Not So Distant Future

  In a workshop at our campus last year, Will Richardson rightfully(and insightfully) pointed out that one of the most fascinating aspects of  Wikipedia lies in the discussion tab.

It’s not just that wikis allow us to create websites where we can add links easily, but that they have a “comments” or discussion area, where the joint creators of the wiki can hold debates.

In today’s Wall Street Journal article, “Forget the Articles,  Best Wikipedia Read Is Its Discussions” Lee Gomes explores some of the passionate, esoteric, behind the scenes Wikipedia debates.  

Not only was it entertaining reading, but it started me thinking about student projects using wikis.    What are the possibilities of having students produce “encyclopedic” articles for a project as a team, and letting them use the discussion area to hash out the details?  What happens when you let them pick their own passionate areas of interest to write the articles on (like Halo, for example)?   Would the debate that is sparked illuminate their thinking about it?

Cnn News today and Wired Magazine featured a new ingenious software application which allows you to see what IP address edited particular articles on Wikipedia.  It’s the brainchild of a college student of course ;).  

The idea was to illuminate if corporations, agencies, entities, politicians, etc. were editing their own sites on Wikipedia, and to show what edits had been done, since Wikipedia allows that information to be viewed.  It takes transparency to a new level, (maybe one that is a little scary).  But then maybe it’s the added layer of transparency needed by Wikipedia to keep contributors ‘honest’ so to speak. 

What changes for students when they understand that information isn’t something set in stone?  When they realize that even information that is pre-packaged in a printed book or database was hashed out during the editing process?  That writing is a matter of choices?
That some writers have bias or hidden agendas?   That writers feel passionate about their subjects?

And can we translate these examples into a more concrete understanding of the choices made for a news broadcast or newspaper article, for example, or for a textbook, to help create more info savvy students?   Can we translate it into students’ understanding why writers have passion, and inspire them to write about their own passions?

Having a window into the editing process is such a powerful teaching and learning opportunity.  It feels like a fundamental shift in how we teach, learn, and communicate.  

I’m looking forward this year to attempting projects where we exploit more of the power of wikis to build a knowledge consensus, to create community, to empower students to be contributors, and to enable them to better understand the choices writers make.

I’d like to gather examples for my own workshop site of wikis from other campuses, so if you have one you’d like to share, please respond, and I’ll add it to my list of examples!

In keeping with the theme of staff development,  I thought it’d be a good time to look back at Ken Pruitt’s three questions for school districts, which Scott McLeod highlighted on his blog in July.

I’ll take the liberty of re-posting his questions here:

1. What are the 21st century skills we want our teachers to model?
2. How can we provide consistent and relevant training to 200 teachers?
3. Will adequate resources encourage teachers to integrate technology into their curriculum?

At our campus we are grappling with a new schedule that builds in more weekly time for staff development, with a combination of study groups, book groups, technology workshops, and curricular workshops that are offered weekly.   I’m one of a few charged with helping plan this whole effort.

It’s important to me to provide choice so that the learning is grass-roots, and teacher-driven, while still being able to hold scheduled trainings.   We’ve surveyed our faculty to get a sense of the areas they are interested in receiving training, and the types of delivery they would prefer.

Interestingly, the survey bore out the results we anticipated–teachers wanted more in-house workshops, more choice in topics, fewer large group presentations, and many of their requests focused on 21st century skills.

We’re planning to allow teachers to form study groups/book groups within their departments or across departments, and several of us have been helping compile a book list as a starting point for those groups.  

There will be other more traditional workshops or trainings offered as well, and trying to sort out how to coordinate these weekly is something I’ve been pondering.  We want to draw on our own teachers abilities and wisdom, as well as use tools like Skype to draw in outside guests.

One thing we have heard frequently from staff is that inservice often seems disjointed and disconnected.  So we’re trying to run technology and other workshops that are more thematic throughout a six weeks, so that they are more developmental over time.  I think Ken Pruitt’s question about consistency is a very important one.

I’m also hoping we can integrate blogs into the staff development pieces, as well, once the logistics are worked out–to provide more consistency and long term discussion.

Too often, it seems like there is little larger purpose in the smattering of inservice that teachers receive.  I think that defining the larger goals for the campus and district and centering all our efforts around those big ideas (BHAG) can turn inservice from something painful to be endured, to something powerful and authentic. 

Just as we want our students’ experiences to be meaningful and real, don’t we want the learning experiences our teachers have to be equally powerful?

As I read other blogs, across the world, from Texas to Shanghai to New Jersey and back to Texas, I see so much mindful thinking about how to bring authentic learning to our classrooms. 

So, as we approach the start of school, sincere hats off to educators all over the world who are preparing to begin anew to engage our students in learning.

School started in earnest for me on Friday, and I’ve felt a little dispirited.  On the one hand, I have learned so much this summer that I am enthused and eager about implementing.  But the tasks at hand right now aren’t necessarily those that will even get me there, but things I have to get done.  It’s reminded me of feelings reflected in a post that Chris Lehmann wrote about his own sense of disconnection as he started inservice.)

I’ve been aware that I’ve felt somewhat muddled the last week or so, but have learned in my semi-old age to be patient, because usually the muddle clears up and my thinking gels if I can give it time.  (Wish we could always do that for our students.)

I turned to my Bloglines account this morning for a little renewal, having not been doing much reading for the last week, and as I so often do, found inspiration, support, and creative thinking there that spur me on as we enter a couple of weeks of software training, and inservice.

Doug Johnson describes his use of Stephen Covey’s time management matrix and how it can be used administratively, and it struck me while reading his post that part of why I feel stressed and overwhelmed is that almost all the tasks I am charged with during the next week are in Quadrant IV.  But most of these are required, imperative(personal items) or imposed, which is crowding out the time for my own goals and mission.    So his post made me realize that before I get completely caught up in the rush, I need to carve out a little time for reflection.  (Maybe this is that time!)

I browsed over to the always inspiring LeaderTalk to reread a post I saw there a few days ago, regarding motivation and inservice, and as always found five more posts that were motivating and thought-provoking.

Tracy Rosen reminds me in her post “Motivation and change: Values and Passion” that motivation must be intrinsic for our students (and our staff), and asks, “What is it about teaching that touches your soul?” 

An excellent question this time of year, and the one I most need to focus on. 

Kelly Christopherson from one of my favorite blogs, Educational Discourse, writes an insightful post about beginning of the year “motivational workshops”, (something I struggle with a little and conversed with him about, I admit ;))  and asks “What motivates you?”    He writes about teacher motivation, what sorts of inservices could be provided to do that, and whether teachers need motivating in traditional ways in the first place.  Very interesting piece.

And after reading through these three posts, I realize that I have to be able to bring my motivation even to these tasks that seem tangential to my real passion–I need to bring my full self and full creativity to bear on them so that they all become opportunities, because as Tracy writes, “Values and passion are powerful stuff.”

I want to be able to take that “powerful stuff” into our school community every day.

Thanks to my colleagues from afar for the clarity and motivation this morning.  It is the network of professional support, this network that doesn’t even know it is there some mornings, that is enriching what I do so much, and I am very thankful for that.

Newsweek Online has a fascinating article about how the use of blogs and wikis is spreading across government agencies, businesses, etc.  

“In what’s been dubbed the “wiki workplace,” a growing number of organizations have begun shifting from traditional hierarchical structures to self-organized and collaborative networks, using wiki software—a basket of technologies that include wikis, blogs and other tools—to foster innovation across organizational and geographic boundaries. Executives say the new tools make it easier for teams to collaborate and share information, and to get projects up and running on the fly. “Collaborative software has become a very important part of how businesses will invent and innovate,” says Ken Bisconti, IBM’s vice president of messaging and collaboration software.”

The article documents uses by the United Nations, Germany, IBM, and even a “wiki Congress” site.

“Imagine millions of people connecting with world leaders and thinkers to discuss, debate and collaborate on everything from global politics to climate change. “Wikinomics” coauthor Don Tapscott says wikis have the potential to spawn new models for international problem solving and dialogue, increase transparency in government and open communication between citizens and policymakers.”

As these tools move into the mainstream, how can schools still be blocking blog sites or wiki sites from student use?  Will we really be preparing our students for the world they live in outside of school, the workplace, or future where information is “transparent” if we don’t allow them to utilize them as part of the learning process?

Interesting article in the new issue of T.H.E. Journal about the “new” librarians–it features several Texas librarians as well as a great segment about Joyce Valenza’s “virtual” library.

The article gives some good examples of the changing roles of librarians and libraries in the school setting.  But my favorite part was Joyce’s description of her job –”I help teachers teach. I help learners learn.”

A fun way to end my summer blogging today(I am back to work in the physical sense tomorrow!) –

I was tagged by two folks for the 8 random things “meme” or game, including one high school blogger, Ethan Bodnar, and also by Clay Burrell.  Here are the rules:

THE RULES
1. Post these rules before you give your facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Out of idle curiosity, I looked up the “8 random things” meme on Google, and found that there were 183,000 websites referencing this game of tag.   I browsed down some of the list, trying to find the earliest mention of it I could, running across all sorts of blogs on the way, including several librarian blogs, a blog about living in Africa, some religious blogs, a blog by a cancer survivor, blogs by midwives, mom blogs, book lovers blogs, knitting blogs, blogs about marketing, etc.

After I answer this, in a few days, when you search “8 random things” and “blogs” I imagine my post will come up somewhere.  (I saw Christian Long’s on think:lab as I was browsing through the Google Hits–and coincidentally, Christian tagged Ethan, and Ethan tagged me.)

The earliest response to this game I could find was in May, around May 16, though I’m sure if I’d had hours to spend, I could have found one from well before that.  It interested me that as I was digging deep into the Google results, there weren’t very many education bloggers represented in the earliest versions of the game, though there were some librarians, and quite a few just ‘regular’ bloggers.  

So I wonder if it took awhile to get around to the educational bloggers getting “tagged” and just why that might be.  Just curious about that–why would midwives and stitchery afficianados get tagged before technology educators?  I wonder if it’s the same with every meme or does it depend where it begins? (probably).   Or are we not as “in the loop” as we might think we are?

Ok, enough of the random musings….here are my 8 random things:

1.  I’m catching a cold, the day before I have to return to work, bad timing.  While this is a temporal “random thing,” it is the one most on my mind.  I’m quite annoyed about it.

2.  I was raised dreaming of travel.  My family’s idea of a fun night out would be going to the airport to stand on the rooftop deck(in those days you could) and watch the planes take off.  I like planning travel, thinking about travel, and finding interesting places to go.  Unfortunately, I don’t really enjoy actually flying.  Kind of a conundrum, there.  But I do fly

3.  I have an unexplained and strange obsession with the Iditarod, which I mentioned in the last game of tag.  

4.  I worked in an ice cream parlor in high school.  My dinner each night would consist of a pint of lime sherbet.  I’m not a huge fan of ice cream anymore.

5.  I’m fascinated by art museums.  I just like being in the space, not just entirely for the art but for the ambiance as well.  My favorite nearby one is the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, where my grandmother used to take me when I was growing up.  I still go there several times a year–it’s a beautiful setting with a really nice Impressionist exhibit.

6.  I wish I had an iPhone.  (coveting one, actually)

7.  The Monterey Aquarium is one of my favorite places.  I love visiting aquariums, but it is by far my favorite.  I love that it is in an old cannery and that you can go out on the back decks and see the sea otters.  I also love sea otters.

8.  I could eat Mexican food every day.  (often, I do.)  I’m finishing this right at dinner time and pondering where I could have Mexican food tonight.

This is about as random as it gets–blame it on the cold ;) But if the point is to get to know other people whose blogs you read slightly better, perhaps those random facts helped?

Now I need to tap 8 people.   I’m going to tap Joel, Margie, Vicky, Karl, PjHiggins, Diane Cordell, Dennis Draper and Konrad Glogowski.

 I was going to tag Jennifer Wagner who I met at NECC(one of the WomenoftheWeb) but someone beat me to it!

I’m also wondering–what our students would say if we asked them to write down 8 random things about themselves?

In case you haven’t run across this challenge, dy/dan has posted a contest–the point being to try to sell yourself to a future college/employer/etc.  in 4 slides.  No special audio or transition effects allowed, by the way.   Just 4 slides.

Entries are due by this Friday(August 10).

What a brilliant challenge this would be to give our students–economy of scale.

So often when we make assignments, their focus becomes “how long does this have to be?”   Imagine the creative challenge when we teach them the value of brevity and clarity?

 What can we teach them with minimalism?  

Can we say things more simply?  Get to the point?  Think about design when we create a handout?   Eliminate clutter from our assignments?    Focus?   Create beauty out of simplicity?   

How can we open up space for reflection?     Can we show them the mental breathing room that austerity of thought and design can create?

Can we teach them that less is more?   Or are we all too nervous about the quiet spaces in between?

(I’m inspired both by dy/dan’s challenge and by a recent visit to the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas).

Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/99107397@N00/1028129659/

Update:  Here’s my submission for the contest, saved at Slideshare – sticking with my “minimalist” efforts!

http://www.slideshare.net/technolibrary/fourslides2ppt

I’m joining Patrick Higgins today via Skype for a workshop he’s conducting on web 2.0 for teachers in his district.   The plan is for me to share the Vietnam Wall project that our English 3 AP students completed last spring, so I’ve been looking through my post about it, re-viewing some of the student projects, and looking at the wiki we created to support the project.

In looking back (and looking forward), I can see so much better how to work with the other teachers involved to deepen the project for the students and how to build more global connections and conversations into their work as well, so that their end products will be more varied and even more meaningful.

When we began the project, doing one on that scale was new to us, the tools were new to the students and teachers, and so we were learning as we went.
I can see now that what I have learned myself in the last four months would enrich my own approach to the project.    And it feels rewarding to reflect on how I’ve grown.

What has gotten me to this point in my thinking?  Time.  Time to reflect.  Time to do other things away from school.  Time to travel, to visit museums, to see movies.  Time to read what other teachers are doing in blogs and articles.   Time to talk with other teachers (in person or over chat on Skype or in emails).  Time to read books.

All of which brings me to this–how would building more time into things we do with students deepen their ability to step back from their work and evaluate it, rethink it, or view it differently–providing them with the “long view”?    Do we provide them learning encounters with long stretches of time between them to allow that reflection to occur?  

Are there ways we could ask students to go back later and reflect on a project from months ago, and evaluate it, via a blog or a learning journal or some reflective writing piece?  

The standard format of school is that it tends to march inexorably on, towards the next project, or class, or test.   How can we work to make learning in school more cyclical in an authentic way, one that is more reflective of our own “life-long” learning?

Image:  Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Tx

Update:  In taking the long view this morning, I looked back at some of the student video projects, and wanted to point out a few more well done ones, in terms of creating a theme, use of music background, or verbal storytelling.  It’s interesting how some students’ voices are subtly reflected in the tone–either patriotic, or questioning the war, etc.  (We did work with students generally on appropriate tone, given that the theme was to create a memorial.) 

Update 2:  During the Skype I realized that we had gotten several posts over the summer on the blog Joel set up after the project, several from Marines.   It was really thrilling seeing the response and that the project was meaningful. (in addition to a few emails we’ve received.)

allenavery.wmv

jamesdozbun.wmv

michaelfsheridan.wmv