Taking Web 2.0 to the Next Level

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the OTF sponsored workshop Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century. This workshop enabled me to spend an entire day working with other educators experienced in the use of web tools in a small group session that was facilitated by Will Richardson.

In my own mind I felt that I had become fairly comfortable and competent in the use of web tools in the classroom. I have introduced blogs, podcasts, wikis, voicethreads, and digital stories to my students, and I have been thrilled with the results. I signed up for the "Advanced" session of the workshop because I had attended the previous OTF conference, Expanding Our Boundaries, last February (also facilitated by Will Richardson) and I was curious about how my thinking would be pushed this time around.

Will wasted no time challenging us to be more selfish about our personal learning. He stressed that we need to consider how we can use the tools available to us to enhance our own learning instead of simply thinking of how they can be used in the classroom. To get his point across, he asked us the following question:

"If there was one part of your personal learning practice that you
wanted to focus on today, what would it be? What questions would
you seek to answer?"

Those of us in attendance completely missed the point of the question, so as a result Will had us do the activity again. It seems that we had a very tough time thinking selfishly!

Later on in the session we began to focus directly on how we could get our students to use web tools more effectively in the classroom. Will challenged us to "Shirky-ize" our lessons, a reference to Clay Shirky's belief that students need to share their work, cooperate and collaborate with others, and "collectively act" within a social justice context. The energy level in the room had been high all along, but it reached a new high at this point. Many of us took a hard look at lessons and units that we would normally teach, with or without the integration of web tools, and began to develop them in ways that would impact student global-citizenship. We helped each other out and collaborated to push our thinking into areas that hadn't previously been considered. Come to think of it, we were modeling exactly what we want to see our students doing in class!

It will be interesting to see what type of impact these challenges will have on those of us who attended the workshop. Will our group continue to focus on developing project-based learning opportunities that have a social justice context, or will many of us slip into the trap of simply trying to cover the curriculum standards (and maybe throwing in a web-based tool here and there)? Also, will we successfully become more selfish about our own personal learning rather than focusing only on ourselves as teachers? I don't know about the latter, but I have a feeling that we are about to see some wonderful learning opportunities being developed in our classrooms. I certainly hope so!

My Introduction To Bitstrips

I started playing around with Bitstrips a couple of weeks ago, unsure about how I would incorporate the concept of comic creation into my classroom. I was pleased to see that Bitstrips had been licensed for use in all Ontario classrooms so I created a class account and got busy developing activities that would not only introduce the students to this new tool, but would "hook" them so that it would serve a meaningful purpose.

I introduced Bitstrips the day before our Thanksgiving long weekend (remember, I live in Canada), and I was completely unprepared for what followed: during the long weekend I received 51 comic submissions from students! The students were so engaged with this new tool that they spent a significant amount of their spare time away from school working on comics that they wanted to share with their peers. The fact that completely blew me away was this: of the 51 submissions, 49 of them were from boys!

We have had another week since then to play around with Bitstrips, and the heavy student engagement does not come without its bumps. Here are a few issues that have come up:

• The clip art that comes with the program includes items such as bombs, machetes, fire, etc. The boys seem to be fond of blowing things up in their cartoons (including each other). This has led to discussion about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable about placing bombs in a comic.
• The students are encouraged to create their own avatar and characters, which can be a lot of fun, but it can also lead to bullying and hurt feelings. It's possible for a student to create a character and name it after a classmate, and then use the comic as a forum to pick on the classmate.
• The students can leave comments on the comics that have been created by others. The potential is there to have inappropriate, hurtful, and off-topic comments left on a students Bitstrip.

Despite these potential bumps along the way, there are incredible teaching opportunities that arise from this. Teaching mini-lessons and developing anchor charts about acceptable use would certainly be a good start. I have also created my own character so that I can personally model appropriate use of the site. We spend a significant amount of time discussing how to leave an intelligent blog post or comment (we blog as well), so this ties in perfectly with leaving comments an another student's Bitstrip. It's also important to note that every comic that is created gets sent to me for approval before it can be shared with the class. The students also have the ability to "flag" comics that they feel should not be shared. This provides for great discussion, as the student who flags the comic gets an opportunity to explain why they feel it's offensive, and the student who created the comic gets to defend his/her position.

I would love to hear from others who have tried Bitstrips, or any other comic building program with their students. What teachable moments have you encountered? How has it enhanced your literacy program? Does the increased engagement continue over time, or does it taper off? I think that this tool has a ton of potential, and I look forward to exploring it more as the year goes on.

Photo Credit: Vimeo.com

A New Appreciation For Kindergarten Teachers

I have always had a healthy apppreciation for all members of the teaching profession. I believe that a career in education is one of the noblest professions of all, regardless of whether the career is spent in the elementary, secondary, or post-secondary level. Despite my admiration of teachers of all levels, I have to admit that I haven't understood much of what is involved in teaching some age groups of students, such as Kindergarten.

I've had the pleasure of working on staff with many terrific Kindergarten teachers, people who work long hours and seem to have a genuine warm attitude for the young students in their care, but I've never had a true appreciation for the work that goes into the job until recently. You see, for the past month I've had a chance to "walk a mile in a Kindergarten teacher's shoes." My job assignment for the month of September was unusual to say the least; I taught Junior Kindergarten in the morning, and grade 6/7 in the afternoon. Anyone who has performed a double duty such as this knows how tricky the job can get.

District reorganization has resulted in me being reassigned to a grade 5/6 class for the rest of the year (I'm quite happy about this!), but one thing that I've taken away from my original job assignment is the amount of work that goes into a Kindergarten teacher's day. I was shocked by the amount of time I had to spend to get the room ready for the start of school, not to mention the amount of time I spent planning and preparing every single day once school started. I am being completely honest when I say that I was more exhausted after teaching 4 year olds than I was after teaching the grade 6/7's! Teaching young children requires an enormous amount of patience, especially when the students are brand new to the routines of a structured school environment.

This was a great opportunity and learning experience for me, and I can honestly say that it has made me a more well-rounded teacher. Most of my time has been spent with older students, but I take my hat off to all Kindergarten teachers. I admire and respect the work that they do, and they deserve to be recognized for their contribution to the education system. They are special people!

Photo Credit: Kindergarten in Session http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/2885861465/

Student Reactions to Obama Speech on Education

In class today we spent a significant amount of time focusing on President Obama's education speech, delivered yesterday to k-12 students across the United States. Although we are in Canada, I felt that the message contained in the President's speech was universal and certainly relevant to the message I try to pass along to my students.

Before viewing the footage, we discussed what we thought the message might be, and the key words that the President was likely to focus on. There was an incredible amount of class participation as words such as education, school, learning, students, studying, and curriculum were suggested as possible focal points of the speech.

As we listened to the speech, the students listened attentively and took notes. I was hoping that the President's message would stimulate a productive conversation, and I wasn't disappointed. Many of my students felt that the most significant point was "not letting failure get in the way of your goals", while others felt that an incredible amount of pressure was being placed on students when President Obama said "If you quit on school you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country." A handful of students identified what I felt was a key point of the speech, when the President challenged students by asking "What's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve?" (A full transcript of the speech can be found here.)

I find it fascinating that a group of Canadian students would be so transfixed on a message being delivered by the president of a foreign country. I wasn't sure how this activity would go, but I think one of my students summed things up best when he said "When the President of the United States speaks to us, we need to listen."

Apparently some people weren't as open to this idea, and some refused to hear the President's message, but I for one am glad that we had a chance to be a part of it.

What A Difference A Year Makes!

A new school year started last week, and it didn't take long for me to catch on to some interesting developments in the classroom. You see, I have the unique opportunity (for part of the day) to teach many of the same students I taught last year. Naturally, I can't help but notice the growth that these 6th graders have shown since September of last year.

We placed a heavy focus on using web tools in the classroom when they were with me in grade 5. We created our own class podcast, we created digital stories using Photo Story and Windows Movie Maker, we blogged with each other and with other classrooms, and we made live video connections (using Skype and Adobe Connect) with other students and educators from around the world. It was a modest start compared to the efforts of other, more technologically experienced educators, but we were able to learn together in an environment that focused on project-based learning, character and service initiatives, and rigorous curriculum standards.

This is the interesting part. Throughout the summer holidays some students continued to create podcasts, and make edits and updates to the wikis that were created in class months earlier. I find it fascinating that students would even consider doing this while on their summer vacation! Then, during the first week of the new school year (last week), I got another surprise. I gave the students an opportunity to explore the web for a few minutes, with very little guidelines or instruction from me. I wanted to see what sites the students would gravitate to, expecting them to try to do what they did last September (get past the Youtube blocks, or go on gaming sites such as Miniclip). Not one student tried to do these things! What they really wanted to check out were the blogs we created and the clustermaps of our websites. They were surprised to see that the clustermaps continued to get "red dots" even though no new content was created throughout the summer, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised as well.

If there's a point to my rambling, it would be that my students have shown me that they want to be engaged with opportunities to create and connect with others in meaningful learning experiences. Not only do they want to have a voice in future conversations, but they want to follow up on conversations that have taken place in the past. I realize that I'm not exactly breaking new ground here, and I'm certainly not adding anything new to the conversation on 21st century skills (apologies to those who are tiring of this term), but I'm convinced that we are making a huge mistake if we're not considering these learning opportunities for ourselves and our students. I know of several grade 6 students who would agree with me on this one.

I'm curious to know if others have seen similar transformations in the learning attitudes of their students through the implementation of these collaborative tools. What next steps are you planning to put into place to continue the learning? This is the question I find myself trying to answer now. I'll let you know how it's going!

How "The Element" Pushed My Thinking

I have been wanting to get my hands on The Element by Sir Ken Robinson for about six months now, and I finally had a chance to read the book this week. I had heard some detail about the contents of the book through word of mouth and online postings, specifically this blog post by Will Richardson, but I was left with many unanswered questions that I hoped would be addressed in the book.

I understood that the definition of The Element is "the point at which natural talent meets personal passion" and I tried to connect this definition to my own experiences, but I realized that it was difficult to truly understand the power of being in The Element without digging deep and discovering what factors contribute to, or inhibit this achievement. As an educator, I was also curious about how we as teachers can encourage our students to discover and pursue their passions.

Some parts of the book clicked with me right away because of my own personal connections as well as my knowledge of the success stories of others as portayed in the media. For example, there are no shortage of stories about athletes who report the power of being "in the zone" and visualizing what success looks like as they pursue their passions. However, as I read the book I was particularly drawn to other points that Sir Ken makes such as the importance of "Finding Your Tribe" (pg. 103) and overcoming the barriers or obstacles that may detract from us finding our Element. In chapter 6 he summarizes this important point as follows:

I think of the barriers to finding the Element as three concentric "circles of
constraint." These circles are personal, social, and cultural (pg. 132).

This was one of those concepts that really pushed my thinking and challenged me to consider this through the lens of a teacher and a parent. Sir Ken tells the story of Arianna Stassinopoulos (Huffington) and how she overcame many social objections, including those of her father, on the road to finding her Element. The support that Arianna received from her mother helped her pursue her passions and realize her dreams, and I can't help but look at my own life closely and ask myself "Am I doing everything I can to encourage my children and my students to connect to their passions?" Or am I subconsciously throwing up roadblocks (I certainly don't think I'd do this intentionally)?

The biggest "wow" moment for me came in Sir Ken's hard-hitting chapter on education transformation. He argues that the hierarchy of subjects taught in the standard curriculum need to change to reflect a more balanced and diversified approach to education. He sums up this point with the following statement:

Too many students pass through education and have their natural talents
marginalized or ignored. The arts, sciences, humanities, physical education,
languages, and math all have equal and central contributions to make to a
student's education. (pg. 247)

Now, I"m not sure that I can convincingly make the case that all of these subject areas should receive an equal focus in our curriculum, but Sir Ken's point is well taken. I don't think that there is any doubt that we have students in our care who have a natural aptitude or passion(s) that isn't being nurtured at home or at school. My own teaching practice reflects this. I can think of a number of students I've taught in the past couple of years who have demonstrated a natural talent and obvious passion for the arts (music, visual, drama), and again I ask myself the question: Am I doing what I can to acknowledge this passion, encourage it, and help push it to the next level? Hmmm...this is an area I need to take a good hard look at.

I'd be interested in hearing others' thoughts on what it is that we can do, or are doing, in education to help our students, and each other, reach our Element.

My Biggest Struggle

I've had an issue nagging at me for a couple of years now, an issue that up until now I've been reluctant to address head-on. Two years ago I was one of a very fortunate "few" who were hired as full-time teachers in my district. Without a doubt I was extremely excited and proud to have a chance to pursue my dream of being an educator, and I took this responsibility seriously. I am now entering my third year as a full-time teacher and I can say with confidence that I have given 100% effort and passion to my job.

Here is the issue that I am struggling with, and I know that I'm not the only one facing this. You see, not only am I an educator but I'm also a husband, a parent, and a son. It goes without saying that my family is extremely important to me, and they are definitely at the top of my priority list in life. The problem is that I have really struggled with maintaining that critical balance between career and family. If I am completely honest with myself, I would have to admit that I haven't given the same effort to my family life that I have to my career, not even close. It hurts to admit this, but I think that it's an important acknowledgement to make. My wife takes on more than she should have to, I don't see my parents enough (and they're only 5 minutes away), and my kids are too often forced to wait for me to put my laptop away.

A wake-up call happened not too long ago when I was working at home and my 10 year old daughter asked me to watch a movie with her. The conversation went like this:

Me: "I'll be right there. I just have to finish this."
Daughter: "What are you doing?"
Me: "I'm looking at some neat teaching ideas that I might use in class some day."
Daughter: "Dad, what will happen if you don't do that right now?"
Me: Silence....(her point was made)

I am fortunate to have the support of my wife and kids, but I can't help but think that over time they may become less patient and perhaps even jaded or bitter towards my professional life. I certainly don't want this to happen, but I also realize that I need to take steps to "put first things first" as Stephen Covey explains in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. My challenge will be to give my family AND my students the best that I have to offer. I have no doubt that I can do this, but I need to take it a step further and actually make it happen.

It would be wonderful to hear how others have handled this issue. Is there a simple solution to this? I think I already know the answer to that question, but either way I'll let you know how the journey is going.