The Venturous Edge

My 2008 Edublogs Awards nomination for best resource sharing blog is Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day.

David Warlick is working to begin each presentation with something he has learned in the last 24 hours, because above being a teacher, he is a learner.  We are struggling to redefine teaching.  The 21st century teacher is a master learner.

This presentation has handouts at http://davidwarlick.com/handouts

David is telling us how his personal learning network started in 2004.  He realized after reading a couple of other blogs that a blog was not effective as a one way conversation.  He began reading blogs based on comments from other people’s blogs.  Then became aware that this had become his personal learning network (George Siemens, “Connectivism”).

“What is the difference between a social network and social networking?”

David set up a wiki that asked this question, then used the responses to build the presentation

Arturo Guajardo, Austin ISD

Presentation will be posted at http://www.eduese.com

Title comes from the belief that technology can transform ESL instruction.  Arturo works closely with teachers who teach ESL students.  Goal is to present tools for ESL teachers.  Based on research on Common Principles & Strategies for ESL Instruction.

Background knowledge, Academic Language, Sense of Self are the three ESL strategies that he believes have the most connection to ESL instruction.

Background Knowledge:  ELLs will learn new content and language when it is built on what they already know.

LaDonna Conner and Amy Bramhall-Carrolton-Farmers Branch ISD

Presentation will be posted at http://www.beyond4walls.org

Podcasting and iPods int he ESL/Bilingual classroom

How I Learned English:  55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life (National Geographic Books)

Teacher in CFBISD says, “When I tell them it’s going to be podcast, they practice more than when I have them say it to me.”

20 point difference in test scores in one class.

Two students had failed every benchmark in math.  Gave each student a video iPod frontloaded with Unitedstreaming videos as well as Photostory with the math SEs…both passed TAKS the following year, and one student was 2 points from commended.  Was not the only intervention, but it made a difference. 

Sheryl first commented on how much technology has changed even in the year since she was here at Tech Forum SW 07.

She used the Cisco clip “Welcome to the Human Network” as the theme for the keynote.  “We drag and drop people wherever they want to go’.

Are we ready for 21st century learning?  We are 8 years into it.  She is the 3rd year of a Microsoft Partners In Learning grant in Alabama.  Sheryl picked 10 of their best schools…went looking for “where they are” getting ready to begin the 4th year of the grant.  She found the teacher excited and using the technology.  The kids, not so much…they were still watching, not participating.

Sheryl talked to the kids, and asked these 2 questions:

• What teacher stood out to you, and what was the lesson you walked away knowing you had really learned?
  • Teachers with passion
  • Teachers with competency
  • Teachers who allowed students personal choice.
  • Teachers who care.
• What is the worst teacher, lesson, experience in your learning?
  • Teachers who give nothing but notes
  • Quotes to Sheryl from students:
    • “I’m a teenager…I don’t like to read…if you give me 20 pages of notes, I’m going to skim it, plug in the words, not learn it.”
    • “I want lessons with purpose so I can retain it.”
    • From a 4th grader: “You know the word teacher, it has the word ‘teach’ in it”.

Participatory Culture-Henry Jenkins

1. Relatively low barriers for engagement
2. Strong support for sharing creations with others
3. Informal mentorship
4. Members believe their contributions matter.
5. Care about others’ opinions of self & work.

2 years ago…were kids producers of content?

Clay Shirky…Here Comes Everybody: Four stages to mastering the connected world:

• sharing,
• cooperating,
• collaborating, and
• collective action.

The magic happens when the kids collaborate.  Students publish their work and even share with other groups, but what happens when someone from around the world comments on their work?  We have then moved from cooperation to collaboration.

Trend 1-Social and intellectual capital are the new economic values in the world economy.

If we are going to prepare kids for their “right now”, we must make these shifts.  Are we teaching kids to be good digital citizens–to use the tools they are already using responsibly?

Moving from mandated accountability to mutual accountability:

“By the year 2011 80% of all Fortune 500 companies will be using immersive worlds” –Gartner Vice President Jackie Fenn

“Learning to be creates passion.” –Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

“Schools are only one node on the network of learning.” –Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

When we were in school, learning stopped an started at the schoolhouse door…today, learning can take place any place and anywhere.  We have done a great job of preparing kids for the present…the rules have not been created yet for preparing them for the future.

Sheryl shared the following example of true collective action:

Laura Stockman-share, connect, collaborate, collective action.  Laura was a 10 year old who created a blog when her grandfather died called 25 days to make a difference.  She wanted to do and record 25 days of good deeds.     It became an international project, and is still ongoing, almost 2 years later.  WOW!!!!!

Types of communities:

• place
• memory
• interest or passion

Personal Learning Networks

Community–in and out of the classroom

Are you “clickable”-Are your students?

Moving from classroom metaphor to community metaphor.

“They come to you with a chip in their head anyway!”  Tony Wagner-The Global Achievement

Learning Ecology:  http:/www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

The tools are not the point…becoming a participatory culture using the tools is the point.

In the I knew this, but it really hit me when she said it department:

“We are the last generation of teachers who have the choice whether or not to embrace technology.”

Lance is a dynamic speaker, and so excited about what he is doing with his students, that you can’t help catching his excitement! Many of the tools he discussed I was already aware of…this is not intended as a negative comment, because there were many people in the audience for whom they were new, so it was great that he talked about them.

Tools discussed:
GCast, Skype, iChatAV, Marratech

More on Marratech–purchased 6 months ago by Google, so could really take off. Client is free. Ability for h.264; Can connect to h.323 units, but needs the server-side software.

He is looking for collaborative partners for classroom VC opportunities.

Lance quote: “When you get the vision of what you want, don’t limit yourself to technology grants. ” They used a historical building grant to gut and remodel their school.

Alan started with a fun story:

In 1990, 28% of students who had graduated from college lived with their parents
Last reports show that 69% of students who had graduated from college now live with their parents
Since most of these kids are the offspring of Baby Boomers, this leads to the conclusion that should be called “Boomerangs”.

Alan was at the school claiming to be the #1 school in the country in getting their students into Ivy League schools. He asked to meet with the top 25 of these students. Here is the discussion:

Question: “Do you ever ask yourself what just happened…what was just taught…in your classroom?”

Answer: “Yes, in every class with every teacher.”

Question: “Do you ask for extra help?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “What do you do?”

Answer: “We work together on the weekend, figure out what each one knows, and helps each other catch up.”

Educators must learn that kids are social by nature.

Lots of kids are walking out of our classrooms every day needing extra help. We HAVE to pay attention to the social way they learn. We must teach children to have a global voice…there is authentic audience around the world.

When students lived on farms and helped their parents on farms, they all had jobs. They were contributing to their community. Psychologically, there is a need to contribute to community. Students need to have “jobs” again, and Alan suggests the following:

Seven jobs for kids (keep in mind, not every child does every job):1. Curriculum review team: students produce content that benefits all and creates a review for all

2. Tutorial design team: Nothing better than kids creating help for other kids.
Alan showed a screencast of “Bob and Paul”, 12 year olds who create tutorials
Suggestion: Every kid on this tutorial design team creates a DVD, mp3, or podcast for other students

3. Official Scribe: have students work together to make meaning of their class work.
“We do not have a culture that values the success of the group over the work of the individual.”
Suggestion: Google Docs allows students from anywhere to revise docs/presentations. Teacher can view revisions and see which students contributed, the flow of the revisions, and how learning takes place.
Perspective…most of our resources are from the American point of view. Example…read about the American Revolution from the British point of view…search “host: ac.uk (academic in Britain) ‘General Gage’” (ac is academic content, uk is British country code)

4. Global communication team:
Suggestions: Find 3 schools in England who are studying the American Revolution who will debate us; Record and create a podcast for iTunes and the teacher’s blog site

Alan’s four rules for designing an assignment:

• authentic audience
• archive (iTunes, blog, etc.) because you want people to comment for a very long time (past the grade).
• assessment is moved across the web…teams of teachers across the web assessing each other’s classes.
• collaborate whenever possible…who “on the planet” can add value to your assignment (local police, other classes across the world, grandmother network, etc.)

5. Official researcher: answer questions by going to the web, continuously, all class long. All resources go into the class search engine.

6. Legacy team: these students do whatever it takes to bring added value to the lesson

7. Resource Builder: this job is for the whole class, as well as other teachers, classes, etc.
Suggestion: Google custom search: google.com–>more–>even more. 100 people can build a search engine together, anywhere in the world! Contribute all the resources they find to one search engine. The person who started it can see exactly who contributed.

This year the Region 16 ESC Instructional Technology team (Debbie, Jennifer, and Heather) along with Mindy, our Career and Technology consultant who attended with us this year, created a wiki to record our experiences at the 2008 TCEA conference. Each of us attended separate sessions and updated our own individual pages on the wiki. Rather than double-post, here is a link to the wiki: http://esc16weblearning5.pbwiki.com/.

My daughter came home from school saying her homework was to visit a website called freerice.com.
I watched as she did, and I was very impressed with this site.

Participants are given a vocabulary word with four possible definitions. If they click on the correct definition, they have just donated 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

Very cool, and rather addictive, too! Check it out!

Participating in a workshop–$0

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in a digital storytelling workshop presented at Region 16 ESC where I work as an Instructional Technology Specialist. I had invited David Jakes back to present 2 two-day sessions for secondary language arts teachers, but I wanted in on the fun, too.

The first time Dave came to Amarillo, he presented one-day sessions, and we created Mastercard type commercials about a personal story…you know the ones I mean…priceless. It was fun and a great introduction to digital storytelling, and it gave me just enough of a taste to want more. I wanted to really experience the whole process.

During the introductions for the workshop, we were asked why we had come. My answer, besides the fact that I was the facilitator for the workshop, was that I thought the process would be good for my 11-year-old daughter, Brynne. She loves to write, she is very creative, and she faces some challenges that the process might help her think through. I’d seen some of the examples Dave had shown of student work, and I believe that the voice this process gives to students is amazing.

Writing your first digital story–$0

When I began my own story, I had no idea what the topic would be, but I wanted to keep it light. I had plenty of cute kid stories from my two daughters and things they had said or done over the years. Which one would it be? Oh, yeah…the birthmark story. That was a funny one involving Brynne. Well, at least it started out funny…

After writing the narrative, we were challenged to “find the story within the story”. I was having a difficult time writing an ending to my narrative, and I asked Dave to read it. As soon as he looked up from reading, before he had a chance to respond, tears welled up and I blurted out, “You know, what I really want [my daughter, Brynne] to understand is that I’m always there for her.” So much for keeping it light. Dave said, “That’s your story…”

That was the turning point. The writing, storyboarding, finding images and music, etc., all took on new meaning for me then. I needed to tell this story…it was something I needed to share with her…writing about it became a cathartic experience for me.

Showing it to your kids–$0

When I got home after the last day of the workshop, both of my daughters asked how my day had been, and what I had done…very unusual for tweens and teens in the first place, as every parent knows. I told them briefly about the past four days, and that I had created a digital story.

They both asked if they could see it. Wow…I wasn’t sure if I was ready! I hoped it would open up communication with Brynne, but I was nervous about showing it to her, especially with her sister Berkeley watching as well. Deciding to take the chance while the door had been opened, I set up my computer on the kitchen island, and while it was booting I told Brynne I wanted to talk to her first.

“I want you to know that this story is about our relationship, and there are some things in it that may be difficult for you to see and hear. It is important to me that you see it, though. We can talk about any of it you want to after we watch it.”

“OK, Mom.”

So with Brynne leaning against me on the kitchen barstool, as close to sitting on my lap as a tall, lanky 11-year-old can get, and with my 13-year old daughter, Berkeley, standing behind us both, looking over my shoulder, we watched:

After it was over, Berkeley said something like “That’s cool, Mom” and left for her room.

Brynne, however, who hadn’t made a peep during the video, said “Let’s watch it again.” She clicked play and kept her hand on the mouse. We watched until after a particular point in the story when she clicked pause and said, “What did that word mean?” I answered, and she clicked play again.

This was repeated several times: pause, “What did you mean by that?”, answer, play; pause, “Why did you say that?”, answer, play.

She made no responses to any of my answers, just clicked play. I was sweating bullets by the end of the video, because her back was to me and I couldn’t see her face. After what seemed an eternity but was probably actually only about 10 minutes, it was finally over, and I said, “So, how does that make you feel?”

She turned around and looked at me with an ear-to-ear grin, “Happy, Mom…really, really happy!” and gave me a bone-crushing bear hug.

But wait…that’s not the end of the story…

Making a breakthrough…PRICELESS

Before I go on, I have to explain that one of the challenges we face with Brynne is what my husband calls her outer locus of control. The Wikipedia reference I’ve given here as well as many others online define outer locus of control as a person blaming their failures on luck instead of recognizing their own ability to control situations. In Brynne’s case it has less to do with luck than with other people or circumstances. She is NEVER responsible for anything bad that happens to her.

Now, back to the story:

“I want to make a digital story, Mom!”
“OK, I’ll help you!”

We opened the word processor on my laptop, and I gave her the list of writing prompts Dave had given us in the workshop. When she got to the one that said, “If I had to do it over again…”, she said, “This is the one I want to use, but I want to call it ‘If I could go back in time and change just one thing’.

She then proceeded to tell me a story about an argument she and her sister had gotten into last summer. Apparently, it went beyond words to physical, and her sister hit her. She then punched her sister in the nose and made it bleed! They thought Berkeley’s nose had been broken! (At this point, I’m not sure whether to thank God they kept it from me, or whether I need to quit my job to stay home with them in the summers when school is out!)

I tried to stay calm, and I said, “OK, Brynne, what would you change about that day?”

She said, “Well, there are several things I could have done. I could have walked out of the room when I got mad instead of arguing. I could have let Berkeley have her way. I could have talked calmly instead of yelling and hitting Berkeley. I can’t even remember what the fight was about, but nothing was so important that I should have done what I did.”

Dumbfounded, I stood there thinking, “Am I really hearing this? Is Brynne accepting responsibility for her actions? Have aliens abducted my child, and what have they done with my daughter?” Seriously, though…I didn’t know how to react!

When I finally could speak, I said, “Brynne that would be a great story…let’s get started. By the way, I am so proud of you for telling me about this and for recognizing the responsible thing to do. Thanks!”

We have started the story, but we haven’t finished it. Vacations, church camp, and life have gotten in the way. But the important thing is that the lines of communication have been opened.