It’s August. School is just around the corner. To honor the first September in 23 years that I WON’T be going back to school, I’ve been thinking about doing a series of posts that articulate what I might have been prepping had I still been in the classroom. Aggregation literacy…wiki texts…scaffolding blogging…more. What fun I would have…But as I think about those things, I’m also wondering why there aren’t more student best practices that come to mind. I mean, I think it’s great that Steve O’Hear pointed to my kids’ Bees blog in his recent article about e-learning, but that blog is now FOUR years old! Certainly there must be other, more powerful examples to show by now, right? Some student created wikis that just make you go “Whoa!” Or stories of kids really implementing RSS feeds in ways that make us sit up and take notice. Podcast examples are all over the place…why not the rest?
It brings me back to NECC where during a Webcast I was a part of Tom Marsh asked this very question: Where are all the really, really, really great examples?
technorati tags:weblogs, education, practice, NECC06, Tom_Marsh, school
Your question is making me think of a post that David Warlick made yesterday on the nature of substantive conversations and where conversations should take place. Perhaps the reason that I’m thinking about David Warlick’s post is that I’m sure that students are doing great things, I’m just not sure if these great things are being well publicized. They should be publicized in the blogosphere, not just to give the student accolades, but also as an example to all of us teachers as to what our students could be doing. The website of David’s post is: http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2006/08/08/who-should-be-having-important-conversations/
(I’m sorry that I don’t know how to make a clean link in a comment.)
Andrew Pass
http://www.Pass-Ed.com/blogger.html
This is a great question. But we’re just beginning to get familiar with some of these tools and try to figure out where they fit in with our instructional practices. If we don’t change our instructional practices, the tools won’t make that big a difference. I’ve spent my summer reading your blog and listening to podcasts of your presentations as well as those of David Warlick, Wes Fryer, and many others and in the process I’m working out how I can bring that to the teachers with whom I work and show them what a difference these tools can make in their instruction. It will take time but I think we’ll start to see those great examples as teachers begin to use the tools and understand their power in their own professional practice. Sometimes these things only happen one teacher at a time.
Will, I used a wiki as a basis for a Problem Based Learning program with 4 middle school classes last term on a unit on Australian Identity. I’m not sure that it will make anyone go “Wow” but it certainly demonstrated Messy Learning in action. How I set it up isn’t the way it eventually unfolded and you might be appalled at the cut’n’paste slabs, the links that are dead etc. but this ended up as a worksite, an area for experimentation and the first attempts at digital collaboration for these kids. Like a lot of worksites, there’s a bit of litter and abandoned clutter about but the learning was amazing as the kids unpacked what being an Aussie meant in terms of our country’s culture, achievements and history. There is heaps in the aftermath for re-visiting that could cover the topics of fair use, publishing, plagiarism, what is actual research,citation and copyright (and has been covered, by the way.) This led to the students creating digital stories that celebrated aspects of Australian life and ultimately they would have been great to share online with a wider audience but the conflicting aspects of copyright images being used (fair use in a school setting but not publishable on the web) while the difficulties in accessing suitable and interesting public domain and CC images when sites like Flickr are blocked by our education system’s filters meant that we couldn’t produce anything shareable beyond the school community. But the wiki was an excellent tool for the housing of snippets of information, distilling of ideas and the planning of the solution to the posed problem, “What does it mean to be Australian?” Not sure if this is what you had in mind but a few of us are bumbling around, trying to make sure that our students are using read/write tools and acquiring some much needed information literacy skills along the way. By doing, the kids automatically raised issues of relevance along the way and teachable moments were part of the journey. As educators, by engaging with the technology that kids find so easy to manipulate, we can make sure that we cover the essential skills needed to navigate the digital world ethically and purposefully.
I think part of the reason it is so hard to find the ‘best practices’ is that they are often so fluid. The times when things really work in my classroom, technology or otherwise, are the times when I get so excited about how it is going that I immediately dive in to make it even better. It is never a ‘finished’ product I can share as such. I also agree with the poster above me that many fantastic examples are going to be confined to schools or only promoted if the teachers take the time to go to conferences/start a blog/communicate their ideas another way. Your question is important though–how can we be advocates for change if we don’t share what we are doing?
As we have all watched the scare tactics from overreacting school systems, politicians, and misguided educators; we should see why these tools have made a snails pace toward seeing authentic student best practice. Last year I began blogging second semester with my seniors.
Mrs. C’s Senior Blogs became a huge part of extending our class discussions and a springboard for new thought. The problem was getting the administrator to trust the teacher’s ability to monitor and use good judgement. Now that I used the blog as a “teacher directed” journal, my principal is bragging about it. This has allowed me to slowly evolve it into a blog where certain students are given scribing privileges. This is still not what the purists would consider a blog, but it is worlds beyond what our students were doing before now… nothing. I also think that we don’t sing our praises enough as the last commenter said.
On another note, I am anxious to read your posts regarding the practices you mentioned. I plan an entire unit on teaching students how to publish on the web using links and how to use aggregators. It is a world that many of them know, but several are completely oblivious to this movement.
Keep evangelizing! This (provided DOPA doesn’t kill it) will catch on like wildfire.
Finally, our first novel is the book THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME. It is full of rich content and opportunity for research and blogging gold. Do you recommend I start a completely new blog for that novel, or should I maintain the main one and utilize it????
I posted about this awhile back:
“Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models”
http://learningismessy.com/blog/?p=51#comments
Will, I cannot tell you how much the July New Faces conference held at Ellicottville has influenced my thoughts and approaches to technology, you are a great asset to education. I have had the luxury of attempting to implement wikis and blogs in my summer school classes, and have literally opened up a waterfall of new ideas. In my attempts to implement these new ideas over the past month, I have come to a realization that I will be evolving as a teacher every time I attempt these new methods. The manners in which I have already utilized these new methods, have already morphed into something new, as the new school year approaches. Maybe it’s pride, insecurity, or just plain fear that we as educators have not begun a wiki of exemplars; however, I am willing to venture out into our edublogosphere and share some ideas. What makes this professionally difficult is the fact that one year from now, I will probably look back on something viewed as a great idea today, and cringe. I have replaced my webpage with a blog paroune.blogspot.com, and have begun to teach economics through the use of blogs. I have included two students blogs (http://talesoflibby.blogspot.com / http://army88.blogspot.com) and have tried to utilize blogs to personalize economics in a manner that engages the students with their own personal interests. These personal interests include Nascar, Basketball, Snowboarding, competitive markmanship, etc. These particular student loves storytelling and computers. This morning, Thursday 10th, I have engaged several students on a blog quest, to find as many blogs out there on the current foiled-terrorist plot (We Hope!!!) and begin to unravel the information in real-time. Where will all of this experiementation eventually take me, I do not know. However, I would like to share one particular comment made to me just yesterday by a student. When I asked him how his economics blog was coming along, he stated “Great!” He went on to explain how engaged he has become utilizing the computer, blogs, wikis, and the internet in this manner in school. He recognized spending more time than ever before on assignments, with much more enjoyment and satisfaction. Although many uses of these technologies are still in their genesis for me personally, I look forward to growing, sharing and learning.
Will, I cannot tell you how much the July New Faces conference held in Ellicottville has influenced my thoughts and approaches to technology, you are a great asset to education. I have had the luxury of attempting to implement wikis and blogs in my summer school classes, and have literally opened a waterfall of new ideas. In my attempts to implement these new ideas over the past month, I have come to a realization that I will be evolving as a teacher every time I attempt these new methods. The manners in which I have already utilized these methods, have already morphed into something different, as the new school year approaches. Maybe it’s pride, insecurity, or just plain fear that we as educators have not begun a wiki of exemplars; however, I am willing to venture out into our edublogosphere and share some ideas. What makes this professionally difficult is the fact that one year from now, I will probably look back on something viewed as a great idea today, and cringe. I have replaced my webpage with a blog paroune.blogspot.com, and have begun to teach economics through the use of blogs. I have included two students blogs (http://talesoflibby.blogspot.com / http://army88.blogspot.com) and have tried to utilize blogs to personalize economics in a manner that engages the students with their own personal interests. These personal interests include nascar, basketball, snowboarding, competitive markmanship, etc. These particular student loves storytelling and computers. This morning, Thursday 10th, I have engaged several students on a blog quest, to find as many blogs out there on the current foiled-terrorist plot (We Hope!!!) and begin to unravel the information in real-time. Where will all of this experiementation eventually take me, I do not know. However, I would like to share one particular comment made to me just yesterday by a student. When I asked him how his economics blog was coming along, he stated “Great!” He went on to explain how engaged he has become utilizing the computer, blogs, wikis, and the internet in this manner in school. He recognized spending more time than ever before on assignments, with much more enjoyment and satisfaction. Although many uses of these technologies are still in their genesis for me personally, I look forward to growing, sharing and learning.
Food for Thought: I began a teacher-wiki, as part of a school initiative, under the url eduexemplars.pbwiki.com the password is teacher.
What is a best practice?
I don’t mean that literally, of course. But the teachers at my school are planning some amazing projects with wikis, blogging, student-created animations, all kinds of things to work better and learn better. Yet they consider this use of technology just an extension of what they already do – a way to help students do things better. They don’t consider it revolutionary at all. It is hard for me to tell if it is or not. My assistant principal said, “We should publish this. I can’t believe other middle school students are doing these things!” But I can, from talking to all of you. I think lots of times people doing great stuff don’t think it is all that amazing, they don’t think it could possibly be “the best” because it is so easy to see how it could be even better. After all, wiki is just the best way *we’ve found* to support student interactive work – there might be something even better!
Michelle, while others, in addition to the teachers at your school, are doing “it,” the stories still need written and collected and connected in order to create that body of knowledge that makes people really start to pay attention.
A small wow? Here’s a set of gifted children aged 10-11 years. Once a week they go into the computer suite and blog. The results have been worked on over several weeks and at home. It’s a bilingual English/Welsh school in North Wales.
http://www.craigydon.conwy.sch.uk/2006/05/19
I have several other schools in my UK network doing similar stuff. Though much messier 🙂
Here’s the last day from a lunchtime Blog Club at Salisbury Primary. 8-11 year olds, though this case ‘not gifted’ just ordinary kids, blogging, for fun in their own lunch time.
http://www.salisbury.walsall.sch.uk/2006/06/30
A messier Blog Club from Pelsall.
http://pelsallvillage.walsallschools.org/2006/06/29
Looking forward to the new term, now that many of the teachers are feeling more confident, and realise that people are looking.
Here is a great example! Over twelve hundred posts, and that is not including the off-shoot blogs for smaller literature discussion groups.
Michelle is lucky to be at such a school. Barb and I are collecting data for a qualitative study on blogging in her classroom and the teachers in her department haven’t even asked one question about the blog. They don’t even care.
So, Barb and I started a blog to discuss what we saw happening in the classroom, and now another teacher from the northern part of the state (who I knew through the National Writing Project) has joined our blog. She is using a blog with an AP class she is teaching.
Will, it was interesting that you mentioned scaffolding blogging because that’s what Barb and I have been talking a lot about as we head into the third semester of blogging. Are you going to share more thoughts?
As an irregular reader of your wonderful blog, Will, I was surprised to see the comment that you won’t be returning to school this fall. What will you be doing and where?
The one school that just amazes and inspires me is Mabry Middle School in Georia. You just have to check this one out! Their class blogs and Podcast Central are phenomenal.
http://mabryonline.org/
I do think that these tools are being used in the classroom I just believe they are not being used very extensively. I think the majority of teachers are not technologically savy enough to feel comfortable engaging this in their classrooms. That is why it is important for teachers who are familiar with these tools to offer assistance. I gave a tutorial on wikis to our school staff and I could just see wheels turning in the minds of all those listening. When they were given the confidence and knowledge on using wikis they became engaged and passionate about using the tool. I think this is the key to achieving the goal of sharing “best practices.”