Students watch as their gifts are wrapped in our Santa Store

Every year we run a “Santa Store” at my school. We are between 80% and 90% free lunch so we are a very “at risk” school. We ask around for donations from local business and several of our more affluent schools (my wife’s for one) have families clean out their garages … we get a ton of stuff. Then we close our library for a week ( yeah, I know we close the library, Ugg!), because its the only room we have large enough. We also “volunteer” most of our support staff to work there for the week.

Teacher conversations just before and during that week often question using these resources in this way. Then your class gets to go … and then you remember why we use these resources this way.

The idea of the Santa Store is to offer the chance for students to shop for Christmas gifts for their families at “fire sale” prices. All they buy is also gift wrapped and tagged on the spot so students can take them home and they are ready. Students go to the Santa Store during their usual library time that week. Friday was my classes’ turn.

When I announce we are about to go quarters, dimes and nickels appear from pockets and back packs as well as balled up dollar bills and even a few fives and tens. When we enter students are given a “tour” of the store. Prices are explained and then the shopping starts. For some students their favorite part is watching their gifts get wrapped. Others walk around and around the tables overflowing with candles, kitchenware, alarm clocks, ornaments, and every knick-knack you can imagine.

Some fumble money in their hands while juggling their purchases doing the math in their heads to be sure they have enough. Some approach classmates that are done purchasing to see if they have the dime or whatever they are short to complete their purchase … most share gladly. Students that are finished gather by the door and feel the bows and shiny paper their gifts are wrapped in. I feel the warm glow of Christmas and remember why we do Santa Store every year and give up our library … and know it is worth it.

Learning is messy! Merry Christmas! and Happy Holidays!

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Tags: SantaStore, messy learning,

Teaching my students to be CAREFUL proofreaders is always a struggle. Most of my students are second language learners so they already struggle with proper English and English syntax and all that goes with that. So I emphasize with them that they have to catch the mistakes that they actually know better than to make. They all know they are to capitalize the first word in a sentence or names, but that doesn’t always happen. So I’ve been teaching lessons on catching as many errors as possible – especially since we have the 5th grade writing test looming ahead of us right after we get back from break.

We have put our fingers on every first word in a sentence … and then every name. We have read “one word at a time” to catch words without s’s that need them and so forth. So after they have supposedly proofread their work completely I have them use their “phones” to make a last check. Of course their phones are really PVC pipe and elbow joints pieced together. But they work incredibly well. When you talk into them like a phone you are forced to whisper or your ear is blasted with the sound of your voice. So every student in class can be reading their writing aloud at the same time and it makes about as much noise as a herd of earthworms crawling across your lawn.

I gave a sample writing test this week and had the students treat it like it was real. “You have to catch those mistakes you really know better than to make!!!” I admonished them. We went through the entire writing process and proofread their pieces profusely. Students were sure they had caught every mistake they could. Then I had them read their pieces with their phones. I asked, How many of you found mistakes you missed before?” Every hand went up. “You notice things you missed when you read with the phone,” several students shared. It is amazing how when they experience their work “auditorally” as well as visually, they pick up things they miss otherwise. My students that have a hard time figuring out where periods go do better when they “phone in” their work too.

My wife and I each made sets of phones several years ago. I believe the parts cost us about $12 each at a home store to make 30 phones for both our classes. Now the question is will they allow us to use them during the writing test? I doubt it.

I should add that PVC pipe phones are not my original idea … but I don’t remember where I got it from or I would cite the source. I’m just passing on my experience with them because they work so well. I also take them home and run them through the dishwasher every so often to sanitize them.

Learning is messy!

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Tags: studentwriting, proofreading skills,

We continued working on our blog video today. Each group shot their different scenes based on the storyboards and dialog they wrote. I used large index cards for the storyboards so they could draw the scene on one side and the dialog that went with it on the other. Then it was easy to have a group shoot their scenes because I could see if what they planned made sense right away.

After all their scenes were shot I had each group bring over a laptop and we downloaded their video into iMovie2 and saved it. Next I reviewed what we had learned about editing earlier in the week and set them loose to put their clips in order, do some basic “clean-up” editing and delete the sound since they will be doing voice-over narration.

Learning is messy!

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Tags: blogging, iMovie, editing video, messy video

I had my 5th graders blog about our classroom and school being broken into this week. I got to school and the police car was already their – one of my classroom’s windows was smashed in (and another classroom experienced the same fate in another wing), and there was some damage to our world globe and glass was everywhere as well as that feeling of being violated. It really got my emotions flaring and with encouragement from my principal and others I decided that I would have my students write about the experience.

My thinking was that they would be emotional about their classroom being invaded and we would channel that into their writing. Before the mess was cleaned up I quickly ran around and took photos so students could see what it had really looked like. I met them outside the room before they entered and explained what had happened and then using the photos and other pieces of evidence (broken globe, the rock that had smashed the glass and glass still present on our carpet) I walked them through what probably had happened. I involved them like detectives as we looked at the clues and had them help come up with a plausible sequence of events.

Next we took notes about what different things “looked like” … a student offered a description of the pile of broken glass outside our room as “…blue ice broken from a puddle,” for example. Most students had a page and a half of notes about what they saw, how they felt about the situation and some words we had brainstormed on the board. They were well prepared to write and I set them to their task of drafting, editing, word processing and eventually posting a blog post about their experience. Boy, was I good or what? This was going to be great!

Instead, it was only OK. Everyone got right to drafting and editing – they were all on task … they seemed to be working hard – but as they got far enough along that there was something to look at I noted their writing was not as full of emotion as I had expected.

After lunch I was missing about a third of my class thanks to lunch helper duty and a Read 180 class. So I took that time to question the students in the room about the day’s events. With the exception of 3 students they didn’t perceive the break-in as a big deal. “Nothing important was taken.” “Our laptops are all still here.” A digital camera was missing in one room and a teachers PDA was gone in another but “big deal” was the overall attitude of the vast majority.

Then I asked them to raise their hand if they had ever had the police come to their house, or if they had ever watched the police arrest someone outside their house. EVERY HAND WENT UP. I said, “Keep your hand up if this happened more than once.” 2 hands went down. “More than 2 times,” 2 more hands went down. Then students started sharing all their “arrest experiences.” I had to cut that off because what they were sharing was a bit too personal. UPDATE: My wife asked her middle to high socio-economic 4th graders how many of them had seen the police arrest someone at or near their home. 3 raised their hands. Food for thought.

I told them that the windows that were broken would probably cost close to and probably more than $1,000 to fix and that this was not something that they should put up with … that even if they just came in and walked around and left (without breaking a window) it was wrong.

They hadn’t thought about it that way … NOW they were all riled up wanting to discuss things … and a few made changes to what they wrote earlier reflecting their new found disdain for the whole thing.

But, I screwed up by not having THAT discussion earlier. I don’t feel I exactly “hurried”, we pre-wrote for an hour and discussed things some, but obviously I didn’t have THE STUDENTS express themselves verbally enough before they wrote.

And that is why … Learning Is Messy!

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The State of Nevada chronically places from last … to close to last in per pupil funding of public schools in the US .. while NOT having one of the lower standards of living. Hence Nevada is not at the forefront of investing in 21st century educational tools or methods. Recently there have been glimmers of enlightenment on the horizon and seemingly to prove the point a few of the powers-that-be have decided to showcase what edtech finesse has survived here in northern Nevada and make the case for more funding.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007, 3 – 6pm Pacific Standard Time our school district and local business people have co-produced what they are calling a 21st Century Skills Kickoff. Students and teachers from the area that are doing innovative learning with technology tools have been invited to come and show their stuff to education administration from our district and the state, local business leaders, politicians and the press. As many of my students as I can get there will be demonstrating what we do with our laptops – blogging, wiki-ing, Skyping, Flickr, TeacherTube and more.

I’m hoping to Ustream some or all of it (maybe not the speeches and such), and Skype in a few folks. I’ll try to give background to what we’ve done and then let them at the students … they will be the real stars of the show. This is being held at Truckee Meadows Community College so the network should be pretty solid … and I should be able to access Twitter which I can’t do from school so watch for updates there too.

If you get a chance and I manage to get Ustream to work check us out.

Learning is messy!

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I just spent 40 minutes on a Friday night approving a few blog posts and a ton of comments my 5th graders authored today, and I was thrilled. We’ve been working really hard on editing our writing and finding the obvious mistakes … like not capitalizing words we know should be (“You can’t find the mistakes you don’t know are mistakes … but the others you should find). Most of my students are second language learners so they often make syntax and basic errors in grammar too. While the posts and comments they made are not entirely error free – they are greatly improved, and the students are so motivated to do their best right now. As my students got to work this morning word processing the posts they had written for homework about their experiences on Halloween, I was calling a doctor about my daughter who has been sick with migraine of late. Linda Burge, the ESL teacher that spends a lot of time with my students, watched the class as I stepped outside. She has not been in class much the last 3 weeks because of a spate of testing she has had to do with all the second language learners. When I returned she came right to me to report how sharp focused they had been and how improved their writing was since she had last been in class. She mentioned it several times.

So this is probably not the first post you’ve read by someone singing the praises of blogging. But this post is not so much about the improvement my students have made … but about how I’m almost the only person that can look at their work and note that. (well, Linda comes to mind). Go look at what my students have written of late on their blog. Much of it is not polished prose – its mostly pretty simple stuff … you probably won’t be overly impressed. But I sure am. Why? Because I know from whence their work came. I have had students in the last few weeks read back to me all or parts of their writing that are fractured and misspelled and mis-punctuated to the point of incoherence and not notice a thing wrong. So when I see what they put out today I just about want to shout hallelujah! … they’re finally getting it!!!!

The point? Those that come by school for a walk-through visit to see how things are going … look at some classrooms … note work displayed on the walls … can’t really appreciate it unless they know the students, the individual students, and from whence they came. How did this student get here, this piece of work get here? Why is this piece posted on the wall (or the blog)? I mean, I see mistakes … they posted this? Yes we posted this because it shows growth and learning and progress and this student has the right to be as proud of their improvement as anyone else. Don’t they?

Learning is messy!

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 Well in about 9 hours according to my clock, from when I am writing this, my keynote for the K12 online Conference will be posted. I was chosen to keynote the “Obstacles to Opportunities” strand. I hope what I put together is useful. I ended up making my focus examples of what my students have done the last few years, with an eye to making a case to those that haven’t used technology as a learning tool … much. You’ll note I kind of “hammed it up” accordingly. Give me feedback … but be kind. : )

Working on my Keynote took a lot of the thinking that I usually put into my blogging, but it isn’t the only reason I haven’t been blogging as much or as thoughtfully of late. I’m really trying to do things differently this year … not just doing the same old stuff but with technology … and I have been somewhat successful, but it takes more thought and planning to do school this way. I don’t exactly have a road map for this, and maybe more importantly, I don’t have other teachers at my school site that are doing this with me to help work and think through this … to “draft off of” so to speak. On the other hand I do have my network here and on Twitter that help more than I know, and I plan on accessing their (Your) expertise more now that we are really off-and-running since my class size was reduced (from 33 to 26) and we all have laptops again. All of this has conspired to cut down on my blogging, but I suspect will give me much to blog about as we progress. Actually I have a list of blog topics to write about which is unusual for me, I typically blog on something soon after I get the idea.

One of the issues I’m dealing with right now is how to do things differently when faced with mandatory curriculum programs that don’t lend themselves to “doing things differently”. Instead I take time to think through how to do “the program” while at the same time trying to approach it and evaluate student learning differently … but still “do the program”. On top of that is the pressure of not wanting to mess up this opportunity. Not many teachers get to do this (1:1 laptops and blogs and wikis and more with “at risk” students – more than 90% of my students receive free lunch, and some get 3 meals a day at school)… although I’m kind of hanging out here on my own. I’m doing this “at my own risk” which adds to the pressure. On the other hand it is very invigorating and I’m mostly having a blast … my family doesn’t have my attention like they deserve, but I’m re-learning how to do a better job there too. And so far I’m not feeling stressed out and I think that is a good sign because I have been very busy.

I think too that Twitter is to blame somewhat for fewer blog posts. I find I sometimes will “Twit” something that happened that day, or something I read about or saw … i plan to blog about it in more detail … but somehow my “NEED” to blog about it is dissipated by the fact that I Twittered it and the blog post doesn’t happen. Although that may seem like a reason to stop Twittering I find the ability to ask for info … and knowing what others are up to and issues and celebrations they are experiencing right now to be both invaluable and addictive … um … but in a good way addictive … mostly.

I’m really pushing my students hard right now to be more critical and careful of their written work … and we are doing that with blogging. I can tell that there is a “gap” between what they already have the ability to do and what they are putting out generally. In other words, like I tell them … you aren’t going to catch the mistakes you don’t know are mistakes, but you can catch the mistakes you do know about – capitalizing the first word in a sentence, grammar, spelling (“you spelled “there” 6 times correctly – then you misspelled it here and here”), and it is paying off. They really are trying harder because the work will be published. Right now they are kind of the “Not Ready For Prime Time Writers”, but they are already doing much better …can we sustain that progress? Is blogging and other forms of publishing going to help us get there? Stay tuned and find out.

Well with interruptions in writing this it is now only 7 hours before my keynote goes live … so again be critical, but be kind.

Learning is messy!

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Tags: K12online, 1:1 laptops, Twitter, blogging,

… but, not because she couldn’t come to school … a camera crew dispatched by Skype came to film us reenact a day of Skyping Celest.

They came an hour before school started and strung lights and did sound checks. Then we just ran our day and Celest joined up from home. Our overstressed network was dragging along today and so Skype dropped a lot – but the students in her group just re-established the connection each time and we continued on.

After lunch they filmed from Celest’s house to get her side of the story. In-between the crew allowed us to interview them about their work – I video taped it – it was very informal – the crew was great with the kids, and one spoke Spanish, so my 2 non-english speakers were able to join in – I might post it later.

I used Google Earth to set the scene for the book we started to read today – it takes place in Pennsylvania, so I started out at our school in Nevada and then “flew” to Pennsylvania … they were filming the front of the room at the time and missed the reaction of the students, so they had me “fly” to a few more locations just to get their reaction. As the main character in the book visited different locations we flew to each one and talked about the distance involved, terrain and general geography.

I guess this will be edited this week and used by Skype at a news conference in New York in a week or so. The representative from Skype that was there hinted that among other things there might be an announcement about something new from Skype … we’ll see.

Learning is messy!

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