Not So Distant Future

   What happens when what is going on in your classroom can be shared around the world?

Today, by sharing his students at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, Karl Fisch gave us just that opportunity–to peer into a classroom and see networked, scaffolded, engaged students at their best.  

For weeks, students in several English classes at Arapahoe have been reading Daniel Pink’s book, Whole New Mind, and have been discussing it via live-blogging sessions, using an inner/outer circle discussion method.   (The inner circle discusses, the outer circle blogs their reflections on the discussion).  In the culminating event today, the students got to videoconference via Skype with the author, Daniel Pink, directly.

I was able to participate in one of the live blog discussions a few weeks ago, and it was fascinating to see as some of the students created meaning for themselves as we talked on the blog about the book.   They helped one another find understanding, work out details they didn’t understand, and it deepened my own understanding of the chapter as well.

Today those of us watching the videoconference via Ustream  with the students could see the fruition of this method in the classroom.  The students interviewing Daniel Pink were ninth graders, yet were having a detailed and in depth discussion with him about the book.   You could see that after having discussed it so much in the live blogging and in their classrooms, that they felt ownership of it.  And it was also clear that they have been in an inquiry-based, student-centered classroom because they felt really empowered to ask questions and even to challenge some of the things that Daniel Pink said.

Meanwhile, as viewers, we were able to participate with students in the room who were liveblogging the event, via CoverItLive, and have discussions with them about their reactions to the conversation in the room.   Again, students were asking questions, making comments, probing, and clearly were entirely engaged in what was going on.  The chat was flying by almost faster than we could read.

At own my campus, a group of us were gathered around one “unfiltered” computer in the library(since Ustream is blocked on our campus) and watching the video conference mesmerized.  (I wish I had thought to take a picture of that!) And every teacher who walked into the library came over and watched for awhile, then asked, When can I do that?   A student aide sat and watched with us and responded to the discussion here and there as well, and watched the entire time.

Karl Fisch, Anne Smith, Maura Moritz and the other teachers involved didn’t just create a unique and powerful learning experience for their students.  They allowed educators all over the world to ask their colleagues, “When can we do that?”   They set an example for administrators, IT departments, teachers, librarians, and students all over the world.

Since the event ended, I’ve seen countless comments on twitter or via emails on our own campus from teachers eager to try something similar, eager to engage their students this way, and countless comments about people who shared what Arapahoe did with their own principals, administrators and teachers.

When we share what we are doing beyond the walls of our classrooms, we are inspiring countless others to rethink their practices or to take a leap of faith.   When Karl Fisch posted their plans today, he wasn’t entirely sure all the technology pieces would cooperate, and his focus was first on his own campus.  But his generosity in sharing has created opportunities for teachers many times over.

That’s what happens when your classroom is heard ’round the world.  

People listen, learn and grow.

Thanks, Karl and all the teachers at Arapahoe for including us.

(and thanks to Daniel Pink, as well!)

image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/74196805@N00/754581749

  He liked to tear around on his tricycle.   He died in Vietnam when he was 25.   His name is Brian O’Callaghan and he is one of the many soldiers whose name appears on the Vietnam Wall.

 His sister shared this photo with one of our students as part of a project our junior English AP students are doing, preparing brief video memorials for soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Wall.

We used to do this project on posterboard.  Last year, we decided to move it to the web, so that it would truly be more of a shared project that families and other veterans could view or respond to.

We have received so many moving letters from Veterans and family members with whom our students have been in contact, more moving and personal than I could have imagined.   Letters like this one from Rick Lewis–

“One of my Vietnam buddies . . . has contacted me and asked me to provide some information for this project. His exact words to me were, ‘Rick, you are getting your wish. Sarge will be remembered long after we are gone.’”

He wrote us about his lifelong wish that his best friend would be memorialized somehow:

“Your school is about to do something that none of us thought would ever happen. Our beloved leader will be known to many in a time that others have been forgotten. You truly are paying a tribute to one of the finest men that ever lived.”

Imagine your students receiving a letter like that. 

When I think of recent debates about the value of technology in schools, I think of what, really unwittingly, has happened with this project.   Our decision to take a leap of faith, and figure out the logistics of creating and putting these video memorials online has burgeoned into something important for veterans and family members far beyond our school walls.

Our students are seeing the power of real-life research, the power of interviewing and delving into local records for information.  And seeing the power of their voice in the lives of others.

We’re relying on the power of email, databases, internet sites, books, scanners, digital video recorders, blogs, wikis, and software like powerpoint, photostory, iMovie, Voicethread, Slide.com and lcd projectors in the classroom for sharing the presentations.   The reach of this once small project couldn’t have been achieved in any other way, and it’s taken all of us–teachers, tech staff, and library staff working together to bring it together.

 Yesterday, a swift boat pilot made a surprise visit to a classroom to present one of our students (whose project was about a fellow swift boat pilot who had died) with a memorial pin and tshirt for her efforts.   His wife emailed me afterwards that some of the details our student included in her presentation(which wasn’t about a soldier our guest knew) had actually involved him personally   The connections that are woven into our lives are so unexpected sometimes.

As I write this I am thinking of what Marco Torres’ asked us in his presentation at the TCEA conference last week–

What channels are we providing for our students?

There are so many gifts waiting in our own communities, so many stories to be told that our students can learn from, stories like Brian’s and Rick’s.  We had no idea this project would become what it is and I feel humble to even be part of it.  

And it’s not about the tools involved, but the tools in service of the learning.  I’m sure someone wiser than I coined that phrase.

But we also can’t dismiss the tools out of hand, because there are times they are the best and only way to make connections beyond the four walls of our classrooms, libraries, or schools.   And what power there is in those connections for our students, and also for our communities, as Marco Torres’ work demonstrates so well.

If you’d like to see last year’s projects, or comment on our blog, or see this year’s once they are posted, please share with us.

And let’s keep moving our students to, as Marco Torres calls it, the stories behind the facts, because that is where the real learning lies.

(and thanks to  Sandra Coker, Becky Stucky, Michelle Crocker, Valerie Taylor and Joel Adkins for your inspiration and work.)

   No one who watched the ads on the Superbowl doubts the impact of a well-designed visual.  

But in schools, we often neglect that power.   It is  harder to make a striking visual, because it takes more time to make a well-designed handout—or a powerpoint that is thought-provoking—or a digital video that has impact—or even a well designed sign for the hallways.

And it takes longer for our students to be ‘producers’ of content rather than ‘recipients’ of content, as Marco Torres puts it.  It also requires that we trust their voices. 

But the results of their efforts can be very powerful and very empowering for them as learners.  Seeing the films that Marco Torres’ students are producing during his presentation at TCEA brings home the power of the visual to tell a story, to empower student voices, and to convey a message.

When we teach students about using visuals well, we are teaching them about evaluation– about making choices, judging information, and editing their own ideas;  we are teaching them about design and its power;  we are teaching them about the power of a well-crafted messages;  and we are giving them a voice and a way to tell a story.  And as Torres’ pointed out, when we teach them to design music for their videos, we can teach them fractions, math, rhythm, and style.

I believe our students already get lots of practice at doing worksheets, completing problems, writing analytical papers, and the like.

But do they often, at the high school level, get to practice gathering information into a story that can be shared?  Do they get the opportunity within the school community to learn  how to convey their ideas visually to others, whether in a well-delivered, well-designed slideshow, or a powerful digital film?

I can’t count how many times in the last week at TCEA that I have heard people say that it’s so hard to change because teachers and campuses are so focused on test scores, that they cannot make inroads in terms of teaching things differently.  

But I think every end has different means.  Sometimes we act as though there is one path to get there, and that path is drill and practice, or that path is only the path we have defined, as though there aren’t a myriad of ways to teach and learn something.   Are we sometimes using the “test” as a way to avoid changing our practices?  Or to avoid the problematic issues of allowing for student voice in our classrooms?

I believe students can become literate in a field in many ways, and that the more deeply involved with the content they are emotionally, the more it will resonate with them long after the class, and their deeper understanding will clearly show on any “measure” of their knowledge or abilities.

For example, Torres’ students who were studying health care, and made a film interviewing a family whose son had a brain tumor, probably know and understand that issues much more deeply than a student who reads an article about it.

His students who created a video on the power of voting, probably have much more of a sense of the power of the vote.    His students who interviewed Hispanic World War II veterans or Vietnam veterans for their films probably have a much more real understanding of what those experiences were like, rather than a student who reads a textbook about it.

Hall Davidson demonstrated in his TEC-Sig talk that we are all able to comprehend information visually very quickly, and in fact, even in a matter of seconds, since we are so attuned as a culture to visual media.

So, I think we have to let go of the fear of “the test scores” and believe.  Believe in our students’ abilities, believe in our own abilities as educators, and believe in our own judgment as to how to reach the literacies our students need. 

Part of that is believing in knowledge as something live and evolving.  We teach students knowledge sometimes as though it is set in stone, and we do the same thing with standardized tests and our curriculums—as though the knowledge they have defined is some fixed thing that will never change in our students’ lifetimes.

This student’s video, (”2+2=5“) points out the significance of questioning the status quo very effectively, in fact.

Are we teaching students just for tomorrow ’s test, or are we teaching them for their lifetime?

We also have to have trust in our students.  That is a prerequisite to having students edit a wiki together or create a film.  Not blind trust–but trust built out of our classroom relationships with them.   Healthy relationships aren’t built on the fear of what someone “might say” or “might do.”  And our students do have much to say–how can we tap into that more significantly?

Marco Torres believes that the most significant thing we can do for a student is connect with their curiosity so they will ‘want to come back tomorrow, and next week, and the week after that.’

When we empower student voices, tap into their own communities, and believe they have something significant to say, it can make a tremendous difference for all of us.

photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/daviddave/399728857/

Yesterday, I took the library to the students.  As those of you who read my blog may know, we’re closed for a renovation, and I’m currently working out of the ninth grade center library, which is a trek from the main high school.   

I

So in an effort to bring services TO the students, I’m experimenting with various methods of outreach.

We’re deep into a major project on Vietnam, and students are involved in creating a digital biography of a soldier from the Vietnam wall, so I went to visit a couple of classrooms that were using mobile labs, so that I could offer tech support, answer copyright questions, etc. 

It was fascinating being in the classroom with the teacher as opposed to being in our computer lab.  As I walked around the room, students were asking lots of questions(more than they normally ask when I do a walk through in the lab).  And it was fascinating because I could see how the teachers partner on this assignment and share materials and students openly back and forth between their rooms.

I also was learning a lot about how students are doing their “work” differently.  A couple of students were looking at the html code of a website on Vietnam and discussing the code.  I asked the teacher about it, and she told me they were building a website about their soldier instead of a video presentation.   We talked about code copyright, a discussion I had seen going on online a few days ago.

The other teacher told me that her students were using their phones to take photos of the title page of the books they were citing, so that they didn’t have to write down the title and author for their bibliography work later.  I thought that was pretty clever, and one I hadn’t thought of.

As I was rereading part of Wikinomics last night, preparing for our panel on wikis at TCEA 2008, (Using Wikis to Connect, Collaborate and Connect) I was struck by this quote:

“The future, therefore, lies in collaboration across borders, cultures, companies, and disciplines.  Countries … that turn inward will not succeed in the new era.”
I think this applies to schools as well.  If we turn inward, or ignore the tools students are using, or aren’t willing to be open to learning about them, we won’t succeed in the “new” era of collaboration and ubiquitous technology use.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, because at the beginning of our session, we’re going to talk about the power of the wikis, and I’m going to use Wikipedia as a leaping off point, and share ideas Will Richardson showed us about the discussion tab on Wikipedia.   But I’m aware the conversation may start to derail into a debate over the merits of Wikipedia, even though I’m using it as a metaphor for the power of wikis for collaborative knowledge building.

My take on Wikipedia, and most other tools–is that we need to teach students more informed uses of these tools and to be information literate, but we also need to learn from our students.  It’s likely they know more about using Wikipedia than we do, for example.   (In fact, one of the interesting things about our session tomorrow is that the teachers involved are fledgling users of wikis, are interested in the pedagogy, and we wanted to demonstrate how we are all learning about these tools together.)

The real power of tools like wikis lie in this democratization of contributions.  And for us to believe in that, we have to trust our “customers” as Tantek Celik, of Technorati,  points out in Wikinomics.  We have to believe in our students, believe that they have something to contribute.  Yes, they may sometimes need guidance, support, training, scaffolding, but, they do have things to contribute and their voices matter.

How do you empower students to engage with a text in such a way that they can come to their own understanding of it?

 I just participated in a fascinating live blogging experiencewith Maura Moritz’s and Karl Fisch’s students at Arapahoe High School.   The students were using the inner/outer circle discussion method in their classroom to discuss the book.  While the inner circle held a discussion in the room, the outer circle was live blogging their discussion and holding their own with a few of us from outside the classroom (Jen Wagner) that had been invited to join them.  

The students probably don’t even think of what they are doing as that extraordinary because they have been using this method for a few weeks to study the book Whole New Mind.  But to me, it was invigorating to be listening in and participating with their discussion of Pink’s chapter on “Symphony” from my desk in Austin.

We were discussing Pink’s chapter on symphony, in which he talks about the power of bringing seemingly unrelated ideas together to create something new, to see relationships anew, to re-see. 

 It was fascinating seeing students struggle with that chapter, trying to determine what it meant to them, and for myself, to figure out what it meant to me in a way that I could communicate.

The multi-layered levels of this discussion were fascinating.  Students seemed engaged in the live blogging, and had a foot in their classroom(multi-tasking as an assignment!)  Interestingly, their perspective  on Whole New Mind differed widely from that of other teachers I have talked to about the book.  

Yet, you could witness the students’ understanding grow as they listened to others in the live blog or in their classroom, because it was in written form.  I really liked the idea of the conversation being a written one, something that they could refer back to, that their other classmates could read, and that others outside of the school(including the author, I presume) could engage with later on.

I also noticed that students were eager for us to help tie their understanding to things they know and could relate to, like sports, or school.   Which again, was an interesting reminder that we need to connect  to what our students are familiar with in order to build new understandings. In the book Made To Stick, Chip and Dan Heath write about appealing to a customer’s personal interest as a way to make ideas sticky.  And I could see that as we live blogged, my own understanding was also more personal;  an interesting point to remember as we are trying to get students engaged with a text–make it personal?

The best part about it as a visitor was being embedded in a discussion with students.  (I fear I wrote too much, but it was out of my enthusiasm for Daniel Pink and wanting others to share it, rather than out of a teacherly urge.)   The technology removed the barrier of me standing at the front of the room as an “educator” or a “guest” and allowed us to jump right into the discussion at hand.  As Arthus talked about at Educon, we were all speaking with an equal voice in the live blogging, all equal partipants, each with the same “rights” to contribute.

And as we explored the idea of symphony, I realized how much I value that trait.  I really live for  those aha moments when you are able to connect unrelated ideas together and make something new.   By live blogging the chapter, I really engaged in it more deeply than I had before, and it reemphasized to me how powerful engaging students in a conversation with a text is.  

  Probably one of the most frequently asked classroom and library questions about a project, paper, or even when a student is asked to check out book is–”How long does it have to be?”  There are lots of things embedded in that question that bother me.

First off, there is the notion kids have that length equals quality.   I’m sure we’ve enforced that notion ourselves by assigning lengths for papers, powerpoints, # of pages read, etc.  in our attempts to satisfy the students’ “need to know.”   Kids like that concrete definition and aren’t very satisfied by a vague answer.   So they pad their papers with inane expansions of their topic, find thin books with large type so that the book is “long enough,” fill their powerpoints with unnecessary bells and whistles so that they have enough slides, and on and on.   We all know that drill, and it can get downright amusing at times.

Secondly, their question bothers me because of the word “have.”  Students don’t ask us how long it could be, but how long it HAS to be.   The whole question doesn’t conjure up the picture of an assignment in which the students are so engaged that the idea of length doesn’t even occur to them, but rather the image of something onerous, something imposed on them from “above,”  something that as dutiful students they will try to fulfill, without really understanding the why of it.

One of the things I think is really valid about using blogging with students is that the writing is authentic.  Sometimes you have something brief to say, and sometimes it’s lengthy, but always, the length is determined by the content, not the other way around.

Which brings me to the real point of this post, which is brevity.  I’ve really been thinking about lately how we could use brevity and design better in schools.

Can we design mission statements that are short and easy to remember, more like a slogan than a statement?

Can we give students assignments where brevity, clarity, or simplicity of design are the point?    I have in mind assignments like Dan Meyer’s Four Slide contest (where participants were asked to represent themselves in just four, well-designed slides), or assignments like creating a sixty second video message, like these Library of Congress PSAs on literacy.   Or a story in a touching, but brief slide show like Alan Levine’s of his dog Dominoe(using slide.com).

   The point is, we teach students how to expand on their ideas, how to find lots of sources, how to write longer essays, how to read longer books, but when do we teach them the real power of brevity?   

Have them represent themselves in one slide, not four.   Have them read a one page short story or a picture book if they are in high school and consider how shorter stories still manage to convey the whole narrative.   Have them write a story that has just two words.  Have them create a brief public service announcement, a one page ad for a magazine, a powerpoint with just four slides….you get the idea.

If part of web 2.0 is helping our students become effective communicators, then we need to teach them the power of the blank slide, like in the Dominoe movie, or the power of silence, or spaces between things, and how that also conveys something about our human story.  These are things that good storytellers just know. 

Image credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/docnic/152907531/

http://flickr.com/photos/cogdog/882977676/in/set-72157600975093412/

   At our campus we’ve been working on a professional development strand on student voices, and as I wrote about recently, held student panels in order to get feedback from our student body.

One thing I learned during the session is that our students, too, are suffering from information overload and we need to be providing more help and to provide more time when possible. 

What have you heard from students about how they learn?  What are things you’ve tried or would like to try in the future to increase student engagement?  What were the results of what you have tried?  `

Any tools you’ve discovered along the way that have been especially effective?  Looking forward to a discussion of things, small or large, that you’ve learned from your students.

Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/xurble/376588066/

   Bob Witowski at our campus has just received a coveted “Kudos from Drape” award from Darren Draper (who created the Pay Attention video, if you’re not familiar with his work) for Bob’s experiment using cell phones in his Algebra classroom.

 We’re mixed in with some pretty good company getting this award, so big congratulations Bob, and thanks to Darren for the recognition!

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

A few days ago, I wrote about reflective learning, and really identified with Will Richardson’s and David Warlick’s comments about focusing on the learning and community, and how the process sometimes gets lost in the production of the product.  

Ironically, as I was reading Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix last night, I noticed that Harry has difficulty in Snape’s Potions class.  Frequently his “product” doesn’t meet Snape’s expectations.   After some discussion with Hermione and reflection, Harry realizes that he needs to slow down and focus on the process more.

Now that may be a simple analogy that doesn’t entirely fit, but the point is, that many research models that we use support this focus on process and self-evaluation, (such as the Big 6, or Carol Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process, and many others).

Carol Kuhlthau  work particularly focuses on the process, students’ emotional stages as they move through it, and how we can support them during the process, by identifying when the most opportune times for intervention are, and what those types of interventions could look like.

As teachers and librarians, how can we provide more time for reflection and focus on the process and the learning?  But particularly, how can we do that in a way that builds a supportive community of learners that Will Richardson writes about?

Where I see the breakdown occurring is in several areas:

1.  Do we have expectations?  –The students may not be required to spend time on the research/reflection part of the assignment prior to the production part.   Kids are in a hurry(and so are we sometimes).  I’ve seen students starting their powerpoint on the same day they are doing the research assignment.  Where is the time for them to absorb what they are learning? Is the assignment so fact-based that all they are doing is regurgitating information?

2.  Do they have enough time for reflection during the process and afterwards?  In our haste to cover so much content, are we neglecting the time to reflect?   Can the research be spread out over several weeks or over the semester to create time for more deep inquiry?   (This would model authentic research–which isn’t completed in a couple of days or a week.)

3.  Do we ask students to evaluate the process?  The product gets evaluated in many different ways.   How can we help them be more reflective as they are doing research and share that reflection with other learners who are having similar experiences as a means of extending their reflection and gaining support?

4.  Do we help them build a network for discussing the process and extending their learning?   Or are they working in isolation?    Do real scientists and researchers work in isolation?  Do we?  How does helping students build a network help create a more authentic experience?

4.  Is our goal even to teach that reflection?  Should we?  What is our goal?  Product, process, learning?  Is the focus of the assignment actually reflective of what the goal is?

Some concrete ideas for focusing on process–

1.  a research process log or questionaire (And some other examples I’ve linked to).  These could be used at the end of a research period, weekly, or throughout the stages of the process.   One question I am pondering is how to make these types of questionaires more networked–post on a wiki? or blog?  Other ideas?

2.  a research blog –A place where students can write reflectively about their process, and dialogue with others in their class.

•  If it seems too overwhelming to have each student create a blog, use a group blog and have a scribe for the week or day. 
• Or  threaded forum may work better, where students can toss out topics they need help with and get feedback.
• What about podblogs?–Group the students in the class into pods or groups.   Each group collaboratively writes a blog as they move through a learning process.  That way, the teacher is only checking in with four or five blogs per class instead of 30, and the group can interact and form community and share tips and help during the research process.    The 6 or 7 members of each pod can alternately post to the blog.

3.  Wikis–use wikis for students so they can collaborate as they collect information.   We have done this and it worked well.    Students across class periods working on the same topic were able to help each other gather the research.  (This would work best when there are a set of topics that all the classes are working on.)   As Will Richardson points out, Wikis have a much neglected but interactive discussion feature.  Pbwiki even incorporates chat features and yackpack, which allows recorded conversations to be sent back and forth.  How could those types of discussion tools be used along with a research wiki to stimulate discussion of the learning that was occurring?

4.  Google Docs–encourage students to use Google docs as they take notes or begin writing, and have them invite a few of their fellow students to join in as collaborators or just as readers.

5.  Sharing bookmarks–another route other than wikis is to have students set up accounts on del.icio.us or Furl or Google Notebook, because these tools not only allow students to bookmark their findings, but to share their bookmarks with other students.  Diigo not only allows students to bookmark their sites, but annotate them, clip them, and share them on a blog, email, or album.   Bookmarking a collection of sites that they can use later conveys the idea that the learning is ongoing, that they can “add to” what they have found later, in a way that a set of notecards or a bibliography doesn’t, because they seem more “final” and product oriented.   And these sites allow them to network and learn collaboratively from one another.

6.  Evaluation–As librarian extraordinaire Doug Johnson reminded me in an previous post,

“One of the things I’ve noticed is that when we ask students to follow an information problem solving model like the Big6, we tend to ignore the 1st step of defining the task and the last step of evaluating the product and the process. “It’s the final step where we need to ask students to reflect on both how good their product was AND how effective they were in doing their work. I’d ask students to always answer the question ‘What will I do differently next time to improve my work and skills?’”

Even if we ask students to reflect on the process along the way, asking them to reflect at the “end of the journey” or to try to pull their thoughts together after the process is important.   And having them do that in a way that is networked(like a blog or wiki discussion or a chat on Skype, or a classroom discussion, etc.) allows them to learn from one another, and build on one another’s evaluation and learning. 

That is where we are really having them extend their learning, deepen their reflection, and internalize their own learning process.

Other ideas, thoughts?  This potion I’m working on is not fully baked yet