always learning

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

The 2008 Flat Classroom Project is well under way in Australia, Qatar, Spain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the US! And they need your help!

Next week begins the first stages of the Sounding Board process, when students in classrooms around the world peer review the completed work to date and offer constructive feedback. There are so many fantastic projects to peer review, that as many classrooms as possible are needed to act as Sounding Boards. Any and all age-levels are welcome as peer reviewers!

Not only is the process of peer review a component of the new NETS standards, but it is an incredibly valuable way for students to connect and collaborate in a meaningful way. It’s also a perfect introduction to globally collaborative projects for classrooms that may not have had much experience like this before. Of course, for those who are active online collaborators, this project offers a perfect opportunity to experience a far-reaching, well-organized, and truly authentic global project.

For the past few years, students in my classes have acted as a Sounding Board for the Horizon Project and the Flat Classroom Project – the first year I worked with grade eight students, and the following year with grade five students. Both groups learned so much from the process of evaluating student work on such exciting and engaging topics, and both groups commented on how valuable this kind of real-world application of technology is for them.

I have volunteered to coordinate the Sounding Board classrooms and we would love to have as many classroom as possible participate. We will hold a planning session in Elluminate on Thursday Nov. 6 at noon GMT (convert to your local time here) to help coordinate this process so that it’s as easy as possible for all classrooms involved.

If you’re interested, please sign up on the Sounding Board wiki page today!

Having been a middle school teacher for most of my career, I have to admit the littlest kids were my biggest fear when I accepted this elementary-focused position. But, oh, they are just so adorable! No matter what happens during the day, the moment I walk into the kindergarten classroom, or they come into the Learning Hub, I can’t stop a huge grin from spreading across my face. There’s nothing quite like a knee-level hug from 10 five-year-olds at once!

After working with one of our fantastic pre-Kindergarten teachers last year and getting a little bit of an idea of just what the youngest of our little darlings can do, I was anxious to try another project this year.

I heard a lot of talk before I started about how the younger kids “can’t” use computers and how they “don’t know how” to work a laptop. So, those of you that use technology with your kindergarten classes will know just how pleasantly surprised I was to see just what they can do, and for those of you that don’t – they can do a lot more than you would expect.

Certainly you have to break each step down into manageable chucks, of course you can only do short bits at a time, and for sure, they need a different type of support than middle school students, but they absolutely can use technology – and a lot quicker and more independently than I was lead to believe.

This year I’m working with two amazing ISB Kindergarten teachers (and 8 other teachers around the world) on the KinderKidsDraw project. Basically, we started from the idea that the kindergarten students used to go to the computer lab (which no longer exists) to “learn” KidPix once a week with the technology teacher. After thinking about the fact that once a week, for 20 minutes each time, and often extended breaks in between, may not be the best way for kids to build their understanding of new concepts, and maybe KidPix isn’t something we want them to “learn” since we’re looking to enhance core content not teach software, we came up with a new idea:

Use KidPix to enable students to draw their understanding about the new concepts they are leaning in class. Spend perhaps 20 minutes a day for 3 days in a row breaking down the drawing steps into small chunks so that they can create a finished drawing every few weeks. Then, taking that finished drawing, upload the picture onto VoiceThread and have the students record what they learned that is represented in the picture. Over the course of the year, these VoiceThreads can become an electronic portfolio of their developing understanding in various subjects.

We started with the “All About Me” social studies unit by having students draw (first by hand, to be able to compare later) a picture of their face, and then record an introduction to themselves on VoiceThread. It was interesting to see just how many of the students preferred drawing on the computer, even though they said it was much harder than drawing on paper.

Each class has now posted their completed VoiceThread on our collaborative wiki so that we can help students find connections with their peers all over the world.

On Thursday we watched the VoiceThreads from Spain, the US, and Canada as a class. As we were watching, we paused every now and again to ask how many students in the room have a common interest with the students in another country. It was fascinating to see their looks of surprise when they realized that kids all over the world love Ben 10, cupcakes and the color yellow.

Once they had an introduction to each class, I worked with our students (one-on-one) to select one specific student from another class, and then record a comment on their VoiceThread introduction. They were very quick to choose which ones they wanted to leave a comment on and they absolutely loved hearing their own voice play back through the VoiceThread.

Next up we hope to do something around the topic of weather and seasons. It will be interesting to see which of our students have actually seen snow previously and sharing the pictures of our different seasons should be a real eye-opener for those that have lived in southeast Asia all of their lives. The plan is for these connections to continue throughout the school year so that our students can begin to have the experience of create an (age-appropriate) personal learning network with their peers in other international and public schools around the world.

We are definitely proceeding slower than I would in the intermediate and middle grades, and I am doing a bit more facilitation than I would with older students, but it is working. The students are enjoying the experience and they are totally ready and excited to “talk” to other students around the world. It’s still pretty amazing to me that a five-year-old in Bangkok can get to know a five-year-old in Spain with just a few quick lessons and audio recordings!

What do you think? Can kindergarten students “do” age-appropriate technology-rich projects? Or should I be focusing my attention on the upper grades?

Chalk by onlyalice
A Puzzle of Paint by brentdanley

Over the past two and a half years I’ve been focusing on helping teachers make connections with other classes around the world. For the most part, our collaborations have been about general topics – book reports, water, persuasive writing, enhancing oral language, things that almost any classroom teacher would be able to connect with, and they’ve been great!

But this year, inspired by Clarence Fisher‘s ThinWalls project, I’m looking for something new, something deeper. A real connection based on shared goals and common assessments. Something that will last longer than your average globally collaborative project. A classroom connection, based on specific curricular needs, that will last an entire school year.

I’m fortunate to be working with so many wonderful teachers at ISB and around the world that are willing to be patient and wait until we find just the right classes with just the right needs. They are willing to build these collaborations from the ground up, focusing on student learning, and taking the time to plan meaningful and authentic experiences for all involved.

One of these projects is our fifth grade Students Teaching Students podcasting and blogging collaboration around the Lucy Caulkin’s Readers and Writer’s Workshop.

In order to ensure that all classrooms involved share the same goal for the project, we are following the Understanding by Design model of curriculum planning. And to make sure that we’re all in it from the ground up, we’re planning via a Google Doc. Although I’ve used Google Docs at school with team members a lot, I haven’t yet used them for curriculum planning across time zones and schools. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out.

So far, all of the project participants are listed on the Doc, with contact info and class details carefully noted. We have determined the basic focus of the unit and are starting to share tips and advice with each other. Over time, I’d love to use the Doc (or a Calendar) to plan common events or activities.

For example, here is what we have so far for this project (all a work in progress):

Enduring Understandings:

• Good readers use strategies to deepen their understanding.
• Good readers read fluently and with expression, paying particular attention to the conventions of grammar.
• Authentic audiences encourage good reading and writing.
• Collaboration and communication both inside and outside the classroom will prepare students for being productive citizens within our global society.

Essential Questions:

• How do I use reading strategies to deepen my understanding?
• Why is fluency important?
• How does my audience influence or affect my reading and writing?
• How does collaborating with others help me to learn?

Assessment:

• Student self reflection
• Teacher self reflection
• Class blog as portfolio

GRASPS Task:

Goal: Your goal is to entertain your audience with personal stories about reading strategies
Role: Broadcasting team: On-Air Personality/Show Host, Producer, Writers, Mixing Team, Manager
Audience: Peers at ISB, both younger and same-age, partner classes around the world
Situation: You need to teach your audience effective reading strategies
Purpose: To collaborate with your  team to effectively communicate reading strategies to a wide audience

Supporting activities ideas to build understanding (brainstorm):

• commenting quality – rubric for commenting
• specific points in the year where you pick an earlier piece of writing that you rework and link back to old version to see the growth

Planned activities to support learning (brainstorm):

• Introduction to online safety
• Introduction to blogging
• Introduction to GarageBand/Audacity
• Podcasting a written piece for fluency
• Posting a podcast
• Read a story from a book for practicing fluency to be podcast later
• Developing quality commenting skills
• Collaborative teaming to develop a podcast focused on reading strategies
• Reflective pieces of writing on the blog

I love the idea of being able to plan a curricular unit for several classes all from one Google Doc. This is my idea of collaboration – everyone literally on the same page and working towards the same goals. Although I’ve done quite a few of these projects before, I usually ended coordinating via e-mail and never really “flattening” the planning process – I inadvertently usually had all planning go through me.

This type of process, with the project clearly outlined, is the way I would normally plan a project with a classroom teacher face-to-face. How amazing and easy it is to now do the same thing, anytime, anywhere, with a Google Doc!

I’m hoping that this transparency in planning, and the clarity in goals for the unit, will help us stay focused throughout the year and enable us to dig deeper with our students.

What do you think? Have you ever used a Google Doc to plan this way? Have you ever had shared curricular goals that are ongoing throughout the year with another class, in another country? How did it go?

Any time I design a project for students I always try to complete each task for myself just to make sure I really understand what is involved – not only so I can better facilitate student learning, but also so I really know how much work it will take to complete. Often times, something that looks quick and easy can turn out to be much more complicated in practice.

Over the past few months I have had the chance to experience exactly the kinds of projects I frequently design for my students while creating a K12 Online Conference presentation with Jen Wagner. Given that the focus for our presentation was on globally collaborative projects, it seemed especially fitting that we would have to design our presentation from opposite sides of the planet. Keeping in mind that Jen and I have never met face-to-face, live 13,415 kilometers apart, and have a 14-hour time difference, I now know pretty much how my students feel when completing this type of project.

It was definitely an interesting and fun experience, although it did require quite a bit of planning. Jen and I set up a regular “meeting time” once a week (Sunday mornings for me, Saturday afternoons for her) via Skype, we kept a running log of all of our ideas on a Google Doc which we started with our conference proposal and used all the way up until the last few weeks of our planning, we used a Google Spreadsheet to plan out each and every frame in our presentation with all of the details (the topic, the text on screen, the speaker, the URL for the images and the date completed), and then we used drop.io to send versions of the video back and forth so we could offer advice and suggestions for editing.

Although Jen was creating her sections on a PC, and I was completing my sections, and compiling the finished presentation, on a Mac (using iMovie HD), we had absolutely no compatibility issues: file-sharing large files was a breeze with drop.io and Gmail, finding and sharing the right images was no problem with Flickr Creative Commons and iStock Photo, and collaborating on our supporting resource wiki along with a wiki for a collaborative project for our presentation participants could not have been easier.

The experience of envisioning, planning and creating this kind of globally collaborative project with a partner I only know through online communication was not only exciting and challenging, but it was all the more rewarding because we were able to do just about anything we could imagine – despite our physical distance. I love the fact that we were able to discover similar interests through reading each other’s blogs, and over time develop a connection that actually lead to the shared creation of ideas. Definitely an opportunity to practice what we preach.

I would love to hear your thoughts on our presentation, either as a comment on this post, or as part of our reflective VoiceThread (below), it’s almost exactly 20-minutes long, and I hope (at least) reasonably entertaining! All of the resources that we mention can be found on our presentation wiki, and we invite you to join a new globally collaborative project called The Reading Connection if you’d like to try out this type of learning in your classroom.

Another amazing conference begins next week (in addition to the K12 Online Conference, of course). From the wiki:

MobilizeThis 2008 will be held on the 22nd – 24th October 2008 and is about getting connected, exploring and resolving challenges facing organisations as they seek practical means to realising social dividends with clients, creatively engaging in real learning experiences that embrace the horizons and enable others to access what we would otherwise take for granted.

The purpose of MobilizeThis2008 is to bring educators, e-learning technologists, managers, tech-heads and cross-sector organisation representatives together in a program that fosters conversations, workshops and online experiences to inform practical examples of employing ICT’s in an open and global context.

Thanks to Alex Hayes, I’ve been asked to present a session via VoiceThread (since I’ll be in Bhutan during the actual conference). If this conference is anything like the Future of Learning in a Networked World unconference, part of which was hosted at ISB last year, it will be amazing. It is also, entirely free. All you need to do to participate, or even present, is to register. All voices are welcome – please don’t hesitate to offer a session or simply participate!

Image from the conference wiki.

After spending a year getting to know elementary students and elementary teachers (it’s definitely quite a switch from middle school), I’m finally starting to feel like I know what kinds of projects are appropriate and achievable in the elementary classroom. All of the projects I completed with our amazing teachers last year really helped me focus and refine my goals for this year – keeping things simple is definitely the key.

For this year we’re looking at staying small and making consistent connections with global partners. Ideally, we would like to find classroom partners that are willing to connect with us on a regular basis over the course of the entire school year (Sept 08 – June 09).

We would like to develop personal learning networks for our students where we can deepen understanding of classroom curriculum while learning how to communicate authentically and appropriately online. We want to make sure that the use of web 2.0 tools deepens their understanding of classroom content and also helps them feel connected to the world around them. Sound interesting? Read on! And if you’d like to participate in one of these projects, please leave a comment!

Amazingly, I have a willing and enthusiastic teacher on almost every grade level ready to fully collaborate with me this year. We are planning to go deep with the students and to really focus on building 21st century literacy skills in a consistent and authentic approach.

Here’s what we’ve gotten started so far:

Grade 5: Students Teaching Students

The wonderful Chrissy Hellyer and her fellow new ISB teacher, Aly McAloon, will be kicking off the school with a classroom blogging project that will eventually include a regular podcast focused on the Lucy Caulkins Readers Workshop.

We’re starting simple with a whole class blog and students as contributing authors (like Betsy and I did last year in the Grade 3 BlogPals project). Once the students start feeling comfortable in their blogging as a class, we’re going to link Chrissy & Aly’s class to start making connections across the grade 5 quad, and eventually they will connect with other classes internationally (Jane Lowe’s class is already on board!).

Our next step will be rotating groups in each class podcasting about their reading strategies to help teach their younger classmates how to be good readers (Melanie Holtsman and her teachers are ready to connect with us, thankfully, since they are total experts in the world of Lucy Caulkins).

I love the idea of embedding multiple tools into one class project and developing a classroom routine where students are not only in charge of their own learning, but also sharing that learning with others.

We would love to connect with another grade 5 class (or two) that would be interested in becoming co-learners along with our students for the entire school year (Sept 08 – June 09)!

Grade 5: Student Portfolios in Spanish

Our Spanish teacher, James, has been experimenting with tons of fantastic web tools over the last school year and now that he’s on the report card committee, he’s looking to find alternate ways of assessing student learning. So, we’re piloting electronic portfolios (in the form of blogs, for now) with one of his grade 5 classes.

James has already been embedding multiple tools into the class blog he’s been running for a year now, and now he’s ready to let the students be the authors on some of those posts. The goal is to keep track of student learning throughout the school year by creating a category for each student. Each time the students have a piece of work for their portfolio, they will post it on the class blog (as contributing authors). By the end of the year, parents will be able to click on their child’s category and see the progression of their work over the course of the year.

Grade 5: Our Online ESL Classroom

Our wonderful grade 5 ESL teacher, Diane, began blogging and podcasting with her students last year. We saw such an amazing leap in their oral and written language as soon as they realized they had an authentic audience for their work that she wants to continue to provide that opportunity this year.

Although Diane only sees her students for short lessons every other day (we run a Sheltered Immersion ESL program), we have been able to organize specific collaboration projects that focus on issues ESL students are concerned about. We have set up a few open ended blog posts to get them writing and connected with other classes (including Anne Mirtschin’s) about moving on to sixth grade.

This will probably be a more infrequent collaboration, on a topic-by-topic basis, but it would be great for our ESL students to connect with other language learners (or native English speakers) on topics that are important to them.

Grade 4: BlogPals

My fantastic colleague Sonja Merrell, who participated in the 1001 Flat World Tales last year, is back for more 21st century learning this year! She has decided to start the school year off with a class blog, which she will use as a communication portal for her students and their parents. There are a few students in her class that participated in the BlogPals project with me last year, so they will make great student leaders as we venture further into blogging with Sonja’s class.

We’re going to start off the year using the blog as a discussion tool, to build the school-home connection and to get her students thinking about their learning in a more interactive way. Over time we will have each student as a contributing author to the blog, just like we did with BlogPals last year.

We are looking for one or two grade 4 classrooms that would like to participate in this type of year-long adventure with us!

Grade 2: A Window to Our World

Another amazing colleague, Susan, who took a huge leap with me last year when we had our grade 2 class connect to another grade 2 class in the US via a Ning, is back in action this year! She loved the idea of working with a Ning and found the  “walled garden” concept perfect for her second graders. It was amazing to see how quickly they took to this new learning environment – posting questions and answers, commenting on individual student pages, and sharing their learning as a class – all in second grade!

This year Susan would like to do something very similar, but preferably with another international school class, if we can find one. She wants to focus on intercultural understanding and connecting with class that would have a greater mix of nationalities (she’s not limited to an international school, but we thought we might have better luck at getting a very diverse class if we were able to find another international school interested). Last year she had 20 nationalities in her class of 23 students, so finding a class with a similar makeup would be ideal for her.

Grade 1: ESL Learners Speak English

Our enthusiastic grade 1 ESL teacher, Erin, started using VoiceThread in her classroom last year as a way for her begining ESL students to practice their English in an authentic environment. We had a great time connecting to another international school in Spain, thanks to Nancy von Wahlde, and we’re planning to re-connect again this year.

Erin maintains a class blog, mostly to communicate with the parents, where she posts her VoiceThreads that the students create based on their classroom units of inquiry. We’re planning to start out with an introduction to each student so that our partner class can really get to know each person as an individual. Over time the students share a bit about their lives in Thailand, the school, and other grade 1 favorites.

Ideally, we would love to connect with a classroom that is able to communicate with us on a regular basis – maybe once a month – and that would be willing to continue these conversations over the course of the year.

Kindergarten: Kids Draw!

We have one set of co-teachers in Kindergarten this year. Sandy and Akiko are team-teaching one class of 24 kindergarten students all year – and what a class they have! It’s amazing to see the way Sandy and Akiko build on each other’s streagnths as we begin working with these little students and technology.

We started out the year with a short unit on drawing, where the students were asked to draw a picture of themselves on paper (for a unit entitled “All About Me”) and then draw the same picture on the computer (using KidPix). We discussed what was the same and what was different about drawing on paper and drawing on the computer. Interestingly, although almost all of them though drawing on the computer was more difficult (we still need to work on those fine motor skills), most of them liked drawing on the computer better.

After this short unit, Sandy, Akiko and I realized we have lots of room to grow with drawing and technology. We’d like to revisit the concept of drawing on the computer over the course of the year and build in some thoughtful reflection, ideally with VoiceThread, where students can talk about the context of the picture, and the skills they learned while drawing.

It would be great to partner up with another kindergarten class that’s interested in sharing learning through drawing!

What do you think? Are you interested in collaborating with one of our classes?

Jen Wagner and I are so thrilled to be sharing our thoughts about globally collaborative projects at the wonderful K12 Online conference this October. Here’s the title and description of our session:

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, see examples of engaging projects from all grade levels, as well as participate in a real time globally collaborative project with Kim and Jennifer!

Although this project will be aimed at elementary school classrooms, teachers of all levels will find inspiration and applicable and practical ideas throughout this video presentation that will incorporate a wide-range of web 2.0 tools!

We would absolutely love to have the voice of the community within our presentation, so we are hoping that you can spare a few moments to add to this quick VoiceThread about the benefits of global collaborations in the classroom:

If you don’t feel comfortable adding to a VoiceThread just yet, please feel free to leave your comment here. Our focus questions are:

• How does your classroom go global?
• What are the beneifits of global collaborations?
• Please share some highs and lows of global collaborations.
• Spread the love – please share a link to a great project!

Thank you so much for adding your insights to our presentation (all credit for the comments of course will go to the commenters)!

We would also love to hear about any specific issues you would like to see addressed within the focus of this presentation. If you have any feedback, please feel free to share it here!

At the beginning of every school year, I’m reminded of how important it is to build collaborative relationships with teachers. As a resource person I believe the most crucial area of my relationship with teachers is becoming a true collaborative partner with classroom teachers – actually teaching together with them in the classroom, building on each others strengths and weaknesses and providing immediate support and modeling best practices for technology use in the classroom.

As as important as it is to meet with teachers for co-planning and technology training before a project starts (and we all know how much I love planning), in my experience even the world’s best planning can go awry without spending some quality time team-teaching in the classroom as a project is getting started. As anyone who’s ever used a tech lab or laptop cart knows, just when you’re ready to get something started, a dozen tech-related things will probably go wrong at once. Three students will think they know everything already and yet still do everything wrong, two students won’t be able to log in, one of the laptops won’t turn on, the projector won’t mirror displays, etc, etc – and everything is happening during the most critical part of the project, the beginning.

As a tech facilitator the last thing I want is for a teacher to have a bad experience because a few minor tech-mishaps occur during a lesson. And something will definitely happen, no matter how well-planned a lesson might be beforehand. For those teachers who are inexperienced, nervous or hesitant about technology, there’s a level of comfort that is difficult to attain just by planning something together and sending the teacher off on their own. It’s to be expected that some teachers won’t feel comfortable with certain kinds of technology projects unless they have in-class support, and one of my favorite things to do is to show those teachers just how successful a project can be with proper support.

My interest in working together in the classroom with teachers is not just a matter of providing moral support. I’ve done all different types of projects with teachers and students (from just giving hints and tips, to coaching on the side, to full blown collaboration), and can honestly say that when I have the time and permission to go into the teacher’s classroom and work with the teachers and students on the project, I have always seen tangible benefits in several major areas:

Flexibility

As every teacher knows, lesson plans need to be modified while a unit is actually in progress based on where students are in their understanding. Sometimes a little on-site fine-tuning is all that’s needed to turn an untried plan into a great success, and other times huge chunks of curriculum have to be turned inside-out at the last minute to avoid complete disaster. This process can be time-consuming and nerve-wracking enough when a project is within a teacher’s comfort area, but when ever-changing, unfamiliar and sometimes-intimidating technology is involved, many teachers simply aren’t able to make the necessary modifications on the day. When tech projects are involved, this can lead to undifferentiated, rigid projects which leave some learners behind, or worse, promisingly planned projects that mysteriously take far too long to get underway, or which cause too many technical headaches, and are then abandoned before they achieve their goals.

With a tech facilitator is on hand as a true collaborating partner from beginning to end, projects can be far more flexible, and teachers are able to appropriately modify the project as it’s being implemented. Experienced and ready tech-savvy students can be identified and teams of student-led support infrastructure can be built, struggling students can get the modifications they need, and pacing can be adjusted as each day goes by. This approach creates a feedback loop that leads to smoother-running projects and even more appropriate future projects. By getting immediate student and teacher response data via experiencing the project firsthand, tech facilitators can better coordinate a cycle of continuously improving project approaches, which in turn would eventually decrease the number of unknown variables and problems teachers would need to deal with on the spot, lowering anxiety and increasing success.

Support

It is so exciting to see teachers ready to run with an engaging technology-rich project, but the first time (or just the first time with a new class or a new tool) can also be nerve-wracking for the teacher – what if something goes wrong, what if the kids don’t know how to do something we thought they did, what if kids are off task and not listening? Having someone co-teaching in the classroom as a partner can alleviate most of this stress, help the teacher feel more comfortable and offer the type of support I know I wish I had the first time I tried using technology in the classroom. We often talk about collaboration in education, but how often do we actually have two teachers working in the same room, one with one set of skills and experience, the other with a different set – perfectly complementing each other and supporting (and modeling) the learning process for both teachers and students?

Class Dynamics and Management

Having had the opportunity to work with many different teachers over the years, it is very interesting to see how significant a role class dynamics can play in the implementation of any given project. The same project can be a dream in one classroom and a nightmare in the other – just based on the way the students and teachers interact, personalities, and established behavior patterns – and there’s no way to know what that really looks like aside from seeing it yourself.

On top of the attitudes and behaviors in any given classroom, classroom management with any kind of technology, especially laptops, can be a challenge for teachers. There are many little tips and tricks that I’ve developed from constantly working with students using technology. Similarly, each classroom teacher usually has dozens of subtle ways they interact with their class which an outsider might miss. Unless the tech facilitator has some time to see the students in action, and model appropriate classroom management in tandem with the classroom teacher, the easiest, most engaging tech-rich project could go off the rails.

So, while it can tempting to design technology projects on paper and send them off into the world on their own, I’ve found that I feel much more effective, reflective and flexible if I can actually be on-hand in the classroom while the projects are underway. Of course, this means that schools need a manageable facilitator-to-student ratio, time for the facilitator to co-plan and co-teach, and a willingness and openness on the teacher’s part to allow another teacher into the classroom.

These are just my top three support areas, what are other key ways you ensure your teachers receive the support they need to have success with technology?