This is great. Why aren't there more of her?

This evening, I was listening to an episode of Bullseye, on WNYC in New York. One segment featured an interview with Tavi Gevinson. Tavi is 16 years old. She started her own fashion blog at age 11. She became kind of famous. She now has an online magazine for teenage girls, called "The Style Rookie." Stories from this magazine has been collected (by Tavi) into a book (Rookie Yearbook One).

Her story is very impressive, and definitely speaks to the possibilities of Web 2.0. What was more impressive to me was the question I found myself asking: Why aren't there more of her out there? How could I inspire my middle school students to be themselves in such a real and public way?

Here is the interview. Take a listen.

Project Learning described by a high school senior

This interesting blog post, "Why Learning Should be Messy," from MindShift, is an overview of a new book by a high school senior, discusses this student's views on project-based learning.

Here is my favorite quote:

The role of the teacher in project-based learning as Laufenberg likes to say is an “architect of opportunity. Through a scaffolding strategy, they help us make sense of what we have learned. Still, teachers must understand that learning is uncomfortable, messy, and complicated.” Get over compliance and control!

Some Technology Tools for Richer Types of Assessments

I have been doing some work with fellow educators this summer on developing curricula that involves richer types of assessments. These have included:

• Project based learning
• Problem based learning
• Self-directed learning experiences

This has been really fun.

In each of these work sessions, my colleagues and I have been discussing what types of artifacts to collect which would really represent that types of work we wanted to students to participate in.

So, I have developed a suite of tools to support this. Here goes:

1. Progress Reports
I had reorganized my 8th grade curriculum last year to have students worked through a set of self-directed learning experiences. This was a new experience for most, if not all, of my students, and I began to notice that they needed a way to keep me and themselves up to date on their progress. I developed these progress reports using Forms in Google Docs.

The nice thing about doing these types of reports is that there are regular checkpoints for the teacher and the students. The nice thing about doing these reports using Google Forms is that they are instantly shareable, in addition to be customizable for the student or situation/classroom. Ning then changed its pricing structure, and its use became impractical for us.

I then began experimenting with other education-focused social networks, such as My Big Campus and Edmodo. Both are interesting and have good features, but we have settled on Edmodo as being the most robust. Some teachers like it as a class bulletin board. Some teachers like it as a place for students to turn in assignments. And some teachers like the freedom of communication and collaboration that it fosters.

2. Reflective Journals
Most educators acknowledge that periodic reflection supports learning. There are many benefits of reflection, including:

• Practicing critical thinking
• Developing mindfulness
• Inserting a pause into a longer process
• Becoming self-aware of one's learning process

Once again relying on Google Docs, I have developed some templates for these teachers.
The basic idea is that the "journal" is a Google Doc, shared between teacher(s) and student. In this way, it becomes a ongoing (perhaps year-long) conversation between the participants.

3. Digital Portfolios
The work these teachers and I designed typically involved a project or other longer term student work.
I have been experimenting with various web based portfolio tools. The one I am focused on for now is Three Ring. Three Ring is a mobile app that allows the teachers to photograph student work and then upload it instantly to a teacher website, thus creating a digital portfolio. I look forward to seeing how this develops.

4. Social Network
For years, I have used blogs with my students as a way to promote writing in the content area (Science, in my case), as well as develop a classroom culture beyond the school day. While I have really liked what blogs have added to my students, I began to have a problem with the basic structure of blogs, which has an author (typically me) and a set of respondents (the students).

In previous years, I have experimented with Ning, as a social networking platform. My students loved the freedom and ease of sharing things of all kinds (both academic and personal) and I enjoyed the democratization of the classroom that I saw -- any member of the network could post and/or respond. This very much matched the type of classroom environment I valued.

My goal today is to share some plans. As things continue to unfold, I will share the results.

Amazing tool from the Smithsonian

Okay, so let's say that Piaget, Vygostky, Papert, and others were right, and that knowledge is constructed by our experiences from  the world and one another.
And, let's say that apart from being a powerful delivery system for gossip and pornography, that the Internet allows, facilitates, and develops these types of learning interactions.

You should look at the new tool from the Smithsonian, Smithsonian Commons, which lets all of this happen powerfully.

(Thanks to the folks at O'Reilly Radar for this!)

Leaders and Followers

What can we learn from this about our classrooms?

Clay Shirky and Complexity

Okay, first, it's been a million years since the last post. I have been involved with my doctoral research and generally way too busy. Nevertheless, it seems time to get back to work.

Thanks to Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing, I found this article/broadside by Clay Shirky. He talks about complex systems generating more complexity until there is a collapse:

When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to. It’s easy to see the ways in which collapse to simplicity wrecks the glories of old. But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.

You can read the whole piece here.

It left me wondering, how much does this apply to education?

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Again, just watch!

Digital Storytelling

This morning, I found this amazing presentation about using Digital Storytelling with students via the Fireside Learning Community.

Check it out.


Digital Storytelling Presentation

The Wrong Question

This article reports on a study that looks at the difference in college student performance between students in a traditional Psych 101 class and peers who took the same class online.

Here are some results of the study:

The online model, the study found, was particularly successful for disadvantaged or underprepared students - low-income students, racial and ethnic minorities, and those with low grades or ACT scores. And students in general do better in the class, too, earning a higher percentage of As and Bs than students earn in traditional Psych 101.

I think this will naturally fall into a bigger discussion about technologically savvy students and how they learn better/differently and how college instruction must change. Etc. Etc.

I wonder if that is the wrong issue. Here's another quote from the article:

"The way the class is set up, students have to spend a certain amount of time on the course material," Meadows said. "The second thing is that - and this is a particular bit of genius on Diane's part - the TAs and Diane play a very supportive role to students in the class. They're continually on the sidelines, asking if they have questions, asking if they need assistance. . . . It's a very nurturing environment that I think students respond to very well."

So, were the positive outcomes the result of the physical learning environment (lecture versus online) or were they the result of the actual learning environment created by the instructors?

What do you think?

Wireless and Beyond in Education

Some colleagues are I put together a presentation on innovative uses of wireless technologies in schools. We focused on elementary schools, middle schools, and school administration.

Have a look. Let us know what you think.

User created art

Speaking of giving students a voice, this week the new NPR news show The Takeaway did a piece on some art installations that directly involved the voices of the audience.

One of the exhibits is an installation in Queens.

... visitors to Olafur Eliasson’s "Take Your Time” exhibit at P.S. 1 in Queens can don cellphone cameras and document their movements through the exhibit, in turn becoming part of the show’s online element.

The others mentioned also were very creative in involving the audience, blurring the line somewhat between who is the creator and who is the audience.

These piece move me because it makes me think about what's possible in a classroom.

Gmail Labs and Classrooms

The Bits blog at the New York Times had an interesting piece the other day. Entitled "The Hidden Danger of Gmail Labs," it described another Google initiative, where regular folks can develop software connected to Gmail and have it pushed to those interested.

The blog discussed the archetypal conflict between freedom and chaos which seems to be the hallmark of Web 2.0. I mean, what does happen/what will happen, when people can have a voice? Is Wikipedia the ultimate in the democratization of knowledge or the insane ramblings of well, anybody?

But any creative process alternates between tightness and looseness, between brainstorming and prioritizing. And I think that Google’s ever-expanding array of services already suffers from the ills of too many different authors.

And, by extension, what happens when students are equal participants in our schools. Do we see the transformation of education into something amazing or digital graffiti?

Check out Gmail Labs here.

A Cool Tool

Thanks to the folks at AcademHack, I have been playing around with Evernote, a combination desktop/web tool for capturing and managing notes of all types. You can add tags (of course). You can search and collect all kinds of notes, pictures, sounds, etc. It can search for words within pictures.

The biggest thing for me, however, was watching the getting started video. As I watched it, I thought it would make a really interesting tool in the classroom for talking to students about collecting, categorizing, and retrieving information and materials.

Let me know what you think.

Who says?

I know that it seems to be common knowledge that state-mandated curricula and assessments mean we can't really teach the thinks we all believe are important -- like critical thinking and communication (thanks Alan November whom I got to hear at TechExpo 2008).

Here's someone (else) who is willing to question common knowledge. Check it out. It is great.

Engagement

Geekymomma had a recent post about 21st century learners which was definitely worth reading.

Here's part of what she said:

The difficult part is where teachers have to come out of their comfort zones. I've taught a few classes for some local college "education technology" classes and the instructors usually ask me to teach their students about the "stuff" we have and how to use it. I'm often invited to schools to speak to faculties and mostly they want me to demonstrate some of the "stuff" we offer in our district and how to use it. So, through no fault of their own, even the instructors and the adminstrators don't always "get" that if we can teach people to think differently and to teach their students SKILLS (duh!) and use some cool tools at the same time, then there will be some terrific success. BUT WE DON'T START WITH THE TOOLS! (Do you pick up a hammer and ask yourself what you can build today?)

Here's part of my response on her blog:

I use a lot of technology in my middle school (7th and 8th grade) life science classroom. My students have used a classblog, a wiki, GoogleDocs, created podcasts, created Flash animations, etc.

All of it (all of it) has been incredibly useful and productive, for both my students and I.

I have come to believe that engagement is the issue (just like in the video) and not the technology.

Unfortunately, the cottage industry of technology tool providers would have us believe otherwise, in the archetypal "silver bullet" for education.

I so want those of us using technology to beat the drum for engagement, engagement, engagement.

I would also like to see the next, natural outcome, which is student ownership of their own learning and for the learning environment as well.

Her post also featured this video, which was very cool.

Two Million Minutes

Here is the trailer for a film called "Two Million Minutes."

From the makers:

Regardless of nationality, as soon as a student completes the eighth grade -- they have just Two Million Minutes to prepare for college and ultimately a career.

This important documentary examines how students in India and China are being better prepared than American students to compete in a flattening world.

Constructivism with Pete Seeger

This weekend I heard Pete Seeger interviewed on Bob Edwards Weekend (thanks to the folks at PRI and XM Radio).

During the interview, Seeger mentioned two anecdotes that were all about education (at least to me).

1. He talked about Woody Guthrie and the composition of "This Land is Your Land." He said that the song never ended up on the radio. It ended up being shared by teachers in schools with their students and within about 15 years, a whole generation of Americans knew the song "as if it was always there somehow."

I assume the story is true. It is, at least, plausible. I found it eye-opening for the vision it has of teachers.

2. Seeger talked about Participation. Here's what he said:

"Participation is the salvation of the human race. Participate in games, fun, storytelling. And when you are grown up, participate in education. Learn to ask questions. The most important thing in the world is to learn how to ask questions. Next, most important thing is to learn how to give a report (of what you've read or learned)... And, you learn how to work with other people."

(You can listen to the whole interview here).

Imagine, how that could be translated in your classroom, in your schools, in your communities, in your families, in your company.

Buy this Book! Now!

I am three chapters into the new book, Reinventing Project-Based Learning by Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss. Here is a link to their blog.

It is essential reading for any one of us interested in bringing Web 2.0 and other technological tools into our classrooms and schools in order to give student opportunities for authentic learning.

You know how ideas sometime quietly get under your skin and just work away at you? Right now, I am being worked away at by finding opportunities to collaborate with colleagues in and out of the building, here and elsewhere.

You can get the book via Amazon or ISTE.

Let me know what you think.

Some amazing art

A colleague shared some of Peter Callesen's art with me today.
In some of it, he creates 3-dimension paper sculptures. The rule is that each one is made from only one piece of paper.

There's an example of one above.

Here is what the artist says about his work:

My paper works have lately been based around an exploration of the relationship between two and three dimensionality. I find this materialization of a flat piece of paper into a 3D form almost as a magic process - or maybe one could call it obvious magic, because the process is obvious and the figures still stick to their origin, without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is also an aspect of something tragic in most of the cuts.

The cool thing for me, in looking at them, is the progression from the more simple relationships between the figures and the original piece of paper (like the skeleton) to those where the relationships are more and more complex.

It made me think of the process of ownership, where knowledge or skills move from something that belongs to someone else to something that belongs to you. The relationship between you and the knowledge and/or skills gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

Check them out here.

A Study on Blogging

Jeff Felix, a superintendent for a California school district, has completed a study on the use of blogging with K-12 students. Here is a summary (from Jeff) of his findings:

The study on teachers in the United States who are using blogging as an instructional practice has finally been completed. The study shows that teachers perceive a significant increase in student learning through motivation for assignments and through deeper thought processes. Students seem to enjoy the connectiveness of their work to other subjects and to each other. This collaboration encourages a deeper relationship with their peers and with the teacher.

Jeff has generously made the full study, as well as a shorter paper available on his blog. I celebrate and appreciate it work and commend it to all of us committed to opening up new possibilities for our students using Web 2.0 tools.