always learning

It’s that time of year again. The time when all fifth graders start worrying about moving up to sixth grade. The transition from top of the elementary school to bottom of the middle school is not an easy one to make, as I so clearly remember.

So, as part of our CoETaIL course 2, Chrissy, Diane and I have developed a fun, quick and simple project to help ease the transition to middle school for our grade fives. Last year Diane and I did a very similar project with her ESL students and it was a huge hit!

One important facet of the project is to realize that all fifth graders around the world are going through the same challenges, so, as one aspect of the project, we have created a very simple VoiceThread (and wiki) and would love to have other students contribute and share their concerns:

We would absolutely love it if you and your students would be willing to share their thoughts about moving on to sixth grade with us! If you’re interested, please add your info here or leave a comment on this post and we’ll contact you directly.

There are a few things I particularly love about this project

• The emphasis on natural conversation, which is really difficult for grade 5 students when working from a script and recording themselves (as you can hear when listening to our excellent, but very scripted grade 5 podcasts).
• The focus on bringing in our students’ individual cultures and personal experiences by asking them to reflect on a specific inspirational saying in their first language. I have this vision of the conversation our students are having with their parents when they ask them about inspirational sayings and how this can help them deal with the challenges they might face in life.
• The looks on the students faces when they realize kids all around the world have the same concerns as they do, that we’re all the same in so many ways.

Just in case you’re interested, here’s our UbD unit planner for grade 5 core classroom and ESL pull-out:

Established Goals

ESL specific

• Extend oral language through conversation
• Build confidence with oral language, especially in a conversational format

Grade 5

• Retain natural fluency during presentations and/or recording
• Build confidence to engage in spontaneous dialogue based on focused topics

Both

• Develop and uncover strategies to cope with life changes, through the lens of transitioning to sixth grade

Enduring Understandings

• Conversational language is crucial to efficient and clear communication
• Conversational dialogue requires all participants to be responsive
• We all have cultural teachings to draw upon when facing difficult situations

Essential Questions

• Why is conversational language important to communication?
• How can we improve our conversational language?
• How can the words of wise people help us discover changes we can make within ourselves?

GRASPS Task

Goal: You will produce a podcast that showcases strategies, teachings, inspirational sayings and experiences to help fifth grade students succeed in sixth grade around the world.

Role: You will work in teams to research, author, record and broadcast your podcast

Audience: Students moving on around the world though iTunes, class blog, and the internet.

Situation: You are moving on to sixth grade and need a variety of strategies, teachings, inspirational sayings and experiences that will help you succeed.

Product Performance: Your podcast will be posted on the class blog and on iTunes. A successful podcast will include:

• Strong, clear speaking voice
• Modulated voice with emotion and emphasis
• Teachings or inspirational sayings that can directly provide guidance for students transitioning to sixth grade
• 3 strategies linked to an experience that sixth graders will have designed to help fifth graders succeed
• A written script with proper grammar
• Engaging language, intro & outro, and audio enhancements.

Extension:

• Video podcast
• Adding still images to the podcast
• Personal podcast

Six Facets of Understanding

Explain: After completing a self-assessment of your oral language (through GB recording), explain which areas you, personally, need to improve upon, why and how you will you have improved.

Interpret: Share an inspirational saying via the class blog (in translation if not in English) and describe a personal experience when this saying was beneficial. Sayings could include personal images, or audio recordings.

Apply: Collaborate with partner classes around the world to produce a VoiceThread describing the challenges and opportunities of moving on, as well as find commonalities among all students.

Perspective: Listen to a “real” podcast or book about a life change (anything that can be found and is appropriate). Discuss as a class, or in partners, how the broadcaster or author coped with the change using strategies, inspirational sayings or teachings.

Self-Knowledge: Personal Action Plan: Begin with a personal reflection of a similar experience to determine your successful coping strategies, develop an action plan to put those strategies, along with the new ones learned during this unit, into practice next year.

Empathize: In partners, role-play the first day of school – one person is the teacher, one is the student. Reflect on the experience with your partner.

Final Thoughts

We would love for you to join us in this project! Please feel free to leave a comment here or add your school to the wiki. We’ll be working on the VoiceThread during the last week of May, but please feel free to add your comments whenever you’re ready!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending, and presenting at, the Apple Global Leadership Summit in Hong Kong. I knew it was going to be great after presenting at the Think Ahead Roadshow here in Bangkok in February, but I don’t think I realized just how great it was going to be. Of course, there are some things I would have changed (more on that in my next post), but thinking back to all of the educational events I have attended this year (and I’ve been to quite a few), I think this one was the best! And I think I’ve figured out why.

Last month I attended the EARCOS Teacher’s Conference (ETC) and left feeling a little disappointed. It was great for networking (and relaxing, given the stunning location), but it wasn’t really what I was looking for in a conference, content-wise.

To be honest, I was starting to feel a little disillusioned with conferences in general this year. The effort it takes to get to the conference location, the costs involved, the exhaustion coming back to work after a full weekend of conferencing. It was starting to seem a little too much for me, considering how much I can learn relaxing on my couch, at home, in my PJs, thanks to my PLN.

But, last weekend changed my mind. While reflecting on my two very different conference experiences over the last month, I realized there are a few things conferences need to have in order to make the expense and the effort worth the trip:

Focused Content

Maybe this is just an international school thing, but I find so many conferences try to be everything to everyone (and so do schools, for that matter). They want to have sessions specifically for every discipline area, every educational trend, leadership, third culture kids, global issues, etc, etc.

In doing so, it can be hard for one person to fill up each day with directly relevant sessions – there are only so many presenters on in each given session, chances are there won’t be one directly related to my area of interest in every session. By stretching the topics so thin, in order to meet everyone’s needs, the conference often ends up meeting no-one’s needs. Sure, one presentation a day, maybe, but is that really worth the trip?

The Apple Leadership Summit was so clearly focused on the way that learning has changed, and the ways we need to prepare for the future, that I was engaged from the first moment until the last. All keynote speakers had specific experience that directly related to the changes we need to make in education – even though they all approached the topic from different perspectives, it was immediately clear how all of their expertise was directly related to the future of education. None of the sessions during the entire 3-day event strayed from the topic.

Stephen Heppell’s keynote during the (sumptuous) banquet set the tone for the weekend by sharing specific examples (and so many pictures) of schools that are changing with the times and embracing non-traditional school infrastructure (physical structure and well as curriculum design).

His emphasis on adaptability, flexibility, openness, and learning communities (instead of “schools”) brought the challenges of education in the 21st century to the forefront, along with visual, practical ideas for moving towards solutions.

His vision and passion for learning, in all forms and contexts, was an inspiring way to begin the conference. Having seen Learning to Change, Changing to Learn dozens of times, it was such a privilege to hear him speak directly about his experiences and to see the full range of his work and to begin to get a picture of what kinds of changes are next for education.

The following day, Tom Kelley brought his extensive experience with innovation to the field of education. His focus on risk-taking, seeing with new eyes (“vuja de,” in his words), prioritizing innovation, and recognizing the rate of change gave solid, real-world examples, which directly illuminated and enriched Stephen’s more philosophical presentation the day before.

Being able to see with such clarity the way innovation and different modes of thinking (from his new book The 10 Faces of Innovation) can impact pretty much every field (from advertising, to hospital care, to product design, to kids toothbrushes!) helped create more concrete understandings of how critical risk taking is for education. He made it so clear that we can spend forever improving what we’ve already got, but what we really need to do is look at the whole experience of learning with fresh eyes.

After a presentation on developing a global mindset from Vivien Stewart (much of which is already happening in many international schools), we had a choice of 3 breakout sessions with each of the keynote speakers – a great way to go more in depth with the content presented in their first sessions.

Next, was a panel discussion from all keynote speakers plus a few special guests including Greg Whitby, John Couch, Daniel McCormak, Richard Swart, and John Wray (thanks to @mrdinhk for that final name!). This was a good time to ask those burning questions that came up during the keynotes and breakout sessions earlier that day. It was very interesting to get several perspectives on the same topic, especially because each panel speaker was coming from such different backgrounds. For me the highlight was hearing Richard Swart, principal of Nanjing International School, speak so passionately about the need international schools to move forward with the ideas presented at the Summit without delay, to stop wasting time worrying about the way we’ve always done it, but to envision the future and create it, now.

Finally, at the end of a long day of plenary sessions (by the way, most of my ideas for improvement spring from being seated the entire day in pretty much the same room, more to come in my next post), John Couch shared Apple’s vision for education in the 21st Century.

I had seen some of his slides before, but it amazed me, yet again, how ironic it is to be hearing from a vendor the most relevant, forward-thinking, pedagogically sound ideas for education. It hit home for me (again) that if these are the people making the computers, these are the computers we should be using in our schools. This vision for education, which I so passionately believe in, is so clearly wrapped up in the package that is Apple.

On the last day, we had one final keynote from Macro Torres, after all of the fantastic ADE-led break-out sessions. His extensive experience in the classroom, combined with his fresh perspective and boundless creative energy definitely ended the weekend on a high note.

Marco so clearly understands how important it is that our students become innovative, creative, creators of content, and how critcal it is to change the classroom environment from our traditional factory model to that of an engaging and empowering studio experience.

Conference Size

I guess because it is so difficult to actually run (and finance) a conference, the organizers prefer to have as many attendees as possible. Unfortunately, this only ends up watering down the event – trying to appeal to all interests, abilities, needs, and levels of understanding.

Having a limited number of participants (in the case of the HK Summit, it was 500 people), helped create a much more personal and intimate feel. With a few small changes in the agenda, I probably would have been able to meet and speak to pretty much every single person at the Summit. How often can you say that about a conference?

For example, Alex (my husband) and I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Kelley at the banquet dinner, and he was amazed at how close our community of learners is, given that we are spread out throughout the region. Personally, I was on a little bit of a geeked-out high because I knew someone (or a few someones) at almost every table. It was like a geeky international school teacher reunion for me!

Shared Vision

Limiting the number of participants, and sending out direct invitations, also helped create an environment where most (if not all) of the attendees shared the same vision for education. Therefore, the purpose of our coming together was not so much to learn what has changed, or decide what we think, but more what we can do about it.

We came approaching these ideas presented from the same perspective and the Summit was about how we can continue to move forward, not just about taking the first step. Talk about an important opportunity to network! These are clearly the people that will lead the charge in international schools to change our educational system.

Stimulating Content

Having focused content, with a smaller group of people who shared a similar vision for education, directly influenced the level of information shared. No need to focus on introducing the changes the 21st century has brought to society, time wasn’t wasted convincing the participants that technology is crucial to learning, no one needed to be convinced that education needs to change to meet the demands of today’s learner and today’s society. Not that I don’t enjoy hearing all those things explained, helping reinforce my own ideas and clarify my thinking. But, I much prefer to have my thinking pushed to a new level, to hear new ideas that build on my current understandings, and to interact with others who are at a similar place in their learning.

Location, Location, Location

One of the most subtle, yet powerful, ways that the Summit was successful was the choice of location: Canadian International School of Hong Kong. This school exemplifies everything that the Summit was about. From the staff training room, to the 1:1 Apple laptop program, to the prominent signage, to their Year of Information Literacy focus, CDNIS clearly demonstrated a school that shares and practices a 21st century vision for education.

Every time I turned a corner (or hiked up another flight of stairs), I saw evidence of inquiry-based learning, the IB PYP, MYP and DP in action, 1:1 learning, and most importantly: a clear, visible, tangible, achievable vision for the school being implemented every day. A vision that represents the most important aspects of the Hong Kong summit in action. This is what we need to see from a conference: what the ideas look like in practice.

Final Thoughts

So, once again, Apple hits a home run. (Oh, did I mention the conference itself was free?) I hope it becomes an annual event!

In your opinion, what are the factors that make a conference worth the effort, time and expense?

Last week Tara, Jeff and I had our second opportunity of the year to organize and facilitate an elementary faculty meeting. We absolutely love having this dedicated time with our colleagues to help build a deeper understanding of 21st century literacy at ISB and to share practical examples of authentic use of technology here in our elementary classrooms.

As always, our goal was to continue building a collaborative community, to develop connections among faculty at different grade levels, and to allow teachers to have time to network and share ideas. Thanks to @FrznGuru (Rebecca), we had a great way to structure that experience: SpeedGeeking!

Basically, SpeedGeeking is just like Speed Dating – a way to quickly introduce people to a wide variety of new ideas in a short amount of time. Since we have a large faculty – over 70 teachers – we knew this would have to be a very organized and structured experience, otherwise it would drift into chaos.

We decided to have 12 four-minute SpeedGeeking sessions split into 2 groups (one group has six sessions, the other group has the other six sessions). This way, we could make the most of our limited time, enable as many teachers to share their successful experiences as possible, keep the group sizes limited, and ensure that not every teacher saw the exact same sessions (so they are encouraged to keep talking about what they saw after the meeting).

We also made sure that we organized the SpeedGeeking groups in advance, so they could move from table to table together and were mixed between two different grade levels. This way we had half of one grade level viewing one set of SpeedGeeking sessions and the other half viewing the other set (to encourage further conversation). We were careful to match up the sessions on each side so that each group had a session on podcasting, portfolios, VoiceThread, SmartBoards, and 2 sessions on our ETC wrap-up.

As usual, we posted our agenda online (and e-mailed the link the day before) so that teachers could know what to expect before arriving, and so that all of the work that was shared in the sessions could be accessed at any point before or after the meeting (if available online).

In order to create a positive environment, we started the meeting off with this quote:

Unfortunately, we actually lost power due to a major storm right before the meeting so we weren’t able to project the image. Thankfully, everyone had their laptops, so they could follow along with us via the agenda.

Next we transitioned into our SpeedGeeking experience. We had two large rectangles made up of 6 tables each on either side of the room. Each table was numbered and had a specific group of teachers (linked on the agenda) selected to start there. Once one 4-minute SpeedGeeking session was finished, the group of teachers seated together at their first table moved together to the next numbered table in line.

Here’s what each SpeedGeeking session was about:

Circle One:
1. Chrissy: ePortfolios using VoiceThread
2. Siri: SmartBoards
3. EARCOS: Diane
4. EARCOS: Peach
5. Susi: Class Wiki
6. Robin & Ali: Robin’s Class Blog,Ali’s Class Blog, (planning document, Podcasting Power)

Circle Two:
1. Brian: SmartFolios
2. EARCOS: Mary
3. Vince: GarageBand
4. Rebecca: Sprouting Seeds VoiceThread
5. James: Class Wiki
6. EARCOS: Jim

We used Jeff’s iPhone timer to clock each session and had a cute cow-bell sound to signify the end of each session (found on Free Sound, my new favorite place for Creative Commons licensed sounds). Thankfully my laptop was fully charged and Jeff had his laptop-powered speakers so we basically did the whole 30 minute SpeedGeeking session in the dark!

Once we finished SpeedGeeking, we asked teachers to discuss at their tables anything that sparked their interest for about 3 minutes, and then had tables share back to the larger group (if they wanted to).

The buzz in the room was amazing! Teachers were visibly excited and energized by the discussion and it was obvious that everyone found at least one thing that sparked their interest in the 30-minute session.

Finally, we wanted to end on a light-hearted note, and thankfully the power came back on just in time, so we watched the video Everything is Amazing, Nobody’s Happy (sorry, embedding is disabled, you’ll have to click on the link to watch). Of course, the video was a hit.

When we ended the meeting, I was encouraged to see just how many teachers stayed afterward discussing the ideas they had heard, asked us for assistance in trying something new, or just stopped by to say how successful the meeting had been.

This is the second time we’ve organized a sharing meeting like this for our faculty, and although both have gone well, this one was the better by far! Here’s why I liked it:

• Because we had so many groups, we were able to highlight so many teachers – we made sure to have some specialists present, as well as some teachers who had never worked with technology in their classroom before this year.
• We enabled teachers to interact with others outside of their grade level. It’s amazing how rarely teachers get the opportunity to just talk with teachers outside of their team.
• We focused on the positive, on the commonalities among our colleagues, on the successes that we all have in our classrooms every day. Sure, we can all be doing things better, but that doesn’t mean that amazing things aren’t happening already.
• We empowered others who are not normally highlighted and we helped build networks and infrastructure for supporting teachers who may need assistance.
• We laughed, a lot, together. How often can you say that about a faculty meeting?

And, what I loved the most about this meeting is that I never, ever could have organized it by myself. It was the power of the team: Jeff, Tara and Kim, that made this meeting so successful. Without Tara, we could have forgotten how important it is to make people feel comfortable, supported and appreciated. Without Jeff, we could have forgotten about the fun and the levity and the big picture. Without me, it might not have been quite so organized and smooth. Man, I love my team!

How have you helped share successes in your school? What should we do for our next faculty meeting (assuming we’ll be asked to organize another one in the future)?

Teaching is Not Rocket Science by shareski

After having the pleasure of teaching the first course in our 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy, I’m now participating in the second course as a student. I’m really interested (and excited) to see what this course looks like from the “other side of the room.” I think it will give me a better understanding of what participants are looking for, and will hopefully open my eyes to improved teaching and learning strategies for adults.

It’s been around two years since I’ve taken a graduate course, and my last one was taught by two of my absolutely favorite instructors, Bill and Ochan Powell, so it will be very interesting to see how our style compares to classes I remember being so beneficial and productive (and by “our,” I mean all of the CoETaIL teachers, since we planned the 5-course certificate program together).

This second course is led by Jeff and Chad and focuses on issues and problems in 21st century learning (digital citizenship, digital footprints, safety, privacy, etc). In retrospect, it’s actually perfect that we have this course second, because these were the issues that were really coming to the forefront of our discussions at the end of the first course. It will be good to spend an entire 6 weeks discussing the challenges we all face with technology and learning.

Each week, course participants are asked to write one blog post about our essential question of the week. Since I’m late (as usual) with this post, it’s been fantastic to read some of the other participants’ thoughts on the topic and I’ve shared quite a few within Google Reader. This week’s prompt is:

When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

This quote from Seth Godin, perfectly and Zen-tastically represented here by Michael Marlatt, sums up my thoughts about digital footprints in general:

As Silvia stated in her presentation (about backchannel chats in the classroom), having a digital footprint is a good thing! You are in charge of your presence on the web – it’s up to you to make it what you want it to be. Presenting yourself as yourself, sharing your thoughts, developing deeper understandings about your professional learning, is what your digital footprint should (and can) be about. Learning and professionalism online is now viewed with the mindset of: you are what you share.

Your digital profile should be a representation of who you are, with the knowledge that you are responsible for that representation. If you choose to use rude language, post angry or consistently negative statements, continually share information that is a little too personal (I consider “too personal” to be anything I wouldn’t tell my employer), your digital footprint will represent that side of you.

It’s certainly worth your energy to think about the way you represent yourself – because your next employer will most likely start with a quick Google search to determine who you are… I know I want those search results to be something I expect, value, and would like to share with a larger audience (and specifically prospective employers).

All of our students must have the opportunity to truly understand this new digital landscape. The stories of students getting rejected from university due to their Facebook profiles, or people losing their jobs due to quick and thoughtless tweets are scary, sure, but do students really understand how this will directly impact their lives? I know at least one teacher in the international school circuit that was fired for posting inappropriate material on one of their web sites. I know I don’t want that to be me!

So, have you decided? Who do you want your “digital me” to be?

Once again, I must admit that I feel quite lucky to be working at the elementary level. As much as I enjoy working with middle school students and teachers, I am realizing more and more that elementary is the place to instill good habits with technology.

Students are much more open to advice and suggestions from their teachers, parents are much more involved in their child’s schooling, and the elementary classroom is usually the place where students are learning to learn with these new tools for the first time. This is the time to instill safe habits.

By middle and high school, it may be too late. Students have already formed their opinions, habits are already in place, and they definitely are a lot less interested in discussing their online life with their teachers (and parents) than they would be in elementary school.

With that in mind, it’s equally important that elementary teachers are comfortable and confident discussing these kinds of issues with their students. We’ve recently had an epidemic of inappropriate (student-produced) material (nothing too serious, but also nothing we can condone at the school) being housed on the server accounts of elementary students.

When my principal asked what we can do about this, my first piece of advice was to have our students physically sign our Elementary School Acceptable Use Policy (if they don’t sign it, there’s no guarantee that they – or their parents – have even seen it) along with an in-depth discussion about appropriate online behavior in every classroom in our elementary school at the beginning of the school year.

To actually do this, we need every teacher to understand the implications of the AUP and to feel comfortable enough discussing it with their class. This is no small task.

Hosting appropriate files on the school’s server is an excellent, somewhat safer, learning experience for students to truly understand the impact of their digital footprint. If they are creating and saving inappropriate material on their school account, what are they doing online? And who’s watching them there?

When do you begin talking with students about their digital footprint?

The Age of Candid Camera image courtesy of Michael Marlatt
Silvia Tolisano image courtesy of Teaching Sagittarian (but I believe, taken by me!)

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

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

The 21st Century Learner

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

The 21st Century Educator

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

The 21st Century Classroom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But here are the problems:

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

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

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

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

What do you think?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson One:

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

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

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

Lesson Two:

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

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

Lesson 3:

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 4:

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

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

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

Lesson 5:

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

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

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

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

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

Our next steps:

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

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

Mac Youngin by shapeshift
Playing on the Computer by fd

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

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

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

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

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

General Feedback:

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

What we liked:

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

What we learned:

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

Our wonderings:

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

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

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

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

Candy Jars by uBookworm