Category Archives: Education

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“Making Connections With Blogging” Is Published!

Our new book “Making Connections With Blogging” is out.

Actually the book has been out for more than a month. The “Making Connections” part of the title is really what is stressed. From the ISTE web site:

“Some students find writing to be a chore. Others write to get an assignment done but don’t put in any extra effort. There’s nothing like blogging to change those attitudes! Students will experience a whole new level of engagement when they are writing for an audience, writing about topics they are interested in, and responding to their classmates’ posts. Bring blogging into your classroom, and your students will not only be excited about their work, they will also develop their writing, reading comprehension, critical thinking, digital citizenship, and communication skills.

Parisi and Crosby show you how you can use blogging with any student as a part of any curriculum— not as an add-on, but as an integrated part of your lessons. Learn step by step how to blog, get ideas for your curriculum area, and understand how to manage blogging in the classroom. Get your students blogging, and change how learning happens.”

“Making Connections with Blogging” is also available for the Kindle. Would love to hear any feedback from readers.

Learning is messy!

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Independence Day

It’s been a tough year or so under “new” administration, and short of actually revolting, a change needed to happen and so it has. I’ve taken a new position in my school district being the Gifted and Talented specialist at 2 of our 7/8 middle schools. Both are STEM Academies and are early in their implementation of a more project/problem based, technology integrated approach. One is also piloting a 1:1 laptop program with HP Netbooks that will roll out this fall when all teachers will get laptops, followed the next fall with students acquiring them.

Someone thought my experience might be a good match for the position – and my wanting/needing a change led to a quick decision on my part. Somewhat ironically I was interviewed for the position over the phone while I was standing outside “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland while on a trip with my family.

I’ll let you conclude why I chose the title and timing of this post, but needless to say I’m very pleased with the change and look forward to being part of a new direction for our school district.

Learning is messy!

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Well Said

(UPDATE: 4/24/2012 – see the update below-)

Mary Broderick, President of the National School Boards Association, wrote a heartfelt letter to President Obama about the sorry state of education in the US after years of “reform.”

I especially appreciated points she made like:

“We want for each American child the same things that you and Michelle want for Sasha and Malia—inspiration, aspiration, creativity. I know you don’t want an overemphasis on testing. I have heard you say it.  Experience in schools and communities, supported by research, tells us that relentlessly focusing on standardized tests erodes our national competitiveness and deadens curiosity and drive. Clearly, we need some testing to gauge student learning, and we have no problem with appropriate accountability. But we have swung to a far extreme that is significantly hurting children. “Students are numbing over testing for testing’s sake…. We can’t test this country into excellence.” (Sonny Savoie, LA)”

As well as:

“The focus on strict quantitative accountability has never worked for any organization, and it has not worked with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Teachers are trying to meet the mandates of those programs and consequently “our children suffer and are not getting educated to their individual potential.” (Carolyne Brooks, IL) Teachers’ focus on tests is undermining their potential and initiative, making it more difficult to share a love of learning with their students.”

It is a strong letter that is well worth your time.

4/24/2012 UPDATE: Tim Holt left this comment on the School Board News blog where my link above takes you. Tim makes a great point!:

“Madam President,
While I applaud your letter, especially the idea that your organization has finally taken a stand after only two decades of standardized testing throughout the US (we have been living with it in Texas since the mid 1980?s), may I suggest a follow up letter:

How about a letter to each school board that is a member of your organization asking that they stop the practice of hiring superintendents with the sole purpose to “bring up test scores?” This would do more than anything that President Obama could do; if your members would stop the insanity at the district levels.

Imagine what would happen if your organization members all of a sudden stopped hiring district leaders based on what a superintendent can do for test scores.
Stop approving purchase orders for materials whose sole purpose is to remediate for test.
Stop paying for consultants to help teachers teach to a test.

I would love to see that letter as well.

Tim Holt”

Learning is messy!

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Leaving Their Mark – Redux, Redux

This is a first I think, a second repost of a post on my blog. I’m doing so because of my appearance on NBC’s Education Nation Teacher Townhall. I talked about things my students have done and an innovative pedagogy, and although this post is 2 years old it shares many examples of that innovative pedagogy.

LEAVING THEIR MARK

The end of the school year is always tough. Lots still to do, lots of emotions, lots of memories. This one is tougher than most because not only are we closing in on the end of another school year, we are coming to the end of 3 years together. As I was reflecting upon this the other day it occurred to me just how large a legacy this class is leaving behind.

This has been my first experience in a 1:1 laptop classroom. It certainly isn’t all about the technology, but the technology really has leveraged what they have accomplished because it has connected them easily to so many and allowed them to share and archive those connections easily along the way.

It started in fourth grade when we began blogging and learning about being understood and being careful with language so it meant what we meant and was clear to the reader. Their blogs became a way to share their stories, but also what we did and learned and what we accomplished- and we accomplished a lot. When I broke the news to them in December of 2006 that we had a student that showed up on my attendance over a month earlier and that we had never seen her … but that there might be a way to include her in our classroom using Skype video-conferencing, they were intrigued and awed that we might do that. After our first experience we decided to share it with the world and in just a few short weeks the students had designed and produced a video that taught the world just how powerful these new tools can be.  Their video has been downloaded thousands and thousands of times. (Update – about a million times now)

Not only did we use Skype most days to include our classmate, we also began making connections with others. We were interviewed over Skype by Lee Baber’s class in Virginia about our experience and made connections with other classrooms about science and other topics.

We were very fortunate that our classroom was chosen to have a special guest. Grace Corrigan, the mother of Christa McAuliffe, the  “Teacher in Space” who died tragically when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during launch, visited our room, and we Skyped out her visit to classrooms in Virginia and New York and they were able to take part in the question and answer period Grace agreed to.

To finish off that year we visited a local animal park, Animal Ark, and afterwards designed a wiki page to help further anyone’s learning about the animals there and included a lesson and video about designing your own animal.

In fifth grade as we continued to blog about our experiences, my students’ exploits became known to others and so we would get contacted by schools to participate with them – usually because they didn’t know of anyone else that knew how. One such experience was Skyping in George Mayo’s middle school class from Maryland. They had made some short videos and wanted us to watch them and give them feedback. It was easier for them to have us do this than the elementary school NEXT DOOR because they were at lunch when this class met and they couldn’t work out the details. We watched  and wrote our reactions to their videos and gave them feedback when we Skyped, and they asked us questions about including our classmate.

I was contacted by Skype about making a short film about our “Inclusion” experience. They sent a film crew to our classroom to shoot a mini documentary about how we did it. Even though our classmate was now with us in the classroom, they had her stay home one day and do school from her computer. They hung lights in our room and shot video all morning as we did what we usually do. They interviewed students and then packed up and shot in the afternoon from our classmate’s house. They produced 2 versions of the video. Here and here.

We continued to blog almost every day either writing new posts or reading and commenting on others. We built relationships with a number of classes around the world and to help keep track we began adding links to them on our class wiki page. Most of my students are second language learners and when we started blogging it would take most of them a week to edit a post into publishable quality. I don’t require my students to have zero errors on a piece before it publishes, but my students’ writing skills were very poor in general. They used poor English and grammar, and punctuation was almost nonexistent in some students’ work. They left out the details that made meaning for the reader, and we won’t go into spelling. At first students would write their posts by hand on lined paper and edit them several times before word processing them. Next they would print them out in a large size, double spaced to have room for editing. Many students would have 5 or more copies of their story all marked up by me in 1:1 meetings with them before their work was “publishable.” That’s why it took a week. By the end of fourth grade about half the class would publish in 2 days. And by the middle of 5th grade some students were publishing the same day as the assignment was given, and almost all were publishing in 2 days. We killed a lot of trees the first year, and I (and they) felt bad about that, but the impact it had on their English, spelling, punctuation, style and more was worth it. And the students continue to write and write and write (but we don’t print very often anymore).

During fifth grade, I believe initially over Twitter, but then in email, a fifth grade teacher in New York, Lisa Parisi, mentioned to me how much she liked the comments my students left on her students’ blogs. I explained that we had really been working on the quality and substance of our comments, not just saying, “Nice post” or “I liked your post” but also explaining why. Our students began doing more reading and commenting on each others posts.

Lisa and I wanted our classes to do a project together and so the “Mysteries of Harris Burdick” writing project was born. This book, written by Chris Van Allsburg, is the ultimate writing starter I’ve ever seen. After reading and discussing the book in class our students wrote collaborative stories using Google Docs so they could work at the same time on their stories even though they were thousands of miles apart. They even discussed things over Skype so they could meet their co-writers and have discussions about where their stories were going. Other teachers joined the project and paired their classes. The project won an award.

This year we participated in 2 projects that stressed being safe online. We talk about safety fairly often, pretty much anytime we use a new application – blogs, wikis, Flickr and so on and anytime it comes up in the news we tend to review the issues and what the people involved did right or wrong that caused or helped the problem that came up. We participated with a bunch of schools all over the world in the “7 Random Facts” project … sharing seven random facts about yourself without revealing any information that could identify you. By request we followed that up by participating with another class in another safety project where the students wrote vignettes about someone NOT being safe online and then wrote a moral to the story. We shared them in a Skype session with the other class. During this time students in my class shared that they had MySpace and other sites that they were really too young to have and that they had taken down inappropriate information about themselves.

The “Around the World with 80 Schools” project this year has been incredible in how it has made my students more aware of world geography as they met and talked with students on almost every continent.

Most recently we are finishing up our Reno Bike Project, project where we are helping a local non-profit organization that rehabilitates old bikes and sells them inexpensively, spread the word to get people to donate bikes to them. The Public Service Announcementand web pages they designed were just published and we are doing some other activities to help get word out.

I’ve left plenty out here to save space, but the point is these students have left a mark, a legacy that will survive their graduation to middle school and beyond. Not only have they done community service that effects their community, but they have participated globally and left the archive for others to ponder and I hope improve on. Most importantly they have vastly improved their writing, research, communication and numerous other skills along the way. They were only held back by my limitations and the limitations of the system.

I’ve learned at least as much as they have and I believe I’m a better teacher for it. I’m chomping at the bit to take what I’ve learned and share it with my new class. As of this writing I’m being moved down to 4th grade again to begin a roll up to 5th and hopefully sixth grade again. I’m really going to miss this class and I want them to know that and to know they have made more of a difference in this world than they realize. They can be proud!

Learning is messy!

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My “New York Minute”* Continues

*In a New York Minute – Definition: “Equates to a nanosecond, or that infinitesimal blink of time in New York after the traffic light turns green and before the ol’ boy behind you honks his horn.” (World Wide Words)

I just got off the phone with the producer at MSNBC that is my contact with The NBC Education Nation Teacher Townhall, and she informed me of the following: I will be onstage with Brian Williams and John Hunter of  The World Peace Game Foundation in the second 1/2 hour of the 2 hour Teacher TownHall talking about innovation (It begins at 12:00pm EDT). There will be 3 sections to our time: 6 minutes, 7 minutes and 6 minutes long that will include Brian Williams asking us questions – and questions and comments from the teachers in attendance. I’m considering how to make my opportunity valuable, hoping I learned something from my short panel yesterday on how to be more concise (yeesh).

Yesterday I had an enjoyable time at The New York Times – Schools For Tomorrow conference, and I want to thank them for their hospitality and for running an informative and generally wide ranging conference with differing points of view. There seemed to be a good balance of opinions (I did not see every panel discussion, but close to it). “The Teacher Perspective” panel I was on with AFT President, Randi Weingarten and Jeff Piontek, was an “add-on” panel that they set-up in response to complaints of a lack of teacher voice – therefore it was a frustratingly short panel discussion. We each got to make some short comments and the time was up. They assured me that this was their first attempt at this, that they do plan to do it again next year and they have learned from this initial production.

Learning is messy!

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My Panel @ The New York Times “Schools For Tomorrow” Conference

I’ll be participating in New York Times Schools for Tomorrow Conference next week. From the web site:

” …  we’re bringing together 400 of the most influential leaders in teaching, government, philanthropy and industry. The goal: to harness the power of technology to improve the learning experience. Democratize access to quality education. And elevate the American student to a higher level.

It’s not a question of “Can we do it?”

It’s a question of “When?” … “

The updated agenda came out today. This conference is not in the typical presentation style, but mostly a series of panel discussions. The panel I’m on is:

CONVERSATION: THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE
Brian Crosby, Elementary School Teacher, Risley School, Nevada
Jeff Piontek, Head of School, Hawaii Technology Academy
Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers

My first reaction was to wonder how this panel represents “The teachers’ perspective” with only one teacher, from one level of K-12 education (and no higher ed?). My understanding is that the audience will be well represented by teachers, but this seems to illustrate  one of the issues education is facing – a lack of teacher voice.

The conference will be streamed live.

Learning is messy!

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New York Times: Schools For Tomorrow

I was informed recently that I am a speaker (a member of a panel) at the New York Times sponsored “Schools For Tomorrow” – Bringing Technology Into The Classroom Conference. They bill it as: “Technology is transforming how we live. This conference will transform how we learn.”

This ultimately came about because of a number of tweets about how here is yet another education conference upcoming that involved everyone but actual teachers (other than audience members with a chance to ask questions – perhaps a somewhat unfair description, but … one of my major peeves about the non-discussion happening about education). So I shot off an email pointing out this obvious error (spurred on by several friends) and lo-and-behold the sponsors got back to me and after a conversation via email I was invited to participate. This, of course, coincides with the start of the school year, not a perfect time to be missing a few days of school, but on the other-hand I better be willing to put my “money” where my mouth is.

Learning is messy!


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If Media Reported on National Security (for example) Like They Do Education

Crisis in national security? If we follow the lead of NBC and their Education Nation and other media outlets’ education coverage, their coverage of the “National Security” crisis might look like this:

We would put together a panel to discuss national security “in depth.” The panel would consist of college professors and online university presidents that have studied national security and toured military and other “security” bases, and business people (1 or 2 of them would be billionaires) and a lawyer or two that have very strong opinions about national security and may have visited military bases, a few members of at least fairly extremist US militia groups and a politician or 2 also with strong opinions not considered seriously by the military people actually running national security. In addition only one of the panelists can have as much as 3 years experience in the military or other actual national security service and the experience must have happened more than 5 to10 years ago. Almost all the panelists should have similar opinions and attitudes that mostly run counter to what the actual experts believe. The host should likewise have little to no experience in national security and ask almost no follow-up questions, mainly because they don’t know or understand the background or issues involved. (I’d add the US Secretary of Defense as part of this group, but it is too unrealistic to place them here, wish that was true of the US Secretary of Education … but I digress)

In the audience you can have generals and other high ranking military folks and national security experts with 10 to 30 or more years current experience, but they only get to make a few short comments or ask a few short questions from the audience with no chance for follow-up no matter how poorly their question is answered or taken out of context or they are belittled (knowingly or unknowingly) by the panelist answering or commenting on their question. Now advertise this panel as a broad ranging, in-depth, expert discussion on national security issues that face our nation

Next, decide as a public service, to put together a week or more of these panels to discuss this vital topic (“National Security Nation”, perhaps), and set the panels up pretty much just like the description above except a few times include one panelist that represents a national security think tank that is only considered a barely adequate expert in the field by the people they represent, and that hasn’t worked directly in the field for 10 or more years outside of the think tank. In addition do one-on-one interviews with some of the most controversial panelists where they say what they want and even belittle the actual experts and their ideas like it is common knowledge with no follow-up questions from the host (who is really the celebrity reporter or anchor, not a national security or even military reporter that might know enough to ask follow-up questions).

Now be shocked, shocked! that the actual national security experts are mad as hell that they are continually ignored and that only these controversial opinions are given voice and weight. In addition they are angry at uncritically being labelled as against what is best for our country’s national security and only care about keeping their jobs and pay when most have given their whole professional lives to national security. Add news anchors and reporters that aid in spreading this perception (knowingly or unknowingly – not sure which is worse) by constantly repeating it or allowing others to repeat it unquestioningly like it was common knowledge. And perhaps most vexing, when pushed condescendingly mention how they are sure “Most” national security experts are great at their jobs and are probably the most cherished and valuable members of society (just not worthy of of having a voice in their area of expertise apparently).

Can you imagine any news organization having even one panel exactly as I described above being promoted as an “in-depth” and “broad-based” discussion about national security? Well apparently that is OK when education is discussed “in-depth.” To be fair there have been a few (very few) well done discussions lately, but we shouldn’t even have ONE like I described above. I’m hoping that we are turning the corner in this one-sided “debate” about education, it will be interesting to see what transpires.

How could we make the discussion about education valuable? Who should “be at the table” when education topics are discussed?

Learning is messy!

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Innovation Starts With Having Autonomy

My lastest Huffington Post, post: Innovation Starts With Having Autonomy published today. John Thompson left a comment there that reminded me of a quote I’ve used in the past. It is from Renee Moore’s blog where she quotes David B. Cohen, who teaches at the upscale Palo Alto High School in CA :

“What I wish people would realize is that “good” schools with high test scores don’t think of their instruction as some kind of reward for the test scores. They don’t focus on basic skills and then suddenly reach a point where they…develop deeper knowledge, enrich learning, engage students’ interests, etc. It’s not basics and then enrichment. The basics can be addressed more covertly, more authentically, and more effectively, when those skills are developed in a meaningful and motivational context. That type of environment shouldn’t be the exception, the unearned privilege of the children of privileged parents, and those lucky enough to attend schools that test well. That type of education is the birthright of every child.”

Learning is messy!

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Turning The Corner

I’m told I’m a pretty upbeat person. I usually note the challenge in something and take it on, or deal with it as positively as I can. One of the self imposed challenges I’ve taken on gladly the last few years has been to embrace a new 21st century pedagogy that is still in its infancy (somewhat) and make it as powerful for my “at risk” students as it can be (see examples- here, here and here). Partly because it is the 21st century and education seems stuck somewhat in the convergence of the 19th and 20th centuries, and because the more I delve into the possibilities the more powerful and engaging I have found them to be.

My students and I stepped into a shiny new school year last August with that as our recent legacy. And we weren’t alone. (see here, and here for examples ) Some of the aspects that make this new pedagogy rich are the collaborative and connective possibilities it invites, enables and leverages. But like anything that is valuable it must be done with rigor, and rigor takes time if done … um … rigorously. But that was good because that was what we were doing … we were finding that students were motivated to do things with rigor when we had them participate this way … it made rigor easier to get to because students wanted to do well, wanted published work with their name on it to be “good.” So we started out in good company with schools and students and teachers we had met and joined with along the way AND the promise of more to come.

We weren’t entirely disappointed by what happened next – we still did some good things …. but disappointed we were. We ran full bore into the “innovative,” “school reform movement.”

Now you would think WE would be a key cog in this “innovative school reform movement,” right? After-all we (and by we I mean my class and all the other classrooms and teachers and educators we have worked with the last 4 to 5 years – and some we have not been involved with directly but are out there too) … so … after-all we have been developing, participating in and truly innovating in teaching and learning and new ways to get at this education thing that mostly people tend to agree is stagnate, and behind, and is way past due changing! I’m afraid WE were wrong. Apparently “innovation” is synonymous right now with “old ways” tied to “new testing” (which seems mostly like “old testing”)… well and data and assessment …. and then more data and all the meetings and in-services that includes.

But still, no one told us to stop doing what we had been doing. AND no one told us to stop doing new things even. It’s just that BEFORE we could do those things we had to do THEIR things … with rigor. In my case that meant a schedule that included 2 hours and 45 minutes a day of literacy (during which you WERE NOT to teach science or social studies content … you could teach HOW to use a textbook (that might be on a test),  just not the content) and 2 hours a day of math. I had 45 minutes PER WEEK of science OR social studies, no art, no PE. This is what “innovation” looks like during reform evidently. To me it was more like the old days of Readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic.

My class still blogged, but not as much. Still did projects, but not as much or as deep. I’ll let your imagination figure out how we even did that with the schedule I provided above. Others were going through the same, and those that were still “free” were beyond incredulous as to what was going on … or maybe NOT going on. Imagine if we were supported in what we do and collaborated and coached each other and made what we were doing even better? Frustrating? Yes. And many people and departments that you would think would be cheering us on were at the root of our frustration. We’ve been a glum group I’m afraid.

But it seems there might be light at the end of this “reform tunnel.” Others are becoming aware and speaking up (including the President it seems in an ironic twist), and the lockstep of the media uncritically reporting what some have wanted reported has softened some. How can I tell? Because there is suddenly a desperation in the current “reformers’ ” tone, rhetoric and actions.

I’m also buoyed knowing that what many of us have been doing is a right way to go. A great way that IS innovative, that is rigorous and engaging. Other reform models seem heavy on the rigor and very light on the innovation or truly being engaging. NOTE: I was actually told this year that testing IS engaging and motivating if “done right.” If students are constantly charting their improvements and seeing where they need to go next, that is all they need to motivate them according to some. Is that good enough for your kids? (and remember the narrow curriculum piece that goes with it!) If so, go for it. But note that the students that tend to be involved the most in this kind of reform have the least voice in what their education looks like, and the “reformers” children do not experience the reforms their parents thrust on others.

I think we are turning a corner. There are more voices out their now and we all have to jump in to amplify them and make sure they (and we) are heard. A big part of that is sharing what you do in your own classroom, or if you are not a teacher, what your children do that is truly innovative, engaging and powerful for them as learners. Remember too, the Save Our Schools March, on July 28th through the 31st.

Learning is messy!