always learning

Seeing as it’s the end of the year, and the perfect time for reflection given that our three-week semester break started yesterday and our friends from Munich won’t arrive until Monday, I thought I would take some time to list my recent achievements at ISB.

There’s something about the act of writing things down that helps solidify them in my mind – it’s almost as if I don’t write them down, they didn’t happen (which definitely makes me wonder what I did before I started blogging two and a half years ago). And, even though I know I have all of these things already recorded in various posts here on this blog, it really helps organize my own thoughts by listing them all in one space.

In addition to keeping myself organized and up-to-date, I also love the idea of sharing successes. I am always inspired by all of the amazing things I read from my personal learning network, and I would love to see a similar list of achievements from other edubloggers (if you have the inclination and the time). Being able to follow up with a concise list of the fantastic work I know everyone is doing would be just perfect for a type-a personality, such as myself!

So, in the interests of sharing and reflecting, here’s my highlighted list of achievements over the past year and a half at ISB:

• Building productive and positive collaborative teaching relationships with staff, at both the individual level, and the team level, including teachers in “my” division (elementary), as well as the other two divisions of the school.
• Co-planning and co-teaching a wide variety of projects, using the Understanding by Design process, which authentically embed 21st century literacy skills with teachers at each grade level in the elementary school, as well as additional projects in the middle and high schools, on request.
• Bridging and merging the educational technology team and the library team to form a new, cross-school department focused on 21st century learning: the ISB21 Team.
• Collaboratively designing the future of 21st century learning at ISB: through curriculum planning, presenting to leadership team, and working within the tech and library departments.
• Continually striving for change within the school structure, focusing on 21st century learning.
• Helping teachers build their understanding of how 21st century tools can help students learn through collaboration on projects, the development of a Professional Learning Community, after school and weekend PD, leading faculty meetings, in-school presentations, sharing of resources and casual conversation.
• Planning, implementing and teaching a new graduate-level, 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy.
• Building parental understanding of 21st century literacy tools in a positive, exciting and approachable manner.
• Publicly documenting ES student success through the use of 21st century communication tools, as well as traditional communication methods.
• Extensive professional development – learning as an attendee, receiving awards, presenting (at quite a few conferences), bringing in experts, and consulting.
• Learning to be a better teacher by working with elementary students and teachers.
• Focusing on curriculum development, specifically planning units of inquiry which authentically embed technology and 21st century literacy skills.
• Collaborating with teachers to plan and teach units that engage, motivate and excite students about their learning from kindergarten to grade five.
• Helping students and teachers build Personal Learning Networks – connecting people around learning and making meaningful connections
  
• Collaborating with teams on developing, documenting and sharing an overarching vision for learning – looking at “the big picture“
• Building excitement and enthusiasm around technology and 21st century literacy – differentiating, connecting and collaborating – with students, teachers and parents
• Bringing new tools to our Learning Hub that will enable students, teachers, and parents to take full advantage of the multimedia resources we have to offer.
• Coordinating and leading professional development training on technology and 21st century tools
• Continually learning and reflecting with and using 21st century tools to share, connect and collaborate with others both within our school environment and among the global community of educators I am proud to call my Personal Learning Network
• Taking a leadership role on projects outside of the school environment to further enhance and build my understanding of 21st century learning.
• Reflecting and refining practices to ensure that I am learning from each experience.

Phew! I’m tired just looking at this list! It’s amazing how quickly you forget what you’ve done if you don’t take the time to reflect. And, of course the constant influx of amazing things streaming in via Twitter and Google Reader, is always inspiring to do more, to go further, to keep moving. Sometimes it’s nice to just take a moment to see how far we’ve come. There is always more to be done, always the next steps to take, but for right now, I think I’m pretty happy with what I see here.

What are your major accomplishments for the year? Please feel free to share a link to your own list in the comments here!

I’m not so good at memes. The procrastinator in me just likes to keep putting them off until too many weeks go by for me to legitimately pick them back up again. But, seeing as I’ve had a few nice Thai holidays thrown into my schedule lately, I really have no excuse.

So, here’s my effort at the Wordle Meme, started by GeekyMomma, and brought to my attention by Silvia Tolisano.

Here are the instructions:

1. Create a Wordle from your blog’s RSS feed.
2. Blog it and describe your reaction. Any surprises?
3. Tag others to do the same.
4. Be sure to link back here and to where you were first tagged.

Silvia, of course, had some additional creative ideas to add to the depth of this meme, suggesting the following:

5. Create different Wordle clouds of your blog’s RSS over a period of time. Do it once a month for the next year.
6. Share other uses (at least one)  you have found for Wordle (for your students or personally) to your blog post.

I like the idea of documenting your Zeitgeist (spirit of the times) by capturing a Wordle regularly. And, since I have already been procrastinating (just a bit) on this meme, I actually have two months to share here today:

From November 29th:

From December 10th:

They’re not quite a whole month apart, but I happened to be super productive last weekend in a rare spurt of blogging which resulted in a total of 8 posts in 48 hours, usually a month’s worth for me anyway.

Reaction:

I’m actually surprised by how much Wordle must pull from the most recent post in your RSS feed. I can really tell which posts I had just written when I created these two images, and I’m not so sure that those would be entirely accurate reflections of the most frequent topics on this blog.

However, if we look at the Wordles the way Silvia describes, understanding that they will change over time, and can only realistically be a reflection of the moment, I can see how that would be powerful. For example, my most recent post focuses on connecting teachers, and boy, I must have mentioned that word a lot, because just a week and a half before I can barely even find the word “teachers.”

Even with the differences, I definitely am pleased to see that “learning” is at the center, a little surprised to see just how big “technology” is in both screen shots (though obviously that’s a major focus of my job, and therefore this blog), and I like that I can see “literacy” and “team” front and center.

I actually wish I could go back in time and take some screen shots of Wordles from previous years. I think I’ve been thinking about things a little differently of late, and it would sure be interesting to see how this year’s posts compare with last year’s or the year before…

And, just like Silvia, I created a Wordle from my Delicious account:

This one is definitely less surprising as I have a pretty good idea of the tags I use when I bookmark. It is a little surprising to me that I really don’t tag much for personal use, this Wordle seems almost entirely education-related. Maybe I need to spread the bookmarking love.

Using Wordle in the Classroom:

I like the idea of using a Wordle to capture the focus of student writing, to help them see visually what they are really writing about. It’s not easy to tell amidst a pile of words on a page which ones are the most prevelant, but this makes it hard to miss. I wonder if this would be a good tool for English Language Learners, because it could help build their vocabulary by emphasizing the words they use most often and then encourage them to learn new vocab to enhance and improve not only the variety of language but the specificity of meaning. I haven’t used it yet with teachers, but just taking a moment to think about it might be all the prompting I need!

Because I empathize with the procrastinators out there, I’m not going to tag anyone, but should you wish to complete this meme and don’t happen to find yourself tagged at the moment, please consider this your opportunity (not that you need my permission anyway). Wordle Away!

This weekend I discovered TweetDeck and I am totally in love! (Yes, I am late to the party with this one @JavaJive, Jeff showed it to me ages ago, but better late than never, right?).

As you may know, I am obsessively organized (often mocked for the obscene amount of folders I have for storing old e-mails) so the fact that I can actually organize my twitter friends is just about the best thing since sliced bread. All weekend, I’ve been categorizing and organizing all my twitter friends into convenient groupings – so much easier to follow what I want to follow, instead of just what rises to the top!

One of my fun new groups is “International Teachers.” I had been following quite a few teachers that I know personally, but being able to categorize them in TweetDeck has helped me find dozens more just this weekend – and now they’re all nicely organized into my “International Teachers” group, so when they post something new, I notice right away.

I love connecting with international school teachers, because even though our day-to-day experiences may be very different, we all share the common bond of teaching overseas, our schools are often very similar, and it’s amazing the number of times we will cross paths during our careers – despite the fact that we may currently be on opposite sides of the planet!

In an amazing coincidence, I woke up this morning (far too early, I might add), to see that Lucy and Vicki had found TwittGroups, a way to create groups of Twitterers with a common interest (Lucy started one for Apple Distinguished Educators Worldwide and Vicki started one for Teachers).

I figured this would be a great way to find even more international school teachers, so I created a group for us! I’m not so sure how this works yet, but even if it just ends up being an opt-in listing of international school teachers, this would be a great way to connect and find more international colleagues in one central place. Please, join!

I’m also curious about international school teachers that are blogging. I’ve been organizing (of course) my Google Reader account as well, and I have an “international teachers” folder that I’d love to add more feeds to – I just need to find them!

It’s amazing to see how we’re all connected – despite being so widely spread across the globe – connecting with one international school teacher in one city begins an amazing chain reaction of so many others in that city, and then their connections around the world. I love it!

Is there a central place where I can find a listing of international school teachers who are blogging? If not, anyone want to share some links in the comments here? I’ll be sure to write a follow up post with links to all the bloggers and twitterers that share! What a great way to connect with our fellow international school teachers!

Update: I just had a brainwave! I’ve been wanting to try out Google Forms for a while, so I just made one for international school teachers to share their blog and twitter info. If you’d like to be listed, please fill out the form here and check for the results here. Looking forward to connecting with even more international school teachers!

Amongst the Flags by thadman

Oh my! I could not be more flattered or proud to have been nominated for an Edublog award by two of my personal blogging heros: Julie Lindsay and Silvia Tolisano. Both Julie and Silvia have pushed my thinking for years, supported me through some difficult times, and been inspirational in their contributions to the educational blogging world. Thank you!

Not only was this completely unexpected given my totally random bursts of blogging and often quiet spells, but I can’t believe I’m listed among so many amazing bloggers, check them out:

Mobile Technology in TAFE
Education Investigation
Learn Online
Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
Bionic Teaching
SCC English
Nadstar’s Blog
Teachers at risk
John Connell
Doug – off the record
Mathemetics Learning
The Scholastic Scribe
Newly Ancient
Chrisina’s Classroom Early Childhood blog
Cliotech
ICTlogy
Theology in the Vineyard
Computer Science Teacher – thoughts and information from Alfred Thompson
Darcy’s blog
The Edublogger
Teaching and Learning Design
The Bamboo Project
All teachers are learners – All learners are teachers
Sarah’s Musings
Using Blogs in science Education
Learning with ‘e’s
What It’s Like on The Inside
EFL20.com
Generation YES Blog
Betty’s Blog
Teach42
Creating Lifelong Learners
Always Learning
The English Blog
David Truss: Pair-a-dimes for your Thoughts

Thank you again for this wonderful surprise ladies! And if any of my equally wonderful and thoughtful readers felt like heading over and voting for me, that would just be the icing on the cake!

My wonderful new teaching partner, Tara, and I have had a number of conversations about a recent trend I’ve seen within my personal learning network to remove the word “technology” from our discussions about teaching and learning in a digital world (see, there! I just did it!).

We’ve developed all sorts of phrasing and terminology that seem to deliberately avoid using the word technology: 21st century, integration, eLearning, school 2.0, mLearning, digital literacy, etc. In fact, we seem to be coming up with words to describe what we’re doing with technology much faster than the general teaching population can catch on.

How many teachers in your school know what the term “21st century literacy” (or any of the above terms) means? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that it’s not too many people.

It seems that we’re developing this terminology for several reasons (in my opinion):

• We don’t want it to be all about the technology – of course, that’s the change we’re talking about, but it’s still all about the learning, right?
• We don’t want to scare teachers off – and we all know “technology” can be scary, so let’s just take it out of the conversation.
• We want to avoid the “oh I’m not responsible for teaching technology” phenomenon, we want to make it clear that teaching these skills are everyone’s responsibility. If you teach safety with scissors and safety with strangers, you should also be teaching safety online.

But here are the problems:

• We seem to go through these terms quicker than anyone else can catch up, coining phrases and dropping them, saying they are passe already. To the general teaching population, I’m not sure that’s true. We’re just making it harder and harder for teachers to stay current by moving faster and faster in our shared language about teaching and learning.
• If the terminology is too vague or not transparent enough, it’s easy to say “I’m already doing that” – even when you’re not doing it in the way that reflects new methods of learning. What teacher doesn’t work on communication or collaboration or creating in class?

I believe we are all technology teachers because of the very fact that technology is so tightly woven into the fabric of our society, but does everyone feel that way? And if they don’t, are we helping them build their understanding of that reality if we’re constantly removing the critical facet of the terms and then changing them so quickly? I think it’s great to have online discussions about terminology, but I’m wondering about the link between the philosophical debates educators might have among themselves, and then bringing something useful back to the institutions we work in.

And here’s the thing, in the end, what we’re asking teachers to do is different than what they’re already doing. Even though I believe digital/visual/media literacy is just literacy, and even though I would love if every teacher understood that shift, the reality is that is not the case. So, we do need a commonly understood label or a term or a name that will help teachers understand that we are asking for different teaching and learning experiences. We are expecting changes in the classroom that reflect the changes in society.

So, how can we ask them to make changes if we’re not describing that change in our everyday language? Is there a way we can find some terminology that both represents this constantly changing learning landscape, but also is meaningful for our colleagues that aren’t as involved in the world of educational technology?

What do you think?

One of the most interesting aspects of my job is figuring out how to best support teachers – everyone is at a different comfort and experience level with technology, and most are uncomfortable admitting what they don’t know. Building individual relationships with new colleagues, as well as getting to know team, department and faculty dynamics are a critical factor to my success as a 21st Century Literacy Specialist (or as a Technology Facilitator, for that matter).

Over the past few weeks, one thing has really stood out for me: Just like I believe I need to get to know a class and their teacher when working on a collaborative project, getting to know the team is essential to deeper, more authentic and appropriate support, for both the curricular needs and the needs of the individual teachers on the team.

Towards the end of last year I realized that I was able to make connections with a number of individual staff members, and therefore help shift those teachers through projects at every grade level. But, I realized I still wasn’t starting the shift with any groups of teachers.  Most of the teachers were at different grade levels and didn’t regularly cross paths with the other teachers I was working with. The momentum was with individuals only.

As powerful as that momentum had been, I started to realize that teachers truly appreciate support and common goals with their team. If they can try something new with their team members, they have a built-in support structure that fits easily into their daily practice of teaching and learning that also conveniently slots right into the existing infrastructure of the school. Plus the added benefits of a safety-net: everyone participates, everyone helps, everyone agrees that this is the path to take. Convenience, comfort and accessibility are all be strong benefits to working through the process as a team.

So, this year I started my quest to find a team at ISB that would allow me to be a mostly-silent, but always willing to help, member. Luckily the wonderful and welcoming grade 4 team allowed me to join, sit in on their weekly team meetings, and offer my two cents when appropriate. It has truly been a valuable learning experience.

Working with an entire team has helped me understand each individual member of the team better through their interactions with others. I also have a deeper understanding of their needs for curricular support, as well as the challenges they are facing in their classrooms. I hope that, by being there for them, they also see me as a productive and contributing member of their team. I try to offer ideas that will streamline their daily tasks, help engage their students, and add a digital literacy component to their units of study.

One of the most powerful experiences has been over the past week and a half while the team has been discussing their current social studies unit, Influence. The team had previously decided on their Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions, but were not sure how they wanted to assess student learning.

As a member of the team, I was part of all of the discussions about how the unit went last year, struggles and successes, ideas for improvement, concerns and how it all fits into the bigger picture of student learning in grade four. Because I had all of that background, I was able to share an idea for a final assessment that (hopefully) will meet the needs for this unit, adding in a 21st century-style approach, and also take into consideration time factors, other units of study that need to be completed, technical resources, and teacher and student comfort level with technology tools.

Without being a participant in all of those discussions I would have only had a one-sided view of the need at hand, and certainly would not have been able to put the curricular needs of the unit into the context of the entire grade level. Just stepping in to offer my ideas for a quick 10-minute discussion once in a while would not have prepared me to truly meet the needs of the team. I have also been able to spend dedicated time with some of the team members and our Curriculum Coordinator to fully flesh out this unit so that it meets the needs of the teachers and the students. Now this unit will be part of the grade 4 curriculum for years to come.

To truly collaborate with teachers, I am starting to believe that we, as resource people, need to be part of their team environment. I can certainly work individually with teachers to help them with their specific classroom needs, but to make any major shifts in the thinking of the school or to effect change in the curriculum, the collaboration needs to come at the team level.

What do you think? How are you best supporting your teams or departments at your school?

Move Over Clematis by neon.mamcita
Seedling from twenty-questions

When I arrived at ISB last year, one of the first major projects I started with two of our wonderful grade 5 teachers was student blogging (um, and did I mention that we started blogging at the same time as participating in Chris Craft’s Life ‘Round Here digital storytelling project?). I had come from a middle school position where every student in the school (grades six – eight) had their own individual student blog and was ready to continue that experience here.

What I didn’t know was that none of the teachers or students really had any experience blogging prior to my arrival (oops!). So, while they (both the teachers and the students) were absolutely fantastic at going with the flow and experimenting, I realized quite quickly that individual student blogs may not be the appropriate “first step” into the world of web 2.0 – especially at the elementary level.

So, over the course of last year I started to figure out an easier, more approachable, entry into participatory writing and reading online. I started with a grade 3 class, whose teacher, Betsy, was so flexible and ready to learn with me that we had so much fun getting this started with her students.

One of the major features of this smoother entry into blogging was having just one class blog that all students can contribute to. Instead of setting up each student with their own blog, they can all have their own username and password (which they love) to author individual posts on one class blog. Being able to leverage one free G-mail account to create individual accounts for each student was a huge step forward for us as well – taking away the need for student e-mail is definitely a huge stress-reliever (for both the teacher and the parents). Finally, adding a global component and pre-organized authentic audience really helped make our student writing purposeful.

After that much more successful, and far less stressful, experience with Betsy’s class, I knew it wouldn’t be long before another teacher wanted to try something similar. And, just as I expected, my amazingly collaborative colleague, Sonja, approached me at the very beginning of this year to start a reading and writing project with her grade 4 students.

We started off much the same as last year’s grade 3 class, with one important difference: we focused on the importance of quality commenting before we gave the students their usernames and passwords for the class blog. We spent several lessons exploring our blogging buddies blogs, learning how to write an appropriate and fair comment, and building our understanding of blogging as conversation.

Interestingly, as soon as this class got started with their collaborative blog, more and more teachers have been asking me to help them set up a blog with their class. Just this week, I helped another fourth grade teacher, Kristen, set up her class blog and was amazed at how quickly her students were able to pick up the basics. At this point, I’ve got the introduction to blogging organized into five lessons (slightly revamped from last year’s version):

Lesson One:

For our first lesson we spent some time examining other quality blogs, looking mostly at Anne Davis’ excellent Blogging: It’s Elementary WebQuest (just for the blog links, mostly). Each table group had a chance to look at one of the blogs listed on the process page and followed a Visible Thinking routine called: See, Think, Wonder. Each time we had a focused discussion at the table groups (starting with the question: What do you see?) we came back to the full-class and shared our observations, thoughts and wonderings. This was a great way to help students understand the basics of a blog and the concept of blogging as writing.

At the end of this first lesson we developed a list of things we know about blogs:

• Blogging is free
• People can leave comments on a blog post
• People can see other people’s comments on a blog post
• If you are the author of a blog, you can edit or delete anything on the blog as long as you have the correct username and password
• A lot of blogs have things in common: pictures, comments, links, dates, archives, calendar, videos, opinions, recent posts, author’s name, conversations
• A blog is like a website EXCEPT that blogs invite conversation, opinions and ideas while websites usually just tell their ideas without any feedback
• Even though many blogs have the same features, they have different information
• Authors put links on their blog because they think their readers will like them
• Blogging is like a conversation with other people – some people you might know, some people you might not know
• Bloggers want their reader’s opinions
• Everyone in the world can see our blog
• Blogging is reading and writing

Lesson Two:

For our second and third lessons, we watched two public service announcements from the US. We start with a PSA called the Bulletin Board to focus on online safety:

We watch the video all the way through once, then have a “turn and talk” moment to see what we understand about the video after the first viewing. Next we watch the video very slowly, stopping at every event to check for understanding. Again we have a “turn and talk” moment for students to share their revised understanding. Finally, we watch the video all the way through and share what we’ve learned. We start creating a class list of questions we can ask ourselves before we post and things to remember about staying safe online, which will be finished after watching the second video during lesson 3.

Lesson 3:

This lesson focuses on responsible behavior and discussion is prompted by the PSA called The Talent Show:

We follow the same procedure as the second lesson, watching once all the way through, then stopping to ensure understanding and finishing with a full run through. At the end of this lesson, we complete our class list of questions to ask ourselves before we post anything online. Here is what grade 4 developed:

• How will this affect my reputation (what people think of me)?
• What will my friends or family think about me after they read (or see) this post?
• Could someone find me (in real life) based on this information?
• Who is going to look at this, and how are they going to interpret my words?
• Is this inappropriate, immature or bullying?
• Could I hurt someone else’s feelings with this post?
• Would I say this to the person’s face?
• What could be the consequences of this post?
• What will I cause by writing this post? Be culturally sensitive.
• Would I want someone to say this to me?
• Do I have a good reason/purpose to do this?
• Is this something I want everyone to see?

We also make a quick list of safety and responsibility tips to help us remember to follow the blogging guidelines outlined in our permission slip. Here is what grade 4 came up with:

• Only post things that you would want everyone (in school, at home, in other countries) to know
• Think about the future – what will people think a few days, weeks, months from now, if they read your post;
• Don’t share personal information like: last name, mom’s maiden name, address, telephone number, password, birthdate, username, passport information, license plate number, picture of your face, full name of yourself or your friends
• Choose a complicated password for others, but easy for you to remember
• Think before you post
• Use only your first or an avatar (made up name that represents you)
• Don’t talk to strangers. Get a parent or an older brother or sister to help you.
• Only say nice things about other people.
• Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
• If you think you will regret it, don’t post it
• If you wouldn’t say it to a person’s face, do not post it online
• Use appropriate language and good grammar and spelling
• Think about your readers feelings (embarrassing) when you post online
• Be culturally sensitive
• Only post things that you can verify are true (no gossiping)

Lesson 4:

We usually model the process of writing a good comment, and then create a comment as a piece of shared writing with the class. After this process we develop our own list of quality comment characteristics. Here is what one grade 4 class came up with:

• Constructive, but not hurtful
• Think about the author and their purpose for their post before leaving a comment
• Comments are always related to the content of the post
• Personal connections to what the author wrote
• Answer a question, or add meaningful information to the content topic
• Follows the writing process – it’s like a mini piece of writing.
• Use a comment sandwich: start with a positive, add  constructive feedback, then finish with a positive.
• Make your comment sandwich thick and tasty! Lots of meaningful, meaty thoughts that relate directly the content of the post to keep the blogger satisfied!

I love the idea of creating a comment sandwich – having the visual for the students has been extremely powerful, and focusing on commenting as part of the writing process has improved their commenting considerably (not as many “good job” posts as we had last year).

Lesson 5:

Once students are comfortable with the process of leaving meaningful comments, and have returned their parental permission slip, we introduce them to the actual process of writing blog posts. The basics of logging in, creating a new post, putting your post in the category for your name, and submitting for review. Usually we have the first post be a short introduction to the student.

I love the fact that having a category for each student makes it appear as if each student has their own blog (by listing the name categories in the sidebar) and that no posts will be published until the teacher can approve them after moderation. Such an easy and safe way to begin blogging!

That’s it! That’s how we’re starting to set up class blogs in grades 4 and 5 at ISB. So far we have 6 different classes set up:

• Merrellzone, grade 4
• 220 Thinkers, grade 4
• Room 202′s Blog, grade 5
• Room 227′s Blog, grade 5
• Room 229′s Blog, grade 5
• Denby Espanol, grade 5 Spanish

I’m sure this is just the beginning! Most of these classes have already decided that if and when students are ready, they will be given the option to have their own individual blog.

Our next steps:

One thing that we still need to work out is how to embed the practice of blogging into the daily routine. We work with laptop carts – four per grade level, 12 laptops per cart – so teachers do not have 1:1 access and often have to schedule specific time with the carts. The organization and pre-planning necessary to naturally and easily use the tools can be cumbersome and frustrating for some teachers. Right now we’re thinking about using a rotational strategy – allowing small groups to use the laptops each day for regular reading and writing online.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to introduce blogging to elementary students? Or how to make rotational blogging and commenting practical and realistic for our teachers?

Mac Youngin by shapeshift
Playing on the Computer by fd

This is the third year in a row that I have helped a group of students be a Sounding Board for the Flat Classroom Project (well, the first one was technically the Horizon Project, but who’s counting?). Although the first year was with grade eight students, both last year and this year I worked with grade 5 highly able students on this “special” project. Each time I participate in this experience I learn something new, and this year was no exception!

Because the content of these projects is of a very high level for elementary students, I coordinated a time with our wonderful grade 5 teachers to pull out a small group of highly able students from each grade 5 class. The great thing about making this a quick and easy “pull out” project is that students from different classes get the opportunity to work together – mixing and matching beyond their homeroom groups.

I structured the project almost exactly the same as last year, allowing students to form their own groups, choose their own project to peer-review, and teaching them the basics of wiki editing. Due to some scheduling conflicts we only had two one-hour lessons to complete the entire Sounding Board experience (note to self: two lessons is not enough!).

As usual my little group of grade 5 superstars did fantastic work! They worked extremely well in their small groups or partnerships,  making the most use of the limited time that we had. They were helpful and polite and coordinated their work extremely well (especially considering they are only 10 years old). Most of the groups had one student looking over the Flat Classroom work and another student with our Sounding Board wiki open, brainstorming and editing together, using both laptops productively and purposefully.

After our two sessions were over (thankfully we finished our feedback just in time), I was able to snag just one more short lesson with this fantastic group to get their opinions of how the project went. Here’s what they shared with me:

General Feedback:

• Time was too short – we needed more time to read and understand the student work as well as to provide more detailed feedback to the students.
• We liked choosing our own groups. Some would have preferred larger groups, others liked partners. Being able to choose our own groups helped us work the way we felt most comfortable and with the people we can do our best work with.
• We recommend that all groups must be made up of students from different classes.
• It would have been great to mix grade levels – to include fourth, third and second graders as well. The fifth graders would have liked to teach them about the project and get their feedback as well.
• Although the 3-2-1 format was easy to follow, we would like it to be more open-ended to allow for more student choice in response style and amount.
• We would really like to participate with the bigger project! How can we be a part of the Flat Classroom project instead of just a Sounding Board?

What we liked:

• We liked being able to use the computer to give feedback instead of writing by hand because it’s easier and faster.
• We liked how we brought many classes together, not just one, because it helped to have lots of different opinions and we could see how different people are taught in their classes.
• We liked that we got to share our opinion about their work, because usually only teachers get to do that.
• We liked that we didn’t do the whole thing all in one day – better to break it up over different days – because we only missed part of our normal lessons. Spreading the project out over a few days also helped us be more laid back because we had more time.
• It was good to do in the Learning Hub instead of the classroom, because it helped us stay focused.
• We liked how we had different subjects to choose from.

What we learned:

• We learned about cooperation, if you don’t work together you won’t get anything done.
• We learned that it’s important to read all of the information to really understand what the topic is.
• We learned that people from different countries can work on the same project in different time zones.
• We learned how to summarize big ideas into short sentences.
• We learned a lot about new technology, which was really cool.
• We learned how people’s perceptions of other people can change based on their social networking profile pages.
• We learned more about Google’s different applications.
• We learned about online safety, using avatars and blocking pop-ups.
• We really respected the Flat Classroom participants because they put so much effort and work into all of it.
• It must be challenging to do that kind of project because they can’t talk face to face.
• We’re surprised at how much they were able to do because they were in totally different countries (which we could tell by the references in their work).
• We’re proud that they found out different ways to communicate with each other to create their project.

Our wonderings:

• We’re wondering how they got to know each other.
• We would like to talk to some of the members of the Flat Classroom project – would anyone be interested in Skyping in with us?

I’m so impressed with their thoughtful feedback! And I absolutely loved that their first instinct to learn more was to request a Skype call with some of the members of the project! How about it Julie, Vicki, Anne or any of the other teachers? Would some of your students be interested in chatting with our fifth graders? I’m sure they have some interesting questions!

Although I know this project is challenging for them, I am consistently impressed in their ability to grasp the most important facets of the experience. I’m always amazed at the way their brains just soak up all this new information like human sponges! Their thoughtful reflections and learnings just reinforce to me that this is an excellent experience for them – one that may be very different from their day-to-day classroom life.

I’m looking forward to working with yet another group on next year’s project already! Now it’s time to get to the judging!

Candy Jars by uBookworm

Our second K12Online LAN party was a hit! In order to appeal to a different crowd, we held this one at ISB Teacher Housing right after school on a Thursday evening. Although it was definitely more convenient for most teachers, trying to get energized and focused on learning after a long day of work was a little more difficult than our previous Saturday morning party. Thankfully, we had three amazing guests visit and chat with us via Skype, which kept everyone engaged for the two-hour event.

First up, we had the wonderful Allanah King from New Zealand share the story of how she got started using new tools like Skype, blogs, wikis and podcasts in her classroom. It was quite late for Allanah (I think something like 10pm) but she was as enthusiastic and passionate as always! Having Allanah there to start our party was a great way to demonstrate the power of connected learning from the outset – and to be able to use a tool, which is new for some, to kick-start our conversation was the perfect beginning!

After we chatted with Allanah, we watched Brian Crosby’s excellent presentation, “Video-Conferencing It’s Easy, Free and Powerful” about his experience using Skype in the classroom. I have to admit, no matter how many times I watch Brian and his students talk about involving Celeste in their classroom, I tear up. This presentation ended up, totally unintentionally I have to admit, setting the tone for our entire party. We spent most of our time talking about the power of Skype in the classroom. Chrissy and I shared a few examples and we brainstormed about the potential of bringing expert voices and outside guests into our daily learning environment.

Continuing along our Skype theme, we had a very welcome visit from Nancy von Wahlde in Madrid, Spain. Amazingly, two of our current ISB teachers, Erin and Ali, had worked with Nancy (and many of her colleagues) in previous years. We had an unexpected reunion, which really brought home the potential of Skype. Nancy was right in the middle of her day in Madrid, so we got to see a few of her students in action and experience the hustle and bustle of the American School of Madrid with her.

Finally, we had a perfectly-timed call with Chris Betcher – who was using Skype on his mobile phone while spending some time with his family (Chris, you never cease to amaze me!). Chris shared some of his IWB secrets (soon to be published in his book, Teaching With Interactive Whiteboards) as well as tons of advice on how to use Moodle in the classroom (which ISB has recently implemented in the middle and high schools). As usual, Chris had a wealth of resources to share, not only about IWBs and Moodle, but also podcasting, screencasting, and digital video editing (we got the inside scoop on how he made his fantastic K12Online presentation about tagging).

Although we had a somewhat makeshift setup (check out the wobbly projector stand we put together with some of Ali’s still unpacked boxes from her move to Bangkok this year), this was another powerful experience of learning together. At the end of the session, we brainstormed ways to kick ‘em up a notch to get even more people interested. Here are a few ideas that we came up with (mostly thanks to John, so I can’t take much of the credit):

• Send an e-mail to the people who have expressed an interest to get them talking about the event in an effort to create a “buzz.”
• Ask attendees what they want to learn about next – come in with a plan or a focus that can be advertised in advance (an excellent idea, requiring more work than I’ve put into the parties thus far). Although it was unintentional this time around, I really liked having a focus on one specific tool – sometimes it’s easier for people to wrap their heads around one idea than being bombarded with many different things.
• Finding a way to use the tools we’ve learned about in previous evenings in the weeks leading up to the next party.

One more thing that we plan to do next time around is share the new Elgg group that we’ve created for our early adopters – this is definitely our target audience!

We’re thinking our next session will be next Saturday, December 13th, back at my apartment downtown in the late morning. So if you’re around and interested in sharing your thoughts with us, please let me know! We love having guests and hearing all different perspectives.

Anyone have any suggestions for making our next party even more LAN-tastic?

Over the past few weeks of organizing and hosting K12Online LAN parties, reading about Seth Godin’s new book Tribes, and following the various blog posts from the Connectivism & Connecting Knowledge course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes, I have made a bit of a realization:

As much as I love working with students and teachers, and being at the center of 21st century learning at ISB, what would be most useful for our teachers is actually being connected to other teachers at school that share their interests, and can help them learn and grow in the direction they want.

It’s not that I can’t do this with and for our teachers, but if I want this growth to be sustainable it can’t be about me (or about any individual at the school). It has to be something that teachers can do themselves. They have to know who they can reach out to, who has the knowledge or information they need, and who can help them move to the next step.

So, really what I need to be doing is figuring out how to connect our teachers to each other. As odd as this may sound, considering that we all work in the same physical structure every day, many of us don’t know teachers in other divisions (I hardly know any high school teachers, even though this is my second year at ISB) and we most certainly don’t know who is interested in which aspects of teaching and learning in a digital world. Because our days are so jam-packed and busy, we actually need a way to connect asynchronously – even though we are in physical proximity most of the day.

I’ve known for many years just how powerful a network can be, but I seemed to always focus on making those connections with individuals outside my day-to-day work environment, the benefits of being able to find a like-minded colleague without having the fortune of physically sharing a teaching space. But, over the last few years, we’ve planted enough seeds around the school, spread out throughout each division, that we actually may have a network of learners right here, working together every day, and we just haven’t realized it yet.

At our last ISB21 Team meeting, we talked about this and Jeff and I came up with an idea: start a social network at school using our Elgg install. We can create a group, Jeff and I will populate it with relevant information, videos, images, etc before inviting other teachers, and then share it with our dedicated early adopters so they can add even more. Eventually we can share the group with the whole school to see where it goes. Even if we only connect a small group of teachers that wouldn’t otherwise be connected, it will be worth it!

Here are the benefits we’ve thought of:

• It’s hosted at school, so it’s fast and we don’t have to rely on an outside connection (often tenuous at best in Bangkok) – a better choice for us than something like Ning.
• It’s private, just for ISB staff, which may help teachers feel safer sharing and learning in a new environment.
• We’re planning to run a survey using ProfilerPro in January (Chad’s brilliant idea) which will graphically represent areas (and individuals) where the school is strong in their use and understanding of technology. This survey would allow teachers to find other individuals in the school that have the skill set their looking for and the social network would provide a place for them to connect outside of their extremely busy school-day schedules.
• By allowing teachers to learn from each other we’re enabling them to be self-directed and independent, while still providing a basic structure for how to get started. This could be a gateway to developing a more international personal learning network once they see the value of connecting this way.
• By connecting our various seedlings around the school, we’re hoping more will grow. The “look what she’s doing – I want to do that too” mentality.
• By using this tool for their own learning, teachers will be more likely to see how relevant appropriate it can be for classroom use.
• By connecting peers to each other, we’re taking away some of the dependence on us, allowing individuals to continue to sustain their learning beyond our tenure at the school.
• We could invite incoming teachers into the group before they arrive, allowing them to get a first-hand look at what teachers are learning about at ISB.

What do you think? Are we onto something? Is something important missing? Has anyone else tried this at their school? What were the results?

Marietta Diner by The Rocketeer
Interlocking (fins) toy #2 by Ctd 2005