always learning

One of my favorite projects of the year is beginning soon!

The 1001 Flat World Tales project was initiated by Clay Burell in Korea over three years ago and has been going strong ever since. I first started working on this project at the middle school level, but this will be my second year working with elementary school students. No matter what grade level you’re working with, this is a great, easy to implement, collaborative writing project that students love!

This year the wonderful Jeff Whipple is helping me coordinate the Elementary School section and he’s also coordinating the Middle School section. Anyone interested in taking on a High School workshop?

We are looking for elementary classrooms at all levels to participate in this writing workshop. The project will last about a month and we’ll set up small grade-level based groups to create collaborative groups for our peer editing process (following the planning process we started last year). If the suggested time frame doesn’t work for you, feel free to start your own workshop later or earlier in the year – our goal is to bring together teachers that would like to embed collaborative writing and authentic audience into their classroom experiences.

As part of the project, students will:

• experience writing for an authentic audience
• work collaboratively with peer reviewers around the world
• follow the writing process to build an understanding of your selected style of writing
• utilize a wiki for writing, editing, forum discussion, and revision history
• understand how to connect information through hyperlinks
• create and embed multimedia elements to bring a story to life

Here in Bangkok, I’ll be working with one of our fantastic grade 4 teachers, Sonja Merrell, and we’ll be using the workshop to build our understanding of persuasive writing. Sonja and I worked together last year as well and found the project to be a great venue for establishing authentic audience and for really grounding students in the writing process.

One of the best things about doing this project for the second time with the same teacher is that we’re able to make the improvements we thought about during our reflections last year. Looking back at our reflective conversation, I’m pleased to note that we do have a class blog up and running and students are very familiar with the web 2.0 world: writing for a global audience, commenting on others’ work, and looking for connections within our network of learners.

Our plans are to ensure that we have a clear and consistent focus on the concept of persuasive writing through a slightly revised layout of our pages and by providing a checklist for students to follow. Hopefully the improvements we make this year will lead us to other ideas for next year’s project! I love the fact that the learning is never done and these projects are so easy to evolve and revise that we can keep making them better and better.

We would absolutely love to have you join this project with your class! Fill out the online form and you’re in! All materials, resources, rubrics and related information can be found on the wiki. Feel free to leave questions here or on the discussion tab of the wiki.

Last week I had the privilege of returning to Qatar Academy (thanks to the wonderful Julie Lindsay) for several days of professional development with the senior school (middle & high school) teachers. This visit was a follow-up to the trip I made to Doha last year around the same time, when I worked with the primary school teachers.

Once again, the goal of my visit was to start conversations around the changing nature of teaching and learning in the 21st century, and to provide an introductory-level look at the main trends and issues in education, over the course of their 2 days professional development entitled “Creating the Future.” I was asked to give three full-faculty presentations focusing on three facets of education: the learners, the educators and the classroom. In the interest of sharing, I thought I would post them here (more thoughts about the outcome of the visit to come soon):

The 21st Century Learner

Session Overview: Looking to engage your students through the use of new technologies? Wondering about the key skills and attributes they will need for their future? Ready to start adapting your classroom to the needs of the 21st century learner? In this presentation we will focus on strategies for helping students learn with technology the way they live with technology. Bring the engagement and excitement students have about connected learning into your classroom by embracing the new technologies and skills students are experiencing outside of school. All resources and materials used in this presentation can be found on the presentation wiki.

The 21st Century Educator

Session Overview: 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! All resources and materials used in this presentation can be found on the presentation wiki.

The 21st Century Classroom

Using the backwards design process, learn how to embed authentic use of technology into a project-based learning experiences for your students. With a focus on pedagogy, explore the use of several web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, podcasts and collaborative multimedia in various classroom examples from around the world. Ease of use, accessibility, and authentic audience make these simple tools an engaging and motivating facet to any classroom. From project design to classroom management, enhance your students’ learning through a redesigned look at the 21st century classroom. All resources and materials used in this presentation can be found on the presentation wiki.

Back in November and December I worked with a small group of grade 5 students on the Flat Classroom Project. Our group acted as a Sounding Board for the project participants, and after finishing their part of the process, were very interested in actually speaking to some of the students whose work they had peer reviewed. Thanks to the wonderful Anne Mirtschin in Australia, within days of our request to find a class to Skype with, we were chatting about the project with a few of her high school students.

In order to get ourselves prepared for the call, we determined a list of questions in advance and wrote them on the board, along with the name of the person who would ask the question (and then answer the following question from our Skypers in Australia). We set up the room so that everyone could see the Smart Board, and so that our friends in Australia could see all of us. We left one seat open at the very front of the room, in the perfect position to plop down right in front of the webcam, so that each student can walk up, one at a time, to ask and answer questions.

We spent about an hour online with Anne’s class, learning a little more about how her students created their final projects and what it was like to collaborate globally on such a challenging project. They did an excellent job answering all of our questions and they also shared a few interesting facts about life in Australia (there was some eating of Marmite on camera for proof). Next time around I think we’ll have to prep a little hands-on demo for life in Thailand as well!

After the chat, the grade 5′s shared their thoughts about being able to connect with other students around the world via Skype:

• I enjoyed meeting new students because it’s fun to connect with other people from around the world
• I liked learning about another culture from a person in that country
• I liked learning about the process of how they worked with other students around the world – we could do that too!
• It was fun to be able to talk to them “in person” and to tell them that we enjoyed the project and to see if they enjoyed it too. I like to talk with other people better than writing.
• I liked Skyping with other students, not from our class, because then you get different opinions and you get to interact with different students.
• I learned a bit about Australia
• I learned how a Skype connection works, and to be a little patient because it has to travel very far!
• I learned that the FC students worked with more people than I thought they did
• I learned that they didn’t know that much about Thailand – so it was helpful for them to talk to us too!
• I learned about their school – they have very small classes.

This is just one of the many Skype experiences these students are fortunate to have in their regular classes. Last week I was able to watch Chrissy’s class participate in Silvia’s Around the World With 80 Schools project as they Skyped with a very small school in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Our students came in a little early and the class in Canada came back after school to get to know each other. Watching their mouths drop in surprise when they find out our school has 7 fifth grade classes and they only have 11 sixth graders and that our lowest temperature is around 15 degrees C, while there’s is -50 degrees F, was priceless.

Such a simple tool, with such a powerful impact!

Even though a Skype experience certainly can’t beat a real-life visit to Australia or Canada, our students certainly have a more in-depth, personalized understanding of their peers around the world than they would have without Skype. Making these personal connections is such an easy way to give students a more global perspective – and it’s free! What are you waiting for? Get Skyping!

Yikes. How can it possibly be February 2009 already? What happened to January? And for that matter, what happened to 2008? I know “time flies” and all, but this is ridiculous!

The last five weeks have been pretty much a blur especially because I’ve been stuck with a case of never-ending bronchitis, that seems to be finally, miraculously, slowly, ending just this week. I actually had that moment of suddenly feeling better on Friday. You know the one: you stand up, blink, swallow, and then realize you suddenly feel kind of good. In fact, you remember that this is what you used to feel like all the time before you got this illness. It’s a pretty good feeling.

At any rate, along with the coughing fits, sneezing, runny nose, and general malaise, I have also been extremely busy this past month, which explains where the time has gone (and why I haven’t been posting as often as I usually do). Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Teaching the first course in ISB’s new SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy

Thankfully, Jeff and I are partnering up on this course, so although we’ve been super busy getting things going, two heads have certainly been better than one! We started out with a one-hour introductory session after school in late January and had our first full-day session on the last Saturday in Jan (watch the archived uStream footage here). Thanks to Clarence and Chris whose fabulous guest appearances definitely made our 7-hour Saturday session even more engaging and practical than Jeff & I could have done on our own!

So far, teaching the course has been an excellent experience. We have 50 ISB teachers participating on campus (plus 5 new ISB teachers joining us virtually) with the widest range of understanding and ability levels possible. Seeing as I’ve never taught a formal graduate-level course like this before, it has been such a steep learning curve for me. I’m so conscious of the fact that we have learners at all different levels, that we need to keep everyone engaged, but not stressed, and that we need to model best practice in all of our interactions throughout the course.

Of course the fact that all 55 participants are my colleagues makes this even more interesting… And not to mention adds quite a bit of reading to my Google Reader account.

Participating in the K12 Horizon Report Advisory Board

Along with Lucy, Judy, Julie, Westley, Alan, Karen (and quite a few other educators whose names I recognize) I have been participating in the process of creating the K12 version of the annual Horizon Report. After I got over the shock of being invited to be on the Advisory Board, I realized just how exciting (and challenging) this experience would be. As much as I love envisioning the future, I’m not sure I have a real grasp on the nitty-gritty of exactly how we’re going to get there. And that’s pretty much what this report is all about.

We started off with sharing our thoughts (via a wiki) on upcoming trends in technology and which of those would be applicable to education in the Horizon Report time-line structure.  I found myself much more easily able to envision 1 – 2 years out than the extended 5-years out, but I’m not sure why. I guess what happens in 5 years depends on what happens in the preceding 4 years… Either way, it was definitely the most authentic use of a wiki I’ve seen in a while, and it was absolutely fascinating to see what others on the Advisory Board see in our future.

Unfortunately I was not able to attend the face-to-face session in Dallas a few weeks ago (one of the few disadvantages of being an international school teacher), which sounds like it was a real highlight of the Advisory Board process. It certainly would have been interesting to meet all of those visionary educators in person. We’re now on to the voting stage, in order to select which trends will have the greatest effect on education in the next 5 years. I definitely don’t feel smart enough to continue hanging out with this bunch though!

Guest Speaker at Apple’s Think Ahead Roadshow in Bangkok

One of the perks of being an Apple Distinguished Educator is speaking at Apple events in your region. This will be my first time presenting at an official Apple event (aside from the ADE Institute) and I’m really looking forward to it. I attended a similar roadshow in KL a few years ago and remember being impressed with how many different international schools were represented in the audience.

I suppose you could say I’ve sipped the Apple Kool-Aid, but I have to say, I spent the first 5 years of my teaching experience in a Windows school, and the following 4 working with Macs. In comparison I would generally say I spent well over 50% of my teaching time troubleshooting those Windows machines – none of which I am doing in an all-Mac environment now. I can focus on the teaching and learning bit, without wasting so much time on the “making the computer do what we know it should be doing” bit. Yeah, that’s probably why they asked me to do the session next weekend…

Returning to Qatar Academy in Doha for a 3-day consultancy visit

Thanks to Julie and the administrative team at QA, I’ll be heading back to Doha next week for my second visit in two years. This time around I’ll be working with the Senior School (middle – high school) on building an understanding of 21st century learning. It looks like I’ll be delivering 3 plenary sessions to the full faculty (The 21st Century Learner, The 21st Century Educator, The 21st Century Classroom) and then working with individual departments to plan authentic units of inquiry which naturally embed technology. Thanks to all of Julie’s hard work, QA will be 1:1 next school year and this is the kick-off to the practicalities of working in a 1:1 environment.

Delivering the grade 4 Common Assessment on Influence

Last December, I worked with our grade 4 team to develop a common assessment for their first social studies unit of the year, Influence. We spent several afternoons designing an authentic assessment task that followed the Understanding by Design process and utilized technology tools (wikis and VoiceThread) that are developmentally appropriate and fit naturally into the assessment task.

After we returned from our semester break, I had the extremely stressful challenge of making sure that each class had access to the laptop carts for the duration of the final assessment (oh, how I dream of being 1:1). Juggling several classes, dealing with the bizarre slowness of our internet connection over the past month, and facilitating the delivery of this common assessment pretty much ensured that I was on fast-forward every single day.

In the end, I must admit, I’m quite happy with the assessment. The task was at the right level for the students, the technology was a natural fit for the task, and the students had a taste of a project based learning experience. I’m looking forward to getting some valuable feedback from the teachers so that we can revise and improve the assessment while the experience is still fresh in our minds.

Is that all?

Now I know that’s barely scratching the surface of what so many others manage to do on a regular basis (I’m not writing a book or earning a PhD… yet…) but it definitely kept me busy for the past few weeks.

How do you cope with being overwhelmed for an extended period of time and actually manage it all without shutting down?