This was written on a scrap piece of paper while doing some ‘big thinking’ with Heidi Hass Gable. I’m sharing it exactly as it was written, but adding links to some of my other posts to liven it up a bit… Feedback, as always, is appreciated.
Well the concept of neighbourhood has really changed for me. I showed this movie in Powerpoint format at one of my presentations at BLC08 this summer. Afterwards, I think it was one of 3 people, (Liz Davis, Laura Deisley, or Maria Knee), that asked me how many people from my network did I think were in the presentation? I had no idea? Tonight I thought I’d start the search.
See the video on this blip.tv link or click below for it to open in a new window.
That’s 30 people, some appearing more than once. Other than intentionally using items from Alec and Jeff, each one of these ’sightings’ are incidental… but significant. Beyond these connections I also have Jabiz Raisdana, Dave Matheson (one of just 3 local connections from my district), Sue Waters, Karen Janowski, and Claudia Ceraso commenting on my post introducing the video.
Claudia didn’t just comment on my post, she wrote a response post that has challenged my thinking. When I’m done here I’m going to her blog to respond… to continue the conversation, and the learning. Claudia may live and work in Argentina, but she has influence over me. Geography and physical proximity no longer matter. (Case-in-point: Sue’s comment offers me advice from Austrialia.)
My digital neighbourhood spans the globe! But this is more than an issue of geography, it is also about influence and significance. Some of these connections are ‘loose’, like the local bus driver on Sesame Street, but others have greater meaning to me.
I may never meet some of these people, but they are my teachers, mentors and friends. This is my network, not my neighbourhood… and networks are fundamentally different than groups/(neighbours). It truly is a brave new world-wide-web, and if we aren’t engaging in the opportunities it provides us then we are missing out… and the same could be said for our students.
I spent Friday morning with 22 student teachers and a couple teachers from my school. My goal was to introduce them to the world of web2.0, wikis, and del.icio.us. Well 2 out of 3 ain’t bad- I didn’t really get into delicious beyond an introduction. That aside, I think this group of future teachers really understood my point that education is changing and our teaching needs to change too!
The slideshare was my main introduction, and here is the wiki we used. I gave them each a page to play with and used video’s to convey many of the ideas I wanted to get across. I’d like to thank SFU Faculty Advisor and friend John Stockdale for the opportunity.
I’d love to be able to give this message to every student teacher!
Originally posted: January 28th, 2008
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
I haven’t gone to the slideshare version of this slide show in a while. I just went there to get the embed code to repost and saw the stats since uploading this presentation four months ago:
The stat that surprises me the most is the number of downloads. I would love to see some of the adaptations made to those downloads and I’d also love to know how they have been used?
I chat with some ‘familiar’ people, Alec Couros and Kelly Christopherson, and ask them to help me out with a Pro-D session I’ll be running with student teachers on the 25th. Chrissy says to ‘Twitter’ her and she will help out. (She actually says, “Twitter us and we will help”). I don’t follow Chrissy on Twitter so I go to my open Twitter window and request to follow her.
I see that I have a new Gmail message in my inbox so I open another window to find out that it is Kris. She is asking if I had seen her new post, which is titled Web2.0 Compatible.
I’m listening to the meeting, I postpone popping open windows to the links Vance is referring to, or checking the live chat on uStream so that I can read Kris’ post. I notice a small typo in Kris’s second paragraph. I also notice a green dot by her name in Google Chat indicating that she is online. I open a chat box and quote her typo back to her.
Kris replies back minutes later that the typo is fixed, (I hit refresh and it is). Kris’ post is about how ‘her generation’ is totally web2.0 compatible.
I continue following the meeting where a participant is talking about how these new applications are now ‘net’ applications and not ‘pay-for’ software. I realize that other than my computer and Internet connection, all this linking and watching and listening and engaging is free.
The most amazing part to all this: It was almost midnight here and I was ‘chatting’ with a student, reading her writing, and offering (minor) feedback… while ’sitting in’ on a staff meeting at the International School Bangkok, Thailand… ‘talking’ to Kelly in Saskatchewan and Alec in Regina, as well as others in Australia and The UK… and ‘meeting’ Chrissy, a new connection from New Zealand, who has offered to Twitter-in and help demonstrate networking/connectivity at my Pro-D session next week in the suburbs of Vancouver.
All this happened in a shorter time than it took me to write this post!
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Postscript:
While getting links for this post, I discovered that Chrissy also wrote about this experience. Here is a great image she uploaded. Click on it to get to her post.
…and back again moments later. Apparently this was not a staff meeting, but a session in an un-conference. Kim just linked to the conference wiki page via Twitter.
Originally posted: January 16th, 2008
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
This was a very powerful expression of how my learning has shifted from searching for information to seeking interaction. It also speaks of ‘richness’.
I want students to know this kind of learning… in school. I want them to be active members in a global learning network. I want them to follow their own interests, to make choices about what information they will choose to pay attention to, what to check later, and what to filter out. I want students to be 21st Century learners.
I’ve bounced some digital immigrant/native ideas around a fewtimes. Now I have one more thing to add.
When I was young my sister had dolls that spoke. This was so amazing! You pulled a string in the doll’s neck and as it recoiled the doll said, “Hi Ma-ma” or some other short phrase. Later the dolls would say a series of phrases, changing with each pull-of-the-string. Now my daughters have My e-Pets and Webkinz. Next comes this video:
It seems that the ‘Immigrant/Native’ argument is moot. I called the digital range in competency/capability of students a spectrum, not a dichotomy, (I think the correct word should have been continuum -note the reflection/comments on the post to see why I now think ’spectrum’ is better than ‘continuum’). The fact is students can’t be lumped into general categories such as this. George Siemens summarizes this point better than I can, so read his post, and I’ll move on to the point of this post.
There is an issue of ‘digital exposure’ that many (but not all) of today’s kids have that simply wasn’t available when we were young. Despite my new distaste for the ‘digital native’ catch phrase, I am back to liking my Batman/Borg quote:
“I come from the Batman era, adding items to my utility belt while students today are the Borg from Star Trek, assimilating technology into their lives.”
My daughters interact with their toys in ways that I never could. In the same vein, two year old Paige from the above video will expect her toys to interact with her, to provide her with choices that I never had. Does it not follow that she will expect the same interaction and engagement in school?
Basically this is about ‘exposure to’ and ‘integration with’ digital technology at a young age as opposed to ‘adaptation to’ digital technology later on in life.
When Paige is 9, she will have peers that instant meesage each other on their PDA’s… they will be more likely to communicate online at a younger age… they will be more likely to connect to like-minded social groups digitally. They will be continually exposed to ‘new technology’ that they won’t ever remember living without. (Technology and tools that we name, and they participate with.)
Meanwhile, I will continue promoting the value of integrating technology into the classroom to teachers who have “enough on their plate already”. I will offer out some ‘delicious‘ tools for their utility belts… while Paige plays with an iPhone and learns to connect to the world around her in ways many of us are now learning about… learning side-by-side with a two year old.
Originally posted: December 11th, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
In any given Grade 8 class, I have had students at a Grade 4 to Grade 10 competency in Math. The gap has been equally as large in writing and reading skills… and it follows that I will have similar competency level issues with students’ abilities in connecting and communicating digitally.
Digital exposure will lead to greater digital competency, but that competency can be very focused or limited in scope. For some, (like the students I highlighted in the reflection on a recent post), digital exposure has sparked an interest in understanding how computers, technology, and/or the internet work. These students will be digitally competent in most, if not all, areas. For others, competency will be very limited and demonstrated, for example, in the ability to play games, even ones that they have never played before, at a competent level very quickly. Yet others will be able to text messages without needing to look at their phone, and yet find themselves lost when trying to embed a video onto a blog.
We’ll have both Batman-like and Borg-like students in our classes.
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The Digital Immigrant/Digital Native dichotomy is untenable.
Gaps in Digital Exposure and Digital Competence will be no different than the gaps we see in basic skills or content areas when we enter a classroom.
After my last post I went to hear Alan November speak at an afternoon Pro-D session. I then read Brian Kuhn’s blog post and added a comment, which I have edited slightly and included below. In the process of writing this comment I realized a valuable lesson, which I will discuss below the comment:
The afternoon session With Alan November was great!
It was wonderful to hear Alan November again. His webcast for the district was one of the things that lit a fire under me and encouraged my to explore technology as a means for students to learn ‘new things in new ways’.
This weekend I was listening to some of his podcasts and I wrote a blog post about them : Looking back at it, my reflections were somewhat sarcastic and negative… A product of feeling like things just haven’t been moving fast enough.
Tuesday afternoon changed that for me. There are a lot of great teachers out there doing wonderful things, and there are many more teachers out there feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to learn, who are still willing to take the next step forward. On a more personal note, the world of web2.0 has given me wings , but I realized that I too have a long way to go before I am doing all the things that I can to give my students wings too!
Thanks to Jill Reid for the invitation, to all the leaders who helped make a day like today possible, and to Alan November… I am refueled and ready to continue my journey of learning along with my students.
Here are some notes about today e-mailed to me from Joni, a true leader in our school. She may not be tech savvy (yet), but teachers like her who offer their leadership, guidance and support are what will help ‘us’ move forward using technology ‘for learning’ rather than just using technology to teach!
1) Answer questions from class. This kid needs to answer all questions, if he can’t, he needs to find the answer on the web, then post the answer.
2) Continuous researcher through class
3) Official scribe: takes notes for the class every day. Post them to the site.
4) Create a Wiki site. Allows children make a contribution to the world. wikipedia, or your own space like www.wikispaces.com [My attempt - ScienceAlive.]
5) Contributing any source that they find on he web to the class: use a social networking site. eg. www.diigo.com create a diigo account for the class or every student has their own account and then “share to group”. [I used delicious and am now moving to diigo]
Reflect and Learn
Here is the sentence from above that has hit home with me over the past few days, “the world of web2.0 has given me wings , but I realized that I too have a long way to go before I am doing all the things that I can to give my students wings too!”
I currently have a private Ning network for my students, but it is really driven by me! The blog posts, the groups, the forums… all initiated by me! Yesterday I read a post by Konrad Glogowski. The post, “Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers – The Set Curriculum“, was about just that, ‘the set curriculum’ (something I have written about a few times) but a specific section struck a chord with me:
“It seemed logical to me that my responsibility as an educator was to prepare a collection of texts, resources, diagnostic and assessment/evaluation tools in order to achieve specific learning outcomes. I saw myself as a subject expert whose primary responsibility in the classroom was to teach a very specific set of skills and competencies. I saw myself as someone who possessed knowledge and perceived my students as individuals who needed to acquire it.”
I am new to teaching planning 10, and I am trying to launch a specific program, YPI , that I am learning about with the students. So, I did what many teachers do when they are unfamiliar with the curriculum… I teach to it.
In the last little while my posts have been peppered with negative undertones about things not moving fast enough and technology limitations that I have found frustrating. Well, although those things are legitimate concerns, they are things that are for the most part beyond my control. What I can do is create an engaging classroom environment that actually gives my students wings.
Another thoughtful lesson inspired by Alan November , and realized through my blogging/web2.0 experience.
Originally posted: November 23rd, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
After reading Konrad’s post, I went into my classroom and wrote a forum post for my ning networks titled, “You lead the way“, and this is what it said:
Here is your chance to be the teacher today.
What do you want to learn more about? What questions do you have? What interests you?
This can be about Planning 10 or anything else. It can be questions that you often wonder about or just a thought in your head.
You have 2 choices.
1. Respond to this forum
2. Create your own forum discussion
Then I would like you to read what others have written and join in the conversation.
Some of the student discussion choices were (in my opinion) silly. Others good, and still others were heated, including a thoughtful discussion on the Death Penalty, where I had to bite my digital tongue…and sure enough a student came up with a perspective that I thought needed to be shared. These ‘free’ conversations gave the students some ownership of the site and encouraged a greater amount of online conversations afterwards.
Below is a Halloween Scavenger Hunt I did on a (private) Ning Network that I created for a class Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) project I am doing in my two Planning 10 classes.
The scavenger hunt does the following:
Introduces students to flickr and , and;
It teaches them to insert and site a photo appropriately.
2. Find a “by-nc-sa” photo that you consider spooky/scary and put it on your blog. Link to the actual photo AND give the photographer credit like I did below (I linked to his profile).
3. Create a link to one of the “Truss’ YPI del.icio.us links” found on the Main Page.
4. In the World on Fire video, how much did Sarah McLachlan spend on a Mobile Medical Unit in India?
5. For yesterday’s assignment you looked at Stories in pdf files. Name one story title from each of the two pdf files that were linked to. (One story title from each file, that’s two story titles.)
6. Find one blog post here on our site about the Spirit of Giving (that is not your own). Quote something nice/interesting from that post and give the person credit. For example, if my post was about the Spirit of Giving instead of Empathy, you could have done something like this:
“In the service of others we learn meaningful lessons ourselves. Mark spoke of developing empathy in kids. In so doing, he wondered if standardized testing ‘taught’ our kids anything meaningful? When do they learn about empathy and love?” David Truss
Put the person’s words in quotes and italicize them.
7. Find and link to 5 charity home pages. In one sentence tell me what the charity does. Make sure that the link is the title of the charity. At least one charity must be local (in the lower mainland).
Your links should look like this: The Terry Fox Foundation: Raises money for cancer research.
8. Go HERE. What is the title of this page?
Find the link to the ‘Tri Cities Mat Program — Port Coquitlam, BC’. (It is not on the first page) Clink on the link and find out if this caters to Men or Women. Tell me this in a sentence so that I know what you are talking about.
9. Go to the Toskan Casale Foundation web site. Copy and paste these questions into your blog with the answers.
How many schools were involved in 2006/2007?
So, how much money was donated?
Find and name one BC school that was involved last year, (besides ours).
What are the Granting Guidelines?
10. Here is a creepy (or is it cute?) photo.
It gives credit right on the image to Worth1000.com and so you don’t need to link to it, as I did anyway. Go to this link and add a photo of your choice. Tell me the actual title and make one up yourself.
This is called ‘Spider Squirrel” and my title is ‘Chipmunkula’ (I think that this was photoshop-ed with a chipmunk, not a squirrel).
11. If you have finished all 10 tasks and posted your blog, then all you have to do now is sing the alphabet backwards and you get a treat.
Congratulations!
Originally posted: October 31st, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
The best part of doing this was going around and trouble-shooting for students. They were all able to embed and credit a Creative Commons Flicker image properly. Unfortunately a few of them learned the ’save-as-you-go’ mantra the hard way, losing information (and time) when their work was lost. Overall, students got to play with Ning, a new tool, and they learned some background information as well as citation expectations along the way.
Ning, blogs, wikis, flickr, del.icio.us… many students need to learn how to use the tools as well as get the project done. They are not all ‘digital natives’ that know this stuff, some of our students lack the digital exposure to use these tools effectively without being taught.
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Visit Sarah McLachlan’s World on Fire page and see the detailed donations page. Amazing! Think of what the entire music or movie industry could do!
“You know the No. 1 complaint about school is that it’s boring because the traditional way it’s taught relies on passive learning,” Mr. Noguera said. “It’s not interactive enough.”
How are we going to make that work in our school?”
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“When someone wants to ban something, I ask myself,
how can we use this to help us in education? ‘It is a new tool’. Not obstacles but opportunities.”
Chris Kennedy
Which takes us back to the New York Times Article:
Ms. Poli said her Spanish-speaking students — known around the school as Pod People — have been able to move out of bilingual classes after just a year of using the digital devices, compared with an average of four to six years for most bilingual students.
Winnie Hu
Access
We have the capability to access like never before! Recently I have thought a lot about how things have changed, about how we digitally engage and interact in our world. There are so many opportunities available to us.
• Our lives are open, public and on display.
For under $100 you can have iLife ‘08 and produce, publish, print and share what ever you want with the world. Fifteen years ago $10,000 couldn’t have given you the same opportunities… and there are free versions of similar (and some better) tools popping up all the time.
• Online networks help to define us.
My Blog, My Flickr, My Space, My Facebook, My Friends, My Profile, My Second Life, My del.icio.us, MyBlogLog, My Ning Network, My Twitter, My-Whole-Life-Connected-and-On-Display-For-Anyone-And-Everyone-To-See…
• Growing access to customizable tools and networks.
Maps of the future are being used as a catalyst for conversation. As Mark Van’t Hooft of Ubiquitous Thoughts notes, the map “…lists half a dozen external forces that will affect education in the next decade in the areas of family and community, markets, institutions, educators and learning, and tools and practices. With regards to digital tools, it is noteworthy that the focus seems to be on mobile and connected devices, in an environment that favors personalization/customization AND networking/connectedness at the same time.”
• Personalized learning that responds to a learner’s needs.
Machines are finding creative answers to problems… This site, Think Artificial, also introduced me to Virtual Tutors: Launched in March, uMind “…employs AI to create a virtual tutor that recognizes and adapts to the student’s limitations and emotional distress. The instructor knows when a student is stumped and activates extra teaching modules on the specific subject.”
• Life extended beyond the physical world.
Moving beyond just Web2.0 sharing. The first time I saw Gary Hayes‘ “THE CHANGING INTRAWEB – FROM 1.0 to 3.0” was the first time I considered the possibility of Web3.0. Today there seems to be a very real weaving of real-life and virtual realities for more than just entertainment. We will find ourselves engaging in, and fully integrating with, a digital universe — a metaverse — “This ubiquitous cloud of information is like electricity to children of the 20th century: essentially universal, expected and conspicuous only in its absence.”
Obstacles
Yes there are Obstacles … and they aren’t going away fast enough. The most basic one is once again access- (or at least lack there of). Carolyn Foote’s post on The disconnect notes the many roadblocks teacher face, (“the disconnect between “the possible” and what’s permitted in schools”).
Here is what I said in a comment on Carolyn’s post:
I’ve been limited by the technology my school can provide time and again:-(
About a year and a half ago, I got out of Plato’s cave, saw the vibrancy technology can provide in a student’s learning experience and I have been constantly thrown back into the cave to watch the technology-less shadows… A disconnect indeed!
For me the (hardware) tools are computers, ideally wireless laptops.
For many others, as I have been learning, the (web2.0/software) tools themselves are unimportant compared to access, opportunity, and COLLABORATION TIME. Tools are getting so much more user-friendly, but using them for learning (rather than just to teach old things in new ways), that is the trick. Case in point: I have seen a few blogs where students answer a teacher question, but don’t interact with each other in any meaningfully way.
So for many teachers collaboration time, or training, or professional development opportunities are more important than tools (in my humble opinion).
Put 2 or more well-intentioned teachers in a room and practice will improve. Don’t offer specific tools, offer opportunities for people to Connect & Collaborate & Creatively engage with tools of their choice.
Oh yeah… but make sure they have the technology available to make this time useful when they get back into their classrooms!
Access Granted
On many levels, ‘access issues’ are key obstacles. Yet, opportunities abound! The web lets us collaborate in manydifferentways! So now I have to wonder: Do we want our discussions to be around what we can’t do?
It isn’t so much about ‘New Boundaries‘ as it is about removing boundaries. There were holes in the Berlin wall for years… innovative teachers today are escapees from behind similar walls. It is time to tear the old ideological walls down. Teachers and students need access granted!
Originally posted: October 9th, 2007
Comment on the original post:
I’m just discovering this post after you shared it on twitter during Educon! It is such a fresh way of looking at the issues involved. I’m going to add it to the wiki for reflection.
I think identifying this as an ideological battle is significant. It’s about the difference between fear and opportunity. I think we have to be informed, and inform our districts as well, and we each have to help on the front lines by spreading hope not fear.
One of the most amazing things about our district is how open it is… and we are building an infrastructure designed for our students to be able to bring their own hardware!
In 5 years, a teacher won’t need a 1-1 laptop program, but instead just 2 or 3 ‘computers’ for those that do not bring their own to class. Why? Because I figure in 5 years instead of carrying around an MP3 player and phone/camera, almost every student will have a jazzed up iPhone or equivalent tool. They will be bringing their own tools to class. With the hardware obstacle out of the way, we can start focusing on the use of technology to Connect & Collaborate & Creatively engage the learner… allowing our student to Construct their learning and Create meaning.
I’ve seen a real shift in my own thinking recently. Forget whining about access, disregard the slow speed of change, get over the obstacles! Go after meaningful results. Engage and empower students. Be a leader and a role model.
“How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive?”
That was the question that US Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama asked on LinkedIn. A day later I posted response #1421. Here it is:
The definition for ‘Entrepreneur’ came from Google using ‘define: entrepreneur’, but I did not link to it since the link does not work.(www.onlinewbc.gov/docs/starting/glossary.html).
I don’t think that the purpose of our educational system is to ‘produce entrepreneurs’ but it seems fairly evident to me that we should be fostering the kind of thinking that entrepreneurs possess in our flat world.
I also don’t think that we need to cater specifically to gifted students… on the contrary, what we do to fill their educational needs, to challenge them, and to catalyze their creativity, can (and will) help every student become more ingenious.
“Is framing the debate of transformation as an evolutionary or revolutionary process the correct way to look at the current situation? Might there be a better set of metaphors? How might the notion of emergence fit this proposition? What might Paulo Freire think?”
I think the answer is in the question… it isn’t an evolutionary or revolutionary process… it is a transformation that has qualities of both evolution and revolution. There has been a metamorphosis in the way people connect, relate, communicate, and inquire. With regards to schools, education, and learning, you might say that we are in a cocoon right now. Some of us only know what it means to be a caterpillar, others see the potential of being a butterfly, and none of us know where our wings can take us.
We are definitely out of the cocoon, and although we still aren’t sure where our wings can take us, we are beginning to fly.
I think the transformation has been from groups of educators going in similar direction to a single (loose) network of learners helping, and connecting to, each other.
Comments on the original post:
Here is the cookie-cutter email response. I guess with it being a ‘business’ question I should not have expected any significant mention of education.Barack Obama wrote:Hi Dave-Thanks for participating in Barack’s question on LinkedIn Answers – our campaign will review all of these answers in the days ahead.Barack is committed to helping small businesses and believes they are at the heart of the American economy. He is committed to expanding opportunities and easing the everyday pressures so many businesses face by cutting their health care costs, improving access to capital, and investing in innovation and development.He plans to fix our health care crisis and enable more small businesses to provide affordable care to their employees. He will expand loan programs for small businesses and create a national network of public-private business incubators. He also will invest in women-owned businesses, increase minority access to capital, increase supports for businesses in rural areas, and work to close the digital divide that limits the growth potential of many urban and rural small businesses.
In addition, Barack will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. They offer help designing business plans, provide physical space, identify and address problems affecting all small businesses within a given community, and give advice on a wide range of business practices, including reducing overhead costs. Business incubators will engage the expertise and resources of local institutions of higher education and successful private sector business to help ensure that small businesses have both a strong plan and the resources for long-term success. Obama will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.
We appreciate immensely your willingness to share your insights and suggestions on these issues and your help in achieving these goals.
For more information on Barack ideas for improving America visit: www.barackobama.com/issues
Thanks,
Scott & Becky @ Obama HQ
David Truss on Friday, 14 September 2007, 21:46 CEST
Your blog is inspiring, and can serve as a resource for teachers in the trenches. I teach 3rd grade, and I am seeing the differentiation of technological literacy…some are learning what an icon is, some can navigate to a research link, and others are making amazing connections. It is frustrating to have a curriculum that includes just “keyboarding” and it starts 1/2 way through the school year. Student need to engage in critical thinking and be able to read and think across several technological literacies. I plan to really explore what you have here and find ideas for implementation. -ABC Coach
ABC Coach on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 17:59 CEST
To ABC Coach,Thank you for your kind words.I’m beginning to think that it is time we threw the curriculum out the window and rebuilt it from scratch. Start with the ‘end in mind’ and meaningfully engage students in critical thinking and 21st Century Literacy, rather than just creating a series of patchwork adaptations and solutions. -Dave
David Truss on Saturday, 27 October 2007, 23:07 CEST
After an incident delayed getting feedback from my students until last Monday, things got extremely busy with preparation for the Renaissance Fair and my Grade 5 Transition Retreats [the subject of a future post]. All this included 3 afternoons out of my classroom at other functions… I blinked and it was Friday afternoon. And only now have I noticed that not everyone has given me feedback yet. What I do see there is very encouraging.
I have just given my students the opportunity to study any topic they choose in Science for their wiki pages we just started. Short of one pair of overachievers (that I mentioned in my blog), the group seems very apathetic.
However I think “choose your own topic” can be very difficult for students who have spent years being fed criteria checklist style assignments. I am constructing a post now (in my mind- & hopefully on my blog this long weekend) that looks at the pedagogy involved in such assignments. As Carolyn says (above), “it’s easier if the content comes first and then they are using the technology to communicate the content.” …But I think it is more than that, it is setting clear objectives, ‘ownership’ of the criteria, and clear expectations around expected outcomes… So much to consider!
I think that I am guilty of seeing the value of using technology in guiding learning, but not effectively guiding learning in my technology use.
Carolyn Foote, mentioned above also added this comment after mine:
These situations are ones I see frequently as a librarian as I mentioned.
But I think most of us, if told we can research anything we want, might be stumped for a little while if it was that open ended. I think that you’re right about setting clear objectives.
And I think it is more than just the fact that kids are used to having defined assignments. Even the assignment to “do whatever you want” is still an assignment–it’s not their own motivation driving them, it’s ours.
I think somewhere in there, we all know what we’d like to know more about, but it’s hard to start that “cold”. I think any kind of prompts, strategies, and discussion we can use to help students start thinking about their own interests is helpful.
Having them clip newspaper or magazine articles on some topics ahead of time—having them bookmark three websites that interest them ahead of time–brainstorming with the whole class–all these are strategies that help them get started on realizing they do have interests.
Carol Kuhlthau has some interesting work on the research process, and part of what she talks about are the emotional stages students/all of us go through during the research process. The anxiety at the beginning of a project and inability to think of something is one of the normal stages she defines. We all get more confident as we catch on to an idea and then start researching it, and our motivation gets stronger to do more. I think her work is really helpful in helping understand how students feel and why they don’t perform the way we might expect, especially in the beginning stages, and why they need some scaffolding to internalize the process.
This is brilliant feedback. It isn’t rocket science for a seasoned teacher that really should know this, but scaffolding that is student directed is something we should all be reminded of from time-to-time. I think that in my excitement to get things started, and my desire to have students choose their own topic, I let technology supersede pedagogy.
Reading the Science Alive feedback now I realize that the comments above are fuel to make a good project great. The students loved Science Alive, and choosing their own topic was a huge highlight. Add a healthy dose of scaffolding, a little better structure with respect to time lines and expectations, and a few experts to help us out along the way, and we have a delicious recipe for one heck-of-a project pie.
I intended to put some student feedback highlights here, but I won’t. If you are interested, READ THEIR WORDS.
Here is a very short summary:
• Students really liked this project. Some of them considered it the best ever!
• They loved that they got to choose their own topics.
• They felt challenged.
• They hated the issues we had dealing with crappy computers, and yet they were willing work through the frustration.
• They thought this was a valuable experience… so much so that many of them wanted to do another similar project and/or suggested that I should do this again next year.
• And finally, using their words: They enjoyed being able to share their ideas, “What I am most proud of the most from the page is when I was how I typed out information to let others read it and learn from what I learned,” and being able to see what others did, “I thought this was a great project because it was always fun, and when you needed inspiration, it was easy to just click on someone else’s page, and see all the neat stuff that they’ve done, and then it makes you want to make your page just as good (or, it did for me).” Also another student commented about how a different group’s project touched him, “I learned a lot of stuff over the period of time that was given. I especially enjoyed learning about the diabetes because my aunt has diabetes so it was interesting to see what she goes through and how she’s affected”.
I’m proud of my students and I am very happy with our first attempt at creating wikis. I believe that for many of my students we truly did bring Science Alive!
What I will focus on now are the comments that can give me perspective on my teaching, and on doing a project such as this in the future. Three key things come to mind, the first of which has already been discussed.
1. Scaffolding
Here are some comments: [Their words/spelling/grammar, no editing on my part. Students can't edit a Discussion topic like they can their wiki page.]
“Next time I would give us students not necessarily more time, but more of a guideline of what you want our final project to be. Rather then it being ‘we become experts’, a guideline that would help us in seeing our destination of a final product.”
“For some groups, I don’t think they knew what to do first and how, so maybe there could be more guidence on the Scientific Method.”
“The advice I would give you to improve this project would probably be to have more criteria and guidelines and really help people on what experiment they have chosen.”
“Next time it’ll be a bit better if you gave us an idea of how the “final product” should be like”
“I would suggest doing a little less conferencing, but just maybe asking people how they’re doing informally, and maybe narrowing the topic you can choose just a little (there are so many options that it’s a little overwhelming, in my opinion).”
“The only thing that I would change about this project is as much as I did love the freedom I would have helped a little bit if you had givin us a brief overview of what you wanted to finished product to be. I think this would be good because some people did not even know what to start with on there page. Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed this project.”
Since Carolyn made some great topic development suggestions above, I will look more at some other ideas.
I realize now that I didn’t really give them enough of an outline. This is a challenge for topics like this… especially in a middle school where the students are still young. So many times in my teaching career I have shown a creative exemplar to students and then had a dozen photocopy-like replicas handed in. Also, in all honesty, I didn’t really know what to expect from my students and so it was hard to tell them what it was I expecting! I think that if I spent more time getting them involved with their topic and exploring possibilities early on, some of this stress would have been alleviated.
I did a lot of conferencing with groups and discussing ideas, but often I didn’t relate this back to specific things I wanted to see on their page. [Notice the control-freak teacher in me said "specific things I wanted to see" rather than suggestions that would enhance their learning. This is a learning curve for me as well as them.]
One frustration for me was that I taught Science for just 40 min. classes (a first for me this year having taught 80 min. classes in previous years). Take away login and log out times and sometimes it seemed that I would have just 2 or 3 really good conversations about projects and the class would be over.
Here is a very interesting comment:
“We faced a few challenges like the one that really affected us mentally, this was when we found out that Mr. Truss didn’t like our ideas but it turned out that; that comment fueled our fire to prove him wrong. It was rather difficult figuring out what exactly Mr. Truss wanted out of us for this project but in the same way it made us interested even more in the project because he left us hanging he let us figure most of it out on our own. “
The specific thing that I didn’t like in this case was that the experiment that they wanted to do had way too much variability and opportunity for chance to influence their results… this group did the experiment they wanted to do it anyway. Although I don’t think it was a great decision, I am glad they realized that I really did give them a choice.
The task at hand is to offer support to those that need it, and challenge those that don’t – not much different than any other project. The difference from other projects is that criteria is very hard to offer when you open up a project and allow everyone to demonstrate their learning in different ways. (Note Gabriela Sellart’s and Claudia Ceraso’s comments on my Some Assembly Required post- found in the reflection section.)
More from my students:
“Another thing that I really liked about this project was that there were very few guid lines and know that we have finished the project it feels like we did everything with almost no help at all.”
“This one has definitely been different from the other projects I have done because, the other projects I have done in the past were ‘assigned’, and very directed, you had a topic chosen by the teacher and that’s what you did. This one had more choice and a sense of freedom, even if you chose the topic, you were still responsible for completion. But having chosen something you’re interested in, it makes the project more fun to do.”
Scaffolding not instructions and criteria lists.
2. Time Line
“I think we should have gotten a due date, so we know when to get the project done in time.”
“I would tell the classes the timeline for the experiment, if they have a rough timeline, maybe they’d know how to space out their experiments and project idea’s making everything more even.”
I had no idea how long this project would take. It went longer than it should, but I wanted to give ample notice when I finally did choose a date. Looking back, I gave the students notice on a Monday that it was due the following week Friday, then gave them until the following Monday… a lot of time! Yet, the lack of a stated completion date really seemed to bother students. I would love to see students keep updating their projects even now- why can’t they continue to pursue their interests? However, in the future I will start with a specific due date. Will this light the fire under students’ seats and get many of them on task, and/or more focussed, sooner? I don’t really know?
3. Experts
“I think it was better to have a chance to meet experts really, so we can learn more and be interested in things we are researching.”
I had students research who were experts in their fields and intended to have them contact some of these people. Reality sunk in when I realized that I didn’t know these adults and I would have Grade 8 students contacting strangers directly. In the future, I would want to create a specific contact page for field experts to use to contact us. Then I could route initial contact through me. I would also notify parents that this would be happening well in advance of doing it. I think that this could happen in a safe way if it is well thought out, not flying by the seat of my pants as I was doing in this first attempt.
I could also have used some experts of my own. I’ll point again to Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy post, Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models and once again beg for a Web2.0 service like Fieldfindr. (I created this mock site in February and it has had over 1,200 visits since the middle of March… who can make this a reality?
Grades
So being neglectful and completely guilty of not creating any rubric or marking scheme for this project, you might wonder how will I mark this project?
I plan on sitting down with each group over the next little while and coming to an agreed upon mark with them. I will ask them, “How have you shown me higher order thinking skills?” and then we will have a discussion. Their written feedback (or lack of it) will play into this as well. In the end, I am starting to believe more and more that we should abolish marks altogether.
Imagine giving a ‘C’ to a student who writes:
“What I enjoyed right away was the fact that we could pick virtually what ever topic that we wanted to. This to me put a whole new spin on things. All of the sudden you are interested in what you are researching and you are excited to start your experiment and find out what your results are going to be. Another thing that I really liked about this project was that there were very few guid lines and know that we have finished the project it feels like we did everything with almost no help at all.”
Is a ‘C’ meaningful feedback? What are you telling that student about lifelong learning? What does the mark accomplish?
A Sad Note
The Renaissance Fair starts this week. Early last year I saw an Alan November webcast and decided to take the plunge with my Renaissance project… I had the students blogging! I spent hours learning how to set everything up, and more hours again developing blogging rules and lessons on using tools such as del.icio.us. The experience was wonderful! It opened my eyes to the potential of web2.0. To start off this school year I went to the computer lab and couldn’t get things going again with our out-dated computers, (Mac OS9 and web browsers that need OSX). I resorted to this wiki project after two blogging experiences failed with my students due to our lack of tools. And so, after yet another success with my wiki, here I am about to abandon the blogging aspect of my project… sad indeed
…And a Happy Note
I can’t get myself to end this post on a sad note, so I will end with a very positive observation:
This year has been cathartic for me.
• I have fully embraced using this blog as a learning tool since about November.
• I have read more and thought more about education in the last 6 months than in any given 5 years of my life.
• I am embracing technology like never before.
• I am engaging students in their learning like never before.
• I believe that we will see some (very exciting) fundamental shifts in education over the next few years.
…And Back to the Science Alive Wiki
If you have any observations that I may have missed, then feel free to be my teacher. Thanks!
Originally posted: Mary 14th, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
I did get to blog with my students again for the Renaissance Fair! I negotiated with the other project teachers getting them to use the horrible computer lab for research, along with a trolley of books from the library, and I got to use the PC computer lab in the library. You will see some more reflections on this in my next post.
This post evolved into a short presentation that I did with 1-1 laptop teachers at a pro-d session recently. It is evolving into what will be the 2nd half of my 2nd presentation at BLC08, titled ‘Learning Conversations’ (named after this post).
Part 2. It is the questions we ask ourselves and our students that help make Project 2.0h’s great. This take-it-with-you powerpoint presentation will help you provide the scaffolding for engaging digital projects.
The thoughtful/reflective effort it took to write this has made this one of the most powerful things I’ve done for professional development as a teacher.
Comments on the original post:
Observations? Being your teacher? Sorry, not right now. Too busy learning from you.Thank you so much for sharing these reflections on your experiences. I am still amazed -perhaps I should not be by now- to see how similar our issues can be when integrating technology in spite of teaching different subjects with different objectives.
Your reflection goes beyond teaching science, no doubt. Perhaps that is a result from blogging to an audience of teachers at large. You have learnt how to spot the core edu-issues to be discussed.
Perhaps this happens to you as well. I find that when I am thinking, reflecting, my inner voice is talking to someone other than myself. Blog readers and commenters become part of the network of your thoughts. They help us to refine ideas, express them in a precise manner and direct them to the people who may continue developing them.
Enough. I’m afraid I am going a bit away from the post with my comment. Or perhaps we could consider this another bullet in your final Happy Note.
Wow, what an incredibly reflective post, and how lucky your students are to have you as a teacher. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on what did and didn’t work well. Your mindfulness about trying to approach this project differently and trying not to “steer” students too much was fascinating. Glad to have helped in some small way!
Dave, I really enjoyed your authentic reflection and willingness to share your learning with all of us. It is this that is probably your greatest success with this project.In terms of student learning, I agree with your conclusion around scaffolding student learning to a greater degree. you may consider presenting or exposing students to a specific concept in science like “gravity” and then encourage them to “connect” gravity with something meaningful to them (which probably will not be hard, e.g. skateboarding). This way, they will be able to narrow their focus much easier and their Wikis and/or Blogs will have a common element for which they can interact and build knowledge around the concept (gravity) across topics. Just a thought
I think you make some obvious comments around timelines, expectations and grading that are often overlooked when utilizing a new process – “I let technology supersede pedagogy”. Remember it only takes a conversation and a someone taking notes:)
Overall, from the students comments, it appeared that you made a great leap and had a very successful start to facilitating some “authentic learning” for students.
BTW, do we really need to give a grade – why can’t we just comment and question so the learning never stops!
Two Wolves Which wolf will you feed? A Remembrance Day Post
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My blog is my PhD I have given myself a Blogtorate of Philosophy.
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Bubble Wrap What we are doing is creating a facade of security, nothing more than an illusion of bubble wrap.
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Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood? My (digital) neighbourhood spans the globe.
In his recent post, “
Background
David Truss on Friday, 14 September 2007, 21:46 CEST