the third rail

I had the privilege of co presenting a session last weekend at annual OC CUE TechFest with my good friend Chris Bell.
Aside from the great presentations, learning, and networking, the keynote really struck a cord with me.

Mike Lawrence got me fired up about trying the Student Media Festival this year, and Mary Anne McGuire was inspiring with her story of Rock Our World (looking into Walk our World as well, the kids can multi-task right?) was also motivating to get out and try something new, do something different and exciting.

But what is still rattling around in my head is one thing Mary Anne McGuire said….

“The teachers lounge is where ideas die.”

I know this was not the intention of the key note. And it sounds a lot worse in isolation, she was telling the story of how excited she was when she first started her project. How she hesitated to share it with her colleagues in the staff lounge because so often that is where great ideas die.

Against better judgment, she did share it with her fellow teachers and got the expected response. Our story has a happy ending because she did not let them discourage her, she continued on her own and has had great success for her and her students.

But I completely identified with her at this point of her story. Too often the lounge is a place where you don’t share your ideas because, as long as they are just your ideas, they are alive but when you share them out so often they die a painful, albeit quick, death.

So what are the choices?

Don’t go to the lounge? That leaves you working in isolation and probably the rest of the staff thinking how anti social you are.

Go it alone and just don’t tell anybody about your ideas? This is what I have been trying to do for a while and it is not the most rewarding way to go, a teacher needs to share success and failures.

Share with only a few teachers that you can trust? Unfortunately, this leads to an “us against them” attitude all too often.

How do you keep your dreams and ideas alive and healthy?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougcoulter/3873606804/sizes/m/

I have seen the light…sort of. As far as IWB’s are concerned I have learned much since the last post.

The software created by Promethean is amazing and can truly help create interactive lessons. Lessons can be created to self check and practice accurately. Also, lessons can created that are are very engaging and target specific skills. Creating these lessons does take a bit of time however, even when you get pretty good with the tools. That isn’t meant as a negative thing ~ good lessons always take some time; I’m just saying.

The secret is creating these types of lessons. IWB’s are (at their core) really cool whiteboards, not so much interactive though. It is still very teacher lead and only a handful of students are able to be active learners at any one time or in any new or revolutionary way. However (this is the good stuff) if there was a way to PUSH the lessons created using Promethean software out to the students THEN you would have some interactivity! This means tablets of some sort, and Promethean viewer software which is not around yet, but they do have a basic version.

Of course this limits the need for IWB’s but would be great for engagement and learning. What if a teacher created a lesson for the IWB and then EVERY student were able to practice and self check for understanding? Now THAT is interactive and revolutionary learning. I am looking into the latest version of software which allows students to self pace and respond entirely through the handhelds, more on that next time!

We recently got Interactive White Boards (IWB’s) in my district and they are pretty nifty. They came complete with student response systems (SRS or clickers), distributed sound system,  and a document camera.  All in all pretty great.

After using the board for a couple of months this is what I have noticed so far:

~ I’m still doing most of the talking. Just like having the LCD projector hooked up to my computer and going through presentations with them or looking at web pages.

~ The kids like to drag words to sort them and do activities of that nature but it takes FOREVER!! I think they will get better/faster in time but it is killing my plans now.

~ The kids love to write on the board. Of course my students have always had markers in their desk to come up and write on the board before so this is nothing new.

~ They love using the “clickers” and it is a good informal polling of the students, how many “get it”  I really should save the results so I can find out which individuals answered what but I’m not there yet. The downside is only being able to use multiple choice questions at this point. Good for drills but not really higher level thinking. When my students are a little older or better at using the response pads that may change..we’ll see.

~ Students are already tuning out. It was shocking for me the first time a student asked “Do we have too (use the clickers)?” But I have been seeing it more often. As well as tuning out when we use the IWB. It is important to note that no matter what technology you have it will not replace classroom management and good, engaging teaching.

And that is my point. IWB’s are great in many ways and can be used in engaging ways. But then so can LCD projectors and hand held whiteboards. Or even construction paper.

My friend posted that she needed convincing that IWB’s were the panacea that they are being hyped as. I don’t think I can help that one as I still need to be convinced. What I am worried about is it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage students. Lighting up the whiteboard isn’t necessarily doing it. Nor clickers.

Tolerance -”a resistance to the effects of … after repeated exposure” Are the kids developing a tolerance to technology the way we are currently using it? Would it make more sense to back off spending money on technology purchases and spend it on developing teachers with solid skill sets THEN give them the tech tools? Or see what tools they want to use?

No matter which side of the health care debate you are on, the town hall meetings have been interesting to say the least. What I have noticed more than anything is the apparent inability of our “leaders” to deal with us common folk. Seriously, in some of the meetings our representatives have been astonished that people will not bow down to them. Or listen to them and pay them respect~ just because they are congressmen, and it has come as a surprise to many.

Arlen Specter faces fury

I think this is so interesting because I can see connections to our educational system. There are many teachers/admins/district personnel /superintendents out there in the same position as our congressmen. While they have undoubtedly heard about the how flat the world is and how web 2.0 has empowered people they are thinking it doesn’t apply to their circumstance. Each cozy in their own little bubble.

Hope are we going to react when we have students coming in like the people at the town hall meetings? Knowing that they do not have to come to our classroom when they could go to a virtual classroom. When parents have all the information they could want and start using it to vet schools and admins? What about when parent groups start going to the district or superintendent asking (or demanding) for more options for learning?

I think what is happening at these town hall meetings is coming to a multi purpose room near you! People are not settling for “leave it to us, we know what’s best for you” leadership anymore and education needs to realize this. This is not an attack on anyone (particularly my own district) just some observations.

As summer is winding down educators are going back to school and that means “back to school workshops” for most of us. Recently I sat through a two day session to to learn how to use some new technology in our district.

Yeah, sat through is what I meant to say.

We literally sat…for hours…not touching the new technology we are supposed to start using in a few weeks.

Not talking about how we could use it in our classrooms.

Not putting together ideas to see what the interface was like.

Not making mistakes.

Not getting stuck.

Not helping each other.

Sitting. Watching (some times). Listening (once in a while).

At this point let me say a few things….

The presenters were very well intentioned and most of the crowd didn’t expect anything different from the presentation. Also, the presenters (I am pretty sure) were never trained to present, they are teachers and we asked to do the training. Last and definitely not least, I know I am guilty of “death by powerpoint” and I am not always the dynamic presenter that I want to be.

But I am working on it.

A few things my mentor taught me…

1. There is a huge difference between Androgogy and pedagogy. The whole clapping your hands thing works to adults attention if you have a room of Kindergarten teachers, otherwise don’t try it. Remember – Those are adults (grown-ups) and they need to be treated that way.

2. Everyone learns at their own pace and in their own way. If somebody in your presentation isn’t hanging on your every word it’s probably ok. Let them play, process, work things out. If they are bored give them premission to “unbored” themselves but remind them to check in once in a while. Value and respect their time, they might already “get it”.

3. Almost everyone needs time to actually work/play/mess around with whatever it is you are trying to teach them. You can’t just stand there and show them, let your people participate! I think this goes back to something from the Game of School. Many teachers were successful in a school where they sat in neat rows and “learned” by having someone in the front of the room give them information. While this works somewhat, is it the BEST way to do things?

4. Finally, and this goes back to #1, don’t read your slides to me. We are grown-ups remember, tell me what’s NOT on the slide. Related note: If you say,”OK, this is important” it tells your audience that all the other stuff wasn’t important so they are wondering why you were wasting their time. Just give us the important stuff.

I really don’t mean this to be negative, but do want to bring attention to boring presentations. I honestly think most presenters are doing the best can and as well as they know how to. And I am not a professional presenter by any means. I was lucky to meet someone who taught me a few of these ideas and I want to pass them on.

It’s been a busy summer and I have had this post in mind for a while, just took a while to make the time for it. recently we went on a quick trip up to California’s Gold Coast to start our summer vacation. Great trip and if anybody travels with dogs I have some recommendations for places to stay.

Two interesting, related things happened on this trip and I have been thinking about them since.

1) This was our first longish driving trip with a smart phone (Google Android , not an iPhone but pretty sweet) Having a “3G network” allowed us to

-get directions almost immediately, from anywhere/to anywhere

-the phone knew where we were at all times

-guide us to local restaurants (think Yelp)

-look up information for side trips

2) We also brought my netbook. First time for that as well, I noticed we both expected

- wireless to be available in the hotel room

- it should be fast

- there shouldn’t be an extra charge

When we were in the room we wanted to check our email, twitter of course, and see what there was to do in the local area.

What’s my point? Well, since we are “digital immigrants”** and we have this technology available to us and have come to expect it in every area of our lives what do our students expect? How archaic is my classroom that doesn’t have laptops for them OR a wireless network? What about turn off you phone and keep it in your backpack?

**I really don’t love the digital immigrant thing, it is very jaded but seemed to work here.

I believe in learning.
The excitement of something new, the joy of discovery, taking the next step, these are the best parts of learning. The grunt work – grammar, research, etc – are part of the building excitement;learning is like climbing a mountain – some hard work but a great pay off. To create/foster/nurture these experiences in a student, to help the “ah-ha” moments happen, is the absolute best part of teaching.

It’s been a while since my last blog post. No real reason to be honest. Yeah there were report cards, some meetings, etc, but no real GOOD reason.

It has been good for me though. During my hiatus I have done some reflecting, thinking, and changing. Usually all of those are good things. This year I have been teaching the core content with as much fidelity as I could. Teaching math during the school planned math time, using the district basal for reading, etc.

I have also had some really unmotivated kids, and it easy to understand. These materials that are research based and standards aligned are often not STUDENT aligned. Let’s face it the book publishers are in business. They publish materials for the 2’s to get the most bang for the buck. As a result things are very watered down. Also working against them is fact that few 8 year olds are interested in the state standards!

(Time for quick, possibly job saving, disclosure: Our textbooks actually have some merit to them. In many cases they do the job admirably – my point is there is no way to create a text book/scripted lesson that will engage every kid.)

Another huge reason my students were not engaged is…..niether was I. It’s not the way I teach.  Just about anybody can come in and deliver the scripted lesson and administer the standard test and cover the power standards according to the scope and sequence. It takes a motivated professional to take the core content and make it meaningful and relevant to the students.

Yes, I am still teaching the standards. Some of my students are even still using the basal for their reading practice, and we ALL have to slog through grammar. But I have gone back to more project based learning. The students are writing with fewer guidelines from me and more learning from each other. A lot more discussions going on in class, there was some powerful silence at first, but we are getting better all the time.

There is also a lot less. Less discipline, less time re-teaching, less time correcting worksheets. All good things.

Well its been a few weeks since I read this post about using a 2 X 10 method instead of a 2 X 4, and it inspired me to take a different approach to one of my own “troublesome” students. The 2 X 10 method is talking to the student for 2 minutes every day for 10 days. The 2 X 4 method probably doesn’t need explaining.

So far it has worked! There are a few caveats though-his behavior with other teachers, substitute teachers, other students or adults in general is still an issue, but with me  his behavior has dramatically improved. He still has a way to go but the classroom environment has definitely changed for the better.

When we started a few weeks ago he was pretty hesitant and it took the first couple of days for him to realize it wasn’t some sort of weird trick and he wasn’t in trouble. Then one day he just opened up! I learned his home life is a little rocky, no surprise there; and mostly he felt ignored and needed attention. He has three siblings (all boys) and both parents work full time putting in long hours.

So now we talk for two minutes every day – no matter what. Usually at recess time but not always (duty calls) we get together and have a quiet chat. Last week he started asking me if we were still going to have our conversations even though the ten days were up. You should have seen the smile when I told him it was his choice. Now he has become very protective of our time and waits until we can talk uninterrupted. Tuesday he ended up waiting almost all of recess until I was free to talk. When we were walking up the playground after he told me he didn’t mind missing recess because he enjoyed our time.

So things are changing and that is good. I don’t think this is something that will “fix” every troubled student, every time. As a matter of fact we still have a lot of work to do this year. I am very glad, however to have tried this and have another technique under my belt. There are sure to be times in the future when I have to break out the ol’ 2 X 10!

I just saw the FaceBook page for Abe Lincoln and it struck me, what a great way to do a biography report. Have you seen these Tweets from historical figures?  Students could also use comic creators for short book reports. I know that these may not be 21st century skills, but teaching kids how to use new tools for a skill teachers are comfortable with seems like a pretty good idea.

Just thinking out loud…..