Tag Archives: Technology

Striving for it all

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My last post to this blog may have oversimplified what is to come.

This afternoon I was updating my Linked-In profile, forgetting that my status there also gets posted to my Facebook account via Plaxo. This isn’t normally a problem as I don’t update my status on Linked-In very often. For me Linked-In is more of a professional network, whereas my Facebook account tends to be a more friendly mix of family, former students, former parents and teacher friends from over the years.

Imagine then my surprise when moments later I started getting those Facebook emails saying that comments had been posted in response to my status update.

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And there they were, a number of comments from teacher friends and former students cheering me on and saying how lucky the students were.

Truth be told, I am going back to the classroom.  I’m going back to a Multi-Age Cluster Class, a very specialized program for academically gifted students.  I’ve taught in it before and I know that I’ll love the work.  And yes, I’ll have a Smartboard in my classroom, and I’m very excited about that. After working with so much technology, especially with access to Smartboards during my stint at SFU, I can’t imagine not having tech tools to teach with.

The real issue here though is that over my last few years while I’ve been out of the classroom, I’ve moved the bar for what I expect from myself to a very high level because of all that I have learned from the really amazing teachers with whom I’ve had the privilege of working.

To name a few:

First there is Jen, a grade 4/5 teacher who writes so thoughtfully in her blog In Pursuit of Purpose.  Here is a teacher who thinks so deeply about what she is doing. She engages with children in the most honestly authentic, meaningful ways. For example,  her latest blog post, Imparting Values: Is it our job as Educators? states “I never would have guessed that any teachers could think that their teaching is disconnected with their values.  How is this possible?”   The depth and thoughtfulness of Jen’s writing is mindboggling and from her I’m learning a lot about how to enhance and deepen the classroom experience. Jen brings a global focus into her grade 4/5 classroom through her global thinking approach, bringing in statistics about literacy from around the world to work with in math, having her students learn about microlending through Kiva, and involving them in collaborative projects through My Hero and iEarn. Jen writes too about Problem based learning and how she struggles to help her students make connections from the exploring and playing stages, to really being able to articulate their discovery of concepts.

Then there is Sonya, a new young teacher whom I was introduced to initially through her rather brilliant electronic portfolio, something she’d made specifically for her Teacher Education program even though she barely knew how to use computers at the time. Even as a new teacher she was already being asked to present workshops for other, more seasoned teachers. What Sonya had to offer was a complete openness and willingness to find ways to use the technology that the students were coming to school with to enhance student learning in the classroom. While experienced teachers were busy banning cell phones and confiscating stray ipods, Sonya was inventing ways to get the same POD (personally owned devices) out of the students’ pockets and into the lessons. Dave Truss  has posted a series of YouTube  interview with Sonya. Here is the first:

And then there is Susan, a more experienced teacher-librarian in PoCo who lives and breathes peace education. From my time with Susan I’ve learned to listen to my own language. Do I encourage students to “take a shot at it” when encouraging them to give something a try, or  to “blow them away” with whatever leadership activity they are about to take on?   I’ve been amazed at how much the language of war is embedded in so much of even my own speech, let alone those around me.  Susan teaches full-time, is a mother and still has time to be the President of the British Columbia Peace and Global Educators (PAGE BC) and of War-Toys-To-Peace-Art. This summer she has been away in Africa with Teachers without Borders.

Cindy is another outstanding teacher who really lives by the environmental stance that she brings with her into the classroom. Her own interest in sustainable community gardening inspired her to have her grade 4 students get involved in a neighbourhood garden project. At the same time she was exploring the Mindfulness Education Program and specific forms of problem solving and collaboration which come out of the restorative justice work. Like Susan, Cindy lives by what she brings into the classroom.

I could go on and on, highlighting the teachers who are inspiring me to go back into the classroom with a renewed interest in educating for compassion, peace, justice, and sustainability.  I have watched so many such dedicated teachers pour their energy into making their classrooms be vibrant, fun, caring centers where the children are doing amazing things. I’ve seen creative and unique uses of technology that have sparked creativity and problem solving even in kindergarten children. Betty had her 5 year old students developing oral language skills as they performed and filmed their puppet shows.  Sharon had me invite one of her grade 7 students in to  demonstrate to 40 teachers in our “summer school” how he’d created an interactive white board out of a highlighter pen!  Later that fall this same 12 year old organized a workshop for 6 of the adults so we could each try making our own.  Yes, I’ve had the privilege of working with, Karen, Greg, Laura, Jen, Natalie, Kathleen, Demetra, Elaan, Clark, Rick, Carol, Phil, Eric, Sarah, Tim, Shannon, and many, many more (I’m sorry I’m leaving so many of you out!)  Each has their own stories of strengths that bring quality to the profession. I’ve learned so much from each one of the them. So my real dilemma now going back into the classroom is how to consolidate all that I’ve learned  both from my travels and from my work.

In the end my response to the comments on Facebook lays out the challenge I face:FB

Ok, So I’m back.

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A bit of a hiatus since my last post but all for good reason. Quite honestly I’ve been overwhelmed by the amazing blogging world. Then add in twitter, so micro blogging, and I was struggling to find time for work, let alone my family. Life has to have a balance. On top of all that I’m still bound and determined to learn Spanish and I’ve increased my efforts at that to really honest daily sessions. Estoy haciendo progresos finalmente. At the same time my colleagues at SFU and I have begun doing some solid research work around Self-Study, plus I’ve been attending various conferences including this week a small SFU sponsored conference with Amanda Berry and John Loughran from Monach University in Australia on Self Study. (See my previous post on Self Study.) Yesterday I sat in on Day one of the Virtual School Society Conference: Learning Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. I am feeling so immersed in thinking and learning. I am fortunate to be surrounded by amazing thinkers and excellent, supportive critical colleagues. But it has all stewed enough and once again it is time to write.

So the inspiration which has pushed me to do this today is Tod Maffin, the end-of-the-day-keynote at the VSS conference. The first time I heard Tod Maffin was on CBC radio early one morning when I woke up to him being interviewed about why he had just deleted his Facebook account; yes, he deleted his Facebook account! His friends were all, rightly so, immediately concerned about his well being. Tod is funny, articulate and provocative. Thinking back to that, I shouldn’t have been caught off guard when he spoke, but I was. While I don’t have today’s speech but if you haven’t heard him speak before, its worth watching one of his YouTube videos to get a sense of who he is:

Appealing to the Facebook generation isn’t particularly contentious, nor really was today’s talk. Early on he asked who believed in multi-tasking. A good portion of the audience raised hands, me included. This was bold on my part given some of my previous thinking on the subject such as one of my earlier blog posts on LIveJournal in 2007 Flow vs Multi-Tasking. But understand that since I wrote that post I’ve been immersed in teaching with technology. I’ve become a real blogger AND a microblogger on twitter. I now have my own ipod touch and I’m learning spanish partly through long walks with little white wires dangling from my ears. So while I do still find it rude and I would agree 100% that one cannot totally be at one’s best when multi-tasking, I would not agree that learning and multi-tasking are incompatible. But I guess one has to start this discussion with actually defining learning and that may be wherein lies the real meat of the argument. Tod Maffin didn’t go there.

His talk though based on his opinions was, he said, well backed up with research or at least reading he has done. Certainly there is lots of research coming out about brain plasticity and how digital media and imagery is changing the way brains are developing. We both agree that children’s brains are developing differently. Children who spend a lot of time using digital media scan a page of text differently. They process images differently. He spoke to the over identification of learning disabled students in a world that might really be about learning disabled teaching environments. I applauded that point as well as when he started to look at what an amazing creative, critical thinking generation of students we are beginning to see emerge from this digital, imagery driven world. Then he took a turn back to three ways to help these digital student learn better, presumably in our text based world without really ever bringing up the question of what learning really is. His example, two university classes one in which the students kept their tech toys while the in other students were asked to leave them at the door, may have demonstrated that the students paid attention to his words differently, but says nothing at all about the learning, the critical thinking, the retention, the risk taking or creative thinking that may have come from what was presented in either group. This is of particular interest to me as I consider with my colleagues in our self study the question of what learning really is. What do we except as evidence of learning?

So while I do agree that we do want to be attentive to helping our students to monitor the learning space (consider the tech toys, rethink multi-tasking), by informing the habits (get enough sleep, have a good breakfast) and by informing the balance (be mindful, keep perspective) I’m not yet ready to buy in to believing that learning just happens if we set up the right environment. Learning needs active participation on the part of the learner that I still believe might be enhanced by keeping the tools in the learners hands. All good food for thought though. Thank you Tod for an inspiring, stimulating talk.

[Editor’s note: this post inspired by “quiltily” watching and contributing to the #VSS2009 twitter conversation during the Tod Maffin talk while also note taking. So I ask you, what do you consider to be evidence of learning?]

Technology turning learning and teaching upside down

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Tonight a small group of learners met at a school in Coquitlam for a lesson on how to construct wiimote ir pens. These little homemade devices are amazing. They turn any ordinary whiteboard into a smart board sort of tool.  These are all made from common household sorts of part yet this was no common lesson… The learners included three teachers, one sfu faculty associate (me!)  and one middle school vice principal…. the teachers, two twelve year old boys.  When I walked in the boys were just finishing up their organizing. They were dishing out the components to the work stations, scrambling to find an extra extension cords, getting the soldering irons preheated and downloading some software on to one of the classroom laptops.  Then the teachers arrived and we got going.  The boys showed us how to plan the wiring, solder the connections, complete the circuit and then use our cell phones to test the connection. They had the software up and running so that we could test out our pens on the screen as we finished.  They had to talk us through downloading the softwareon our own away from home, but listening to them, it all seemed amazingly simple.  All in all the experience was nothing short of wonderful and I loved that it was them teaching us.  If you want to know more about these pens or how to contact these amazing young fellows, let me know. I’m happy to support them in this venture.