Learning 2.0, A Continuing Conversation

Today, Bud Hunt and Karl Fisch put on Learning 2.0, A Colorado Conversation. What a great experience! This really felt like a conversation from beginning to end; a bunch of tech minded educators discussing successes and frustrations around LEARNING. Almost secondary to the conversation was the best uses of the tools themselves. You really get the sense that everyone is really trying to get their heads around what it all means and how we can best meet the needs of our students with technology in mind.

A good conversation piques your interest and leads to more questions and continued conversation. Choose, Act and Reflect right? Here are my takeaways (the ideas are a little messy, but I will lose them if I don't get them down):

• How do I help my students build their own personal learning networks? Skype, Blogs, Twitter? Are other teachers already doing this?
  
• Tonia Johnson and I discussed the possibility of building a network of learners within our district, Adams 14. A collaborative blog? Following on Twitter? This would be a great "first step" to expanding the network outside later. If we began it now, it would be a great model for future Global Learners and reluctant teachers who are wondering about the practical applications for these 2.0 tools in the classroom. Great way for students to collaborate with other students about the "why" in the classroom and to get a window into other grade levels.
  
• Am I most effectively blogging by using Blogger? I wonder if there is something out there that helps my students more easily access the benefits of blogging without having their own email account? What are others using for student blogging?
  
• Student forum with Arapahoe High Students where they discussed the importance of technology in ed. Why not ACSD14 students? (Tonia's question) There were some very powerful ideas:
• Learning is the focus not the tools (the first point made by a student)
• They can take charge of their own learning (researching their interests, decide what is useful for the learner, customizing/tailoring their credits by creating personal curriculum)
• Personal (student)Learning Networks rather than "top down" (their words) teaching
• A teacher created a "help me blog" so that students could help other student with problems they were having on a particular subject.
• A lot of talk about connections that these students were making for themselves. They are accessing and taking charge of the learning like never before!
• These tools really bring a renewed energy to the classroom, increase motivation and effect achievement. We need to share the "energizing" effect that this technology brings to the classroom. We need to do this without cheapening it by calling it "fun" or "cool" (I sometimes find myself using these types of words and then kick myself...).
  
• How do we begin to put data to all of this? I think the Global Learners in ACSD14 are in a good position to begin doing this next year.
  

After today's conference, I have less answers and more questions. Excellent!

The conversation continues.

Top Ed Tools

Obviously, since today's date is February 3rd, I'm a little behind on this, but I just stumbled upon the eLearn Magazine's Top 100 Tools for Learning 2007. I was struck by two things: 1. The number of tools that the Global Learners are using regularly in our classrooms, we are ahead of the curve in Adams 14. 2. They note that only two of the top ten (Word, PowerPoint) are commercial applications, the others are free. 75% of the tools in the top 100 are free.

Tools are just tools without great teachers using them to impact learning in their classroom. Tonia's post addresses this important point: learning comes before tools. Take a look at the top ten. What tools have impacted student achievement the most in your classroom? In 2007, my students have improved their writing through the use of blogger as a publishing and reflection tool. They have become more reflective and better editors by tweeting our lessons throughout the day. Our wiki has helped my students use the internet better for research.

There is a call for best tools of 2008 already. How will student achievement in Adams 14 be impacted through the use of these tools in 2008? (I can't wait to find out...)

Bucket List

I was tagged by Jeff O'Hara to do a Bucket List for 2008. A variation on resolutions I suppose and I'm sure much more entertaining than the movie of the same name... (never getting those 90 minutes back.) A Bucket List is a list of all the things that Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are going to do before they kick the bucket. This list consists of some things that I want to accomplish in '08.

Here they are:

1. Continue to build a network of like-minded educational technology folks.
2. Continue to dab in the role of trainer in educational technology.
3. Present at Learning 2.0 a Colorado Conversation in February and TIE in June, just to push my comfort zone.
4. Explore these possibilities while still being an effective fourth grade teacher.
5. Expand my formal education... Masters in Educational Technology, Doctorate? Decide whether this is even necessary to expand my learning.
6. Encourage a sense of wonder and love for learning in my own children (this is number 1)

A Friday Idea

On Friday afternoons, I used to put kids on the computers because they had been asking me all week and I finally gave in. I had about 4 or 5 websites that they would explore, none of which were very good. Now... with all this embeddable media, class blogs and wikis, students are on the computers all week long. Given a little Friday afternoon freedom, they willingly visit our blog, wiki or website to read and comment on each other's writing, revisit a video clip related to our reading or listen to each other's poetry. They are literally creating and exploring their own online content, in fourth grade!

Along that line of thinking, I am experimenting with VoiceThread. This is one of those resources I keep hearing about over and over again from different educators, here's Dave's post on the Global Learners Blog). I have been exploring and thinking of ways I can use this in my classroom because it is just so cool. Is that a good enough reason??

I think it is a great collaborative tool. It gives students the opportunity to contribute with text, voice and image through a webcam... lots of different choices. It is also great for all of my students to bring their "voice" to a single image or idea. We talk a lot about how we are all different learners, some of us learn quickly, others slower. This would bring out the idea that we can all have a different, and correct, idea for a single image. I like this one below that has different kids exploring the meaning of a piece of Norman Rockwell art. There is also a good demo of kids commenting on a Venn diagram comparing the heart to the skeleton.

Embeddable as well? Cool! I could post it on the blog and kids could review a concept at their convenience... on Friday afternoon.

Classroom 2.0, Edmodo and Twitter

A goal I have set for myself this spring is to build myself a network of teachers, including Global Learners, to engage in student-led projects with other teachers around the world and to share ideas. A year ago, this goal would have seemed impossible... but within the last few weeks, I have been making some connections with extremely smart, creative educators. I thought I would share...

Classroom 2.0 is a social networking site for educators. There is a post where you can introduce yourself and then subscribe for responses to your post via email. I have received four responses since Saturday, including one who knows our exchange teacher from Melborne, small world indeed. They have posts organized by tool, flickr, podcasting, wikis etc. They are also in the process of organizing "live" events, one coming up in San Francisco. There is a teacher at Rocky Mountain School for the Gifted in Boulder who has volunteered to do one there.

From Classroom 2.0 I received a introduction from Jeff O'Hara who is developing Edmodo which is advertised as a free web service to connect schools, teachers, parents and students. It is still in development and you can add your email to receive updates, they also have a blog. The cool thing about finding someone like him on Classroom 2.0 is you can be stay in touch with the development process and provide input.

Finally, I am back on Twitter and amazed at the networking possibilities. I don't have very many followers but have found it to be a great impromptu meeting place for educators discussing, not so much what is happening right that second, but what ideas are crossing their minds and what challenges they are grappling with. I didn't see its value when I was introduced to it in August, now I do. Also my class is tweeting and it is embedded in our blog.

Anybody have experience with these tools they would like to share?

Teaching to Teach

Just returned to the classroom after a relaxing winter break. Students returned ragged! Two of them missed most of the week, one throwing up, the other with a migraine. Had another complaining of stomach issues. Jeez, I thought they would come back relaxed and ready to go! Hopefully they will go home this weekend, regroup and come back healthy.

Nothing makes me reflect on my practice more than when an "outsider" comes in and starts askin' questions. I have two new outsiders in my professional life right now. One is a student teacher from the University of Colorado finishing out his undergrad and licensure program. He is all of 22, enthusiastic and curious... a good combo. The other is an exchange teacher from Melbourne, Australia. She has 30 years of teaching experience, is enthusiastic and a bit overwhelmed after two weeks in the states and a week in a Commerce City classroom.

I tweeted the other day that I was discussing the finer points of pukey fourth graders with my teacher candidate. Seriously... I was. We had a student make an emergency run to the bathroom so I sent my TC to the office to fetch the nurse while I stayed with the class. He asked what I would have done had he not been there. The question seems a bit silly, until I remember what it was like for me stepping into my classroom for the first time. My TC asks lots of these kinds of "what do you do when" questions, which is a good thing, but I realized how difficult it must seem as a pre-first year teacher to take into account all of the things you must remember, and all that can possibly go wrong. I do my best to answer all of his questions, and hope that I demonstrate with my actions, my ideal: That I am a teacher who teaches with enthusiasm and abandon with a complete willingness to fail, knowing that I can't control every detail. I commented to him today that I think we sometimes try to control too much in our classrooms, forgetting that these 10 year olds are just kids. They need to socialize, play, laugh, joke, sometimes they are ill, sad, frustrated... we can't control it all.

Our exchange teacher had a trial by fire this week (her words). We had CELA testing all week which pulled 1/3 of her kids out for the first hour of the day and replaced them with 1/3 of mine while I tested. Two of her boys had a fight in the classroom and were suspended. We tried to express how this is not the norm in our school. She shouldn't expect fistfights and standardized testing every week. This was right before discussing the finer points of CSAP testing. This weekend she is spending time with other Aussies who are exchanging in Colorado and I wonder what their conversation is going to sound like.

Chicken Lips

Two members of an improvisational group called "Chicken Lips" presented at our inaugural 2008 professional development meeting today. They were posing as Department of Ed stuffed shirts there to present about CSAP testing. Instead their purpose was to inspire and bring humor to our meeting. Their message was simple and powerful:

• Laughter is important and productive.

• "Yes, and..." is a game we played in groups of four. One person starts talking about a subject, the next person takes over their thought by saying, "yes, and..." It is what you say when you are improvising in a group to validate what the previous person has just presented and continue the thought. It validates their work and makes them look good, which makes the group look good. This is what we should be saying to students and colleagues as an alternative to "yes, but" or just "NO".

• Improvisation is about LISTENING and COLLABORATING... so is education.

Thanks to Chicken Lips, we ended our winter break and began our new year with laughter and positive energy. Great stuff!! Now just to continue the momentum into the coming months.