Category Archives: Literacy

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Our “Squaw” Experience






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Just before the cable car began its journey it rocked slightly when some sort of release was pulled, and a squeal erupted from the fourth graders – but it quickly diminished and then was soon followed by “ahhs” as the car lurched and then smoothly soared from its perch.

The day before I had handed out 5 digital cameras and 2 digital video cameras to the seven groups of students in my room. As they read their SSR books I made the rounds to each group and showed them how to use the camera their group was assigned and had each group member take a trial picture (or video clip). 23 out of 26 students had never used a camera before, but they caught on quickly and were excited about using them to record our journey and get the “landform” pictures we were seeking for our projects.

Cameras emerged from backpacks as we gained altitude, and the student that had been assigned by their group to take photos of our ascent began snapping pictures (click on my Flickr badge on the right side of this page to see over 20 of the 180 total pictures the students took). As the car cleared the first tower, about 1800 vertical feet from where we started, and the car rocked and swayed, a student standing close to me sputtered, “This is so cool!”

As you cover the final third of the trip to High Camp, granite boulders that were melted into blobs cover the ground below you. The cable car attendant explained that Walt Disney had his artists spend time here sketching and designing how the rocks and boulders would appear on the “Thunder Mountain” ride at Disneyland after he experienced this scene many years before.

At the top we emerged from our car and I noted that we really only had about 30 minutes to make our observations and photos outside and eat lunch before we needed to board the cable car for our trip down the mountain if we were going to keep our bus drivers happy.

The scene outside was amazing. I’m sure many of you would think I’m nuts … and truly I wish the weather had been clear and we would have had the view of Lake Tahoe that is available here … but I loved that the weather was somewhat marginal. The wind was blowing steady at probably 12 to 15 miles per hour and the temperature was 16 degrees. The thick wire fencing around the deck had frosty ice on the side facing the wind that was difficult to break off with my gloved hand. The flags waved stiffly in the wind. I strode out onto the deck and the students followed – cautiously at first, but then flooded the deck and lined the rail. My students traded off who used the camera in their group, as they had pre-arranged, and more pictures and video were snapped. The Olympic rings that adorn the ice rink garnered much attention, as did the swimming pool and spa (see my Flickr badge for sample photos).

About 5 minutes was all that most could take, but they weren’t running into the lodge … they loved it. I stayed out a few more minutes with those that wanted to stay and soak it all in and take more pictures.

While the students ate their sack lunches they were already reminiscing about the experience. After slamming down lunch we quickly caught the next car down … a news crew from Sacramento, there to do a story about the start of ski season, had had the great fortune of making the trip up the mountain with our rabble, and now they had the great fortune of timing their visit so they also joined us for the return trip : ). They got a student to help them by taping him saying some catch-phrase (that I didn’t catch) and he did on the first take so they were all high-fiving him and he was beaming.

All during the trip students were also writing in their “Field Trip Journals” – making assigned observations and gathering impressions that we will turn into poetry and informational paragraphs and captions for some of our photos. Today my class learned how to “word process” the first poem they wrote about the cable car on their laptops, and tomorrow we will grab pictures off of Flickr to illustrate them. Maybe we will even post a few.

Whenever I take a trip like this with my students – I am always reminded why I take trips like this with my students. Some have already mentioned to me how they can imagine how difficult it was for the mountain climbers we read about earlier in the year. This is how I want to do it. Experiences, messy experiences leveraged by tech and science and social studies and art and …

Learning is messy! – and a bit chilly!

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So Much Learning To Do – But So Little Time

Tuesday we embark on our second field trip of the year. As reported in my last post, we will be traveling to Squaw Valley to ride the Cable Car so we can get pictures, video and personal observations of landforms. In addition we are in the early throes of a project that ties science and social studies together quite well.

The fourth graders recently learned our state song, “Home Means Nevada” and sang it at a school musical performance. We noted that it describes our state’s history and geography … so we plan to make a music video of “Home Means Nevada” and possibly even write a new stanza or two that include our learning and impressions of our state. The students will take pictures and video to include in our project as well as solicit them from others around our state that live in places too far for us to go (Nevada is over 300 miles wide and 400 miles long). Then we will edit it all together over a recording of the students singing the song.

We will also be taking observation notes in our field trip journals about what we see, feel, hear and do -  to use in writing other pieces (poetry, informational paragraphs, photo captions, etc.). If all goes well we might even have photos posted to my Flickr account Tuesday afternoon. I wish I could say we were going to blog about it, but that will have to come later when I can get a Blogmeister account going. Right now we are learning to use digital cameras, digital video cameras and laptops, along with learning how to make observations and write about them.

Learning is messy!

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Let’s Re-Visit-“Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models”

I haven’t posted in awhile – been one of those convergences of report cards, parent conferences, inservices, family activities, etc. I have several posts in the works – might even get to one today or tomorrow. In the meantime I feel the urge to bring back one of my most popular posts in reply to Will Richardson’s recent post. Here it is:

Students blogging, creating content, manipulating text, graphics and video, designing and producing projects and all that technology and Web 2.0 has to offer – Wow! It’s so obvious what dynamic, mind stretching and engaging platforms technology, problem-based and project-based learning are!!! Or is it so obvious?

Who gets the most excited and visionary about this stuff? – Probably anyone that might actually be reading this post. I’ll bet few if anyone that isn’t already doing “Messy” learning is checking out this or any other blogs that teach, preach or discuss it. We hear about “The New Story,” or “The Read/Write Web in the Classroom,” but who else but the choir reads, hears or cares about any of it?

The gurus trip around the country and the world physically and virtually to spread the word, but who goes to these conferences or subscribes to these podcasts (or even knows what a podcast is?)? The masses of teachers and administrators looking to be enlightened? No! (well maybe a few, but VERY few) The early adopters that see and saw the implications straightforward are the few and the brave. So the questions have been asked and numerous and various answers have been proposed about how to change how school is done and how using these “New Tools” fit into that scheme and how do we get the message out?

Do the gurus continue to guru? (How do you guru? – don’t ask,  just try to follow along) Yes, that is certainly part of the equation. Do we continue to blog about it? Absolutely! The conversation is the point! What is missing are the models – the working, breathing, reproducible, intriguing models. We need ongoing models of all the power of what this looks like or we get nowhere.

Yeah I know there are examples out there – but my staff and my administrators and my congressman and senator and school board probably aren’t jetting out to Maine to observe Bob Sprankle’s class or any other of the teachers and students doing this kind of school.

YOU IDIOT!!! – You’re thinking or maybe yelling at your monitor – you and your staff can go to Bob Sprankle’s class or any of a list of teachers using blogs and video and web 2.0 applications via the web!!!! Yes, yes I know – cool down – I know that. I can pull up one of Bob’s productions – for example his class made a recent vodcast about how they produce their podcasts – way cool – I GET IT!

BUT – (notice I made it a big but) I GET IT! I could run around my school and district showing teachers and administrators Bob’s kids’ vodcast and I might even get a few people excited – “ but most WON’T GET IT! You can’t just show most people – you have to show them and explain it to them and then answer their questions and then show it to them again and then explain it to them again and then show them how this relates to things they already do – takes the place of this and makes it even better and does this and this and this! I’m telling you they will think the vodcast was kinda cool- would be an interesting thing for their kids to do once if they had the equipment and the time and someone to show them how to do it. But they won’t get it until they experience you doing it and getting them to do it- several times – and talk about it and have them notice their students’ reaction and learning and how they talk about it and how excited their parents get about it. Wes Fryer talks about Face 2 Face – that’s it! that’s what I’m talking about.

So where is everyone that does this? Are there whole schools that do this? Districts? Where’s the list? – we should all post it and send it around – where will people see this that is as easy and as accessible as possible? Is there DATA that goes with any of these teachers or schools or districts that do this? (yeah, I don’t need the DATA but some will require the DATA). Maybe there’s downloadable video of some of this – I know where some is – where’s a lot more? Better yet, are their teachers – “Old School” teachers that have come to this that can speak about what their experience has taught them? I think that would be a powerful “New Story.”

We need working, breathing, reproducible, intriguing models available in many places for many to see and experience to leverage the gurus and the online examples. Should we build the clearinghouse – any volunteers?
Learning is messy!

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What’s Happened To Meaningful, Instructive, Constructive, Respectful Discussion?

I have been a contributor to a discussion about the role of teachers, styles of teaching and accountability on another blogger’s blog this past week. It is unfortunate that the discussion became just another example of how discourse has become contentious and too often therefore meaningless and non-productive.

In this case a few that contributed comments late in the discussion misrepresented themselves as just wanting clarification on sentiments that were voiced. These contributors never identified themselves as having an agenda or the fact that they support a specific program for teaching. The comments they posted became condescending and shrill. Eventually the blogger was fed up with their use of his blog to push their agenda and attitudes and he attempted to cut them off. Next they used their blog to name call, bully and smear – and encouraged others to do the same.

This so obviously mirrors what is going on, mainly in politics, but increasingly also into daily discourse on many subjects these days about not having real discussion – but instead a tendency to attack and bully if someone doesn’t agree or shift their opinion to yours. This has dark implications in my opinion for fruitful discussion about important topics – for me as a teacher of course, discussion that could lead to meaningful changes and attitudes about what it means to teach and learn.

This brings me back to Stephen Downes post – Sameness – that I posted about awhile back.

“It seems to me that one thing educational theory has been unable to address is the possibility of multiple theoretical perspectives, the possibility that there is no one taxonomy, set of standards, methodology, etc., that will define The Way to do education.

Certainly, any approach to learning theory that suggests that an experiment can be conducted in (say) a double-blind model in order to test hypotheses in terms of (say) achievement of learning outcomes in my view demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the enquiry.

We need to move beyond consensus, beyond sameness.”

Learning is messy.

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Report: Technology in Schools: What the Research Says

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I have used this blog on several occasions, and others in the edblogosphere have used their blogs to ask where the examples and research are that support integrating tech into the school curriculum? I have my own experience to tell me that tech along with project-based, problem-based approaches is valuable. In my opinion especially for “At-Risk” students, a strong field trip program along with the arts and physical education to build the schema so lacking otherwise should also be part of the curriculum. But, where is the support for that approach outside of those of us that have embraced it on our own? There has been for quite awhile research available that supports tech integration, but mainly in writing and a few other areas. Now comes a “study of studies,” that shows promise for tech as a valuable educational tool.

The report – Technology in Schools: What the Research Says
discusses many valuable approaches including: Social networking, Gaming Interactive Whiteboards, PDA’s, and 1:1 learning initiatives. When discussing social networking the report states:

“Educators are finding that reflective dialog augments learning. Social networking accelerates learning and is facilitated by technology. Students are highly motivated to communicate via technology be it text messaging, email, instant messaging, talking, or videoconferencing. Social networking via technology can connect students to a broad range of interactivity that sharpens and extends thinking and piques intellectual curiosity.”

About Gaming:

“The power behind games is in the concentrated attention of the user to an environment that continuously reinforces knowledge, scaffolds learning, provides leveled, appropriate challenges, and provides context to the learning of content.”

This report is not about saying that tech is the magic bullet – it makes the point that:

“Researchers find that extracting the full learning return from a technology investment requires much more than the mere introduction of technology with software and web resources aligned with the curriculum. It requires the triangulation of content, sound principles of learning, and high-quality teaching—all of which must be aligned with assessment and accountability.”

And:

“…it is an enabling force behind globalization, knowledge work, and entrepreneurship, and thus students must understand the role it plays in transforming political, social, cultural, civic, and economic systems around the world.”

Technology in Schools: What the Research Says – is downloadable as an 18 page PDF file including 2 pages of research citations.

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Paper Airplanes = Fun Messy Learning

Last week in Reno was the Reno Hot Air Balloon Races and the Camel Races up in Virginia City – this week it’s the 43rd Annual Reno National Championship Air Races (brings $80 million into the local economy), so of course my fourth graders made and flew 3 kinds of paper airplanes during the last hour of school today.

First, out of 27 students only 3 had EVER made paper airplanes before (shouldn’t someone be held accountable for that!?) and none of the three could remember how.

What an incredible following directions lesson (which is exactly why I do this type of lesson early in the school year). I have to give my class credit, those that were being successful right away had a great helpful attitude towards those in their groups that were not as sure – helped without making others feel stupid, another lesson we have been working on.

As an aside – we read the book Be A Perfect Person In Just Three Days by Stephen Manes this week as another of the pieces I do early in the year to build class culture. The story is about a kid that finds a book in the library that purports to make you a perfect person if you follow the writer’s directions explicitly. I had several visitors come through my class while we read that wondered why in the heck the entire class was (including me and anyone that made the mistake of visiting while we were reading) wearing stalks of broccoli tied with string around their necks. To find out you’ll have to check out the book, but suffice to say it is one of the steps to becoming perfect (isn’t that obvious?) So we touched on some of the lessons from the book while we folded planes – what a great tie-in.

When we went outside to fly our planes the wind was gusting about 20mph – not perfect conditions for paper airplane flying. I had explained to the students that some of their planes would fly better going into the wind and some would do better with the wind, depending on which of their three planes they were piloting at the time. To say the least, experimenting, and flying, and blowing, and chasing, and screaming, but mainly fun ensued. Some kids betrayed their lack of experience with plane flying by holding their plane all the way at the back to try and throw it. Some would simply release their plane without throwing – so we quickly formed a remediation group, explained and demonstrated “proper form and technique” and they were back at it. I only wish we had made it back inside in time to have them journal a bit about it. I also wish I had signed releases already so I would have thought to take pictures that I could have posted here – dumb, dumb, dumb.

We returned to the room just in time to get ready to go. They were totally pumped, and even more so when I explained that they really needed to take their planes home to continue experimenting with the best way to fly them during the weekend. Great messy learning. Now how do I follow that up next week? Can you fold a paper camel?

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We Should Cut Back On Technology In Schools?

Wes Fryer has posted a podcast of a presentation – “Encouraging Reading” by Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus University of Southern California, at Encyclo-Media 2006, Oklahoma City, OK_01 September 2006 (Thanks Wes!). It is a great presentation and I highly recommend it. I practically cheered through most of it. The gist is we need to return to doing “Silent Sustained Reading” with our students and put more books into our libraries, classrooms, homes and hands of “At Risk” students. I wholeheartedly agree. SSR has been one of the unintended victims of the time constraints imposed by the requirements of NCLB in many classrooms – it was not forbidden, but at least discouraged at my school over the last 5 – 6 years.

Interestingly, towards the end of his presentation Krashen concludes, among other things, that we should cut back on technology in schools and put the money into books (he says he can’t find any data that supports technology improving reading ability).

I’m sure I’m not the only one that sees a hole in the logic here. I know Dean Shareski for one is questioning the reasoning (note his comment on Wes’s post). My short version response is:

Using technology in education is not mainly about supporting reading instruction (although whether supported by research or not, I suspect technology at least provides greater access and motivation to read) – technology is a tool used to support the gathering, organizing, editing, sharing, presenting, archiving, discussing and collaborating about information (feel free to add to the list, I left out plenty). Technology in its many forms is a tool like paper, pencils, books and libraries are tools (and resources) used to help gather, process and disseminate knowledge. Technology has become so pervasive and valuable a tool, and has so many applications, that being at least basically literate in its use has become an essential learning. An essential learning that presently is only available to the middle and upper classes for the most part outside of schools and libraries. Technology use in schools is not just about using it as a tool, but also using it ethically – which again is tough if it is not available at your home under the supervision of family members that understand its use and implications. (kind of like drug, sex and health education)

Could you lead a successful and fulfilling life without technology … yes. You could say the same about learning to drive a car or using transportation – you don’t have to know how to drive or use modern transportation – how many do so successfully in today’s world?

I could be wrong, but the last time I looked the internet seemed to have at least some pages that contained text, at least some of which might be material that one could access and read … during say … Silent Sustained Reading time? I think I noticed it covers many different topics and languages too – and I have had students participate in online discussions (that they had to read and respond to) a few with authors of books or poetry – so I bet at least some students would find some interesting material on the net (and some software) to read.

Is there research to support my point? I’m not sure I care. I do suspect we should put money into books and technology – and just education in general.

Learning is messy.

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Where are the “Best Practices” Examples!??!

One of the most popular posts (judging by the number of comments it received) on this young blog (6 months old) was Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models – where I lamented the seeming lack of good models of project/problem based learning supported by tech and web 2.0 applications. I wondered where they were and why they weren’t being marketed ad naseum on every edtech blog out there.

Recently Will Richardson posted asking Where are the Best Practices? He cites Tom Marsh:

It brings me back to NECC where during a Webcast I was a part of Tom Marsh asked this very question: Where are all the really, really, really great examples?

And David Warlick wonders:

There are some pretty important conversations going on, and teachers, as much as (if not more than) anyone else, should be engaged in these conversations. Blogging, wikis, and other new web applications seem ready-made for these conversations — but what do teachers talk about in your teacher’s lounge?

I don’t think there are that many “Best Practice” examples out there on the web for the following reasons:
1 – Many school districts tend to block access to posting student work and/or the online applications to do so. (Like you never heard that one before.)

2 – The finish work involved in sharing something publicly is often the hardest most time consuming part so it doesn’t get done, especially in the “testing everything” age.

3 – Some don’t feel that the finished product is important, only the journey there is (I disagree) so they have no publishable finished product to share (THE POWER OF THESE TOOLS IS SHARING IT – MAKING IT A RESOURCE FOR OTHERS!!!!) But I digress.

4 – The sharing part can also be the most technically demanding part and the costliest. It costs me little to nothing to make a video with my students but what if I don’t have a web site to share it on? Or I’m not familiar with FTPing? Or my district forbids or even kind of frowns on sharing student work and I don’t feel empowered to buck that and become marginalized – which is a big step for teachers that don’t get paid much money or respect and have their standing as a professional as one of the few things to hold onto – that’s tough to jeopardize for many.

5 – At the middle and high school level teachers tend to have students for an hour or less at a time, so doing lots of web 2.0 stuff and getting it to a polished, publishable state is tough – and publishing “works-in-progress” isn’t always appreciated by administration and some parents until they’ve been enlightened about the process.

6 – At elementary school level you are often starting kids from scratch (because no one else is doing this) and just getting them going on one application takes time (and how is that prepping them for the ITBS?????) and time-wise teachers often have to choose between doing tech/web 2.0 or doing a project (with maybe some tech support) and all the time being questioned about the educational value of what they are doing – how many are really going to deal with that and buck the system?

7 – Unfortunately some are more interested in being able to say they are doing the most cutting edge stuff and spend time always doing the newest thing as opposed to really utilizing one or several tools really effectively with their students so edtech and project based learning come up looking weak.

8 – Many just don’t realize what they have done is “Best Practice” WOW! kind of stuff, or they don’t see the value in publishing, or they are too modest. “You mean publish that!? Isn’t everybody doing stuff like this?”

The answer is NOOOOO!

I have found though that if you get one good, solid product out there it creates a buzz – and suddenly you are the expert (true or not) and gain a certain level of trust. Just like a movie director that makes one hit movie suddenly is a genius and is given more encouragement and support to carry on with other projects. Don’t try to do everything! Do one thing really well (or maybe more than one thing depending) and be able to showcase it and its effectiveness as a learning situation and tool. From my experience, if what your students produce is quality, and the process along the way led to real learning, you will be “allowed” to do more. Then get what your students have produced published on the web whether it’s a blog, or video, or wiki, or a web page … you get the idea … so it can be part of a showcase of the “Best Practices” so many are looking for.

Maybe we can even get the edbloggers with the highest readership (and everyone else too) to each make a roll of “Best Practice” or “Model” or whatever examples of edtech that is easy for even a novice tech person to find and use to navigate those examples. Some of the Wikis posted to do this are great, but mainly to those that already “get it.” Let’s have multiple portals to these examples – and a links section in the right hand column (TOP) of everyones blog might be a good place to start. But first we need the examples.

Who decides which examples are worthy – and how do we find the examples that might already be out there????

Learning is messy!

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Help set the agenda for our next Skypecasts and join in!

Brett Moller has already picked up the ball and set a possible agenda for another Skypecast to further the work started so ably by Wes Fryer. And as I write this I see Wes has already posted a new Skypecast for this Tuesday  at 8PM Central time and set an agenda. Both agendas look intriguing.

I especially want to encourage those that have not done a Skypecast before to join in. There is no pressure to get involved in the discussion unless you are comfortable doing so. Just listen in if that’s what suits you. Equipment needed is your computer, a microphone – although you computer probably has a built in one, and headphones make it easier to hear.

Start by visiting the Skype web site to download the FREE software and then visit Brett’s and Wes’s blogs to find the link to the specific Skypecast.

Be there – learning is messy – jump in and have a messy learning experience!

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Why Go To NECC When You Can Just Skype It!?

OK so nothing is like really being there … but this was pretty good. Wes Fryer set up an international Skypecast to share what was learned at NECC 2006 – thanks for laying the groundwork Wes!

Here’s a link to his podcast of our Skypecast.


So what is a Skypecast? A free (as the old saying goes, “Free is a good price!”) conference call basically … only better. When I saw Wes’s request for participants I went to Skype’s web site and downloaded the free software … which was a breeze by the way, then answered a few questions like login name and password and maybe 1 or 2 others – 5 minutes tops and probably less than that. Wes had a link on his blog to the exact Skypecast, when you get there it tells you the name of the Skypecast and what time it is scheduled for. At the correct time I opened Skype, went to Wes’s Skype page, clicked on the link that said something like “Join This Skypecast” and I could hear voices. A window opens that shows the screen names of everyone attending and that was that.

We had a great conversation that lasted for over 2 hours. And get this … not one of us had attended NECC 2006 – but we had all participated virtually through all the various blog entries, podcasts, vidcasts, and so on offered by the convention and individuals. So we disussed an event none of us physically attended but still participated in at a certain level and shared our thinking about it. One of the coolest things was that several people joined in the Skypecast that were not teachers or edtech people and they added seamlessly to the conversation and had great insights because they weren’t educators or edtech people. Some of us stayed until the end and others came and went. A few popped up and listened in, decided this was not for them and went away. Imagine using this to connect teachers, students, experts …. you get the picture.

One way this is different than a phone call is that because you are already using your computer to make the connection, your computer is right there to make notes on, look up web pages that others are discussing, Wes even downloaded software to record the conversation during the Skypecast, left for about 2 minutes to install it, came back on and recorded the rest for his podcast – but I should not steal Wes’s thunder – you can hear it all for yourself, Wes has notes and links for you, but most important I encourage you to join in on future Skypecasts and keep the conversation going!

Learning is messy!

Update: David Warlick just posted about reveling in the conversations at NECC 2006, but also lamenting those that he missed. Dave this post is about a way to help keep those conversations going and maybe even having those that you missed!