For Twits Sake

I'm not an early adopter of anything. Blogs, wikis, podcasts; they all needed to generate some traction before I was willing to invest my own energy into consuming or creating with these media. But even as I became passingly aware of each, I knew if the trend continued I would need to experiment with them, learn how to use them, and find ways to work them into teaching. Afterall, this is where students are going; if these tools will help them learn, I need to be using them.

But I'm not sure I get some of the newer things. Second Life, which I have played around in off and on for over a year, just doesn't seem to click for me. The massive nature is interesting, but I'm still not convinced of its educational value except in cases where face to face is difficult, and then video chat seems more appropriate.

Now Twitter is becoming a bit of a thing. I tried it and honestly don't get it. At all. Who cares that I am eating popcorn right now? Perhaps Twitter is still largely in the shiny new toy stage and more engaging uses are still down the road. Maybe the Will Richardson of Twitter will reframe the twit as Will did the blog(v.).

But what got me going tonight was Jeff Utecht's post about Twitter in the classroom. He discusses the ability to use Twitter with cell phones and how this might help his IT department better communicate.

We are 8 people across 6 schools on two campuses 2 hours apart. It might be interesting to see if something like Twitter would allow us to stay in contact, help each other out, and improve our communication.

I can see this; this is a practical application that improves upon text messaging because a single twit can go to the entire group.

But then he extended the thought to the classroom.

With being able to use it on your cell phone I can picture some uses for it in the classroom as well. With kids able to answer questions via a text that appears on a teachers twitter account. You would have the name of the student, their answer and be able to give them personal feedback with a direct twit.

I felt that cold chill, that tightening in my gut usually reserved for extreme heights and spiders. A classroom awash in the glow of cell phones as teacher and students twit away, narry a word spoken. Is this the cold dread other educators feel when I talk about blogs?

But the image resonated on another level too. We are already doing this, aren't we. One of the hot topics of tech integration is response systems. What if Twitter is the response system all our students already own? What if, instead of spending thousands of dollars on these systems, we capitalize on the technology our students already bring to school every day.

And now I need to know more. So I've added the Twitter box to the blog, for now at least, and I've downloaded Twitterific from Iconfactory (apparently just for Macs). So, if you are a fellow Twitterer(?, gotta work on the lingo), twit me.

Here is my Twitter profile.

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photo credit: Ohio University Center for Academic Technology

Close the Book

Phew. The books are checked in. The posters are off the walls. The students have all gone home. We are done.

This year went by incredibly fast. I was joking with some of my students about how September to April went by in a blur and May took three months.

69 students graduated this year, students that largely would have dropped out if not for the alternative school. I am proud of everyone at Willard for being part of that success, and I am especially proud of the students choosing to be successful even when many people in their lives, including other educators, told them they would never graduate.

Now, getting ready for next year.

Sitting at the Big Kids' Table

I've been pretty quiet in this space for a long time. This has mostly been self-censoring; lots of drafts have been written, but the various projects were all too up in the air to make public.

That changed this morning.

Starting next fall, I move into a half-time position as teacher on special assignment as the current teacher steps back to part time. Much of this position will be coordinating career and tech ed programs, overseeing the Perkins grant, and facilitating connections between school and the business community. The remainder of my time will be spent promoting and developing the integration of technology into the core curricular areas across the district. The new role is very exciting, but what I am most looking forward to is being part of the district-wide conversations about 21st century learning.

A significant piece of this second part is also connected to the other 0.5 of my full time day. I have been asked to be the teacher for a demonstration classroom, modeling how a wide variety of technologies--hardware, software, and web-based--can be embedded into an English classroom.

I get to both talk the talk and walk the walk. I can't wait.

Blogs as Just Another Assignment

I have played with using student blogs for two years now, and I just haven't felt like students feel any ownership. The goal was to get away from doing it for the teacher, but based on the effort required to get students to write, I don't feel like my students ever felt blogging was anything more than just another assignment.

Part of the disconnect, I feel, is the tool I am using. I love classblogmeister for its ease of use and security settings. The teacher has control over what goes live, leaving plenty of opportunity for catching student mistakes or inappropriate comments before they cause problems. But how is my role as moderator of student blogs any different from my role as moderator of the hallway bulletin board? If everything a student writes needs to go through me, isn't the student reduced to writing for me?

This has become part of the larger discussion in my district regarding the use of blogs in the classroom. Do we, as teachers, need to moderate all posts and comments? At what point--grade level, age, experience blogging--might teachers move to monitoring instead? Is monitoring ever "enough", or is our professional obligation to student safety so great that moderating is the only option?

Nuns Get It!

The NBC nightly news just finished, and I'm sorry to say I missed most of the final story, thinking it would be the usual ending puff piece. The gist of the story is that there is a growing number of young women expressing an interest in serving God by joining the convent.

A convent in Michigan is going high tech, using a website to help with recruiting. The nun in charge of recruiting, Sister Joseph Andrew, was interviewed , and I just happened to be walking past the t.v. when she said, "When I travel, I take my Blackberry with me because young women want a response quickly." (no direct link: see "More U.S. Women Joining the Convent" at MSNBC)

Nuns get it! What is taking education so long?

As an aside, I do find it interesting that the ad on MSNBC leading into the piece is for Blackberry devices.

Wanna Take a Survey?

Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant is conducting a survey of edublogger types. Please take a minute to fill it out.

Opting out incurs Scott's wrath.

Those solicited who choose not to participate shalt be labeled both publicly and widely as dastardly scoundrels, notty-pated hedgepigs, or beslubbering, doghearted, maggot-ridden canker-blossoms!

Wordie - Like Flickr, but without the Photos

TechCrunch has a post about a new social networking site for word lovers, Wordie. Simply enough, Wordie allows users to create a list of words. Each time a word is added, Wordie includes various links to get definitions.
While a wiki would probably be a better way to build a class word bank complete with definitions and examples, Wordie could be useful for reviewing terms, with students checking definitions as needed. This approach could be especially valuable for SAT/ACT prep.

Then there is the sheer word nerdiness of it all that I love. I am going to use the site as a way to keep track of all the fun words I come across. There is even an RSS feed, so I have added it to the blog's sidebar.

Now with Chat!

Cool Cat Teacher, Vickie Davis, points out Meebo Me, another way to add chatting functionality to a blog.

I love the idea of increasing channels of communication, so I am giving it a try here. However, I'm not sure how useful this will be for the classroom. In order to participate with visitors to the blog, I need to log into meebo, which I am certain my district blocks (I'll need to check on Monday).

Mostly, though, I'm just curious about chat. I rarely use IM, preferring the asynchronous leisure of email (remember when email was considered the fast way to communicate in writing). If I need real time, I would rather use the phone or Skype.

But lets give it a try. I would love to hear from anyone stopping by the blog.

Where are my tags?

I hit a wall yesterday while cleaning my desk and file cabinets. As I went to put some copies in a folder I realized the content was generic enough that I could use it for multiple projects. I jotted down the various topics but then had to decide which drawer to put the file in. I typically file by grade period, but the various projects occur in different periods. I suppose I could make folders for every quarter and file the copies in multiple places; only a year ago I would have done just that and been fine.

This time I didn't.

I sat there, wondering how long it will take to be able to tag everything, have it all in one container, and make it appear when needed by keyword. My file cabinet should work like that. So should my operating system. Neither does, and I was truly flummoxed.

Is this what my students feel every day when the school system strips away the tools they have become accustomed to using?

Blogs, Schools, and the Law

My principal was kind enough to pass along "Blogs: A New Frontier for School Discipline Issues" in the fall 2006 edition of A Legal Memorandum, the National Association of Secondary School Principals quarterly law publication. It appears as though only NASSP members can access this online, so ask your principal for a chance to see her copy.

Overall, the newsletter's focus is on students' personal blogs (those created and posted to from off campus using no school resources) and the free speech protections afforded. In short, unless the school can demostrate "a material and substantial disruption to the educational environment", personal blogs are protected and schools may not take disciplinary action if the student writes something unpleasent.

What surprised me, because I admit I was expecting a pretty authoritarian, lock-it-all-down approach, is that the authors then advocate for a proactive stance--educate students as to the legal issues and appropriate use of blogs.

It is likely that in the long run continuous dialogue and up-to-date education in the appropriate use of electronic media will be far more effective than punishments such as suspensions and expulsion.

The Hazelwood decision, which I learned about in my preservice classes because it allows principals lattitude in censoring school newspapers, has an interesting implication for school-sponsored blogs.

Of crucial importance in [the Hazelwood] decision was the Court's comment that the school administration does not have the right to censor student speech (oral or written) that is part of an open forum.

Calling a classroom blog an open forum would certainly seem reasonable. What implications would that then have for the classroom or school? Does a student's class blog posting have more First Amendment protection than an article in the school paper? These are going to become pressing questions in the coming months/years.

However we choose to engage these questions, I can only take away hope and encouragement from the fact that the NASSP is advocating a reasoned, education-based approach to online resources. Now if we could only get more our education leadership blogging.

Filtering, Persuasion, and Literacy

On Monday, my students begin their persuasion unit. As a culminating project, they will be creating issue ads based on their research and writings during the grading period. I have never had students do this before, so I am going to do my own first as a test run.

As I have been framing this project in my mind, I keep drifting back to the ongoing filtering discussion. I have been too caught up in the academic discussion of filtering; I need to get back to the students, to the reality of their world, to "the new story", as David Warlick puts it, of filtering and the true impact on student safety.

So my test run is going to be an issue ad supporting the level of access to the internet needed to fully and appropriately teach digital literacy. All I have right now are some random images--mostly cuts between the school/home internet experience, but they will revolve around this rework of "give a man a fish".

Filter the Internet
and We Protect Children for Six Hours

Teach Digital Citizenship
and Children Protect Themselves for a Life Time

Filtering

This fall, my district switched filtering programs and many, many more sites and services are being blocked as a result. I have lost access to, among other things, bloglines, netvibes, writely, and many edtech bloggers, including everyone who publishes using blogger (even me). Thank goodness I still have classblogmeister or much of my lesson planning over the summer would have been shot (although teaching about RSS has become more difficult). To date, my requests to have these sites unblocked have gone unmet.

But there is hope.

Two weeks into the school year the district technology director sent out an email outlining the changes and asking for comments/questions for the web review committee. Such an open invitation is a first, so I answered with the following letter.

September 18, 2006

Web Review Committee,

Thank you for the invitation to share comments. One of the more frustrating aspects to internet filtering in the district has been the lack of dialog on filtering and its impact on student learning, classroom instruction, and professional development. [The technology director's] email on September 11 was an important first step in opening up the conversation, and I look forward to a continuing dialog across the district.

First and foremost, we need to remember as a district that the importance of the internet as a source of information and a tool for communication is only going to increase. Our students have unfettered access to the internet once they are outside the reach of the district filter. As responsible educators, we need to be involved in educating our students of the dangers. But more importantly, we need to be modeling and providing guided practice in the safe and appropriate use of these 21st century tools. Blocking access to the educational use of these tools only serves to leave our students under-prepared to navigate the changing landscape of the internet.

This is not to say there should be no filtering. Certainly, there are many sites unsuitable for students—content of a strictly adult nature should be inaccessible. However, just as our libraries contain information appropriate to the grade levels served, our district should filter the internet at a level appropriate to the grade levels served. Tiered filtering that respects the developmental differences of elementary, middle, and high school students is critical to providing age appropriate instruction.

Additionally, any filtering scheme needs to respect the professional judgment of educators. Educators should have the most latitude in accessing the internet so they may best determine what sites may be used, in whole or in part, with their students. The current practice of blocking a site simply because there is, for example, a shopping aspect to the site prohibits access to related, but educationally appropriate, content. Moving toward a filtering process that allows educators to temporarily turn off the filtering of a given site will improve teachers’ ability to plan and provide for more flexibility in terms of just in time teachable moments.

Ultimately, filtering should be based upon the appropriateness of the content. The new filtering system is blocking entire categories of sites based on the method of publication (notably blogs and wikis, but other important, educationally valubable resources as well). This wholesale blocking is cutting off access to a wide range of educationally appropriate, topical, and timely information.

Finally, I urge the committee to increase the amount of communication across the district regarding the educational integration of the internet and the role of filtering in meeting our educational goals. Committee discussions, or at least the results of those discussions, need to be public and communicated to the district. The committee, if it has not already, needs to become familiar with the growing wealth of online tools—including blogs, wikis, rss feeds/aggregators, and web-based applications—and their relevance in the classrooms of the 21st century. I would be happy to provide more information on any of these topics to the committee as a whole or to individuals.

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the district’s filtering policies. I look forward to continuing this discussion.

Sincerely,


Matthew J. Clausen
Willard School
x4755
mclausen@mcps.k12.mt.us
mjclausen@gmail.com
http://blogschools.blogspot.com

There hasn't been much response, yet, but I am hopeful. Thank you to all the edtech bloggers I have been reading over the past year or so. Your ideas helped frame this letter, and any success is a direct result of the wonderful openness of the conversations.

I have already thought of a few things missing from this letter. Most importantly, the notion that often filtering is used as a technological fix to what is really a teachable moment/discipline issue. I am planning a second letter to addres this; anyone have any thoughts on what else to include?

Beta Blocker

I switched over to the new beta version of Blogger. So far, I am liking the changes, even though it did take a little getting used to. I had become pretty comfortable editing the html, so using the new layout feature took some adjustment.

Overall, I think I have the blog back to working the way I like. I have noticed one problem--changing to beta broke my RSS feed for bloglines subscriptions. The bloglines button at the bottom of my blogrole is working again. My apologies to subscribers for the hassle of unsubscribing and then resubscribing. I appreciate your effort to stay connected.

In Memoriam

At 6am last Friday, September 15, Buzz, one of our social studies teachers, passed away after having a heart attack. After thirty-odd years of teaching, most of those in alternative programs, Buzz touched many lives. He will be sorely missed.

When news of his passing reached the students they were understandably hit hard. So many of our at-risk youth have already experienced so much loss. They come to school for stability--as one student put it, "teachers aren't supposed to die."

Buzz would have loved what has happened over the past week, however. His driving mission in education was to provide students with a sense of place, of community, of belonging. On the 15th, many students were too shaken to stay in school, and that is understandable. But many students stayed, comforting one another and their teachers, some of whom had worked with Buzz for over 20 years.

His memorial service was packed; current and former students told stories and jokes, celebrated his life, and reminded us of Buzz's reach. So many of them would not have graduated, or even have believed they could graduate, without Buzz's guidance.

I have never been more proud of our students. For the past week they have been the living embodiment of Buzz's legacy--education is important and as a community we can get through anything.

K12 Online 2006

Announcing the first annual "K12 Online 2006" convention for teachers, administrators and educators aroundhttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 with the theme "Unleashing the Potential." A call for proposals is below.

A Difference: K12 Online 2006

Two weeks of podcasts/screencasts about using technology in education. Excellent. The end of October cannot come soon enough. I am especially looking forward to the overcoming obstacles strand (Anne Davis is delivering the keynote). Too often, the conversations surrounding the obstacles are nothing more than collective wallowings in misery. Sure, there are problems. It is time for us to start focusing on " tips, ideas and resources on how to deal with issues".

Thanks to Darren Kuropatwa, Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach, and Will Richardson for organizing the convention!

Choice and Education

Mark Glasser at MediaShift, "your guide to the digital media revolution", has some nice comparisons of the old v. new ways of looking at media and its relationship with consumers.

Remixing marketing messages so they apply to education is nothing new, but one of his comparisons really struck a cord for me.

Oldthink: Reading, listening or watching [i.e. learning] on the schedules set by [teachers] and [school districts].
Newthink: Getting the information, news and entertainment [students] want, when [they] want it, on the device [they] want it, with or without [teachers/classroom/instruction/whathaveyou].

I know this is certainly the way I prefer to learn. What does a classroom, school, district, curriculum need to look like to accommodate this shift? Certainly, bans on cell phones (as much as I hate them personally), social networking sites, and anything else coming down the pipe will only serve to push students away from the classroom.

I go back and forth on the issue of whether schools will even be around in the next twenty years. I see the value of the social aspect of learning, of schools being a place to gather with a purpose; however, if some schools make the shift and others don't, I do see those that fail to shift disappearing into irrelevance as students choose the schools that stop trying to restrict their learning.

A Model for Learning

Andy Carvin posted notes from former govenor of Maine Angus King's aalf.org keynote about the state's 1-to-1 laptop initiative. King discusses the process he went through to get the project rolling and then shares some lessons learned. What really sticks out for me is this.

We should look at law school as a model, because there's too much damn law. Nobody can learn all of it. Instead, you learn how to ask the right questions, identify the issues, and find the law. That's a much better model for kids to learn in a knowledge-rich society. It's a different kind of learning.

Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth: Angus King: A Brief History of Maine's Laptop Program

This approach, central not just to law school but the entire practice of law, works in any field. It speaks to the whole notion of getting away from teaching basic facts and moving toward teaching ways of thinking. How do historians/scientists/writers think about their world? How do we, as teachers, guide our students through the process King is talking about?

The "Big Question" assignment is one I've used to move students toward this process. Students need to come up with a ridiculously BIG question, like "what is love?", and try to answer it using an I-search process. They begin by breaking the big question down into managable chunks--smaller, more focused questions--and start researching those. Once they have researched their small questions, they start looking at how the information they have found fits into their own experience. As they write their papers, I tell them it isn't about right answers; instead, the answers needs to be right for each person, at this moment, knowing what they know. They just need to support their versions of the right anwer with the information they have discovered.

Blogged with Flock

Process of a Podcast

I tried a little off the cuff podcasting yesterday using just a rough outline. Boy did I suck. I'm a talker, but trying to think, come across as intelligent, and form smooth complete sentences was more than I could handle on my first run through.

Breathing was a challenge, too. I just couldn't relax my diaphram, so I kept talking to the point of gasping.

Much of this all comes down to practice, something I need to keep in mind when trying to do audio work with students. Scripts, practice, time for editing all need to be part of the equation, both in my planning and in my conversations with students. Slapping something together last minute just isn't an option for creating a quality product.

Part of the classroom use will be mini due dates. When do various pieces of the production need to be in by so the whole project can be assembled in a timely manner?

Good thing I love learning by doing. There is still much to figure out.

Time to Breathe

Phew.

Last Friday was the end of the school year for me. We had 69 graduates this year, bringing the total graduates over 300 in the five years Willard alternative has been open. It feels good to be a part of that. I am also very tired.

Sunday, I finished the last class in my Master's program. The past two years have been very good ones. Glad I went through the program; glad it is over.

In one weekend two major responsibilities wrapped up, and now that I have taken some time to catch my breathe, I am looking at the pile of things that built up during that final push. There are 401 posts piled up in Bloglines and at least that many weeds in the yard. I need to get back on my bike. I want to try a podcast or two. Lots of things to get to; most of them are even fun.

Off to it.

MySpace?

There has been a fair amount of discussion regarding school districts where the filters are blocking not only MySpace but any site that uses the phrase MySpace. Miguel Guhlin has been discussing this at length and other have joined the conversation. Part of Miguel's response is a call to action, asking fellow bloggers to write "MySpace" on their blogs.

That'll show-em. Or, rather, it won't show them anything--being blocked and all.

I had a student last year who insisted on peppering his discussions with "fuck". When called on it, he insisted that these utterances were an act of rebellion. That he was challenging the system by breaking the taboo. As the teacher in the room I didn't so much feel challenged as bored (& maybe a tad annoyed). His liberal use of the word showed a lack of creativity. I told him so. I added that if he really wanted to rebel he should do something about poverty or world hunger--real social issues that require real social change.

I just don't see writing MySpace on my blog just for the sake of writing it as doing anything of value. I know Miguel is doing other things, real things (see 1 & 2 ), about reforming the way we think about & practice our profession. But a lot of energy is going toward making a noise that lacks creativity and will, at most, annoy.