Student Blogging

When was your last awesome day?  Mine was today!  My students have been blogging this year in our classroom blog.  After they have had time to edit a piece I have them each read, and comment, on another student's posts.  I have asked them to refer to the success criteria when commenting.  They are looking for things such as a variety of sentences, literary devices, and bumped up words.  It was truly inspiring today when I read through the comments that they had given each other and the overwhelming majority had done an incredible job.  After showing my teaching partner some of the comments she said to me that it sounded like what she would write as descriptive feedback.  The students were so positive with each other, but also gave great constructive feedback.  What a wonderful way to learn from each other!  When a student realizes that another person has not used a wide variety of sentence types it causes them to reflect upon their own work and improve it.  On the other side, when they read things that other students do well, it allows them to learn from what others are doing.
Overall, this positive feedback really made my day today.  My heart was smiling.  It is so inspiring to see young people use social media so well to affect positive results. Way to go class!!!

10 Day Digital Challenge

As I have progressed through the digital 10 day challenge I have had the opportunity to reflect on the ways in which I am, and am not using technology in my class, and my own professional development.  I find myself a part of a significant change in education.  Our students are using technology every day, and they are carrying small computers in their pockets that we force them to lock away at school.  We are afraid of the technology, and most parents do not know enough about what their kids are doing with technology.  We all need to move beyond our fears, and we need to embrace the power that technology offers.  We can not hit kids over the head with rules, and then go back to paper and pencil worksheets (as Tanya Avrith suggests).  If we get kids using technology wisely and powerfully to transform the world they will see the power of positive use.  It is unfortunate that most of us are limited by our upbringing in a different era.  I myself often struggle to even imagine what I can do.  I don’t know, what I don’t know.  Connecting with people who want to move forward, and learn is the first step.  We then just have to continually take risks and learn.  That type of risk taking will help us to become good leaders who set the example for our staff and students.  As a leader in a school I need to ensure that the staff that is willing to try new things feels empowered, encouraged and enabled to do so.  I need to let them lead from the middle and not fear failure.  Even when things go wrong, pushing the boundaries is important to moving education forward.  I have to ensure that they have the tools they need and the ability to attend the workshops and conferences that will move them forward in their learning.  I know I will encouraged them to share their learning with the staff (perhaps in small steps - with the most ready to change being inviting to learn and grow).  I need to constantly remind myself that for both staff and students ‘Targets and parameters are the opposite of what works.  The freedom to think and experiment is what sparks creativity and knowledge.’ (paraphrase of Simon Breakspear).  I need to encourage my staff to be open to one another in sharing what they know.  As educators we need to open our doors to our colleagues.  We can not be insular any longer.  Not only should we be sharing our best practices within the building but we should be sharing them with the world.

Taking to Twitter

Taking to Twitter

The first three times I signed into Twitter were spread over the course of almost two years. To put it simply, I thought it was stupid. After all, this was a forum for anyone to state their opinion in 140 characters or less. I noticed that tweets that followed news items presented a plethora of unoriginal opinions about the topic.
It wasn't until about my fourth try that I made a discovery. If I followed the right groups and people, Twitter was a powerful tool. I found out that though Twitter was capped at 140 characters, the blogs and articles that connected to it were not capped. I found that in 140 characters people could give a hint as to the content of a given article. If that topic interested me, all I had to do was click the tweet and I was magically taken to information of interest. As I started to be selective in who and what I followed I found myself drawn into a world where connected learners were talking to each other and sharing cutting edge information regarding the world of education.
Yes on the fourth try I became an addict. If you have tried twitter and thought it was stupid, try, try again. I recommend following edugains and George Curous to get started. Best of luck.

Getting Connected

Getting Connected
Why am I trying to get connected?
The last 15 years of education have seen vast changes. We have not only had to adjust to new curriculum, but the foundations themselves are shaking. If we ignore the power of social media and connected learning then we do so at our peril. As Daniel Pink suggests, we cannot just make tweaks to adjust to the new learners and learning, but we must in fact shift operating systems. Just like when computers systems make patches to accommodate upgrades at some point whole new systems need to be created. Our education system has stood virtually unchanged in well over a hundred years. As educators we no longer need to be the possessors of knowledge. As any of our students know access to a world of information is at their finger tips. They can find the answers in seconds to things that perplexed us for years (I am thinking of how my son watched youtube videos to learn how to solve a rubik's cube). No, the issue now is how to sort through an exhaustive amount of info (good and bad). We must be the co-learners, the askers of questions that push learning to the next level.
How do we teach our students to be effective investigators when they are accessing tools we did not grow up with? The answer is simply - we need to learn how! Ask yourself, are you an effective Googler? At a digital literacy conference I was at this Summer, Alan November made me realize I was not a great researcher. A goal for myself is to become much better in this regard. We have to open our minds to things like youtube and other learning tools research. Importantly, we can also use these to connect our students the world Audience. Let them make DIY videos, and write blogs; have them connect to others around the world. Let's get away from lessons with no outcome other than memorization and move toward a school space that challenges our kids to take on, and change the world.

Starting to blog

This is the beginning of a new era of writing in our classroom.  I want all of us learners to be creative and to write within our own blogs.  I am very excited to see how this progresses over the course of the year.  Good luck to everyone in their endeavors.