always learning

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!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such a simple tool, with such a powerful impact!

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

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

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

Here are the instructions:

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

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

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

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

From November 29th:

From December 10th:

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

Reaction:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using Wordle in the Classroom:

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

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

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

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

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

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

After the success of our last K12Online LAN party, we have another one coming up this week! If you are in town, or even if you’re not, we would love to have you join us!

Our teachers absolutely loved experiencing the power of global connections firsthand. As Diane said to me last week, as often as we hear about the potential of these tools, it’s hard to truly understand until you experience them for yourself. So, if you have a few minutes to connect with us, we would absolutely love to connect with you!

Here are the details:

Dear Fabulous Colleagues,

We had a fantastic time learning together last weekend at our very first K12Online LAN party! Not only did we watch 2 excellent presentations and share some inspiring ideas, but we also had a lively discussion with another amazing educator, Silvia Tolisano in Florida via Skype. Check out a few pictures.

We found the event so worthwhile that we are planning to continue these casual sessions on a regular basis. Of course, we would love to have even more of our wonderful colleagues there as well!

Our next party will be on Thursday, November 20th from 3:30 – 5:30 (check your time here), with a plan to head to the River Tree House afterwards for a delicious dinner.

What: A mind-bending, inspiring, and energizing conversation about new teaching and learning practices based on a variety of K12Online presentations
When: Thursday, November November 20th from 3:30 – 5:30
Where: ISB Teacher Housing, Nichada Thani
Why: to get geeked! And to enjoy being among a community of learners so enthusiastic and excited about using new tools!

Please feel free to pass on this invite to any other teachers you know in the Bangkok area.

Please let us know if you’re planning on coming so we can prepare

We hope to see you there!

I’ve been thinking a lot about professional development lately, especially about its critical role in shifting a school or shifting a community of teachers within a school, and then sustaining that change.

I’m thinking about how to support the vastly different needs of my colleagues across the school, but also to build in opportunities for connection, collaboration and communication across, between and among all of those different teachers. I’m thinking about professional development as a self-sustaining opportunity for learning – based on individual need and interest, but also allowing for cross-pollination of ideas and experience. I’m thinking about modeling professional development after my experiences with a personal learning network.

There are two models of professional development I’ve been delivering throughout my career, individual and whole school:

Individual PD

This is the type of support I offer on a daily basis:

• Working one-on-one with teachers who are ready and willing to co-plan, co-teach, and co-assess units of inquiry in their classroom.
• Setting up one-on-one meetings with teachers to help them learn new tools, or figure out how to work best with the ones they already have.
• Casual conversations in the hallway that turn into inspirations for ideas to use in the classroom.
• After school technology support for tasks that have to be done, but could be made even easier through the use of technology.

This model of support helps deepen learning by providing enough time on a regular basis, grounded in curricular needs, to build individual understanding.

Although this is great way to support an individual teacher’s personal professional development, it can sometimes feel very disjointed. Having enough time to work with all of the different individuals in one school can be challenging, and/or discussing the same ideas with several different people or not being able to cross pollinate ideas because it’s always a “private” discussion can be isolating.

School Wide PD

This is the traditional model of PD we’re all used to:

• Whole-school or divisional presentations where a message is mass-marketed and delivered in one session (or if you’re lucky one or two day workshops).
• When you bring in expert voices to build enthusiasm, share ideas from the “outside world” and kick start a new initiative or support a teaching and learning goal.
• Sending a group of teachers to a conference and expecting them to share their new learning with the rest of the school when they return to campus.

As valuable as these experiences are, they are often a “one off”- offered once and never heard from again.

Keeping both of these models in mind, I’m thinking that there might be a place for something in-between. Something that taps into the power of community, but also supports the individual.

Group PD

This is, I think, the next step to building a community of learners in an institution, and one that can be especially enhanced by new web 2.0 tools like social networking. I feel like I’m at the verge of understanding how to help facilitate this experience, but I’m just figuring things out as I go.

During yesterday’s K12Online LAN party with Heather, Sara, Ali, Chrissy, Silvia (via Skype), Diane, Susan and Joanie, here in my apartment, we discussed how empowering it was to be with a cross divisional group (elementary and middle schools represented) where we could all share ideas, ask questions and receive needed support. It felt like something more than just the one-on-one meetings where the ideas are limited to just the two brains in the room.

Being able to tap into a diverse group of experiences, knowledge and imagination means that we can learn even more, and everyone feels both needed and supported. We’ve already agreed to have another LAN party because this one was so useful! There goes that feeling of being a one-off. That’s the energy and enthusiasm I would like to tap into, and to spread throughout the school.

We also talked about adding an online component to our group – to help facilitate discussion, share ideas and inspiration, and to provide a repository for information. We talked about setting up a Ning so we could encourage outside educators to join to help continue and expand our discussions (just like Julie is doing in Qatar). Plus this would give us the added advantage of having a welcoming space to demonstrate what we’re doing to other interested colleagues across the school.

We want to make the group open to any and all that are interested, centered around a common purpose. We want to tap into each individual’s desire to learn, but also their desire to be part of a group, to be supported and to be needed.

I just watched Seth Godin give a talk about his recent book, Tribes (thanks to @roybot for the link), and one of his points was that it is human nature to want to belong to a group and to be identified as a member of that group. If there are groups of people at your school who want to learn about technology, why not create that group? Why not help facilitate a place/time/space for coming together and learning together?

This is all going to be an opt-in experience – only the people that are interested will join, but I honestly can’t wait to see how far we can go when we’re all working together.

Just being able to have a number of people (perhaps shifting and changing over time) to look to for support and inspiration makes it feel more sustainable (no longer reliant on the individual PD model). Plus, knowing that a group can continue to exist beyond the tenure of specific individuals at a specific school means that PD will be “just in time” whenever it’s needed, instead of a “one-off” experience. Finally, spending regular time communicating and connecting, and knowing that only those that are truly interested will invest their time means that the learning will be deeper than your standard afternoon session of PD.

We’re only just getting started, but I have that positive feeling, those excited butterflies in my stomach, that there is something to this idea. That, especially in conjunction with the other two types of PD we regularly experience, this could add a whole new dimension to our professional learning and that it could be just what we need to shift our school.

What do you think? Have you had any experience with this kind of PD? What are the critical factors to think about while we’re in the begining stages?

Inspired by Silvia, Johnathan and Simon, Chrissy and I will be hosting a K12 Online LAN (local area network) party this Saturday morning at my apartment in downtown Bangkok. Unfortunately we’re a little late getting started because of the way our October break fell on the school calendar this year, but we are no less enthusiastic!

Already we have some of my amazing colleagues joining us: Heather, Sara, Ali, Tara, and of course Chrissy and I. I was fortunate to also attend a meeting of Bangkok international school librarians yesterday afternoon and hope to see a few of those familiar faces Saturday morning. I wish I knew more of my fellow teachers here in the city – given that there are over 90 international schools in Thailand, I would guess that we have a captive audience. It’s just a matter of getting the word out!

So, earlier this week, I sent around the following e-mail to all of my colleagues at ISB and to as many fellow international school teachers as I know here in Thailand:

Dear Fabulous Colleagues,

As some of you may know, there is an amazing (and totally free) conference happening online right now! It’s called the K12Online conference and it features digital presentations (videos, podcasts, wikis, VoiceThreads) by some of the leading minds in 21st century learning.

Topics range from project-based learning, to using video conferencing in the classroom, to connecting students through global projects, to dealing with the rapid pace of technological change as a classroom teacher, and more.

All of these presentations are described and posted online at the conference website: http://k12onlineconference.org/

But wait, there’s more!

Chrissy Hellyer (grade 5 teacher) and I would like to invite you to a K12Online Local Area Network pot-luck brunch party on Saturday, November 8th from 10:00 – noon to watch the best of the best presentations and discuss how we can use these new ideas in our teaching.
What: A mind-bending, inspiring, and energizing conversation about new teaching and learning practices based on a variety of K12Online presentations
When: Saturday November 8th from 10:00 am – noon (and now you’re already downtown for a day of shopping and dining in the city!)
Where: Kim’s apartment, downtown Bangkok
Why: to get geeked! And to enjoy a delicious pot-luck brunch!

I will download all of the presentations so that we can watch as many as we want and everyone can walk away with all of the presentations to watch when you have time.

We would also love to open this up to other international school teachers here in Bnagkok, so if you know any other teachers that might be interested in attending, please pass it on!

Please let us know if you’re planning on coming so we can prepare

Kim and Chrissy

So if you’re teaching here in Bangkok, or just happen to be in the city (it’s amazing how many people come through Bangkok on a regular basis), or even if you’re not, we would absolutely love to have you join us – either in person or via Skype!

Anyone have any suggestions for how to host this kind of party? I barely even have any wall space to project the presentations on to… I definitely need to start thinking logistics!