always learning

I just had a fantastic meeting with two of our wonderful grade 5 teachers, Sandra and Diane, to brainstorm ways to naturally embed 21st century literacy skills into our (Lucy Caulkins) Readers’ Workshop (RW) units of study for next school year (Reading is a school focus for next year). The grade 5 team is looking for easy ways to promote student discussion about reading strategies and to deepen their conversations about the content they are learning while they’re reading.

Here’s what we came up with (and I would love to hear feedback):

The grade 5 students will create a Students Teaching Students podcast focused on helping other students learn and use quality strategies for reading. This is an educational podcast teaching other students how to become good readers using RW strategies that they learn over the course of the year.

This strand will continue throughout the whole school year with different sections of grade 5 (we have 7 grade 5 classes) leading different units of RW. All podcasts can be uploaded onto a common 5th grade reading-focused blog and added to iTunes for parents and other teachers to subscribe. The podcasts can also be shared with the 4th and 3rd grades so we have a built-in authentic audience (and we help vertical articulation too!). The project will be started with our first RW unit and continue throughout the year.

To allow for new teachers (we will have 4 new grade 5 teachers next year) to get comfortable with the process, we can differentiate: some classes can start with just listening to the podcasts, then when ready, students come in as “guest stars/speakers” on the “show,” eventually we can have many facilitators from all classes.

The project can be broken into 3 stages:

Stage 1: Focus on strategies.

Students Teaching Students podcast begins with 1 or 2 of our grade 5 classes to develop strong student facilitators and provide a model for good student-produced podcasts at ISB. The first stage is to focus on what strategies they are learning in RW and teach other students how the strategies help them become good readers. This can be a regular, short, podcast focusing on the critical aspects of RW they learn each week - the podcast station can be set up as a “center” in the classroom.

Stage 2: Focus on the content being learned in RW.

Have “guest stars/speakers” from other classrooms on the “show” to talk about the content they are reading and how they use different strategies to learn through reading. Student facilitators from the first two participating classes will lead these discussions on a weekly basis.

For this to work well, we will need to develop common prompts, thinking strategies and questions so that students will have a “handbook” for excellent podcasts. Eventually this could be entirely managed by students.

Stage 3: Focus on building excitement about reading.

Add book talks, book reviews, etc, using these same tools (or perhaps VoiceThread and other tools) to deepen learning about content, to make connections to other student readers, and to share more about what we’re reading. Start regularly connecting with students in other schools around the world to discuss and improve reading skills and strategies.

What do you think? How can we make this idea even better? Has this already been done (which would give me a great model to start from)? All feedback appreciated!

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

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

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

The class really enjoyed:

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

They learned:

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

And they reflected:

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

Their class teacher shared some feedback with me as well:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As much as I love getting to work with students and teachers on exciting projects every day, I think my favorite part about my job is something I like to call the “snowball effect” (I just made that up right now).

I’m talking about the moment when you (as the facilitator) realize that the teacher(s) you have been working with has really embraced 21st century literacy in their classroom, that they have become completely independent with their first new tool, started working successfully with a second new tool, and are anxious to move on to the next. I just love to see the level of excitement that comes with the confidence to try something new, and the spark of understanding that using these tools are not only more relevant to the kids, but that they can bring a whole new dimension to “classroom” learning.

For example: this past Monday, my first task of the day was to help our awesome grade 5 ESL teacher, Diane Mogngo, record some podcasts with her class for our Earth Day celebrations this week. We started this mini project the week before our Songkran holidays and I was hoping to see an improvement in her students’ oral language after recording and practicing before our big event on Friday.

Diane has been blogging successfully with her students for a few months now and the week before the holidays I helped her add a clustermap to her class blog. When I walked in, the whole class was literally jumping out of their seats with excitement to see how many visitors they had on their blog. And that was just the beginning of the lesson!

We spent the rest of the time on Garage Band discovering how immediately useful and relevant such easy audio recording can be for ESL students (definitely an improvement in their speaking - and after only one week!). By the end of the lesson, Diane was recording and facilitating the class on her own, and already excited to connect with partner classes using the combination of their class blog and their podcasting skills. And thus begins the snowball…

I’m also especially excited to see that several of these snowballing teachers are in the primary grades: Pre-Kindergarten to grade 2. After teaching at the middle school level for seven years, I knew the transition to the lower elementary grades would be the toughest for me, but I’m so excited to see that, with the help of our fantastic teachers, we’re really starting to gain momentum even in those intimidating (for me) lower grades. I’m realizing that there are so many easy ways to bring appropriate and authentic technology into primary age classrooms that really reflect student learning and (bonus!) make the teacher’s job easier.

So, in the interest of sharing and promoting excellent work, here are a few of our amazing teacher snowballs:

• Ms. Patty’s Pre-K Classroom
• Grade 1 ESL
• Grade 3 Blog Pals
• Our Online ESL Classroom (Grade 5)

There is definitely much more going on at ISB, from Kindergarten VoiceThreads reflecting on their learning about the life cycle of plants, to fourth grade persuasive writing development through the 1001 Tales project, but this is just a short list of teachers who are starting to discover how easy it is to combine a variety of tools in order to create a classroom learning hub. I’m already looking forward to starting even more snowballs tumbling down the hill! 

Snowball image from redjar
Blender image from wrestlingentropy

Tags: 21stcentury, learning, hub, elementary, classroom, snowball, facilitator, isb, 

Reflections on the ECIS Conference

Since I accepted the position of 21st Century Literacy Specialist at ISB just over a year ago, I’ve been thinking about how natural the connection is between the library and technology. Granted, I had never worked in a library before I set foot in our fabulous Learning Hub this past August, but having been a technology facilitator for seven years, I knew how much more I could accomplish when working in collaboration with the librarian. And, now, after attending the excellent ECIS Librarians Conference in Berlin last week, I can see an even stronger connection between these two essential resource teams.

As an outsider roaming incognito amongst the librarians of European international schools, I have to admit I felt a little bit of an impostor, but I am definitely glad I went! Not only did I have a chance to connect with lots of interesting people and get the inside scoop on the shape of international school libraries around the world, but I was also able to get a more in-depth (and research-based) understanding of how librarians and tech facilitators are such a natural fit. It is clear to me that we have much to learn from each other - where one department is strong, the other may be weak, and what a perfect partnership that makes!

After attending this conference, I am even more convinced that librarians and technology facilitators are an excellent team, much like the American standard, peanut butter and jelly. I like the idea of PB & J because:

• both peanut butter and jelly are fabulous on their own, but wow, when you put the two together, you get something extra special.
• peanut butter and jelly both have distinct qualities - they are definitely different, and both are definitely valuable outside of the time they spend together (jelly on toast, peanut butter with chocolate, etc).
• a pb&j sandwich is really at is best when enveloped by some exceptionally good bread, in this case, I’m thinking the bread is the curriculum - the foundation of the sandwich.

What really stood out for me at the conference, especially during Ross Todd’s pre-conference session and Toni Buzzeo’s presentation on collaboration, is that there are two main areas where the PB and the J can really support one another: staying current with technology tools and successful collaboration.

Big Idea Number One: How Technology Facilitators Can Help Librarians

Technology facilitators can work in partnership with libraries to embrace and utilize new and emerging communication and collaboration technologies.

The first session that really got me thinking was the pre-conference presentation by librarian and researcher Ross Todd. Many of the ideas Ross presented to the group have been frequent topics of discussion, both with my colleagues here at ISB and with the amazing librarians in my personal learning network. Hearing some of these familiar ideas presented as something new, and perhaps controversial, in this session was, to be honest, a little surprising. It was, I suppose, a reminder that not everyone is as attuned to the latest developments as some of the people I’m lucky enough to be in contact with every day.

Some of Ross’ key points were:

Libraries need to embrace the power of web 2.0.

Ross was very diplomatic, yet bracingly honest, about the need for libraries to adopt and adapt to the changing nature of information and communication in our web 2.0 world. Again, what was especially surprising to me was the way Ross presented these ideas. His tone, phrasing, and specific language was clearly coming from the perspective that not only would this be, perhaps, one of the first times his audience was hearing about these tools, but that getting them excited about using them in their schools would be something of a challenge.

Librarians need to let go of pre-determined scope and sequence models, and to learn, as an educator, to work diagnostically and “just in time.”

One of my first tasks as a technology facilitator at Munich International School about six years ago was to use Rubicon Atlas to look through our curricular units to find projects that would naturally lend themselves towards the use of technology - based on the desired learning outcomes - and then propose those units to the core subject teachers as integrated units of study. Although it ended up being an extensive amount of work for me, it was so much more practical, productive, and successful than trying to fit any technology standards or outcomes into a random unit. Spending the time getting to know the curriculum, and finding obvious connections to technology not only made the units we actually planned and taught more relevant, it actually made it easier for me to “sell” the idea to the teachers. I love Ross’ vision of “carefully planned, closely supervised, targeted intervention(s) of an instructional team of teacher-librarians and teachers to guide students through curriculum based inquiry units that gradually lead towards deep knowledge and understanding.”

Librarians need to embed themselves within the core curriculum, through the backwards design process.

I thought Ross’s assertion here was especially interesting because I got the impression that this concept probably isn’t taken for granted among librarians, and might even be new to some of them. Libraries have such a clear historical significance and a defined role in our school culture that we all instinctively know what librarians do and why - or at least we think we do. Because of this long-established background, I can imagine that many librarians might not ever feel pushed to ponder and reevaluate the exact nature of their relationship to the core curriculum.

For me, however, the emphasis on embedding through backwards design resonated right away. As a technology facilitator I’m always conscious of the need not to be an “add on,” to naturally embed technology tools within the core curriculum - basically, to “make myself useful.” Maybe it’s because technology as an integrated discipline is new, or because people have such widely varying technology conceptions and comfort levels, but I’ve never expected teachers or administrators to automatically know what I do. In that sense, I am always working towards demonstrating what my role is, through my actions, and making my job relevant to the teacher’s job - which is to teach the curriculum.

One fundamental aspect of that is, as Ross also describes, using “the language of the curriculum, rather than the language of information literacy when working in collaboration with classroom teachers.” I appreciated this reminder to avoid technology or information literacy jargon and focus on our shared vocabulary of approaches and outcomes when working with teachers.

Librarians need to “let go of some shackles of information literacy. Information literacy is not the driving force of what we do - it’s about kids developing deep understanding.”

Instead of trying to develop mini-librarians that practice perfect citation and know the Dewey decimal system inside and out, Ross talked about librarians helping guide students “on a sustained journey to[ward] develop[ing] deep knowledge.” This sounds so similar to what we are developing at ISB - a 21st century literacy curriculum focused around questions, rather than standards.

Big Idea Number Two: How Librarians Can Help Technology Facilitators

Librarians can support technology facilitators in their efforts to be productive and successful collaborative partners in the delivery of core-curriculum content embedded with 21st century literacy tools.

The following day I attended Toni Buzzeo’s session on collaboration. I was amazed at how much thorough research there is on libraries and collaboration. I am always working in collaboration with another teacher, so working together well as a partnership or team is absolutely my first priority. Given the fact that the position of a school librarian has been around far longer than technology facilitator, it stands to reason that they would have much more experience at successful collaboration. Toni shared so many important, research-based, aspects of building a successful collaborative relationship that I know most technology facilitators (including myself) would benefit from hearing.

Some of Toni’s key points were:

Collaboration is “2 (or more) equal partners who create a project or unit of study based on content standards in one or more content areas, a unit that will be team-designed, team-taught, and team-evaluated.”

This has been more or less my underlying understanding of collaboration the whole time that I’ve been a technology facilitator, but listening to Toni talk about collaboration made me realize that I’ve never really sat down and thought about it in a formalized way, and I’ve never specifically stated my understanding of collaboration with any of my colleagues. Listening to this definition of collaboration made me realize how important it is to be clear about the process and goals of collaboration whenever I’m working with another teacher.

In an effort to help teachers get excited about technology integration in the classroom, I realize that at times I’ve been willing to sacrifice the quality of collaboration in order to get teachers and students working on something engaging and exciting. After hearing this definition, it’s become apparent to me that it’s critical that, as a school, we have an understanding of what collaboration means. If we are going to have 21st century literacy embedded throughout the curriculum, it’s necessary to develop a common understanding of what collaboration really means - not a situation where one or the other member takes on the bulk of responsibility, or where the teacher’s role is limited to sending the kids off to the “computer lab” from time to time, but really working together, as equal partners. Having that common understanding of what it means to collaborate, especially when grounded in solid and thorough library research, will be critical as we move forward with our literacy curriculum.

Steps to instructional partnership: Cooperation –>> Coordination –>> Collaboration –>> Data driven collaboration

I’ve never had this hierarchy explained to me so clearly and succinctly, or in such a research-based way. There is a vast difference between cooperation, coordination and collaboration, although I think many times we view all three as the same. Toni described cooperation as simply helping when a question is asked - like finding a website or a book for a teacher upon request; coordination as planning when a lesson or an activity happens which supports core curriculum; and collaboration as “a prolonged and interdependent relationship,” sharing goals, with carefully defined roles in the process and comprehensive co-planning. It seems easy for a technology facilitator to fall into the trap of simply offering cooperation or coordination services as these seem like a huge help to the classroom teacher. While these levels of interaction can be incredibly helpful to a teacher, they really aren’t collaboration. Interestingly, in the second session I attended with Ross Todd, where he described the outcome of his Ohio research in depth, and the results indicated that collaboration (not cooperation or coordination) had a higher impact on student learning, so that should always be our goal. It’s not enough to stop at the coordination level.

It was also reassuring to understand that these separate levels of working together are very distinct from each other and must be progressed through in sequence in every professional relationship. It was good to be reminded that steps can’t be skipped in this process, and that it’s not realistic to jump immediately into a perfect cooperative relationship with a coworker.

Along the same lines, Toni shared David Loertscher’s Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program. Although the taxonomy refers specifically to school libraries, it is equally applicable to technology programs. In either case, there are clearly similar steps to all tools used in schools. I found this all especially interesting because Loertscher’s taxonomy was heavily research-based. School library media programs have been around for a long time, so there is extensive research and experience about what is effective and how best to organize successful library media programs. Much of this refined body of research and experience can be transferred or adapted to shed light on emerging technology programs. Tech programs are in most cases still going through “growing pains” and finding where they fit within schools, and it was fascinating to realize that these pains may be extremely similar to problems which librarians have been dealing with for decades.

Work with the willing

Toni shared with us her idea of “Organizational Philosophy 101″: In every group of people, there are 3 constituents: the “oh yeahs” (the risk takers), the “yeah, buts” (not reluctant, just cautious - watch and wait and see), the “no way’s” (will never change). She laid out a steady plan for improvement, again based on extensive research: in the first year, work with “oh yeahs”, prove it, test it, work out the kinks. In the second year the “yeah buts” will come along. Finally in the third year, it falls to the administrators to bring the “no ways” on board. Again, something similar to this has been my underlying approach all along, but it was empowering and encouraging to hear concepts I’ve been thinking about, but have no formal proof for, explained in such a concise and sensible way.

I’m sure there are so many more opportunities for us to learn from each other; it was just particularly exciting for me personally to learn so much at this conference about the contexts and perspectives of librarianship, and to move from that to the realization of how well librarians and technology facilitators can fit together.

Tags: 21stcentury, 21st century literacy, collaboration, learning, embed, technology, curriculum, professional development, library, library2.0, education, research, Ross Todd, Toni Buzzeo

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that this is the third international school I’ve worked in - and the third school that I’ve helped shift from the “computer class” mindset to an “integrated” technology program. In all honesty, it’s quite amazing to me that every school I’ve worked in has very similar problems, very similar history in terms of technology education, and very similar ideas of where they want to go. And the majority of the staff has the same fears, concerns and questions about how this “new” technology environment will function.

What’s really interesting to me is that:

• If all of these schools are facing similar issues, why isn’t there a common process or framework to work through them? Why aren’t we more actively sharing (and I don’t mean the individuals contributing here on the blogosphere, where sharing is the name of the game), I mean the schools themselves. We’re all linked by accrediting bodies, councils, etc., why isn’t there any help or insight offered through those networks? Is it competition?
• If all these schools are working through these issues - some sooner than others (MIS started in 2001 - and I’m sure they weren’t the first), why isn’t there a common understanding of what needs to be done to move forward? Why does it always feel like reinventing the wheel every time we move to a new school?
• If the group of international school teachers is a closely connected network, and let’s face it, it really is, why aren’t more teachers arriving at schools with some background in this model of teaching and learning and anxiously paving the way for those teachers that may not have transitioned as recently? Why are we always selling this idea like we’re the first ones to ever think of it? Shouldn’t most of our new teachers (and possibly administrators) have experience in this model already?

As you could expect, each of the schools I’ve worked at has approached this transition a little differently - from administrators mandating change, to allowing the enthusiasm of a smaller group to push the thinking of the whole, to strategically placing influential and enthusiastic teachers in positions of leadership. No matter what the model, I do think there are some commonalities that must be addressed when making the shift to a 21st century learning environment.

Vision & Philosophy

Given the fact that we all need to work together to make change happen, it only seems logical that we need a uniting vision and shared understanding of the goal we’re trying to reach (see: example vision). Expecting teachers to change their practice, without providing a thought-out vision and philosophy for why they should change will only result in frustration. In order to work towards a common goal you need to ensure that all staff have a shared understanding of the school’s vision. Staff buy-in from all levels is essential to the success of institutionalizing this type of change. There are lots of places to get started thinking about this kind of vision, from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, to NCREL, to TechLearning, to the Alabama Best Practice Center, to Apple, to AT&T, to Information Fluency, to the 21st Century Learning Initiative, to the AASL, to all of the wonderful edubloggers that are sharing their vision and their school practice.

Leadership

Although it would be absolutely wonderful if change could spontaneously happen because teachers have a shared vision for their future, the reality is that, at some point, school leadership needs to clarify and confirm that this is the direction the school is heading. There needs to be an official acknowledgment of the vision and philosophy and clear expectations that change will happen. I’ve heard plenty of teachers say, “if the Head of School doesn’t tell me to do it, it means I don’t have to do it.” Right or wrong, that’s the reality of our schools. We have school leadership for a reason: they help us steer the ship, and they define our course. We look to them for the priorities - and they need to take the responsibility to share them with us.

Paradigm Shift and Transparency

Along with a clear vision and philosophy for why this shift is so important and what your desired outcomes are, you also need to develop a clear framework which details exactly what the roles are for each individual involved (see: example framework). From teachers, to teams, to coordinators, to facilitators, to administration - each person on staff will be responsible for some aspect of this transition and they need to know how they fit into the bigger picture. From roles and responsibilities to the process of putting this vision into practice, this framework needs to be completely transparent to all stakeholders (including parents). We all share a common need to understand where we fit in the big picture - laying it all out for everyone involved just ensures that everyone has the same picture.

Curriculum & Professional Development

Embedding this new model for teaching and learning into the curriculum development process is a natural way to institutionalize change - if it becomes part of our curriculum, it becomes part of our teaching and learning practice. As new aspects of curricular units which authentically embed technology are collaboratively planned, these changes need to be clearly documented in a shared curriculum mapping tool (whether it’s Rubicon-Atlas or a wiki - the tool doesn’t matter, as long as the changes are clear and visible).

Along with shifting curriculum practices, teachers will need professional development support through technical training, pedagogical training, mentorship, outside voices, on-site experts, and one-on-one support. This could include the establishment of a professional learning network for teachers like Julie Lindsay has done at Qatar Academy, or it could be the creation of streamlined and consistent professional development like we have running at ISB, or developing a formal teacher-mentor program.

Staffing & Equipment

All of this thinking and learning will, sadly, be lost without the personnel and technical resources to make your vision a reality. Although schools usually (but not always) see the need to increase software and hardware purchases, oftentimes, because the expectation is shifting to embedding technology within the core curriculum, staffing can be overlooked. Why would we hire someone with no teaching load - someone who just “helps” people all day? Unfortunately, without the human support (which can range from being a teaching model in the classroom, to curricular or pedagogical support, to technical support, to a “safety blanket”) the technological troubles can end up feeling insurmountable for teachers new to this model of teaching and learning - exactly what you don’t want.

Infrastructure and Communication

Once staffing and equipment are sufficient, clear infrastructure and communication strategies need to be put in place. Who to contact for technology support, or how to book the school’s hardware or peripheral equipment, or where to find the latest information about available resources all needs to be documented, explained and demonstrated to all stakeholders, and then utilized effectively over the course of the school year. Having resources and knowing how to access them or how to get support are all very different things. Oftentimes technical troubles become emergencies simply because the lines of communication or infrastructure are unclear.

Resources

To help teachers and administrators cope with the rapid pace of technological change, developing easy to use resources (like “how to” sheets for both students and teachers, or common rubrics and assessment tools) can make the use of new tools far less intimidating. Keeping these kind of resources in a central location where they can be accessed any time and adapted based on individual teacher’s needs is essential - as is promoting and sharing the usefulness and success of these types of documents. Creating a school-wide technology toolbox takes the pressure off the teachers and allows the experts in each area to shine.

Reflection and Adaptation

No matter how well you plan, it’s only to be expected that we will all face very different individual situations, and anyone trying to implement something new needs to be aware that challenges will need to be faced. It’s an important skill to be able to quickly identify problems or concerns and face them head on. Whether it’s parental questions or difficulties among teachers, it’s important to expect the unexpected and to have adaptive, self-reflective, and changing strategies for dealing with the causes of roadblocks or problems.

Another important aspect of reflection is sharing our successes. Finding consistent ways to publicize success - not only within the school, but also to the wider school community, helps teachers gain confidence, explore new areas of teaching and learning, and promote positive attitudes towards this change. We can often get bogged down with solving problems, but sometimes the solution is sharing success.

Working through these challenges at three different schools in three different countries and cultures, I’ve realized that you really do need all of these pieces in place in order to ensure that change happens and, perhaps more importantly, that new paradigms stay in place after the initial push to change has passed. We all know that passionate voices can inspire and propel change, but what happens when those voices move on? As one of those passionate voices myself, I want to ensure that any changes I help create become a part of the daily life of the school.

I’m sure there are other pieces to this complex puzzle that I forgot. What am I missing?

Tags: 21stcentury, internationalschool, flatclassroom, classroom, 21st century literacy, globalcitizens, collaboration, learning, creating, vision, philosophy, understanding, framework, embed, technology, curriculum, planning, development, professional development, training

Mrs. R’s grade 5 class participated in Mr. Mayo’s fantastic @manyvoices project a few weeks ago.

This was a wonderful project for us for quite a few reasons:

1. The focus on good writing, in an easy to complete, quick, exciting, globally collaborative project.

We were able to complete our portion of the project in only 2 class lessons. In our first 75 minute lesson we read through the existing story, discussed the possibilities for our section, and determined our writing expectations for our chapter. In this first lesson, we covered:

What’s happened so far, after reading the first 9 chapters:

• A mermaid is running through NYC
• She worries about her past
• A fisherman chases her and catches her, but she escapes
• Her legs are revealed
• She is trying to save her parents. A snake attacks her
• She meets a doctor who takes her to his laboratory
• The doctor gets knocked out and she goes back to NY – to the Empire State Building where she hears the screams of her parents

In our chapter we want to make sure that:

• She has to get by the monster to open the door - all of our statements will lead up to this final event.

Our chapter will:

• Use good description by using the best descriptive words
• Use punctuation
• Use imagery: paint a picture in the mind
• Use internal dialogue to describe thoughts, feelings and hopes the character has (what would our mermaid be thinking now that she knows all that separates her from her parents is the monster)
• What does the monster look like?
• Our ideas follow logically from one thing to the next (so the reader doesn’t think “that will never happen”)
• Stretch out the action, tell it step by step,
• The reader doesn’t know what’s going to happen next – use suspense so that the person wants to keep reading

2. Providing an authentic audience for our writing.

In our second 75 minute lesson, we were able to complete our entire story and post each 140 character statement by individual students on Twitter. We were able to complete our goal for our chapter (Chapter 10) by having each student write their story line one at a time, with the entire class following along on the SmartBoard. The mood in the classroom was one of excitement and enthusiasm about writing, creativity and collaboration about a common goal, and a real motivation to share our talents with a global audience.

3. Allowing us to be reflective writers by publishing the story in drafts.

After our chapter was finished, we took some time to discuss our thoughts on the entire story and to share ideas for how we can improve on this project in the future. Here’s what we came up with:

• The story didn’t make sense mostly. Classes didn’t read the story carefully enough and so things don’t make sense that follow. It jumps around a lot.
• In future stories, collaborators need to read carefully and include details, events and actions that make sense and are connected. This will make the story believable.
• Why would a mermaid be walking on land? It’s too bizarre/unbelievable.

What we learned:

• How to write with other people. You have to talk with them to write your part so you understand their meaning.
• Too many writers make for a very confusing story.
• Writers need to meet in one place to discuss how the story might go (could be a chat or skype conference to plan it)
• Next time, the writers really need to spend time editing the story before posting it.
• Our chapter was pretty good. Probably because we planned it and communicated about it.
• The idea was fun.
• We’d like to try it again with fewer writers.

4. Giving our Grade 5 authors a chance to be published writers

The next stage of this project will be to complete a full edit of the story, and then publish the completed volume through Lulu.com on March 1st. The book will be available for the exact cost of printing: $5.37. View the rough draft version of the book here.

How could you not absolutely love a project that takes no longer than 4 lessons, yet provides so many opportunities for authentic writing? Way to go Mr. Mayo! We can’t wait for the next version of the project!

Tags: elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, internationalschool, collaborations, @manyvoices, mrmayo, writing,

I just made a fabulous discovery!

Earlier this year I discovered the power of linked accounts in G-mail for elementary students. Today I learned how I can leverage that shortcut into individual contributing authors for our Grade 3 BlogPals blog on Edublogs. Here’s what I found out:

I would like:

• One class blog - not individual student blogs.
• The teacher or administrator to approve all postings.
• The students to be able to write whenever they want - not just in class, but I want all posts moderated by the teacher before they are published.
• Not to have to deal with individual student e-mail addresses.
• The students to have to log in so I can track who posts what, so students can’t “impersonate” each other, and so students can learn about usernames, passwords and responsibility.

So, here’s what I did:

• Created a class blog on Edublogs (in retrospect, it would have made more sense to use Learnerblogs, since this blog will mostly be authored by students. Ah well, live and learn, right?).
• Created a class e-mail account on G-mail that I have access to, as well as the class teacher.
• Created an Edublogs account for each student using the linked G-mail account feature. For each Edublogs account, I chose “Just a username, Please.”
• Logged into the main blog as the admin user and went to the Users tab.
• Added each student as a Contributor to the blog with their new “e-mail address” (which is really just the one class e-mail address using the “+StudentName” linked account option) under the “Add a User” function.

Now we have:

• Individual student log ins WITHOUT individual e-mail accounts.
• Individual student contributors to the blog WITHOUT their own blog.
• All posts approved by the blog administrator before posting.

Perfect!

This seems like the natural next step in our BlogPals project - once students are comfortable adding comments and writing posts as a “center”-type activity, we will give them individual log-ins so they can manage their posts independently.

Tags: elementary, blogging, grade3, blogpals, edublogs, contributors, student, authors, gmail, linked, email, learnerblogs,

A little over a week ago I was honored to be invited to Qatar Academy, workplace of the amazing Julie Lindsay, as a consultant for a 2 day 21st century literacy training.

While I’m there, not only do I get to spend some quality F2F time with Julie, but hopefully I will also spend some time with my good friends Jabiz and Mairin from my last school!

Here is my proposed outline for the two days of training:

Day 1:

Introductory session: Developing the Global Student: Practical Ways to Infuse 21st Century Literacy into Your Classroom (75 - 90 minutes, full group with Q&A)

Breakout sessions:

2 options (60 - 90 min sessions - conducted in small groups, either grade level teams or subject area groups):

• Globally Collaborative Projects: best practice examples and how to get started.
• Web 2.0 trainings - groups for blogging, wikis, social networking, RSS, etc - curriculum/standards based, practical and hands on in a lab setting

Closing session: The 21st Century Educator: Embracing Web 2.0 in your Professional Practice (75 - 90 minutes, full group, with Q&A)

Day 2:

Introductory session: The 21st Century School: Making the Shift Happen - an overview of what current best practice in international schools looks like, the roles of technology facilitators, curriculum coordinators, classroom teachers, and administrators. Sample facilitation structure shared from ISB, MKIS and MIS.

3 options (60 - 90 min sessions - conducted in small groups, either grade level teams or subject area groups):

• Curriculum planning to authentically embed 21st century literacy - practical questions, successful framework, examining current standards and topics and developing ideas to embed technology (60 - 90 minutes per grade level/subject team).
• Developing a framework for successful technology integration with tech team
• Mobile computing - the changing classroom, facilities management, practical tips

Closing session: ???

I would love to hear your opinion! What do you think I should cover? What’s missing from this list? What would you like to see presented at your school?

Tags: julie lindsay, qatar academy, 21stcentury, consultant, professional development, training

I have been looking forward to this project all year! We just got started on Friday with a wonderful group of fourth graders, and their very flexible classroom teacher, Sonja. I’m so excited to be able to collaborate on this project a second time. I hope I’ve learned from my mistakes the last time around, and have set up this workshop for success.

We’ve been doing a lot of planning at the elementary level in order to avoid some of the confusion and frustration I experienced last year - mostly due to lack of planning. Here are the key structures that we’ve put into place so far:

Grouping & Coordination

At this point we have determined that we will split the 20 elementary classrooms that are participating into a number of smaller sub groups. First we divided by age level, then by writing style or curricular focus to ensure that the peer editors will be knowledgeable enough to offer constructive advice. We also wanted to keep the groups no larger than 3 schools collaborating together so that it is easier for the students to offer thorough peer reviews.

We have created one page where all of the student stories can be linked and easily accessible. Also on this page, we have all student partners clearly laid out in a table, so that students can quickly find the work of their partners. Regardless of whether the individual student pages are part of the same wiki, or actually hosted on another classroom wiki, they are all clearly linked here.

Time Lines & Expectations

We have laid out and agreed upon our expected deadlines for each phase of the project: 1st draft, peer reviews, 2nd draft, final story, and awards. Though the dates vary for each sub group, a great effort has been made to ensure that the smaller groups have identified specific dates that the work will be completed. Hopefully this will allow teachers to better plan their classes and complete the project in a timely manner.

Assessment & Curricular Focus

Given that the various sub-groups are working within the same curricular focus, we have begun to develop common procedures and assessments so that all students are clearly working toward the same goal. In order for the peer editors to be truly helpful, they need to be looking at the stories through the same lens.

Practicalities

Wiki Memberships: All teachers have been made “organizers” of the wiki. This will allow them to add their students as members as they see fit, without having to wait for one organizer on the other side of the world to approve the requests. Teachers are welcome to create their own class wiki and just link their pages here, or they can use this wiki as the actual work in progress. When I add students, I open the Members and Permissions page and have students come up and type their e-mail address into the “Invite New Members” line. Then I show them how to become a member of wikispaces as a class, and they join the wiki. This allows all the students to join the wiki within one class period, but does not send those annoying “request for membership” e-mails to all organizers.

Naming Policies: In an effort to more easily find student work (just in case links break, or students forget to create the right links) we have developed a page naming format: SchoolInitials_StudentName. Not only will this place all student pages from one school right next to each other in the List Pages view (which was essential when we had student issues last year), but it will make the linking process easier since there are bound to be multiple students with the same first name in all of these classes. Last year we had students naming pages with file names that had nothing to do with their own name or their school’s name and it made it increasingly frustrating for their partners or the classroom teachers to navigate through their work. The more transparant the file naming system is, the easier it will be for all these 20 different teachers and classes of students to manage.

Communication: Although we have been communicating mostly by e-mail I’m finally now trying to move discussion to the participating schools page discussion tab - this way new teachers can follow along with the conversation as well. It makes so much more sense to have the conversations in a central and open place, plus, with the ability to RSS wiki discussions (and changes), students and teachers can keep close tabs on all updates anytime.

Parental Permission: Despite the fact that absolutely no personal information will be shared during the course of this project, I always like to ensure that parents are not only aware of what is happening in the classroom, but that they formally allow their children to participate. Given the concern about online projects, I would much rather deal with any questions before the project starts than after students have become invested in their work.

Getting Started

Now that we have some of the basics for a successful globally collaborative project lined up, Sonja and I have been planning how we will approach this project with our students. Here is our planned schedule:

Lesson One

Introduce the project. Share the global scope by showing the Participating Schools page and exploring all the different countries involved. Make connections to students prior knowledge by sharing student-friendly pop culture references to Arabian Nights (Disney’s Aladdin comes to mind). Build interest by reading aloud the frame story for the project and discussing ideas for how to persuade the Alien King to let the human race live.

Get all students signed up for the wiki. Split the class into two groups - one that has e-mail accounts already and one that needs help creating an account. Have the classroom teacher read an excerpt from the Arabian Nights frame story (appropriate for elementary, we used the Eyewitness Accounts series) while the other group is dealing with the technical steps to sign up. Once one group is finished, swap.

Lesson Two - Four

Brainstorm ideas. Each student will complete an Inspiration mind map, or other graphic organizer, of their ideas for their story. Ideally we will share these brainstorms with our partners around the world, but if time is short, we can discuss these in class. Students will use their experience with persuasive writing, as well as the rubric and expectations for quality persuasive writing as they brainstorm to ensure that their story will meet the project requirements.

Lesson Five

Online safety. We will watch my two favorite Public Service Announcements (Think Before You Post & The Talent Show) to discuss appropriate and safe behavior online. We will use the Online Safety guidelines as posted on the wiki to ensure that students are prepared to work and learn in this environment.

Lesson Six

Wiki basics. Demo the main features of a wiki and allow students to post an introduction to themselves that uses all of the basic wiki techniques (formatting, inserting images from a website and the desktop, and linking). These pages will be an introduction for their collaborative partner, as well as an authentic way for students to learn how to manipulate wiki pages.

Lesson Seven - Ten

Write. Complete the first draft.

Lesson Eleven - Thirteen

Peer review collaborative partner’s work. Edit and improve their story based on collaborative partner’s feedback. Post second draft

Lesson Fourteen - Fifteen
Peer review collaborative partner’s work. Edit and improve their story based on collaborative partner’s feedback. Post final draft.

Lesson Sixteen

Awards and celebrations.

One thing I would really love to have time for is either narrating the stories by podcast, or adding images to enhance the stories, or creating a never-ending story by linking all the various stories together, or even creating a video of individual stories. At this point I’m waiting to see how the students do with the basic tools needed to collaborate on a wiki. Any students that are interested in taking their ideas farther or brining a multimedia element to their story will be supported either in small groups or individually.

I can’t wait to see what they all come up with! No doubt there will be some very exciting and unique stories appearing on these very pages over the next few weeks!

Tags: elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, internationalschool, flatclassroom, collaborations, 1001 Tales, wiki, writing, workshop, persuasive,

Update: Please feel free to use and adapt our Blogging Permission Slip

After seven years working with middle school students, it has taken me a few months to adjust to the pace of learning at the elementary level. But, I think I’m finally getting the hang of things - and now I get a chance to see just how much I’ve learned this year.

I started off the school year by helping three of our grade five classes start independent student blogs. Although things went reasonably well, there were quite a few bumps in the road.

For one, we started learning how to blog before we really covered the basics of blogging (ie: what is a blog, why would you want a blog, who blogs, etc). For another, we talked about online safety, but not long enough. Finally, we sent home permission slips before the students really knew what they were doing with the project.

Yikes! It sounds like a mess when I look back! But, all in all, it went over quite well. The kids are having a blast with the blogs and they’re developing their writings skills while connecting with wider audience (by the way: we’re looking for grade 5 partner bloggers - please leave a comment for me if you’re interested!).

So now that I’m starting this new project with grade 3, I have a chance to do things better - don’t you just love those opportunities!

Here’s how I’m planning on setting this one up:

Step One: Start Small

I’ve set up this project in the simplest way I can think of (thanks to Susan Sedro) in the hopes that the easier it is to maintain, the more interested our students and teachers will be in building it up. The more manageable it starts out, the more open everyone will be to adding more exciting pieces to the puzzle. One blog, one username, one password, one e-mail account - simple, simple, simple.

Step Two: Introduce the Project

This week, I’ll be spending 3 language arts lessons with Mrs. S’s class to introduce this project. We’re going to start with an adaptation of Anne Davis‘ fantastic WebQuest: Blogging: It’s Elementary!

Lesson One:

We will spend the first lesson reading the ABC’s of Blogging blook in small groups or partners. Most likely we’ll have each student pick a favorite letter and read only that page and then come together to discuss what we’ve learned - the whole book is a bit too much for one grade 3 student to read in one sitting. Then, we’ll create a class Inspiration mind map of the big ideas we learned from the Blook - later, this will be posted on our class blog for commenting by students and parents.

Lesson Two:

For our second lesson, we’ll take a look at some student blogs. We may start with the selection listed on the WebQuest, but we’ll also examine the student and teacher blogs here at ISB. The focus will be figuring out the different parts of a blog - what are the pieces that make up a good blog (titles, posts, comments, date of entry, links, calendar, etc). We’ll make sure we understand how to navigate a blog so that we can find our way around our partner class blogs when we’re ready. Most likely, we’ll add some practicalities about blogs to our Inspiration map as a reflection of what we’ve learned.

Lesson Three:

During our third lesson, we’ll talk about online safety and appropriate behavior. I’ve been using the Think Before You Post video (more here) all year and I really like the discussions that come up. The first time around I usually pause the video every few seconds to make sure the students understand what’s happening - there’s a lot going on in this video! We’ll probably end up watching it a few times with pauses and a few times all the way through. This will lead to a discussion about what is safe to put online and a class guidelines for online safety - which will be posted on our class blog.

We will also go through appropriate behaviors online. We might talk a little bit about cyberbullying (but probably I won’t use that word) so that the students understand that behavior expectations online are exactly the same as behavior expectations in class with the teacher present (if we are really struggling, we might watch this video, but it’s a bit intense for 3rd grade). After reading Miguel’s post about the current cell phone scandal taking place in the US, it makes me all the more confident that we have to teach students how to behave online as early as we can - before bad habits are formed. We’ve had some great discussions about how, when and where to share your feelings with grade 4 this year. Everything we discuss can be added to our Inspiration map at the end of the lesson.

Lesson Four:

The following week, I’ll come back for one more introductory lesson. This time we’ll experiment with learnerblogs. We’ll learn about the basics of posting (basic formatting, inserting images and links), the category function, and how to find our partner blogs. We’ll also have one teacher-written post for the entire class to comment on for our first step (hopefully this will be the post with the Inspiration map and class guidelines for online safety if everything goes as planned).

Step Three: Begin and Maintain a Routine

Once we have the introductory steps all mapped out - the students understand what’s happening, the teacher is comfortable with the technology tools, and the parents are all on board - we will begin to blog regularly as part of our normal classroom routine. Making time once a week to read a partner class blog and leave comments will be a great way to connect with other students on issues and ideas that they can relate to. I’d ideally like to have a blogging “center” in the classroom that students could go to whenever they have something they’d like to write about. There’s something about forcing all of the students to blog at the same time on the same day just because it’s convenient that I don’t like (plus, it might not work so well with the one log-in option), so hopefully this personalized activity center idea will work out.

Step Four: Build

After a few months of writing, I hope that we are ready to add in more exciting elements. Maybe we’ll start some podcasting or some VoiceThread that the kids can share. Either way, although we’re starting small, I do hope to see this project grow into something bigger over time. I hope that, at the very least, it becomes an integral part of school-home communication and that parents, students and teachers see the value in this ongoing conversation about learning.

So, I’m looking forward to see if this (somewhat more thoughtful) approach to beginning blogging works a little bit better the second time around!

Tags: elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, internationalschool, flatclassroom, collaborations, blogging, grade3, blogpals,