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

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.  

Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant designated July 4 as School Leadership Day, and has invited bloggers to write about how to support innovative school leadership.

I’d like to share some ideas but also compliment the leadership in our district and at our high school, because there have been some great strides towards innovative leadership both at our campus and at the district level.

One of the most transformative elements of that has been our campus Vision committee.

Our principal established it upon arriving a year ago, and gathered together parents, students and staff who were interested in future planning.   But our mission wasn’t addressing current problems or putting out fires, as is so often the case in schools–our  mission was to look at what we needed to be thinking about to plan for the graduate of 2020.   What would be required of our high school when today’s kindergardener’s get here?   This mission created the incentive to look ahead, instead of looking back, and to have  a much broader and more philosophical discussion about education, and that has been enlightening.

Four subcommittees have studied the research, taken a site visit to California schools, planned a technology initiative for our campus, and created a bureau of speakers to extend our connection to the community.   But all of this has grown out of our conversations about 21st century learning, out of reading Whole New Mind, World Is Flat, Marc Prensky articles, etc.    And all of that happened because our principal allowed the committee to grow organically, to follow leads that were interesting, and also to implement some of the things that we discussed.

One of the issues with schools and change has often been that change occurs slowly, and as things in our culture begin to change more rapidly, school entities have a hard time keeping up.     Part of the change at our campus is that things have begun to alter more rapidly, which can be very disconcerting at times.   But in balance, it also feels that if we do valuable work on a committee or project,  it will see fruition, and see fruition very quickly.  

Adapting our institution to that model will be an interesting process.   Can we learn to problem solve on the fly better?   Can we be more solution oriented?  Are there areas where we need to take things more slowly or troubleshoot more ahead of time?  What staff supports do we need to move more quickly?  Are there “sacred cows” or should nothing be sacred?  

One way that our principal has really assisted in this area is by being inclusive of many players, and by supporting professional development beyond our campus.  When a group attends a conference like Model Schools, she asks for different participants than have attended before.   Inviting more people into the conversation builds a team that shares a similar mission.

As I’ve followed Scott McLeod’s discussions over the last year, I’ve also realized we all have a role to play in helping support administrators regarding “School 2.0.”   Many school districts have trouble with access to blogging, wikis, Ning, etc., because there is concern at the administrative level.

If you are interested in moving the web 2.0/school reform conversation forward, then each of us has to help make that happen.  We can’t only “preach to the choir.”

So one thing I decided that I could do since I’m a total web 2.0 geek , was to offer to present a few sessions either for administrators or about administrators and web 2.0 tools.   So I’m happy to say I’m presenting a session at Internet School Librarian West in October on how librarians can support their administrator’s understanding and use of web 2.0 tools.   

I also presented recently at the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals conference on technology that could be helpful to principals.  What I discovered in that session is that almost every administrator there was eager to learn about these tools and how they could save them time, improve instruction on their campus, or help keep them informed.   They just weren’t aware of them yet.  That convinced me further that opening up the conversation and sharing what we know with administrators is vitally important.

Like librarians and counselors, principals hold a unique and sometimes isolated position on a campus.  No one else on campus has their exact job.   There may be 100 teachers whose jobs are somewhat similar, but one principal.    So trying to be empathetic to their role and see the larger picture behind decision making, whether you are a teacher, librarian, or counselor, is an important part of community.  

I think that is why blogging can be an important support for a principal in the community
–because then all the players involved in “school” can see the thinking process, efforts,  and sincerity of the campus leadership.   G-Town Talks and Educational Discourse are good examples of that transparency.

Ways each of us could help further the conversation with our own principals or at other administrative levels:

1.  Share something specific, rather than something general.   Show how a particular project at another school which uses web 2.0 tools has provided benefits for students and could provide benefits for your campus.

2.  Pass along articles of interest to your administrator.   Email them when you read something that they might be interested in or inspired by.   Same with books.  They may not have time to read the book, but it is helpful to them to be aware of the title and its premise.

3.  Invite your administrator to see you using a web 2.0 tool in the classroom or library.  All of us find it easier to support something that we understand.

4.  Show your administrators how to use RSS feeds or better yet, set up one on Pageflakes for them.   Select feeds that deal with web 2.0, technology leadership, their own school in the news, etc.

5.  If you are a librarian, order books on leadership, innovation, or web 2.0 as you find them.   Share them with your principal as soon as they arrive.

6.  Help troubleshoot problems.  Rather than get frustrated by them or cynical, try to help your administrators find solutions to problems like filtering issues, or technology issues.  Take a broader perspective than your own needs, and support seeing the needs of the entire campus, while voicing your own needs as well.   Every teacher has valuable input into problem solving, but too often we share the input only in the lounge, not with our campus leadership.

7.  If you think a particular tool will help solve a leadership issue or problem, set up an account, and model for your administrator how it could help. 

8. Share your enthusiasm.  It’s infectious.

Scott McLeod has an excellent list of philosophical strategies for professional development for administrators at Dangerously Irrelevant, some of which I am sure I have repeated. (which I think actually have a lot of application for any kind of staff development.)

I think as we begin to approach problems in education as a collaborative team, we will get much more accomplished.  We all have our roles to play, yes.  But how can we support each other’s roles better? 

Technorati Tags: schooltechleadership, Technorati Tags: administrators

Images:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/zacharyparadis/380855698/in/set-72157594514587416/ ;  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mn_francis/69890031/

This week is National Library Week and to celebrate, we’ve invited all staff on our campus to pose for a photo with their favorite book, which we’re displaying in the library.

And as our “library 2.0″ feature, we’re setting up an empty table for students and asking them to “create” a display by placing their favorite book on the table and then we’ll take their photos as well as making space for them to post on our student blog.

The National Book Foundation asked some of the National Book award winners the same question and have shared those at  A book that changed your life.

I picked out my favorites too.  (As you can see, ms-footes-favorite-books.doc, I ended up picking a little stack of books, which was sort of cheating but I figure as the librarian, I’m allowed!)  So, here’s some of my favs:

Little Women –maybe an embarrassing choice, but I have to be honest and say this book influenced me a great deal

Farewell to Arms –my high school senior English teacher, Bill Warren, and my journalism teacher, Mike Nowland,  gave me Hemingway to read, and I think that  caused me to embark on a literary journey because they took my interest in literature seriously.

Desert Solitaire –Edward Abbey blends a reverence for the natural world with a curmudgeonly irreverance for our attempts to destroy our planet.  Beautifully written book.

Blue Highways –William Least Heat Moon captured the roadtrip wanderings of my childhood driving vacations and reflects the desire I always have to explore the “blue highways.”

The Day I became an Autodidact – Kendall Hailey’s account of how she taught embarked on teaching herself the last two years of high school with a literary reading list captured my imagination about the power of literature.

Slaughterhouse Five and Palm Sunday –Kurt Vonnegut’s wry, clever writing and his deep and fiery kindness for the human race has always charmed me.   So in memoriam, I’m selecting the two titles of his that I liked the most.

The Back Country –poems by Gary Snyder who blends the East and the West so beautifully

Whole New Mind –I wish Daniel Pink’s book had been written 20 years ago–it would have made me a better educator and parent.

What is a book or books that changed your life?  Share your list!

Maybe because I’m working on the new plans for the library, as well as rereading Daniel Pink’s book Whole New Mind, plus having recently visited High Tech High, I’ve been obsessing a little bit lately over the idea of the role of design and creativity in schools, and pondering about what we could do better.

 design as ’shrimp sushi’

Not just design in the sense of a building, but in the sense of how we could teach elements of better design for student projects, and create more cross curricular opportunities for using art/music/design, etc., that would tap into the talents of so many of our students.  I’m just starting to think about all this as a way to bring information use, technology, and creativity together in classrooms and the library and using technology in a more “transformative” way(which Ian Jukes talks about).

(We do have a few projects like the Vietnam Wall photostories our English 3AP classes did earlier this year, where we talked to students about the visual design and music and how it should integrate into the feel of the project.)  But I’m wondering what other connections we can make to make students more aware of design elements across the curriculum?

I’ve also been thinking about how to apply these design and creativity ideas to a library because when you enter a space that is well designed and innovative, it seems like it creates such a positive energy in general.

Related to all this, I ran across a fascinating short talk(15 min.)about creativity and education from Sir Ken Robinson, and posted it on the Vision committee blog.   If you have a few minutes, I’d highly recommend it.

photo credit: (I went to flickr.com looking for photos to illustrate my post and ran across the clever sushi illustration by Japanese designer Kenya Hara, referenced here:  http://iridesco.com/onetwo/2007/03/04/design-of-design/  and http://www.flickr.com/photos/phluke/409555446/ )