Category Archives: Student Access

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Find Your Niche, App, Tool, Whatever. Make It Work Transformatively, Effectively and Safely …. Then Let’s Market It, and How To Use It To Everyone.

Many of the conversations lately have been a bit downtrodden. Brett’s Skypecast last night, Will Richardson’s recent “deflating” experience, Jeff Utecht’s NECC experience, Miguel Guhlin’s recent post and others.

We’ve been bemoaning that the access to web 2.0 apps is not going well. Some districts block just about everything, teachers aren’t embracing them quickly enough and the list goes on. But maybe there is still plenty to use and the “marketplace” will take care of the rest over time in that either users will find safe “workarounds” as they use MySpace, ODEO, FLICKR, etc. (not everybody is blocked you know) and if these work and there is a demand and it seems safe things might open up. I’m definitely not saying give up or don’t think about or try to use these apps – just that things might not be as bleak as they seem. Would it be great if you could just jump right in and use many of these tools – yes – but many have issues of safety no matter how frustrating that is. Will Richardson (and others – including me) have spoken about how kids are exposed to worse images and ideas at the local convenience store and in some cases street corner. But you’re just not going to get past peoples’ fear and loathing of their kids being exposed, even by accident, AT SCHOOL – At least not now. I’m not satisfied with that but …

The good news is that there is so much that can be done that is safe and valuable for anyone to use – the web, digital photography, web pages, email, blogging (monitoring comments) and much more – and those of us that have unfettered access will have to use these new tools in ways that make others see past their fear and want to embrace them. We can even teach the ethical use of social applications so that students that use them outside school learn about ethics from someone.

There are so many applications available now, how could anyone use them all? Yes, we need to get going – I believe that strongly – but who can keep up? There seems to be at least one new app every day – yes we need access, and the ability to innovate – and what is more exciting than seeing something you’ve never seen before and immediately getting an idea on how it fits what you are or want to be doing with students and you want to do it NOW. Some of us will be able to do that, be the trailblazers, and some will have to wait (but fighting and scratching the whole time) until these new tools and methods are acceptable.

Beyond that, I would be thrilled if we could just get educators to embrace and utilize tech as a tool AT ALL! I’ll probably get attacked by some of you for saying this, but more than 80% of educators I know can’t cut and paste, or send an email with an attachment, or know you can have more than one window opened at a time or more than one application at a time, or what a browser is (or that Internet Explorer isn’t the only browser), or how to attach a printer or camera or use them, or any peripheral, or what USB or Firewire are and the list goes on. And we want them to be blogging AND Flickring, AND Skypeing, AND digital video, AND podcasting, AND making web pages and more? I have experiences with teachers showing them cut and paste that I should video some time. They get so excited – some do it over and over with big smiles on their faces – I’ve just made their day (but I was really showing them FLICKR and how to use an image in student writing).

Yes we need to keep the training and education and innovation on web 2.0 going, but let’s not forget than most haven’t embraced web 1.0 yet. We need to get many more trained and comfortable with tech in general and the new teaching that goes with it AS we continue to use and innovate with the new tools. If we build it they will come?

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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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How To Spread The Word? – Use The Media, Doesn’t Everybody Else?

Us edtech / project-based, folk have lamented for a long time how slow others have been to adopt the new tools and methods of the 21st century (although many of these methods are not new at all). We have talked about creating a buzz, an excitement about these methods that will overcome the reluctance of so many to engage.

One way to accomplish this is to use the media. Certainly using the media to help promote education and children is more righteous than pushing a product or a politician. And I’ve found most media are more than willing to cover positive education stories – especially new ideas or projects. So the next time your class (or someone else you know) completes a project or is involved in an activity –  (or even if they just started) contact the local media. And now it’s easy to do. Send an email – how hard is that? What’s the worst that can happen? They don’t get back to you – you lost 5 minutes writing an email. But what if they do come? – A great experience for your students. They get to see how the media works, some get interviewed, they’re excited – do you think you might get them to write about the experience? I’ve even had reporters and camera operators allow kids to turn the tables and interview them about what they do and why they decided to cover this story.

Students can take photos and video of the goings on – and there is another possible writing project (blog, story, letter home, etc.) And the next thing you know you’ve created a buzz about using tech and project-based learning. A buzz with your students, their families, your teachers, others’ students, the community – just what we’re trying to do – and its free!

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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!

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Let’s Make A Push At Change … but … Who Has The Time???

The newest teachers coming out of college that show up teaching in my school district are exposed to little tech as a tool, are required to use very little tech in their own studies – and in their methods classes the NCLB-data-driven-programs-of-the-year are what is promoted pretty much to the exclusion of anything else. And I can tell you sitting on my share of interview teams for new teachers – the pre-determined questions are all about which Reading and Math programs you’re trained in (or have even heard of), your experience with them, how willing are you to get more training and have a mentor to help you be your best at doing those programs? Why would anyone get the idea that technology or project-based, problem-based teaching and learning are something to embrace?

So how do we make the change happen more quickly? Make it ring with teachers, business, general public? Has this subject ever been blogged about before? : ]

We have to tell and show and prove that using the tools of technology to do project-based, problem-based learning IS the way to go. I’ve said before that there is a crack that we can enter through to get our message out there. The crack is the disconnect I catch business people and parents in fairly regularly. I’ve sat in meetings where people moan about the static state of education and then when ideas start to flow about changing things they quickly retreat to the status quo of what they did in school … just more accountability. When you point that out to them they usually become very pensive and you can drive home your point about things needing to change – but it will take more than that one time and it will also take proven results. Telling people you think this is the way to go is one thing – being able to point to numerous, ongoing examples that truly are getting results – reproducible results – is what is going to get people off the dime.

We have to take this to business. Teachers seem to have very little say in HOW things are done (have you noticed?) – so while getting teachers onboard is crucial, we go nowhere without the support of the general public, and winning over business just might accomplish both. I’ve commented on several business peoples’ blogs – however I’m not sure how large a readership they had and I’ve never generated any response from them – so one tactic is to start seeking out more blogs to comment on and spread the message and have some conversation that way.

It would be great to attend some conventions/conferences and present to business people on their own territory – but also rather pricey and time consuming and just a bit intimidating – and I don’t know about you, but I don’t get much info on upcoming business conferences (at least not like I do education conferences) and I’m not sure how receptive they would be to a session or keynote on education reform during their conference on “Widget” production or marketing or whatever … is there any tie-in here between education and business? HMMM … maybe they would be receptive? Maybe now is the time.

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Have Too Many Lost The Passion?

in this day of testing, programmed/scripted teaching what we are missing is the passion. How do you consistently get students revved-up if you are not excited about what you are teaching? When you think back at your own school experience and recall your favorite teachers, do you think about the ones that used the scripted, or practically scripted, math and reading programs especially well? Or do you recall teachers that were passionate about teaching and learning and did their best to make you passionate about it too?

I miss more and more going into teachers classrooms and sharing about what we were doing in our classes and leaving with new ideas to try and tweak and mull over – it fed my fervor both in what I heard that teacher share and in their excitement in what I was doing. When everyone is “doing” the math program that you must teach in-order and not skip any lessons because you’ll break the spiraling aspect – which is the programs strength – there’s not a lot to get passionate about. Not like when you are sharing students struggle with finding all the consecutive sums up to 25 and then noting the patterns that appear.

In my school district we now have a math program and a reading program that basically follow this scenario and they take-up the bulk of the day. I go into classrooms and teachers are prepping the lessons for the next day that aren’t their lessons, they are the programs lessons. It is very difficult to incorporate technology, projects/problems into a school day that is taken up by so much pre-planned time.

Mark Ahlness ranted awhile back about edbloggers that aren’t teachers and how frustrated he was with trying to get to all the newest apps and tools they were promoting in their blogs and presentations. I think (and Mark feel free to correct me on this) that his real frustration was with the fact that just getting his students to blog consistently – just that – was frustratingly difficult under the constraints of time a classroom teacher is subjected to. Then it is easy (although no one really says this) to imply that I’m supposed to be Skypeing, Flickring, podcasting, and whatever great new free app some blogger just found that you just have to use with your students and by the way see you at the _________ convention next week!

This lack of passion means teachers are having fewer discussions about teaching and learning – and the programs so many of us have to follow leave zero time and resources to promote the kind of teaching we would like to be doing so sharing the new teaching tools becomes irrelevant to all but the few.

Let’s hope this programmed teaching begins to wane (I see some cracks – do you?) so that the passion can return and that might lead to an embracing of 21st century tools and a renewed dialog about what teaching is and could be.

Learning is messy!

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One of the Best Investments We Could Make!

One of the biggest mistakes we made in this country was when we cut school sports programs – especially elementary school sports programs. When I was in elementary school, starting in fourth grade, we had after-school team sports – baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer. Now-a-days kids don’t know how to play games – and I don’t mean just the rules – I mean they don’t know how to win, lose, pick teams, use game strategies – nothing. Try to get a game of kickball going at the last 3 schools where I’ve taught with sixth graders? Forget it. Maybe 5 kids know basically how to play out of 30.

I read a book about the greatest pitchers in baseball with a reading group last year. Not one of the 8 students in the group had heard of even one of the pitchers – Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, – that was bad enough (but certainly not the end of the world), but the students could not relate AT ALL to the stories because they didn’t have any idea how hard it is to strike out 10 or 15 batters in a game – or pitch a game where no-one gets a hit – or a perfect game or even how to play baseball. So the stories were drudgery for them to read – totally boring. Now certainly you can get through life successfully without knowing how to play baseball or know its history (I guess) – but how much harder is it to get excited about reading if you have no sports experience of any kind?

If all you ever played was volleyball – you still get a sense of winning or losing a close game – or just the fun of playing, getting sweaty and tired – so tired you can hardly stand-up but you keep going. You have a feel for what a good play looks like and feels like – so you have a tendency to recognize them in other sports.

When I played sports in elementary school it worked something like this. After school I didn’t rush home so I could speed through my homework, toss down dinner, have a parent drive me across town to practice – then come back and get me later – putting more cars on the road, pollution in the air, more chances of being in an accident. Instead I … stayed after school. The coach (usually a teacher getting paid a small stipend) met us and ran practice until 4:30 or so. Those that didn’t have their homework done that day in class – stayed in class and got it done before they could practice – and if it happened twice they couldn’t play in the game that week – still had to practice though. Kids that had a hard time getting homework done … suddenly didn’t. We have a soccer program for a few kids at my school – and almost every kid that is on the team does better in school during the season.

Elementary schools tend to be located in the neighborhood – most kids can walk home after practice, or it’s a quick ride home later in the day when parents are more likely to be home from work. You get home before 5:00 – in time for dinner, homework, and family time. No rushing around. We use facilities that are already there but aren’t being used after school. Kids have something in common with other kids in their neighborhood. Of course kids don’t need the exercise … they’re already in great shape … right?

All that and research shows that students that are involved in sports or other extra-curricular programs (art, dancing, scouting, music, etc.) do better in school – Is that something we should promote? The best investment this country could make would be to provide extra-curricular activities for ALL elementary school children – and get more use out of facilities that are already there and waiting.

Playing and doing are messy learning!

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Your Child’s Dream Best School Day – What Does It Look Like? What Should It Be?

There is much rumination in the edblogosphere about what education and schools should look like in this way or that. Kids should be blogging, using web 2.0 applications (Wikis, podcasts, Flickr, the flavor-of-the-week app), in conjuction with project-based, problem-based learning. The reality in the elementary classroom however is not a blank slate that you can manipulate any way you want.

But let’s say it was a blank slate – and not only is it a blank slate, but YOUR child is in this class. What would you want your child to be doing in this classroom? They can’t just sit and blog all day. This is an elementary school classroom – what things would you want to hear your child saying they were doing in that classroom? Remember, there are usually mandatory minutes that must be spent on reading, language and math (and yes the other subjects too, but take my word, somehow the minutes of science, social studies, art, PE, etc. are not watched over in quite the same way).

So, what’s your child’s (or grandcild’s) ultimate learning day look like? I’d love to hear your ideas. If you are reading this you probably have some opinions, probably strong opinions about this, but have you ever thought about or planned a whole “typical” day? Here’s your challenge. Take your thoughts and biases and ideas and opinions and learning and experience and conversations and put them all together. Make it a comment here, or make it a post on your blog.

Don’t make this a minute by minute, long, drawn out thing (unless you want to), just a rough outline of what a great learning day would include.

I think this would help many people get a handle on what is being advocated on ed blogs, and give us all a chance to put our plan where our advocacy is. Any takers?
Learning is messy!

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Messy Learning Examples

I mentioned in an earlier post that some of the most important learning that happens isn’t part of your lesson plan because you can’t account for everything that MIGHT happen during a project. Here are some recent examples from our most recent video project.

One group needed some pictures of what living stickleback fish look like (the fossils we found were of extinct fish). The group searched the net and found some good examples and were just going to use them. From that a copyright discussion ensued – so we ended up emailing photographers to get permission. Since the pictures the students wanted to use were all from university web sites that got the professors interested in what the students were doing and they want copies of the video.

At one point the transition scenes with titles had no sound associated with them, and the students felt that was fine. They thought it was fine until about the third time they watched it – then it was boring and they decided they needed to do voiceovers on at least some of them – so we did.

Of course in their excitement to have a video on the internet each group wanted their scene to be as long as possible – but 5 out of 7 groups ended up deciding to edit their scenes considerably to make them more understandable and less boring.

Students were very reluctant to do the voiceover work (with a few exceptions, there are hams in every group) it was embarrassing or scary… and you might make a mistake… oh my gosh! After a few brave souls did theirs … and made mistakes … and they weren’t laughing stocks, it became more and more acceptable. In fact my students with the least English experience were some of the most likely to “volunteer” from their group. This is great because then the whole group gets involved helping them learn to pronounce the words correctly and clearly.

One of the “messy” learning pieces that came out was students wanting to re-write script pieces because “the wording is so important.” They would come to this on their own, especially when they would do final practicing before doing a voiceover. Is it OK if we re-write this part Mr. Crosby, we think we can make it better.” Great stuff! Like you’re going to say “No guys – don’t want you to think about improving your work on your own – let’s just use it as is.”

Learning is messy!

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No Time For… _________________ ?

Wes Fryer’s post “No Time For Technology In High Schools” follows up other tirades he has made about no time for recess and other areas now deemed “less important.” He states:

NO TIME. No time for projects, no time for fun activities, no time for in-depth learning because there is too much curriculum to cover.

He goes on to say that the major problem is the quantity of standards needing to be met.

I vehemently agree. So how did we get there?

If Wes was having this conversation with a supporter of NCLB he would be told rather abruptly that teachers and administrators were involved in writing and adopting the standards at each state – so go cry to them. And they would be right… sort of. Teachers were involved – but which teachers and how and why did they make the decisions they made? I know at the elementary level in my state the teachers that were picked for each subject were teachers that were award winning teachers for the subject they were chosen to work on. But ask those teachers about their typical classroom day and here is what you will generally find. They give more time to that subject.

I took over a class from an award winning elementary teacher who was a great math teacher – she told me that she was glad I was getting her class because I was stronger at language arts than she was. She was wrong. When I talked to the students she had them doing great language arts activities – but the typical day they described had a constant math focus.

They started the day with a math problem “sponge” activity, then corrected math homework and did a quick review for students that didn’t do well, while others did math explorations. But that wasn’t math class – that came later in the day. She also would do oral math drill during transition times during the day, and would spend more time occasionally doing large math explorations as a project outside of their usual math time. Now this is great math teaching and I don’t fault her for it except – guess what the great elementary language arts teachers do? Science teachers? – get it? Pretty much all of them give that subject extra time and attention. So they can get through more curriculum and they are more successful at covering more material. Math (or whichever subject) is their life so they don’t see a standard they don’t think is important.

Now I’m generalizing here a bit, but that is one way we get over exuberant standards. Then how do you argue with those standards without being labeled as someone who wants to “dumb down” the standards? I constantly hear parents question why their son or daughter needs to know how to do this or that, but they won’t question the standards for various reasons.

I agree with Wes, we need to revisit the standards. Not to “dumb them down,” but to make them relevant and meaningful. Then we might have time for the important things.

Learning is messy!