNuDC4ADE4tGXYudXAvoUQir9SU9_uimTvvY9SlhKZqONImMEYfWtA-tPN-P_i2pPjPYwZkupy0PIWwzFhPjbK9rDrstA5JZ6r4fZ/s320/Spellcheck.jpg" width="320" /></a>And on Friday, I discovered this gem (at right). In case you can't read it, I'll type it below. (I changed absolutely nothing, including punctuation. This is exactly the way it was handed to students.) Bless this person's heart for having their students use the crazy, new-fangled interwebs, but oh the inaccuracies and unnecessary steps... It's also a good example of someone trying to use technology (which is good), but literally translating a not-great "analog" method to a digital environment. </div>
<div>
------------------------------------------------</div>
<div>
How to spell check your work on the Computer</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Steps to using the computer to check your spelling.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Click the Internet Icon (Fire Fox internet explorer)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
2. Type in the IP address www.google.com if it is not already displayed</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
3. In the Google search space type in dictionary online.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
4. Click on Dictionary.com</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
5. Type your word in the top search box. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
6. Check all the words you think might be misspelled</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
7. Take your time but work productively this is the only day you have to work on this!</div>
<div>
------------------------------------</div>
<div>
In case anyone was wondering what a better way is to check spelling digitally, here are some other options: </div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Use the spell-checker in Word. It's pretty darn good. </li>
<li>Use the spell-checker in Google Docs, which is also pretty darn good on its own. However, recently it's started <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5895252/googles-new-spell-check-is-crazy-awesome" target="_blank">spell checking against the entire internet</a> (not just it's own dictionary). So even words that may not be real, but are commonly used will be spelled right. </li>
<li>Use <a href="http://www.google.com/" target="_blank">Google</a> to tell you if something is right or wrong. I've yelled at kids for being online when they shouldn't, when they are just typing something in letter by letter into Google to see how it should be spelled. </li>
</ul>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-42748046002513539732011-10-24T21:10:00.000-07:002011-10-24T21:10:01.441-07:007th Grade ReliabilityWant to get a 7th grader's attention? Tell them Google doesn't speak English. That's what we talked about all of last week, which seemed to work pretty well. At least, when my Monday class came in today, they could all tell me what language Google spoke (keywords). Today, we took the foundation of choosing relevant keywords to search for topics and applied it to looking at the websites that are on the resulting search list.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaj-AyhyphenhyphenxgVbbPINcQaxCLcz0Ha13hD6K6bphyphenhyphenplm8jQHhSgN78NEGoAdXth63sDqpg76WNWSAPAAHpn5-9OU2e63wGZGudNiyuH2bZ2QX8pUSxEyhPkl-rdbVnNEOUOMAKEOS5N4biEik/s1600/Google.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaj-AyhyphenhyphenxgVbbPINcQaxCLcz0Ha13hD6K6bphyphenhyphenplm8jQHhSgN78NEGoAdXth63sDqpg76WNWSAPAAHpn5-9OU2e63wGZGudNiyuH2bZ2QX8pUSxEyhPkl-rdbVnNEOUOMAKEOS5N4biEik/s200/Google.png" width="200" /></a>Despite some pretty non-fantastic behavior by a few of the classes, they actually seemed to think through the concept of trustworthiness of a source pretty well (a lesson previous generations never really had to learn). After a discussion of the types of domains that exist, key things to look for on a website, and not to believe everything just because it's online, I sent them off to find reliable sources on some fairly opinionated topics. <br />
<br />
It took me forever to find things to have them search for to examine reliability. The reason for this is that when I considered how I find reliable websites, I realized that I based my decisions on the source that I am looking at. That's great if you know that the Huffington Post or The Guardian are news organizations or that about.com is not a particularly great source. Most of the websites that they would be looking at, they have no way to know if it's true or not, just based on lack of life experience. And, I can't just give them a list and say, here, memorize it, which would be totally ineffective. I can't even tell them things like don't trust blogs (nytimes.com has tons of news blogs) or don't trust wikis (Wikipedia is more trustworthy than print encyclopedias).<br />
<br />
So, I spent AGES looking for topics to search for that would have some reliable sources and some not so reliable that the kids might be mildly interested in. What I eventually ended up going with were these questions (they had to be in question form so kids had to choose keywords), "Why is there a drug war in Mexico?" and, "Is the president doing a good job?" This brought a variety of types of sources, including opinions, answer sources, news coverage, junk, and more.<br />
<br />
Then, I walked around and asked everyone whether or not the website they were looking at was reliable and how they knew it was. Apparently this was a good line of questioning, because it was pretty clear who knew whether or not it was a reliable source. Some of the reasons given for something to be reliable:<br />
<br />
-It uses lots of references to outside sources (Wikipedia)<br />
-It has a lot of news information and covers things from all over the world (Washington Post)<br />
-The author is an expert because she has been interviewed by major non-profit organizations (National Geographic)<br />
-The author is listed as a professor/Dr. in a related area of study<br />
-It is described as an encyclopedia (Wikipedia)<br />
-I recognize the news source (CNN, CBS, etc.)<br />
-"Times"/"Post" labels tell me it's a news organization (LA Times, Huffington Post)<br />
and my favorite reason:<br />
-My mom uses this to look things up (Wikipedia).<br />
I told her this was a good reason, because if you don't know whether to trust something, ask someone you trust if they trust it. Not always a guarantee, but a good starting point.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7Jkdmt3KBeAbej07r9RAZJDVOfFZreYlUmibRXp6m1I8LOavswmg9VVorLGqUyujaHFjRux_8OD4Ss1rpIPFmmDuPcQtBdRqsqlKZ64GBa4D-cLZ3Pk6qbeP2vaCd3IMOCa95lDqMP8E/s1600/Facebook_icon.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7Jkdmt3KBeAbej07r9RAZJDVOfFZreYlUmibRXp6m1I8LOavswmg9VVorLGqUyujaHFjRux_8OD4Ss1rpIPFmmDuPcQtBdRqsqlKZ64GBa4D-cLZ3Pk6qbeP2vaCd3IMOCa95lDqMP8E/s200/Facebook_icon.jpeg" width="200" /></a>I also had one particularly perceptive student ask whether or not Facebook was a reliable source, so we spent some time discussing how it is a great source if you are looking for an opinion poll of a bunch of people, or if you want opinion quotes from normal people for some sort of article, but that you wouldn't want to use it as a hard source for an academic report of any sort. We also spent some time talking about whether or not it's good to use a manufacturer website as a source (yes if you want facts about the product, no if you want unbiased descriptions/opinions/reviews, etc.)<br />
<br />
So, lots of interesting discussion. I'm excited to see if the rest of this week's 7th graders keep up the good work!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-1693252563671830132011-10-10T15:18:00.000-07:002011-10-10T15:18:17.607-07:00Things I've Learned Teaching TechnologyWhile teaching technology is not always my first job choice, (as opposed to using technology to teach content), I have learned a few things along that way that have made me a better tech teacher, I think. Many of these apply to any age to which you're teaching a new technology.<br />
<br />
Do you have any others to add to the list?<br />
<br />
1. <i>Pacing is everything. </i>You have to <u>constantly</u> be aware of when the learners have reached the tipping point and can't take in any new information. There are 2 ways to know when they have reached this point: glazed eyes and/or a look of general amazement that says, "Wow, there's so much you can do, and I'm not going to remember any of this tomorrow!" or when you start to see frustrated/bewildered looks and noises (hands thrown up, head hanging, abuse of the computer, etc.). The other day I had to intentionally slow down when I heard a student say, "What?! I'm completely lost!"<br />
<br />
2. <i>Assume nothing</i>. Do not assume that a skill is so basic that everyone already knows it. Spell out every detail, or at least verbally verify that they do know a prerequisite skill. (I actually learned this lesson teaching swimming lessons to 4 year olds. As it turns out, you have to teach them to hold on to the edge, because otherwise they'll go under water and that that's a bad thing!) Every time I click and drag, I explain exactly how I do it so it doesn't look like magic. "Click on the image, hold the left mouse button down and keep doing so while you move the mouse over here. You should be able to see the image moving with the mouse. Then when the mouse is where you want the image, let go." The only thing you want to assume is that at least one person in the group doesn't know the basic skill behind what you're actually trying to teach.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvpygpuEvsoGH-vabs595G94ces_85HzoPyJIyNAHaRO0AUFzqTqerLBRaiJ1mkEVFa0Icu48dNyLi-CCet9sdM1Nzexw9MUWzI7JykpLPgP2XwUgTeuyKRKfbyhYOVqVWShVy5G3TmbNU/s1600/default11.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvpygpuEvsoGH-vabs595G94ces_85HzoPyJIyNAHaRO0AUFzqTqerLBRaiJ1mkEVFa0Icu48dNyLi-CCet9sdM1Nzexw9MUWzI7JykpLPgP2XwUgTeuyKRKfbyhYOVqVWShVy5G3TmbNU/s1600/default11.png" /></a>3. <i>Be calm. </i>People who are not familiar with computers or a specific program all assume one thing: "If I click on the wrong thing, it will destroy everything." [In this case, "everything" is assumed to be either the document, the entire program or the whole computer.] Hence, it is with great trepidation that people try new things on computers. So, when the tiniest unexpected thing happens, people panic. (This is true of kids and adults.) The best thing the instructor can do at this point is to be calm and reassure them that not only did they not destroy anything, but that it is virtually impossible for them to destroy anything. Sometimes people also panic when everyone else is ahead of them (they think). In this case, a lot of times, the best thing you can do is to bring them up to speed with everyone else (even if you have to do it for them), because otherwise their panic will drown out any new information you're trying to give them. Calmness is the key to helping them keep up and continue to learn.<br />
<br />
4. <i>It's ok if you forget. </i>Especially when I am teaching a new software, I am very intentional about telling people that it is ok if they forget the specific steps for what we are talking about. (I usually bring this up about the point where people are starting to panic or get the dazed, overwhelmed look.) I don't tell them this because I'm teaching useless information. I tell this this because all they need to remember is that the software can do that particular thing. If they don't remember what button to click or which menu it's under, that's ok. As long as they remember that it has that capability, all they need to do is find someone who knows a bit more than you do to help you find it (or <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> it :-)) I think that this is important for people to hear, particularly people who aren't very familiar with computers; i.e., the people who want to write down the steps for each new skill. If they know they don't need to remember every step, they are far less likely to panic, and far less likely to miss valuable instruction because they are writing down every step for something 2 skills back.<br />
<br />
5. <i>As a teacher, make use of the other students.</i> I'm pretty sure I spend at least 40-50% of every school day repeating the words, "Help the person next to you if they're stuck or if they're not there yet." (This will probably be the first words my child learns to say, given that he/she will have heard it so many times in utero!) In most classes, at least half the participants should be able to keep up with you. After every set of instructions, give time to complete, then remind those who are keeping up to help those who are stuck. This helps the confused individuals feel like they're not slowing down the class, makes those who are keeping up feel good about themselves, AND (most importantly) it saves the teacher from having to speak with every person individually to make sure they are in the right place.<br />
<br />
Hm. As it turns out, things that help when teaching technology are just plain good teaching skills. Who knew? :-) There are a few more things I've learned teaching tech, but I will save those for future posts.<br />
<br />
[Note: Handing out the comic depicted here from <a href="http://xkcd.com/">xkcd</a> will NOT make you a good tech teacher, but it will make all the computer people you know laugh :-)]<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnixaE1KR4mb2Zhb5Vc0SpvYElchd-xyC_tya6DdJkcVAQ3jFYtHW895D8aUzZt9aVFnoszVFKpAc-hYArNSU1TLO-WfD6BZEobhSuo5KMGdOgkk7ei6N1ZgtBzSIIRi-rXAL_QBMj1E1/s1600/tech_support_cheat_sheet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBnixaE1KR4mb2Zhb5Vc0SpvYElchd-xyC_tya6DdJkcVAQ3jFYtHW895D8aUzZt9aVFnoszVFKpAc-hYArNSU1TLO-WfD6BZEobhSuo5KMGdOgkk7ei6N1ZgtBzSIIRi-rXAL_QBMj1E1/s640/tech_support_cheat_sheet.png" width="568" /></a></div><br />
[The error message above comes from a hilarious <a href="http://atom.smasher.org/error/">website</a> that lets you <a href="http://atom.smasher.org/error/gallery/">make your own error messages</a>. It is hysterical; I'd highly advise checking it out for some good belly laughs :-)]Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372433061078177113.post-17362987054091479022011-10-07T16:16:00.000-07:002011-10-07T16:22:27.313-07:00Student ThoughtsI was on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> the other day, where I do NOT waste time, I learn things. Seriously. There, I ran across <a href="http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2011/09/20-things-students-want-nation-to-know.html">this post</a> recapping some of the things students said on the "Voices of the Nation" segment of NBC's <a href="http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=BBCEDAC1-D338-11E0-810D000C296BA163">Education Nation</a>. As I read through the items, so many thoughts were flying through my head that I was literally talking out loud to myself. In an empty room. Here are a few of my reflections on some of the student comments. [All student quotes from the panel are in italics.]<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxVXLTAMq3M5cNwIogTXKost5OiqL8Q7F2Wx4u-9JHlSJtQpmA45aoS5Y4GvFTD3HsbwuJ4V0tiG6yPBhx_1cPi6MYXpEOKJtCad8ZLLz0KOjuVw5MdRbq5b2-08w5t0j43-G8PZjQmTe/s1600/educationnation_logo1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxVXLTAMq3M5cNwIogTXKost5OiqL8Q7F2Wx4u-9JHlSJtQpmA45aoS5Y4GvFTD3HsbwuJ4V0tiG6yPBhx_1cPi6MYXpEOKJtCad8ZLLz0KOjuVw5MdRbq5b2-08w5t0j43-G8PZjQmTe/s320/educationnation_logo1.jpeg" width="320" /></a>1. On critical thinking:<i> "I have to critically think in college, but your tests don't teach me that." </i><br />
Yes!!! This is unequivocally true. First of all, good for colleges for still forcing kids to think hard. Elementary and high schools have largely lost their right to teach critical thinking. Testing has exhausted our time and energy for finding ways to show kids how to problem-solve, the most critical (and most common) skill needed for successfully navigating society today. Kids recognize how important this is too: <i>"We do tests to make teachers look good and the school look good, but we know they don't help us to learn what's important to us." </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
2. On caring educators: <i>"I can't learn from you if you are not willing to connect with me,"</i> and <i>"Caring about each student is more important than teaching the class." </i><br />
I see this on a daily basis. Kids need to know teachers care. It doesn't matter how you go about teaching the class, how much content you cover in a day, or even how you do discipline. If kids know you care, they will work with you and for you. We, as adults know what it's like to work for someone who doesn't care about you, and we don't expect them to. However, when we DO get to work for or with someone who honestly cares about us, it makes all the difference in the world. The same thing goes for kids. Even tiny things go a long way. Every time I tell kids good luck on a soccer game, ask them about their weekend, compliment their hair, or show them that I understand even just a tiny portion of who they are, they almost literally light up. In another student's words, <i>"You need to love a student before you can teach a student." </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
3. On staying current: <i>"We appreciate when you connect with us in our worlds, such as the teacher who provided us with extra help using Xbox and Skype,"</i> and <i>"Us youth love all the new technologies that come out. When you acknowledge this and use technology in your teaching, it makes learning much more interesting." </i><br />
Teaching in a way that seems relevant to students means they hear the content, not your methodology. When I was a kid, film strips were old technology, but teachers continued using them. Thinking back on those film strips, I don't ever remember thinking about what I was seeing. What I do remember is thinking how old film strips were, how dangerous the machine seemed, the noise it made, how scratchy the sound and picture was, etc. The same thing happens today. When we ask students to take out a textbook and read information that was written 13 years ago, they don't take in the content. They take in the medium and it's limitations, compared to what they know exists today. However, when we can, for example, show a 3 minute clip from NASA's Youtube channel describing the phases of the moon, we have at least eliminated the barrier of the medium. We must stay current.<br />
<br />
4. On the futures of students: <i>"Tell me something good that I'm doing so that I can keep growing in that." </i>I keep learning this lesson over and over again, especially teaching junior high. It is literally our job as educators to highlight areas of students' strength. They may not even realize they have talent in that area. Or if they do, they may have never considered that it could be a possible career down the road. If we don't tell them, no one else will. Kids may not listen to their parents, because of the age-old reason: "You're my mom, you have to say that!" However, kids respect an impartial adult's opinion who interacts with them on a daily basis. Hearing a teacher encourage them in an area where they show aptitude and passion is a strong motivational factor for kids. Not only should we encourage them in the area of a dream, but we should help get them closer to those dreams. Field trips, articles, video clips, news items, etc., all help encourage students in the direction of their future. As another student said, <i>"Every young person has a dream. Your job is to help bring us closer to our dreams."</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNlvJWR1cUK6iD30pQSECU2Vot2o_dQ3bBDdk_RKIWUKn-xtDDMisYqFQBYHxZ9Wj_N_DeTpIAu8EhFp6FcU63vODekXtXv5Qw410dYFJk-bhZt2oWxcXs4y9sXQaey-4m0REZ0eWwZHt_/s1600/Treble_Clef_without_line.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNlvJWR1cUK6iD30pQSECU2Vot2o_dQ3bBDdk_RKIWUKn-xtDDMisYqFQBYHxZ9Wj_N_DeTpIAu8EhFp6FcU63vODekXtXv5Qw410dYFJk-bhZt2oWxcXs4y9sXQaey-4m0REZ0eWwZHt_/s200/Treble_Clef_without_line.png" width="88" /></a></div>5. On electives: <i>"Bring the electives that we are actually interested in back to school. Things like drama, art, cooking, music." </i>We never bothered to ask students what they thought about removing all areas other than test prep from the curriculum. Students know these are all important parts of life that many will not get a chance to learn any other way. When I used to teach in the regular classroom, I always liked cooking with the kids. They loved it, used all sorts of other skills, and I always saw a side of them I didn't see otherwise. Many were crushed when our school setting changed so that they would no longer be allowed to take a cooking class. Now, when I'm out on the playground with my Photojournalism students taking pictures, younger students come up and ask what my kids are doing. When I tell them, they ask with big, hopeful eyes, "So I'll be able to take that when I'm in 8th grade too?" I always feel a little twinge when I say yes, because there is a very real possibility that something as "frivolous" as this will also be ripped out of the curriculum, in favor of another intervention or enrichment course of some sort.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #9fc5e8; color: #222222; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><br />
6. On student opinions: <i>"Education leaders, teachers, funders, and policy-makers need to start listening to student voice in all areas, including teacher evaluations." </i>I know there are many logistical issues with <span class="Apple-style-span">this suggestion, but in terms of teacher evaluations, it's not a bad idea. Kids aren't experts on much, but one thing they spend the first 20 years of their lives examining is teachers. While they may not know the education terminology, they know a good teacher when they see one. They know which teachers care about them, which teachers are passionate about the subject the teach, and which teachers are firm and expect much, (but only because it is best for the kids). I recently had an evaluator say that he had asked students their opinion of me and my class. Luckily, they had good things to say about me :-) At first though, I was a bit taken aback that he had considered this at least a little bit in my evaluation process. However, then I realized that (at least by junior high), kids know who is being fair and educating them to the best of their ability. If a teacher looks like they're doing an excellent job for an evaluator, but the kids are </span><span class="Apple-style-span">bored to tears, </span><span class="Apple-style-span">seething, offended, or asleep, something is not right. Students are the true experience-ers of a teacher, they deserve some chance to give their opinion. All post high-school courses in and out of official education centers <i>require</i> a student evaluation of the instructor. Why shouldn't younger students have the same opportunity?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span">If you're interested to hear more about what kids think, ASK them about it, and ask them why!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0