Striving for it all

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.

Post

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.

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?]

As things take off

SFU’s new Learning and Teaching with Technology Graduate Diploma Program started up in Coqulitlam, BC two weeks ago. What is truly different for me with this program is that while the teachers coming in to the program have a wide range of skills just like previous teachers in TLITE programs, this time they have all just dived right in. And the first dive is higher, with more bounce and flair than I’ve seen at the beginning of a program before.

Last night, in just the second class, James McConville presented on ‘Digital Learning Networks’. He covered a lot and challenged the teachers to start building an online network with a fairly comprehensive final assignment. It included

contribut[ing] to the human network [by] comment[ing] on 5 news articles, 5 blogs, and 5 other networks (twitter, facebook, etc.).

The teachers were then asked to summarize their experience and create a mind map such as the one David Warlick has done here, in his blog post The Technologies we Make. (Read about PLN’s in his post Networked Learning at Conferences and/or try his PLN Survey.)

What is curious for me is that the information James presented could be considered to be cutting edge. James had only recently attended the International Congress for School Effectiveness in Vancouver and so what he was talking about was current for him. It was new and exciting, connections he’d made at the conference and how that impacts his work. Yet this group of “new to the program teachers” weren’t out of their depth as a group. Sure, individuals picked up on different things: some joined Twitter on the spot, others busily signed up for a Google Reader account, a few were following along with the blog posts his slide show directed them to, while still others were setting up new Google Docs account for the next activity I had forewarned them about, and yes, some were wondering what was going on. But overall, these teachers were demonstrating something very exciting in the way they participated in the presentation, a kind of readiness for change. A readiness for change in how they learn and how they will teach. Immediately after James finished, one teacher excitedly told me

I’ve realized it’s not at all about the technology. It’s about me and about my learning.

That comment came through in an interesting way in the profile sheets that the students filled out after the first introductory class. For the most part they genuinely have enrolled in this program to gain a deeper understanding of how to effectively use the technology to enhance student learning in an informate manner, rather than simply to automate their teaching. The “what we know” and “what we hope to gain” Wordle art from this group is interesting to consider. In both cases the word technology was removed from the mix. In the first wordle it would have appeared 39 times, in the second 51.

What we Know:

What we hope to gain:

Finishing up another KnowSchool course

So the week of Knowschool’s Using Blogs in Education has come to an end. I’ve learned so much. I want to summarize some of what I’ve taken from the course and decided to do it here rather than on the course Moodle forum so that I’ll have it to come back to. So, here are 10 things I’ve learned:

  1. I am learning so much from other educators. All week I’ve been immersed, not only in the course discussions, but with reading blogs. So many of the course participants have great blogs. Plus, I’ve found the Top 100 Education blogs and I’m working my way through them all. I’m finding experts on all kinds of topics. I’ll be adding a whole new list of blogs to my Xtra Links.
  2. Like the 31 day comment challenge (which I’m still working on… possibly my 31 month challenge), this week has retaught me about the power of blogging for building community. So, as well as reading blogs, I’m practicing getting out there and adding my comments.
  3. I’ve learned that I really need a better system for following blogs, so I’ve revitalized my netvibes account. It’s been my browser homepage for a long time, but I haven’t used it efficiently enough. Now I’ve cleaned it up and added feeds for the best of the blogs that I’ve found. I’ve got a special section to follow my TLITE bloggers as well as my Global Ed bloggers.
  4. Unfortunately, I’ve also learned to my horror that edublogs now allows for ad links. So, if you are viewing this page for the first time, or from a different computer that you normally use, you’ll see a bunch of double underlined words that are linked to mini ads. It is distressing. I’ll add a note in my sidebar to help new visitors avoid those.
  5. I already knew that innovative teachers are using blogs with their students but this week I’ve heard about some amazing projects, difficulties that teachers run into, and successes that they have. I’ve watched an excellent video from the students’ perspective. All this has encouraged me to keep on promoting blogging as a learning tool and given me some resources to recommend. Watch for future posts regarding these.
  6. I’ve learned that blogging should have a point or purpose, particularly if it is intended for others to read. This led me to reassess whether or not my blogging was really about my own learning and reflecting or if I had expectations that it might be of interest to anyone else. So I’ve thought about, who am I writing for? And, I came up with the idea that I am indeed writing for others, any others who might be interested in entering into conversation about the topics and issues I raise. Some times that is no one, others times I’m surprised at who stumbles across my blog. When readers lead comments it always entices me to look for ways to respond, and thus conversations start. In this very digital world, I think these kinds of conversations are exciting.
  7. Surprisingly I learned that everyone twitters…well except for Jan Smith who is on a “self imposed twitter fast”. Twitter hasn’t made much sense to me. I’ve tried a couple of times. Perhaps when I get through all 100 blogs I’ll give it another try.
  8. I’ve collected a number of really excellent resources for my own teaching. This includes sites with information about blogging and tech savie stuff. Particularly good ones include Cristina Costa’s wiki, Konrad Glogowsky’s blog on How to Grow a Blog.
  9. I’ve given more thought to assessment of blogs. I like the idea of having access to rubric suggestions (such as the one by Ryan Bretag) and tools although I have to admit that I still lean towards having students self-assess their blogs.
  10. And finally, I’ve picked up lots of new ideas for adding voicethreads and video to my blogs. In this sense I’ve been inspired to continue try to be more creative in my posts.

So that’s about it. I’m not finished with this challenge as yet though as there are still more articles to read in the reference list and a wealth of other resources I’ve only looked at long enough to write a description in Diigo.

Blogs that live a story?

I’m participating in the KnowSchools course on blogging this week and so taking the time to read and comment on various blogs where I came across Lisa Read’s comment on blogging:

I’d used a blog in the past to tell a story, but this blog is more about living the story.

This is great food for thought. When is a blog telling a story and when is it living the story? What’s the difference? I’d love to hear other thoughts on this.