Category Archives: Project Based

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Be Prepared???

Usually when I’m going to present I spend lots of time preparing and still feel like I could have spent more time and then it would have been even better. So it is ironic that Friday, when I was asked to present to my staff about more things they could do with their digital cameras and introduce wikis and some math and language activities, I had just come off 2 days that did not lend themselves well to being prepared … and so I wasn’t comfortably prepared. I had a handout with links for the things I would show them, but during recess and lunch I used up the little last minute time I had to prep, switching computers that I would present from (my overused Mac is being fixed) – meaning I would use my classroom HP – I’m not as “at home” with Windows machines so that also put me at a bit of a disadvantage. And yet the presentation was very well received and mostly came off without a hitch.

Most of the staff at my school hadn’t seen our “Inclusion” video yet, so we started off with that. They loved Fd’s Flickr Toys – and the writing ideas I had to go along with them. I made several examples before their eyes and then showed them the examples I was working on when I took my header. And then I quickly introduced them to Wiki’s – only a few had heard of them before, so I explained basically what they are and then used a new Wiki I’ve just started to put together to have them try out Wiki’s and the online math and language software they were asking about. We passed out laptops and had them try things out … and my 45 minutes were up. I had many share with me how they saw using the resources I’d shared in their classrooms right away.

HMMM, maybe I should under-prepare more often.

modern-buffalo.jpg

“Magazine Cover” from software available at: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/

This provided the brief comedic break during my presentation. Actually my daughters from a trip to Yellowstone National Park 2 years ago.

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So Our Goal Was To Make A Difference With Web 2.0 – Will We Succeed?

As someone who embraced technology as a learning tool early on (my first classroom computer was a 64K Apple ll – not even a lle) I’m right there with many in the edblogosphere that have come to the conclusion that the snails pace of adoption by many in education would be enhanced if we had many examples of it truly making a difference in schools. My class has now successfully included a student that cannot attend school because of her leukemia twice using FREE video Skype software (see here and here). Our plan is to do it as many days as she feels up to it. And beyond the obvious implications of that, what needs to be pointed out is that it was EASY. Beyond getting her a DSL line and computer, which took the better part of 2 months, setting up the Skype connection literally took less than half an hour at her house and our classroom combined. My fourth graders that came into this year having close to zero experience with technology beyond video games and phones, hook up the laptop and web cam we use easily after we did it ONE TIME (we’ve done it twice more since).

Will this make a difference in Celest’s life? The rest of my students’ lives? Others’ lives? Does this project have implications for web 2.0 beyond what we are trying to accomplish here (including someone)? Besides using Skype my students have already used Flickr, blogged, used email, word processed, used digital still and video cameras and planned a video about this experience – and we have only been doing it for 3 days. The exciting thing is we will experience the answers to these questions. More as it unfolds.

Learning is messy!

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A New Horizon?

Dave and Will and others have recently posted about sensing a new attitude towards education. They experience that change while mainly talking to large groups attending conferences – conferences that are going to draw folks that probably already share their outlook. I’m seeing that resurgence too, but from a different population. I mentioned my feelings about that just last night.

What is important here is that I am experiencing that change at the local and even building level. Teachers in my school – the ones least likely to embrace new ways of thinking about learning are the ones giving me the most encouragement. Admittedly, some, if not a lot of that change has come about because we have acquired digital whiteboards, laptops, cameras and more just this school year. And some of these reluctant integrators have had a new digital whiteboard screwed into the wall literally covering-up their old whiteboard forcing them to at least try using technology. Our principal also built into our budget about $175 per teacher for field trips this year – it helped pay for our fourth grade trip up the mountain at Squaw Valley this fall.

So, yes, an influx of actual tech at your site can help – although we’ve had 30 wireless laptops available here for 7 years – and cameras and scanners and more, and they have rarely been used – most have never used them even though we have had trainings and encouragement from administration that it was OK to use it even when the heat from NCLB was the hottest.

So what has changed? Maybe the few of us pounding away has helped. Certainly more teachers have their own home computers and high-speed access. More teachers at my school have young children now (we’ve experienced a baby-boom of our own the last few years), are they seeing the light based on seeing their own kids’ futures? My principal has been pushing integrating tech (even though she is a novice – she is trying hard to learn) and experiential teaching and making connections hard. Maybe … probably it is all these things.

But I am also seeing it from teachers that have attended classes and workshops I’ve taught recently from other schools – even from schools where they tell me that their day is TOTALLY pre-scheduled by their principal. That when their principal walks through their room if it is not VERY obvious that they are employing one of several “programs of learning” they have in place, they are questioned and even reprimanded. Some of these teachers have started to work tech-as-a-tool for learning into these lessons to avoid suspicion. Others work it into their mandated half hour or 45 minute once a week computer lab time.

I also am hearing from some that they miss the creativeness of planning and implementing lessons totally designed by them. I feel this might actually be one of the biggest motivators for some. Learning and teaching as creative processes (what a concept!).

The point is that I’m seeing a change – and it has infused me with vigor and encouragement. Maybe we are seeing a new horizon – a new visual to pilot towards!

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How To Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century

Time Magazine – How To Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century
by Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe

You’ve probably already read this article (and if you haven’t you should – here’s the link), or have read about this article (like here, here or here), but I like this article enough to comment about it (maybe more than once).

Early on Wallis and Steptoe make the following statement:

“This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is NOT having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get “left behind” but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English.”

In our rush to “improve” schools, we have made a common error – one we should know better than to repeat. That error is only focusing on what is perceived as wrong with schools without taking note of what schools have done that has contributed to our economy and our ability to invent and innovate. I’m not sure we really understand what has led us to be a powerhouse in that department – definitely something to do with our freedoms, free markets, our higher education, and lots of conjecture – but do we really know all the parts of the puzzle? What have we cut from our children’s school experience in our race to “improve” that might be an important cog in that wheel? Music? Art? … you know the list. And, what have we failed to include that is new or missing that will keep us competitive?

We have spent an enormous amount of time “implementing” and debating the good and the bad of NCLB, and one of the downsides of that has been little time to even think about having the conversation described in the quote above.

To those of us who are passionate about “Building a student for the 21st century” this quote is old news. But I think because we have the conversation often and are drawn to ANY news about 21st century education we think it is old news when really (and unfortunately) it is not. I’m encouraged that this article at least brings more credence to the debate. Not that I think Time magazine is the last word by any means, but it is not “Edutopia”or “Wired” or someone’s edtech blog or an online edtech magazine. The edtech gurus who travel around too often forget that if someone is attending a conference where they are presenting they are a different audience than a typical classroom teacher or administrator – because believe me, as a classroom teacher and workshop presenter, MOST teachers and administrators don’t even know what the quote is referencing. I’m taking an online class right now with 5 other teachers from my school – one of the requirements of the class is to write and respond on the class blog. None – not one of the other teachers taking the class with me had ever heard of a blog before they took this class.

Having said that however I am seeing a significant awareness in education that the boat is leaving the dock and we don’t have tickets. Even when I compare this school year over last year – I have experienced a longing by educators to embrace new approaches and tools – and I am enthusiastic about the possibilities.

More on this later.

Here’s hoping that learning and thinking about learning gets messy.

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Top 5 of the Year

The top 5 most read posts in my first 10 months blogging at Learning Is Messy: . . .

1) Paper, Pencils and Books May Not Boost Student Achievement 

2) Too Much Time For Change To Happen? 

3) Hoping To Make a “Web 2.0” Difference In A Child’s Life – Part 2 

4) Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models 

5) Society May Be Willing To Invest In Children If They Are Seen As An Immediate Value To Society 

Learing Is Messy

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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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Constructive Learning Is …

An interesting discussion at Borderland inspired this – feel free to add your comments:

Constructive learning is learning about something you had no intention of learning about because of what you did or are doing to produce something. You learn that you can have persistence, you can stick with something to completion – you just spent more time on task than you ever did in your life. You learn from failure what doesn’t work and why it doesn’t work until you work out what can work.

Constructive learning is contemplation.

Constructive learning is working things out with someone you could not possibly work things out with because you can’t possibly get along with that person because they are an enemy, your enemy … but, because you had a common goal, an intriguing goal that happened to use your strengths in an unexpected way – you now share a successful experience.

Constructive learning is working on something intriguing enough and important enough (to you) that you stick with it and work through what is hard with materials and people and ideas for long enough to find success.

Constructive learning is making connections.

Constructive learning is learning about just what you had in mind to learn about. You developed the thinking about how to learn what you wanted to learn about. You put together the materials required – Tried it, proved it to yourself. Done. Next.

Constructive learning is just doing something, anything almost, that seems to have even a whiff of possibility … sometimes it just works.

Constructive learning is seeking out those you would really like to work with because you have a good sense that you are kin in your thinking and interest – if the right problem is taken on kismet can happen – but so can disappointment.

Constructive learning is re-doing it because now we see how it could be really great.

Constructive learning is starting to make one thing, but then realizing it would make a better other thing. So you make the other thing instead.

Constructive learning is everything fell apart. The group, what we were trying to do, the idea, and it’s best to just walk away.

Constructive learning is everything fell apart. The group, what we were trying to do, the idea, but now we’ve had time and we are enthusiastic about it again.

Constructive learning is finding out that someone you thought was cool, was someone to be around … isn’t.

Constructive learning is learning that that jerk, that idiot, that ugly person  … isn’t.

Constructive learning is planning a constructive learning experience and watching what you hoped would happen, happen – but also all the great stuff you didn’t really plan to happen, that happens.

Constructive learning is the kids that never got it until they had a chance to do it this way.

Constructive learning is more than the above –  it is a passion.