Category Archives: Literacy

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My New Challenge

My school, which was built on the cheap in the early sixties, is about to get a major overhaul this summer. Part of that is going to include a new state-of-the-art wireless internet system. That’s great news. However (don’t you hate howevers?), I’ve been informed that our 9 year old iBooks probably won’t be able to access the system because they don’t have the correct security software (I believe it’s a WEP thing). I do have 11 newer Macbooks, but that sinks any hope of 1:1 for next year. In reality things weren’t looking good anyhow. I’m really down to about 22 or so working laptops (2 – 4 more sort of work) and the folksy-ness of using 9 year old computers, which worked well for a long time, is starting to wear thin. They are finally showing their age in major ways.

This of course coincides with the economic crash and my state being last in funding education … our governor announced yesterday that he wants to cut education even more now. Therefore funding isn’t looking good. So my newest challenge is to come up with 19 new Macbooks (BTW netbooks are out, our IT dept. doesn’t allow them, yet) or HP’s (certain models only). I’ll have to do a bunch of my own “messy” learning to come up with a way to make this work.

Learning is messy!

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Reading More to Read Better … What a Concept!

I shared a Reading / Writing lesson a few weeks back and for several reasons I decided to do a bit of an update post. For one it has ended up being a great addition to the “Free Reading” program I have been trying out in my classroom. Like Doug Noon, I too have read Stephen Krashen’s research and that coupled with training I received decades ago in “Whole Language”, and my own 27 years of teaching experience, lead me to give more priority to Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) this year. But recently what has encouraged me further has been on-site discussions we have had as a staff under the direction of our vice-principal about spending more of our 90 minute “Reading Block” time actually reading as opposed to doing activities or skill lessons about reading.

We were asked to evaluate how much time we actually give students to read during reading class. This was very interesting on it’s own because for a number of years now we had been DIRECTED to use the “Reading Series” as written … “we selected it because it has been research based and shown ‘to work’ so you will follow it.” Teacher evaluations were even based on proving they “followed the program”. What came to light was that “following the program” actually translated into doing more skills work (often but not always worksheets) than actual reading … almost 2 to 1. Some teachers even pointed out that on a certain day of the week during reading class when “following the program” they did almost no independent sustained reading at all.

The upshot was that we were told to really work at adding more time to actual reading. I took that very much to heart and jumped in. As luck would have it my loving wife donated over 3,000 bonus points from a book club and I was able to pad my already decent classroom library with over 80 new books. I prioritized SSR time even more so  and gave my students a series of pep talks about the value of reading more on becoming a skilled reader – and a person that enjoys reading (although I know the new books really helped the most) and we were off. I noted right away that students that enjoyed books like “Nate the Great”, because they could finish one and had 12 more or so to pick from, just kept on reading. It took about a week, but at the end of 30 minutes when I would tell them we needed to move on I started to get more groans about having to stop (which I reminded them was a sign that they were becoming “readers”).

To leverage this experience and get them reading even more I started the “Important Book” lessons. I stated in that earlier post that “at risk” students in general (and that was certainly true of too many of my students) often don’t know enough about topics to know to be interested in them. When we started out I had a list of “high interest” topics that students picked from, but that quickly became an option as I encouraged students to learn about things they were, or had always been interested in. Students interestingly enough used our list most of the time … and we at first, at least, kept adding topics to the list. Students just were not used to thinking about “interesting” things they’d like to know more about. They had very little, if any, experience in thinking that way! But as we have done more and more of these hour long online reading research/writing experiences, students have been using the list less and less and have begun to find or notice things they want to know more about.

NOTE that at least in my classroom 30 minutes to read and 30 minutes to write (as opposed to 15 which is hard but certainly less time consuming) seems to work best. 30 minutes gives the students enough time to read and take enough notes to be able to write about. So far the results have been encouraging. Check out Doug’s post as he provides a list and links to some of the other activities and thinking that go well with this approach.

Learning is messy!

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One Reason We Blog – Finding and Clarifying Misconceptions

As my students were writing today about yesterday’s experience with Alan, I caught several misconceptions students had about what we had learned. One student explained, for example, that the reason Iceland isn’t as cold as one would think, based on how far north it is, is because all the volcanoes and lava heat the air and make it warmer.

I asked the rest of the class if this was true and expressions told me some thought it might be. Others though were able to explain that it is mainly the relatively warm water that surrounds Iceland that moderates the temperature. The lava and volcanoes might have a very minor impact, but they are not the main reason the weather in Iceland is warmer than expected.

Misconceptions show up in writing, it is a record of that child’s thinking. So it is a great way to deal with misconceptions when you meet with students about their writing … especially when it is about curriculum and not a story they are writing (thought it can show up there too). One of the “unintended good consequences” of our blogging is that we write a lot, so there are more chances that misconceptions are going to come up and be caught by me, but they are caught by students too because they read each others’ posts, so they are practicing critical thinking skills. These are perfect teaching moments. You explain the issues with their thinking and help them with their ideas, and then they immediately go and re-think to re-write and that helps plant that learning they just experienced. When they re-submit their blog for posting you see it again, can clarify more if needed, or post if it is ready.

Last year when we did a unit on distances in space and sizes of stars and planets, the first posts about their learning seemed to be MOSTLY misconceptions. I took the blame for them not being clear and we re-visited the concepts and looked at some of their writing on the ActivBoard and edited much of it as a class. When students could see their fuzzy thinking and incorrect information they wanted to re-write. Most didn’t even want to “fix” what they had, but wanted to start over. Their next attempts were much better and they actually wrote a bit more because they felt more confident about what they knew.

Learning is messy!

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Our Blog Video – How We Blog and Why, Is In Production

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Besides video-Skyping today with new friends in Florida we started doing the real work of making a video about how we blog. Last Friday we started brainstorming all the steps we go through and then breaking it down into scenes. Next we assigned each group a different part of our blogging procedure to video. Students are designing how they will “tell their part of the story” and then storyboarding and writing the narration. Everyone has to take part in the group … even out 2 non-english speakers will do some of the narration in english with help and support from their groups.

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As usual the biggest part of their grade is based on how they work in their group. From my experience when that is the main focus of their grade the most learning takes place. Why? Because when students cooperate and include everyone, everyone is involved in what they do and the thinking that goes into it. I always tell them that I might ask anyone in their group what they are doing and why … and they better be able to tell me … that forces them to stop and explain what they are doing and thinking and why they are doing it to each group member and include them. Students get to hear ALL the thinking of what is going into their project … and that is key. We even role play doing that. Kids feel good about being an involved part of the group AND being one of the people that sees to it that everyone understands. When it is humming along with that attitude going in the room – it reminds you why you teach.

My students were simply awesome today. They have to design their scene, storyboard it, write the dialog, practice the speaking parts, practice how they will show that on tape, and then when they are ready show what they are planning to the whole class for critique. We haven’t gotten to the “showing” part yet, but Wednesday some groups, maybe most, will be ready.

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Last year when we made the “Inclusion” video we followed many of the same steps but I probably shot half the video and did all the editing with input from the class (that was their first experience with video and they were 4th graders). We started learning more about editing with iMovie today using the famous “Dog Wash” tutorial that used to come with iMovie. The student laptops are so old they will only run iMovie2, but it works and all their almost 8 year old iBooks have Firewire so this should be fun. We plan on having each group shoot all their own video, edit it, do the voiceover narration and then run it back to video and probably my laptop for a final assemblage of all the scenes into a final product. Truly “MESSY” learning at its best.

Learning is messy!

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WritingFix.Com Gets A Face-lift!

I’m currently teaching a 15 hour class combining writing, field trips and web 2.0 apps to teachers mainly from my school district. Under pressure to come up with a title for the class a few years ago I said to someone on the phone … “Uh … I don’t know … just call it something like, ‘I Want to Integrate Writing, Technology and Field Experiences Into A Crammed Curriculum. How?’ … OK?”
Ummmm … the name hasn’t changed.

One of the pieces I show and have teachers play with and try-out is the “jam-packed-with-every-kind-of-writing-prompt-you-can-think-of …and some you can’t… WritingFix.com (Where the motto is –“WritingFix: Where getting a daily “fix” of writing is more important than fixing your writing”). Corbett Harrison put it together, with a little help from his friends at the Northern Nevada Writing Project (with which I just happen to be a consultant), and now it is getting a much needed face-lift. I hope they keep my one contribution, my: A Day As Your Shoes interactive writing prompt. If you have never checked out this site and you teach writing … you are in for a treat … and so are your students.

So check it out!

Writing can be “messy” learning … and fun too!!!

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Staying Connected

One of the tough things about teaching at an “At Risk” school is the turnover. In the last 4 weeks we gained a new non-English speaking student and lost 3  (almost 4) students. I’m rolling my current class to fifth grade next year and came to realize yesterday that out of my current 25 students only 14 will be with me next year. A few have already moved out of our attendance area and had to be issued a variance in order to finish out the year here, and 6 more students will be lost to the new boundaries they’ve drawn.

One of the students we lost 2 weeks ago has made a reconnection though. I woke up Saturday morning and checked my email and there was a new blog post waiting for approval and some comments. They were from Maija:

*I Miss You All!*
Hey you guys I’m here on my computer, and I had nothing to do, so I thought, hey I should go on our class blog!!!! So I did, and I started commenting people (if that’s okay Mr. Crosby?)!!! And I decided to write a blog saying I miss the good times we’ve had together!!!! And I really missed that!!! Like Mr.Crosby said “Has any of you gone to a new school?” I have and I know how it feels now!!! I was nervous, and scared! But once you get used to it you’ll be fine!!! Thanks Mr. Crosby!!!!
I’ll talk to you guys soon!!!

I guess it is about the connections.

Connections are messy?

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Why Spend The Time To Teach Research, Critical Thinking and Social Networking Skills?

I received the following email today:

“Please pass this along to anyone you know, this needs to get out in the open.

Recently Marines over in Iraq supporting this country in OIF wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffee and try to score some free coffee grounds. Starbucks wrote back telling the Marines thanks for their support in their business, but that they don’t support the War and anyone in it and that they won’t send them the Coffee.

So as not to offend them we should not support in buying any Starbucks products. As a War vet and writing to you patriots I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this War might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn’t mean we don’t support the boys on the ground fighting street to street and house to house for what they and I believe is right. If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and I’ll never know. Thanks very much for your support to me, and I know you’ll all be there again here soon when I deploy once more.

Semper Fidelis,

Sgt Howard C. Wright
1st Force Recon Co
1st Plt PLT RTO”

Now to most of us this had “RED FLAG” written all over it. But the person who forwarded it to everyone on our staff just saw a seeming injustice and wanted to help spread the word. To me this is a lesson on why we cannot just avoid teaching kids the tools and spaces of the net and how to use them effectively and ethically. This also points out why we must spend more time on teaching critical thinking and analysis – how to question what we see and read and hear – I won’t link to it here, but this is a similar lesson to what many have taught using the MLK web page that is really a white supremacist site in sheeps clothing. Teaching students to be critical thinkers needs to be done anyhow, we leverage that when in doing so we teach students to use powerful tools that will enhance their learning in a myriad of ways.

The end of THIS story is happy by the way, because after getting feedback from a number of us, the sender followed up later in the day with this:

After sending the e-mail this morning, I did some investigation and found the following. Sorry if it upset any of you, as it seems to have
caused a stir. I had received the e-mail several times and simply passed it on, something I will make sure not to do in the future! Always research first…

Comments: It’s unclear whether Starbucks ever actually refused to donate coffee to U.S. Marines in Iraq who requested it, but if they did, it wasn’t because, as the above email claims, “they don’t support the
war and anyone in it.”

Marine Sgt. Howard C. Wright, who authored the email in May 2004, subsequently issued a mea culpa (currently being distributed by Starbucks in answer to queries) in which he said:

Almost 5 months ago I sent an email to you my faithful friends. I did a wrong thing that needs to be cleared up. I heard by word of mouth about how Starbucks said they didn’t support the war and all. I was having enough of that kind of talk and didn’t do my research properly like I should have. This is not true. Starbucks supports men and women in uniform. They have personally contacted me and I have been sent many copies of their company’s policy on this issue. So I apologize for this quick and wrong letter that I sent out to you.

In its own response to the email rumor, Starbucks explains that while the company has “the deepest respect and admiration for U.S. military personnel,” corporate policy prohibits direct donations to U.S. troops because the military doesn’t fall under the strict definition of a public charity. Individual employees are free to donate their weekly pounds of take-home coffee, however, and according to Starbucks’ statement many have done so.

Learning is messy!!!

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Fun And Motivation With FD’s Flickr Tools

Years ago I came up with an idea for a writing prompt that I felt was pretty “schema neutral“-  all kids would have experience enough to be able to write a story about this prompt. I call it “A Day As Your Shoes.” Several years ago Corbett Harrison, who among other things had the concept for and started the Writing Fix web site and still maintains it, put my prompt on the site. He made it an interactive prompt to mimic how I have students brainstorm their ideas. Since all students have experience with shoes (at least in this country) and going to school – they will all be able to bring schema for this story.

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This year to add to the motivation and creativity I had the students make the covers for their stories by taking pictures of their shoes and using Fd’s Flickr Tools – Magazine Cover to design their bookcover. We took pictures with a digital camera and downloaded into iPhoto on their laptops. Each student designed several covers so they could build at least some expertise with the software before putting together their final product pictured below.

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Posts Worth Noting

Doug Noon has 2 great posts – “Scientifically Based Reading Research Wars” and “The Might-Work Clearinghouse” that are way worth the time. Doug has done his research and does a great job of laying out the issues and the research behind the battle over reading instruction.

This has so much to do with education in general because language arts literacy and math literacy are the driving forces behind almost everything that happens in elementary schools. Obviously, reading/language arts and math should be the cornerstones of elementary education – however, many of the programs being promoted have the major downside of making little to no room for schema building and gateway subjects like science, social studies, art, music and PE. Likewise some of these programs effectively restrict or block any innovation or integration of other methods into the school day because they take up all the time.

Doug cites the newest research, so if you haven’t kept up on it (like me) he has done the leg work for you. Thanks Doug.

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One : One Laptop Ramblings

Miguel started this conversation – Tom and Doug have jumped in … here are my ramblings:

How important or “worth it” are laptops, or any other technology? How valuable they are as learning tools should be the decider of how much we are willing to invest. Not that I think we shouldn’t expect that $200 dollar laptop, but it will be important what those $200 laptops can do – we have had PC4’s that could do word processing and some other applications for less than $200 but that hasn’t been enough – they were hardly used … what is enough?

Internet based software like wikis, blogs, and various web based, math, language arts, science and social studies pieces make operating system issues closer to moot all the time. To use them effectively with my students I’ve found I have to teach them to think differently. I can’t claim that it has been transformational or even “better” than what we were doing before … yet – but my students spend more time on task, and when I explain that we are going to use our laptops to do whatever, they are excited every time – even on activities we’ve done multiple times. We write more than ever – and I’m a writing project consultant and I already had my students writing a lot.

Our laptops are 7 years old – dropping and breaking has not been an issue, we spend some time talking about care – but the fact that this year the students have some sense of ownership helps – I’m sure breakage will happen sometime – is that a deal breaker? Tom mentions a 3 year shelf life – well we are searching the net, blogging, wiki-ing, word processing, using digital video, digital photography and more with 7 year old laptops – will we get less longevity later? Are we the exception?

Don’t do a 1:1 laptop program (Or any tech program) if you don’t already have,  “age-appropriate, curriculum-relevant things to do with them.” That’s been done many times and it doesn’t work any better than spending money on textbooks or any other educational tool you aren’t sure what to do with – and it makes us all look like fools. Technology won’t make a hoot of difference if we don’t do things differently and work and learn in ways that are more engaging and meaningful. And if we can’t do that, or that doesn’t work – then we don’t need to buy them or use them at all.

I’m not saying this alone really makes 1:1 worth it – but just the experience my students have had in the last month while we have been reading stories about animals they know little about (whales, rhinos, leopards, camels, kangaroos, elephants, armadillos, and more) – having them use our “Just So Stories” wiki to gather facts, but also to see photos and video of them – how excited they get and how as a teacher I find that many really knew nothing about kangaroos or most of the rest of the animals (assessment on the run) – how they moan when we run out of time. Just being able to build their schema easily and quickly in such an engaging way almost makes the cost worth it just for that.