always learning

I have to admit, I’m not very good at commenting. I love to read, I love to share, but I so rarely take the time to actually leave a comment on the posts I find interesting. It’s a very bad habit – especially because I know how much I enjoy receiving and reading comments left on my posts, and I know how important they are to the authors of the posts I read.

My problem is that it takes me so long to decide exactly what I want to say that I’m almost always rushing off to do something else by the time I’m ready to actually write (this is the same problem, by the way, that causes me to take 3 hours to write a post). I really wish I was quicker on the fingers, so to speak, but I’m not. I do a little too much thinking sometimes. What that really means is not that I shouldn’t comment, but that I should just write what first comes to mind and comment even more, later, if after thinking about I have something else to say.

The other part of the problem is that I’m a perfectionist and I actively avoid doing things that I may not do well at (unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that I do everything well, it just means that I don’t usually see it coming when I fail). Plus, I’m a bit of a control-freak, so if it’s something I can’t go back and edit, I take even longer to decide exactly how I want to phrase my comments.

And, of course, the final issue I have with commenting is that I already spend way too much time online. I’ve noticed that, this year in particular, I spend more time online, but still never seem to get around to what I really want to do (mostly because I’m busy processing the overwhelming amount of info I find interesting and relevant). It’s frustrating, and it’s definitely making it hard to achieve any sort of balance that we’re all striving for. So, I’ve kind of let the commenting side of thing slide, in favor of consuming as much as possible in the time I have (this is also part of my tendency to hoard – usually related to food, but now, thanks to the convenience of tagging and filing, seems to apply to online information as well).

Well, now that I’ve cleared the air about my serious type-A personality issues, the bottom line is that I need (and want) to make more of a conscious effort to be a part of the conversation (even on my own blog, where it can take me ages to respond to comments as well. Ug.) A recent twittversation (is that a word?) with Sue Waters about the importance of commenting has refocused my efforts back on commenting. Plus, being the information hoarder that I am, I appreciate all of the easy ways to track online conversations that Sue outlines here.

The thing is, when I take the time to actually leave a comment, the content of the post sticks in my mind and pushes my thinking much more so than when I just read. I find that when I leave a comment, I’m more likely to see the connections between the various posts I read, and more likely to follow the links provided in the initial post, as well as read the blogs of the other commenters on the same post. (Ironically, this is one of the reasons I haven’t been doing so much commenting – since I always have too much to read, the last thing I want to do is get so interested in a topic that I read more than I expected, right?). But in the end, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Not just to consume, but to contribute as well. And not just to contribute your own experiences (which takes me long enough as it is), but to develop and contribute your own unique perspective on the connections between all that you read, watch, and hear.

So, I’ve worked my way right back around to the problem of balance again. Clearly, I need to take a lesson from our ISB elementary school goals for next year – it’s more important to focus and deepen learning than it is to just get all the information you can. Now, if only I could decide what to throw out and what to keep in… It’s all so interesting!

Calcutta Coffee House image from lecercle
Stuck image from TeeRish
Camera image from Thomas Hawk

Tags: commenting, comments, comment, conversation, blogging, focus, balance, connections, Sue Waters,

Woo hoo! I’ve been asked to present 3 sessions at the Learning 2.008 conference in Shanghai in September! I was already excited enough just to attend the conference, but to get to present three sessions will be fantastic!

Here are the topic ideas I’m thinking about so far (and I’d love to hear your feedback):

Connecting to Learn, Learning to Connect: Social Networking in the Classroom

Now that you’ve signed up for the Learning 2.008 Ning, would you like to learn how to use this (and other) social networking tool(s) in your classroom?

Social Networks (like Ning) are a great way to: engage learners, empower all students, enhance dialogue and discussion, connect with classrooms around the school or around the world, promote and share multimedia hassle-free, differentiate by ability level and interest, and enable learners to be leaders in a truly collaborative environment.

Find out how social networks are being used in classrooms at all grade levels (from second grade to twelfth grade) to create globally collaborative projects, engage students at the appropriate learning level, and enhance curricular conversations outside the classroom. Rationale, online safety, planning process and classroom social networking examples and resources will be shared.

Connecting Classrooms Across Continents: Planning and Implementing Globally Collaborative Projects

Ready to “flatten” your classroom walls? Looking to take web 2.0 tools to the next level by developing exciting and authentic projects that allow your students to interact with partners around the world? It may be time to tackle a globally collaborative project in your classroom!

Globally collaborative projects are an exciting way to engage your students in authentic and meaningful learning across cultures and continents. Successfully combining a variety of web 2.0 tools (like blogs, wikis, Skype, IM, social networks, etc) can remove the barriers of time and distance to connect your class with others around the world. Not only do students love to meet their far-flung peers, but learning to collaborate and create in an entirely online and inter-cultural environment will clearly be a critical skill for their future.

Learn how to develop a successful global project – from design and planning to implementation and product, as well as see examples of engaging projects from all grade levels. Tips for success based on learning experiences from past global collaborations, along with resources and samples of current globally collaborative projects will be shared.

Making the Shift Happen: Embracing 21st Century Literacy at Your School

Excited about 21st century learning? Already embracing new learning tools in your classroom, but looking to transform your school? Embracing 21st century literacy on a school-wide basis is a complex process. From developing a shared understanding of 21st century literacy to ensuring quality technological infrastructure to embracing a new perspective on teaching and learning at the administrative level, there are many pieces to this puzzle. Get the ball rolling at your school! Experiences and examples from several international schools will be shared.

I was also thinking about presenting something specifically for primary age teachers. I know our early elementary teachers are always looking for relevant tools and often feel like there isn’t enough out there to support them. And then, of course, I have the two presentations I did earlier this year, that I really like:

Developing the Global Student: Practical Ways to Embed 21st Century Literacy Skills Into Your Classroom

This session will focus on utilizing web 2.0 applications, such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis, to develop 21st century literacy skills within the core curriculum. Metacognition, research skills, and online awareness help students find what they need, learn at their own pace and safely share with a wider audience. How can we incorporate these exciting, motivating skills and technologies into our classrooms? Examples of completed student projects, along with teacher materials and resources, will be shared.

The 21st Century Educator: Embracing Web 2.0 in Your Professional Practice

What exactly do RSS, blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking and VOIP have to do with your professional practice? How can web 2.0 technologies change the way you learn, communicate, collaborate and teach? This session will focus on practical ways to utilize free web 2.0 tools to develop a personal learning network that will transform your professional practice and open your eyes to new possibilities in the classroom!

Would you attend any of these sessions? Which three are the most interesting to you? Is there something else that would be an even better topic to talk about? I’d love to hear your feedback!

Tags: learning2.008, presentations, professional development, conference, learn2cn,

Over the past few months, I’ve worked on two major projects with several of our fourth grade classes: Books Go Global! and the 1001 Flat World Tales project. I absolutely loved working with fourth grade and it was especially interesting to do the 1001 Tales project for the second time with such a different age group (last year I worked with seventh grade).

Overall, I am so impressed at the quality of work that our fourth graders have done, and just how much they are capable of doing on their own. Not only did we have these entire classes completing fairly intense, thoughtful projects, but we had smaller groups in each class going above and beyond expectations working on enhancing the entire class’ work – like creating an overarching story linking all 60 individual student stories together!

Our 1001 Tales students shared some great learnings with me at the end of their project:

The class really enjoyed:

• meeting other students and making friends
• typing on the computer instead of handwriting
• being able to put multimedia elements into their story – especially not having to waste paper to print pictures

They learned:

• How to make friends and be polite when working in an online environment
• How to behave appropriately online – from the videos we watched
• More about the writing process – how to write good paragraphs, revise writing, give comments, and improve our work
• How to do lots of cool time-saving things on the computer – right click, apple shortcuts
• How to make a wikispace – linking, adding pictures, editing text

And they reflected:

• Even though some of us didn’t like having other people see our writing before it was finished, we all agreed that our writing was better due to the collaborative process
• Although some of the technical tasks took quite a few steps, we now feel really confident that we can do these things even easier and better next time around

Their class teacher shared some feedback with me as well:

• Students learned so much about the writing process – revising, writing, editing, authorship.
• Students learned so much about working with collaborative technology – communicating online, behavior and attitude online.
• Not enough emphasis on persuasive writing – we should have added the essential questions right on our group page and had a checklist for persuasive writing quality to self-check after their first draft and a link with all the essential qualities of a good persuasive essay linked right to the group page because students were reluctant to use the paper handouts once they started working with the laptops.
• Because this was the first time for them, the computers became more of the focus – it would be better to do something smaller at the beginning of the year, use the tool lightly throughout the year, and then use it big time towards the end.
• There is good connection with this and a blog – a blog would be a good beginning to the year and it can grow into a wiki. Would be great to start with a class wiki at the beginning of the year, have the kids do an about me page, use it all year as a presentation tool (little bits here and there) and then do the final project at the end.
• Would have been nice to use the wiki for a short intro assignment at the beginning for persuasive writing – maybe a quick add or something that uses the language of persuasive writing to help emphasize the connection between writing on the wiki and this focus on persuasive writing.

These were really important conversations for me. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the final product, I forget to go back and reflect on the process. Having had previous experience with this specific project, I think I was able to coordinate the actual completion of each task relatively easily, but having fewer struggles with the collaboration now allows me to really focus on making sure the content and the pedagogical focus is at the forefront of student learning.

There are so many pieces to global collaborations that often times, the effort it takes to get all those schedules and structures in place can end up taking most of my time. This is a really important reminder for me to get all the planning done first, then step back and take a look at the curricular needs with fresh eyes, to make sure that once we get going, we’re going in the right direction.

Another interesting learning for me, is that even though these globally collaborative projects are all similar in their goals (connecting students through networked learning), it seems to take at least one completion of each project all the way through to really understand how to properly structure it. Every project is different enough that you have to actually work through the kinks in each one to really make the most out of it. Although I’ve learned so much from previous global collaborations, I still made plenty of mistakes in setting up the Books Go Global! project.

Here are a few things I learned from this time around:

• When setting up an ongoing project, make sure that you structure groups or workshops to complete the project on the same timeline. Not everyone has to be doing the project at the same time, but assuming that you’re looking for interaction, you want to make sure that it’s actually scheduled in, in advance. Otherwise you’ll be left with classes completing the project on their own or out of sync with the other groups.
• Try to sort the groups based on curricular goals so that the creation of common rubrics is easier (common rubrics make it so much easier for students to peer evaluate).
• Whatever tool you’re using (in this case we used a wiki), make sure that you plan for the easiest input of data as well as the easiest output. This time around I focused on making the final product the easiest to look through and review, but it ended up causing lots of frustration when we were all trying to edit the same wiki page at the same time.
• And, duh, along those lines, never make one central page to embed objects in a wiki. Make separate pages for each class or group. That way only the members of that class or group would be likely to edit out another student’s work.
• If you plan to have students from all the various schools working in one space, try to come up with common page naming practices (for example if all of the students in every class will be making multiple wiki pages, have them all use the school initials in their page names). This makes finding and linking pages so much easier.
• Especially for elementary students, find the easiest way to complete a task by testing out multiple ways with several students and then use that as your standard.
• Especially for elementary students, have each student write down their username and password in a safe place for future reference (and I usually keep a copy of all usernames and e-mail addresses on a spreadsheet in my files as well).

Sometimes I just wish I could just follow my own advice What else would you add to this list?

All in all, both of these projects were so much fun, and I truly appreciate the opportunity to be able to learn from these experiences. I can’t wait for the next major project so I can (hopefully) do an even better job! Please take a look at our outstanding VoiceThread book reviews on Books Go Global! and read our fantastic stories for the alien king on the 1001 Flat World Tales project. The students would love to hear your feedback as well!

Tags: elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, flatclassroom, collaborations, 1001 Tales, wiki, writing, workshop, persuasive, Books Go Global!, VoiceThread, book reviews,