Not So Distant Future

Take one part having a few Twitter contacts. Add one enthused teacher who wants to try out Skype.

Dial up a few friends on Skype randomly(who you met via Twitter). Hope someone is nice enough to turn on their webcam to demonstrate (thanks Karl) and off we go.

Now we have a teacher in Texas who might have made a contact with an ASL teacher in Colorado, and all it took was a little “six degrees of separation”. When anyone wonders about the power of Twitter or Skype for educators, case closed.

Though this experience I had today has become somewhat commonplace for some of us who use Skype or Twitter, it still never ceases to thrill me to actually talk “live” to people that I have met over the network or to see a teacher’s face when they use the tools for the first time.

And it does demonstrate how easy a global connection is–it doesn’t always require a program, a huge effort, or a large expenditure of funds. It just requires the way the network allows us to “know someone” who “knows someone” who “knows someone.” And it requires the friendliness of educators always willing to give someone a leg up, show them the ropes and be invitational.

That’s the best thing about being involved in a network, when it comes right down to it. Broadening a circle of both friends and colleagues–learning from people every day who are willing to share and learn with you–and reinvigorating what you do every day.

So thanks Karl, (and Dean) and Barbara(and my old friend Bob who I met in another network long ago and far away) for showing once again how easy it is to connect.

During  dinner last night with some of my Twitter colleagues who were in town for the COSN conference, I was pondering a question I really am curious about.

A teacher and I  were talking yesterday about Facebook and work he is doing with a science organization for college students and  professors.  The organization had a blog which was completely unutilized.  So he decided to set up a Facebook page instead.  After one day, the page already had 40 followers.

It led me to really do some “wondering” about how to better meet both our students and our teachers where they live.  Blogs are not where either of them “live” online per se.

I love blogs, love reading them for the inspiration they provide, and love writing on my own. And I’m not suggesting that blogs don’t have tremendous value, because I believe they do.

But after quite a bit of time struggling with encouraging teachers to engage with blogging at my own campus, I’m just wondering what means of communication might work at a more innate level for our staff. Because I really think there would be value for them in connecting with the ideas that I find so inspiring in the blogosphere.

So I was wondering aloud at dinner last night–would video(videoblogging) be another avenue to connect with classroom teachers?   Or would something like Facebook be a way to connect with them better than Ning, since a lot of them are already on Facebook?  (After all, I can create a Facebook page for our library, which I did today,  and share blog links and links for tools there.)

I guess my point is, instead of trying to encourage teachers to come where “I am” or where the blogosphere is, how can I bring it to them where they “live”?

Recently, I’ve been involved in a group studying Julie Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way.  One of the tenets of her book is writing what she calls “morning pages”–several pages of uncensored, stream of consciousness writing that is done first thing in the morning.

The idea is to clear your head of other thoughts which interfere with your creativity.  She includes a number of other tasks in the book as well, and one that seems most applicable to educators is the “artist date.”  The idea is to take yourself on a date somewhere to do something artful–you have to go alone, and you can’t break your date with yourself–it is something you schedule.  You can go to a museum, take photographs, browse for art supplies, write in the park, but the idea is to do something relating to art.

It strikes me that this is such an excellent activity for both teachers and their students.  In this age of AP testing, standardized testing, college prep, etc., both students and teachers are under much pressure and a barrage of reading/homework/grading, etc.   As many of our staff and my colleagues online have commented, how do we get students to be creative or innovative when they are exhausted and overloaded?

I would posit that the same goes for us as educators.

I suggest that an artist’s date is an excellent assignment for both students and for ourselves–to carve out time for exploration and nothing else, to make it a way to treat yourself, indulge yourself in seeing the world in a different way.

When we model for students that spending time nurturing themselves isn’t frivolous or unnecessary, but that it is a key to supporting themselves intellectually and creatively, then we have done them a great favor.

Blogging, too, I believe, is enhanced by spending that time seeing in a new way.  It has made such a difference to me as a photographer, for example, knowing I have an audience at flickr or that I’ll post a photograph on my blog.  I think for our students, writing online for an audience also enhances their “vision” so to speak.

So I challenge you to try taking an artist’s date for yourself for the next couple of weeks.  See how it feels, what it leads you to, and what it feels like to dedicate that time to yourself.

“They say knowledge is power.  We say the use of knowledge is power.”
Elliot Washor  in The Big Picture by Dennis Littkey

As a group of us have been meeting at our campus to form a professional learning community, we’ve been talking quite a bit about the notion of students as a pail having information “poured” into them, versus the notion of students actively constructing knowledge.

I think to librarians, this idea comes fairly naturally.   We know that we can’t “know” everything, but that the source of our power comes in knowing how to help students find information themselves, by ferreting out the knowledge they already have within them.   Finding the information sometimes becomes more of a collaboration, and that is ultimately the goal, for students to know how to drawn on the knowledge they have to make new connections and find more information.

It’s fascinating the different expectations with which students(and teachers) approach asking questions or receiving help.  Some students expect to be a partner in finding things, and will ask a question and then work with you to figure it out.  Other students are much more passive, and ask a question, but then follow you, while chatting with other students along the way, and not really paying much attention.   Some students will take charge once they get to a set of sites or to the bookshelves–once they’ve been pointed in the right direction they are ready to take charge and winnow through what is there and select what works for them.  Each encounter is different and part of the skill set a librarian has to have is being able to facilitate with many different kinds of learners.

In The Big Picture, Littkey points out that learning is very personal.  He also posits that the “real learning happens after” the encounter.  “It’s what you do with it, how you integrate it, how you talk to your family, friends, and classmates about it” that constitutes the learning process.

Once again, I’m led to wonder if we give students enough time for that “learning after” process.  I believe that we learn as things go on the “back burner” and we process them in the background, but in the rush for “new” lessons each day, do we allow enough room for reflection?

Similarly, in library-research related encounters, are students expected to complete something at the end of the period or the next day–or are they given a few days to let the concepts go on their “back burner” while they process it, talk about it, and share it-even if they are doing something else within the classroom?

Littkey asks some very pertinent questions at the end of the first chapter:

“How do you learn best?  How would you go about teaching your ‘own capacity to learn?’

What do you look like and feel like when you are really learning?”

It’s pertinent to understand that for ourselves so that we can apply it better in our own work with students.  If we really “get” that using the knowledge is where the key is, rather than having the knowledge, then how would we approach our teaching differently?

The end of the school year always feels like a mixed bag–excitement at the thought of relaxation and summertime, but wistfulness and sadness at saying farewell to the year, with students and friends leaving, and with things left undone, potential unfulfilled.   But usually it feels over.  Like things are packed up–put away, set aside, and then next year, we have a completely fresh start, almost like starting over.

But this year, a group of us are working on something that feels like it has the potential to provide a sense of continuity–and of a sense that our work is a continuing endeavor instead of something that is just ending so we can “start over” the next year.   And that’s a different feeling, to feel like we’ve somehow started some conversation that is going to keep going.

A group of us have planted the seeds for a professional learning community, and amazingly, the last two weeks of school, we’ve had over 25 teachers volunteer to participate, and they’ve even attended after school meetings talking about educational philosophy (a week before school is out!)

We’re making a commitment as a group to spend a year having conversations about improving our teaching, investigating constructivism and more student-based learning, doing readings, hosting guest speakers, and trying to grow as educators.

Even our planning meetings have evolved into philosophical discussions about teaching that have led us to share articles and books with one another, and we are just barely beginning.  This summer we’re planning monthly coffee get togethers to start our conversation and to get to know one another since our group is pretty diverse curricularly.

So although it is a wistful time saying goodbye to our current students, it also feels like we are beginning something very significant–and a conversation that will continue as we define our learning for ourselves.

It’s also exciting because it’s a grass-roots effort on the part of a group of us, and we’re determined to have a sort of “leaderless” organization (Starfish and Spider like), so that it becomes something self-sustaining at our campus.  (or so we hope).

And a lot of things have led us  to this point, which also feels like more of a sense of continuation, rather than a disconnected set of workshops or events.   So even though we are stumbling, tired, through the last two days of school there is a sense of something brewing on the horizon, and that feels truly exciting.

And another thought–whenever you wish or wonder why your school can’t change, or get frustrated about things….each of you has the power to reach out to other teachers at your school, and ask them to join you in forming a community of explorers.   We each do have the power to begin the conversation.   

A group at our campus is starting a professional learning community.

I’m cross posting the post below from the blog we have started, which we aren’t quite ready to share “prime time” but are using for our organizing thoughts, because I thought it would have interest outside of our campus.

———— 

In our meeting this week, Jeff brought up the idea of curriculum AS relationship, and the importance of relationship as the foundation for reaching students.

In his book, The Passionate Learner, Robert L. Fried talks about the importance of that relationship and redefining curriculum.

He makes an interesting comment that he observed when struggling with the idea of “curriculum” and observing his students:

“The content of the lessons seems to pass through them, much of the time, like an indigestible substance.”

Throughout the chapter he talks about the collaboration that has to occur between teachers and students. 

“Curriculum for the passionate learner has everything to do with whether or not the relationships are right, whether teachers and learners feel that together they are shaping the learning that goes on.  This cooperation is necessary even when teachers feel pressure from external forces. . . .”

This is something we talked about in our meeting this week–how to make this happen even when feeling pressured by the demands of content driven testing systems and structures in our schools.  

Fried has an inspiring way of looking at it:

“When we view curriculum as a function of relationships, we bring it to our classrooms and lay it out, like a comfortable and useful garment.  We allow ourselves and our students to make it belong to us, to adjust it, to restyle it, to enliven it, to infuse it with meaning.  Such ownership increases the likelihood that young people will approach the knowledge and skills to be learned as active, critical, thoughtful investigators, rather than as passive recepters (or rejecters).”

He goes on to say,

“We are so accustomed to thinking of curriculum as “a body of knowledge” or a “grouping of concepts and theories” or as “the scope and sequence of instructional material,” that it is easy to forget that such definitions, absent an active partnership between teacher and students, are little more than words on a page.”

I like what he has to say because I think it goes even beyond just establishing a good relationship with students–but more something like collaborating with them on how the curriculum unfolds itself–something which makes them more involved and less of passive participants.  I’d be really interested in discussing what that would look like in practice.

This leads me to another question.   I was talking to one of my friends yesterday–a former teacher–and she asked if students were going to be part of our professional learning community itself.  It was a good question and something I hadn’t really considered.   Would that be a possibility?   Is there a way to invite some student participation in?  Would it be helpful to our group’s goals?

How can we enter into a different relationship with students regarding curriculum?  By the way, Fried’s chapter is well worth the read.

   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

In his post last week, “Changing Ourselves, Changing Our Culture,” Will Richardson finds irony in the fact that “teachers are connecting more and more outside their spaces but, it appears at least, not so much inside their own districts and communities.”

I’ve found that to be true for myself until recently. I’ve had only a small core of people that I felt I could connect back in with when I returned to my own campus, or attended a local conference.

But recently I’ve found a very strange thing happening. My far-flung world-wide connections are bringing me home.

I’m not very connected in my state, or haven’t felt that way. Prior to blogging, I felt somewhat isolated, though I’ve done many workshops over the years, and connected with many people at conferences. But these connections weren’t really ones I brought back with me long-term. I’ve sometimes felt isolated within my own school district, too -sometimes its hard to find time to continue the conversations or find those interested in the same things I am.    But now because there are some networked places to talk with those I meet face to face, long after a workshop or discussion ends, it has allowed me to continue some of those “connections” much more easily.

So the phenomenon I find happening is that being part of this network is making my local experiences much richer.

For one thing, the knowledge that I’ll get to share what I’m doing at a conference with whoever is in my Twitter network or whoever reads my blog adds depth to my thinking about it. (And keeps me on my toes!)

But as I’ve come home to two local conferences this winter, I’ve also found them so much richer because:

a. I’m meeting people at the conferences that I actually only knew online, even though they were nearby….I’ve found like minds in my area to talk with. And getting to spend time really talking about ideas at the conference and then getting to carry that conversation on AFTERWARDS is hugely powerful.

2. I’m also bringing back ideas from the “larger” network into my own local communities that haven’t been so tapped into the network– either on my own campus or within my peer group of librarians. All of which adds depth and enthusiasm for me as well. And now we have places to easily extend our conversations beyond a meeting or conference also–on Ning or blogs or Twitter, or email and F2F, so that those local connections also can continue far beyond the “drive-by” workshop time.

And I suspect that this sense of  discovery and of extending the conversation is what is so empowering about networks for our students — they use their own networks to bring friendship, inspiration, and energy back to their own daily lives.

I agree with Will that we need more formal ways of bringing these local connections alive in a long term, supportive environment. There is too much left to chance and teachers are our most valuable resource in terms of changing the classroom.

But today I am just delighted by the sheer serendipity of connections, and that building a network far afield has started bringing me back home–home, but with more than I had before.

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjaergaard_92/1778562401/

What is the value of being networked?

Yesterday during my Hill Country Librarian Presentation on “How to be a Networked Librarian,” I threw that question out to my twitter network.

The responses from my network were so varied and tremendous, that I wanted to share them as a resource when we talk about the power of being part of a learning network. Thanks tweets!

John Maklary’s comment that he is no longer an island is such a significant one. We are no longer islands, nor do we need to be. We can not only draw from the wisdom of so many other educators, we can share with others the strides we are making, lessons we are learning, and our own strengths and passions.

One of the things we talked about in the workshop was the importance of contributing to the network instead of just “borrowing.” I do think librarians are attuned to that–because we are used to the idea of sharing everything we find out and to connecting people with ideas.

Our difficulty tends to be that in our own buildings, we don’t have people who do that for us as often. We’re the “connectors” more often than the recipients, just due to the nature of our roles. So a network can be a significant way to get new ideas, to get re-inspired, to learn about new books or new resources, and to just find support for what we do.

As Andrea Hernandez(edtechworkshop) points out, a network can inform, improve, and enhance everything we do.

We do not have to be stranded on our islands anymore. As Cathy Nelson(cathyjo) points out, our “Verizon-like” networks can travel with us wherever we go.

Ways to get in the boat and get off that island? Here are a couple of blog posts with ideas:

– How to start building a network

– A Path to Becoming a Literate educator

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23209605@N00/2126012577

   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/