Gone But Not Forgotten

Three years ago I was digging through some dusty old photo albums at my Grandparent’s house. These old albums were windows to yesteryear…seeing my dad as a boy, and seeing my grandparents other than ‘old’.  One photo that struck me was of a beautiful mid-twenties Chinese woman.  She had medium length thick black hair, fair features and was dressed in a black dress with pearl earrings and necklace.  I had no idea who this was so I asked some questions.  It turns out it was my Bak-hoo (Great-grandmother), who at the time was still alive and approaching her 100^th birthday.

This past February she passed away at 100 years of age.  What an incredible life!  Can you imagine what you would have seen in 100 years?  Death always takes us to a place of reflection and introspection.  Being two generations removed, and a language barrier, I never really got to know her.  Everything I do know was passed down from my grandparents or my dad.  I knew that she had courage, spunk, and sass.  I knew that she risked everything to leave mainland China to make a better life for her family; of which I am a part of.  However, I really never got to know HER. (Here is one of the few digital items left behind of my Great-grandparents (Chu)).

I caught a TED Talk by Adam Ostrow.  The topic was “After Your Final Status Update”. His talk is what inspired me to write this post.  Living in the media age, are we going to live in a shroud of mystery? I don’t think so.  A complete life profile will take shape by collating our digital ‘bread crumbs’.  Our lives will not be a series of facts passed down through stories, but a rich history and chronology of our time on Earth.  Our posts/tweets/updates are our voice; they are more than factual.  They include our tone, our position, and our emotions.

I can only imagine what Chu Yek-Seen would have tweeted 70 years ago. What would I be able to piece together today from her life if social media had been around?

This has significant implications for our life today and digital citizenship.

1)   What we do and say today will be around long after we’re gone.  Social media is creating a digital time capsules of our lives.  Every time we create a new profile for a website, tweet, blog, or post we are donating one more artifact to our digital archive.

2)   Digital personae are created before we arrive.  Parents are posting pictures of sonograms, names, and details of their children before they arrive.  I’ve even known someone who created a facebook page for their unborn child (they did an excellent job by the way).

3)   Last Will and Testament.  More than our estate each of us should think about how we want our digital persona to live on after we have gone.  In saying this, we may not have a choice in the matter.  All we can control will be how we would like our SM sites to be ‘shut down’.  The who/what/where/when of who will do it.  Do you we leave a final ‘blog’, ‘tweet’, or ‘status update’ from the great beyond?  Complete digital representations of us will most likely be created by software from a synthesis of our digital artifacts.  Will we speak beyond the grave?  Will our avatars live beyond us?

When we teach and model Digital Citizenship to our students, it is important that they understand both the positive and negative aspects of the digital content they create.  I’m not saying that we need to discuss death and mortality with students, but it is important that they realize, good or bad, what they’re saying and doing on-line is creating an archive of their lives.  A colleague of mine has a poster up in his classroom that says “Your grandma just saw the picture you posted on-line”.  I’d like to do a flip and say, “Your grand-kids are going to see that picture you posted on line.”

J.T.

Letting Go of the Reins

In my last post I wrote about Dan Pink and mentioned his three key points of engagement: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.  I want take a closer look at Autonomy.

Are we ready to let go of the reins?

For many teachers there is a correlation between control over students’ learning and classroom management.  There are fears that if students are left to their own choices that mayhem will ensue.  Who amongst us hasn’t had that back-to-school dream of the class that just won’t listen? I know I have, many times.

How do we foster constructivist learning within the confines of modern curriculum?

I want to share with you my reflection on my Independent Music Project.

This assignment came about as me trying to fill that time in June in the post-festival and post-concert season.  I decided to do an independent music project.  In a nutshell, I told students that they were in charge.  They needed to seek out a musical selection they liked and perform it solo or in a small group.  They were also able to choose to do their performance on an instrument of their choosing; it did not have to be their band instrument.   The sole stipulation was that whatever they chose, it had to be appropriate to a school setting (no foul language).

This assignment had a high degree of engagement.  One student chose not to do the assignment but the majority dove right in.  What was interesting to me was how much more the students got out of this assignment than I thought they would.

I had students choose to arrange their own music which included transposition, theory, and music notation – all 3 of which we only scratch the surface in class.  However,  because there was a need for these skills, they had to teach themselves and seek out the information.  Some students decided to compose their own music.  This was exciting for me!  Composition is difficult (or maybe just difficult for me and I’ve been viewing composition through my own lens).  I also had students seek out their own music – through the internet or through music stores – either way, they had to filter through a vast repertoire of music to find the right level for them to play as well as something that they would enjoy playing.  Students who decided to perform as a group also learned valuable time management and organizational skills – It’s hard to get a group of 5 people together.  Half of the performances were memorized and memory was not a requirement of the assignment.  All students had to learn to deal with performance anxiety which as musicians is something we all learn to deal with.

I was inspired by the vast array of talent that these students had that I had never seen.  I usually only see the students in one dimension – on their band instrument.  Who knew that the back row flute player had such a beautiful voice?  That my lead trumpet player could play Metallica on the drums? That my saxophone player could play classical piano and was about to take her RCM exam?

I also found their sense of community and support for each other amazing.  There was little to no teasing happening, huge applause and support (even if there was a breakdown – breakdowns are inevitable) and an intense curiosity of “What are they going to do?  What’s coming next?”.  Their shared experience of the project brought them to a true place of empathetic support for each other.

I had been scared to let go of the reins, but when I did two things happened:

First, the class did not break into mayhem. Second, there was engaged learning happening that I was removed from.  Next steps are to see if I can find similar ways/methods/assignments to bring this to my other courses (most specifically my math class).  If you have thoughts or ideas, I love to hear them!

J.T.

Image Source: http://bit.ly/qrclOh

Rewards and Engagement

The ever-present struggle in teaching has been the idea of rewards – more specifically the “If you do this, you’ll get that” mentality.  Rewards have been cast in every light from virtuous to villainous.  Is there a happy-medium? Are rewards themselves ‘bad’ or is it what we’re rewarding that’s ‘bad’.  What we know to be real is that motivation and engagement, good or bad, is effected by rewards.

Brought to my attention through 2 of my classmates (I will link to their blogs at the end of this post) was a TED talk from Dan Pink.  Here is his TED video from TedGlobal 2009.

To summarize, Pink’s position is that by offering rewards we stifle creativity and problem solving. Incentives play a strong role in simple procedural tasks, but when it comes to high-level thinking and problem solving, rewards hinder progress and limit views and pathways to solutions.   He speaks of autonomy, mastery, and purpose as being strong motivators – true engagement is a result of self-direction.  He presents the work model of ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) – people are without schedules.  Work (objectives) has to be completed but the how, when, and where is up to the employee.  Are we as teachers willing to give students the same affordances?  I believe there is no black and white answer to this.  Teachers will know which of their students this model works best for and which it may not.  There are several brain development issues at play in young people (especially middle years) and they may not have the self-discipline for complete autonomy.  Careful guiding and crafting may be needed.

I did some investigation and found another TED talk from Tom Chatfield.  His TED Talk on “7 Ways Games Reward the Brain” offered some interesting evidence that support rewards.  Here’s the video below.

Chatfield has this comment on rewards.  “The very intense emotional rewards that playing games offers to people both individually and collectively……..When people play games, they have the “wanting” and “liking” processes.”

Games measure what you do (colleting data points) and create a reward schedule. The reward schedule keeps players engaged and coming back over and over again.  Game software uses probability and data to maintain engagement.

Chatfield’s idea of measuring progress through ‘status bars’  and a ‘reward schedule’ is  substantiated by Driscoll who says “Data can be kept on a leaner’s path through the program – what information has been visited and how much time the learner has interacted with that information.  Such data can also show when learners have achieved certain benchmarks.”.  What this means is that students are motivated by their own progress.  Success begets success.  If students  track meaningful progress, and see that they are ‘getting somewhere’ they stay on the path and continue.

Both Dan Pink and Tom Chatfield have this common thread: the strongest learning (productivity) comes through peer-to-peer interactions.  Strong intrinsic motivation comes about when students see what other students are doing.  Who amongst us wants to be the one who is ‘behind’ or ‘left out’?  We have an intrinsic desire to “keep up” and “hold our own”.

So back to rewards.  On the one hand you have Pink saying that rewards (for the most part) stifle creativity and reduce engagement.  Then you have Chatfield saying that there are strong ties to rewards from game play that can encourage productivity/creativity/engagement.  Who is correct?

When you sit back and synthesize both ideas you realize they both are!  One thing we need to appreciate about Chatfield’s idea of rewards is that it is not the outcome that is to be rewarded but the effort – that people should be credited for what they try to do.  It must also be made clear that the rewards he’s talking about are intrinsic rewards – level-up, finish the game, kill the monster, increase status bars –  and it is those intrinsic motivators that can be translated into teaching & learning.

J.T.

Credits:

Paul Webster’s blog (cpbw)

Barclay Batiuk’s blog

Tom Chatfield

Dan Pink

Cursive Writing: Outcome or Art Form?

2 weeks ago I heard an article on the radio regarding the State of Indiana and it’s decision to drop cursive writing from the curriculum in the fall.  I thought it sounded a bit dramatic and when I dug further the truth is that cursive writing is becoming optional in the fall, not dropped altogether.

This raises interesting discussion points. Is cursive writing a measurable learning outcome?  How does it impact student learning in Language Arts (or any written work)?  Is it an art form?  Is it a technology that is on its way out?

Here is a news article from CBS news to set the stage. After clicking play, make sure to click on “Watch on YouTube”.  (I’m sorry for the advertising that will play before the clip).

I was curious to know more about the Common Core State Standards so I did some research.  I found the PDF of the Common Core States Standards for English and Language Arts. In Writing Standards K-5, this is what they have to say about the Production and Distribution of Writing for Kindergarten students:

“With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers”.

For Grade 3 it says this:

“With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.”

Source: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy In History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects.

Nowhere does it say that cursive writing is an outcome. There is a strong emphasis  placed on keyboarding skills.  At first I was surprised, but then I realized that I cannot remember the last time when I sat down and wrote a document on paper first, then typed it into a word processor. In fact, when I have to write too much down, my hand cramps up (That just may be me getting older)!

The loss of cursive writing may impact the teacher who gives marks for ‘neatness’ and ‘writing’ on written work.  To them I say that this movement away from cursive is freeing. If one truly believes in outcome-based assessment, then neatness and cursive writing CANNOT be a part of assessment.  When we think of literacy and language skills we want students to be able to read, comprehend, and synthesize their ideas and thoughts.  A variety of tools can be used; everything from printed and typed work, stories, podcasts, etc.  If the goal of the student is to communicate their understanding of an outcome, then why does work  need to be written (okay…now I’m diverging from the current topic – I hope to explore this more in a future post)?   To me this means that it is students’ ideas that are to be assessed, not how well they put those ideas down with cursive writing.  The logical conclusion is that cursive writing has become an art form.

If we look back in history we can draw parallels. Consider the Book of Kells. It is renown for its illuminated pages. In the 6^th to 9^th century, the most learned people were those who could illuminate manuscripts.  Today, do we expect students to illuminate their work?  No.  This form of expression faded away from common practice.  Today, thousands of visitors flock to Trinity College in Dublin to see the Book of Kells not for what information it contains, but the beautiful artwork on the pages.  This is an example of old technology becoming art.

The Star Press wrote a blog entry contradicting the elimination of cursive writing from the Common Core Standards.

“One imagines new generations of young people, able to text at the speed of light, but unable to sign their names, whether on a check (oops, too old-fashioned) or at the checkout line at Walmart, using a stylus.”

Maybe we are more technologically advanced in Canada, but I do not remember the last time I wrote a cheque (I tend to use Interac money transfers and on-line banking) or sign at Walmart (moving to chip-and-pin, who’s going to sign anymore?). Signing your own name may become obsolete with digital signatures (Adobe Acrobat Pro comes to mind) and the increased used of biometric data.

So back to my theme of Engaging and Motivating the Middle Years Student.  In my experience I find cursive writing can demotivate students for two reasons.  They find it time intensive (both physically and cognitively) to cursive write.  Second, when I cursive write on the board (which is not all that often) many cannot read what I have written.  I already see the effect of the diminished use of cursive writing with my students.  When I asked them to sign the class list for their text book most decided to just print their name, or use block letter initials.  I have no issue with this, but some may.

I’m interested to here your thoughts on cursive writing!

J.T.

#edchat

On Tuesday I participated in my first edchat on Twitter. The topic was Social Media in the classroom.  I found out about it from a tweet from a colleague (you may want to follow her at @janaslindsay). She tweeted about ‘SM’ in the classroom and her tweets had the hashtag #edchat.  I decided to go to twitterfall.com and see what was going on.  I pulled up #edchat and immediately a stream of tweets cascaded down the screen.  I needed to read a few of the tweets before I could put the SM into context and realize that it was Social Media.  I read the tweets go by and then decided to join the conversation.

The discussion that was happening was amazing.  There were people there from all over the world (I tweeted back and forth a bit with someone from England).  There were also people from different areas in education: administration, industry, K-12 teachers, and post-secondary.

Topics that came up were:

The parental role in Social Media

How/If/Why School boards block Social Media sites

Using Twitter in the classroom

How to backchannel during classes

Digital Citizenship

Using Social Media in the primary grades.

One presiding theme was that of changing the view of Social Media from the fringe to the mainstream: if we as teachers like using social media, then why can’t (or how) this translate into the classroom?  Our students like SM more if not the same as we do.  It was an amazing experience to converse with other like-minded teachers.  It also felt great when I said something ‘smart’ enough to be retweeted!

Twitterfall is a great way to backchannel discussions, professional development, meetings, etc.  I came upon twitterfall at one of our District PD days where we had 3 worksites connected through our video conferencing units. Each worksite also had twitterfall projected on a screen to the side with hashtag #ccsdpd.  People in the meetings were engaged in the discussions 3 ways: in house, via videoconference, and through Twitter.  It was powerful and for many teachers at the sites it was their first experience with Twitter.

So why twitterfall as opposed to other twitter clients such as Tweetdeck or the regular Twitter.com?  Twitterfall is easy to use.  Go to twitterfall.com, enter your twitter credentials, and enter the hashtag.  The tweets ‘fall’ down the centre of the screen in a linear format.  Only tweets with the hashtag you enter begin the fall.  Twitterfall searches all tweets with the hashtag, not just your contacts.  Unlike tweetdeck, which too can stay live and updated, there is only one column.  Distractions are at a minimum and the screen layout lends itself well to projection resolution.  You can also adjust the speed at which the tweets fall if they are coming in too fast.

How this would work in a middle years classroom?  I was doing some searching for hashtags in the classroom, and most of the sites that I came upon dealt with teachers and teacher training via twitter hashtags.  There really were not many hashtags that could be used in the middle years classroom.

The most comprehensive site I came upon was cyberman.com (http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html).  It is not a fancy site, but it is comprehensive.

I seem to come back to this resonant theme of cascading technology; first from higher education, to senior K-12, middle years, and so on.  I believe that backchannel twitter and the use of hashtags is still in its infancy in the K-12 classroom.  I look forward to pioneering some of this with my students this fall.  Who knows?  Maybe one of them will invent the next big hashtag!

Click here for the archive of the #edchat on Social Media from July 19, 2011.

J.T.

I created the opening graphic on wordle.com.

Digital Rubrics

One of the most widely used assessment tools used by teachers today is the rubric. For my non-education followers a rubric is a way of assessing student work.  It is laid out in a grid format.  One axis has assessment criteria. The other axis has measurements of performance.  The theory behind the rubric is that students have the rubric ahead of time so they can strive for the highest level of proficiency for each criterion.

In our recent upgrade to Version 9 of D2L (Desire2Learn (our Learning Management System)) the Rubric application was reworked and became easier to use.  In a previous blog entry I mentioned that I had never had such high student achievement and that it was due to some different assessment methods.  Digital Rubrics were one of these tools.

Using the application was a 3-step process.

1)   Rubric Creation – I needed to ‘invent a wheel’.  In my Information Processing class we were working in Stick Pivot (animation software). I had given the assignment the year before, but my assessment was more of a checklist and not a rubric. Not only did I need to create the rubric; I needed to create it digitally in D2L using the application.

Below is a partial screen shot of the rubric that I created. Click on the image for a larger view.

2)   Rubric Dissemination – Once the rubric was created it was created I posted it in two areas of D2L:  ‘Rubrics’, and ‘Course Content’ (for a printer friendly version). I used course time to go through the rubric along side exemplars of student work.

3)   Assessment-Feedback-Reassessment.

1. Assessment – The digital rubric allowed me to assign different point values within the rubric (not every criteria were weighted with the same point value).  For example, in the rubric above Story Line and Flow are assigned higher point values than Creativity.  To give the students a summative assessment on their project, all I had to do was click on the appropriate box in the rubric and D2L did the calculations.
2. Feedback – The rubric was attached to the dropbox where the students uploaded their assignment.  An icon indicating feedback displayed when the student went back into the class.  They saw a rubric highlighted at the levels they achieved.  There is also a comment box where I gave students additional feedback.
3. Reassessment – Students had the opportunity to go back and redo the assignment, improving upon any criteria where they may have been deficient from the maximum.   Steps 2 and 3 were cyclic until the student was satisfied with their grade.

So why bother with the extra time in creating a digital rubric rather than using traditional hard copies?

I)              Digital rubrics are ever-present. They are only just a few clicks away. A student can have the rubric in an open window while working on the assignment.  They cannot lose the rubric.  The 21^st century learner lends himself or herself to the digital environment, therefore a digital rubric will be more appealing to most.  Digital Rubrics are accessible by parents and let them play a more active role in their child’s learning.

II)            Digital rubrics are living documents. The very nature of digital media is fluidity and adaptability.  Digital rubrics make it easier for teachers to make changes and allow the rubric to evolve.

III)          Digital rubrics save time at the back-end.  A digital rubric will take longer to generate than a traditional print rubric. However, once it is made, the rubric can be copied and pushed down into other courses and shared amongst teachers.  Future editing of the rubric is simple. Since digital rubrics are often created and tied to a LMS grading becomes ‘click and calculate’ friendly. Time can be redistributed back to students.

Dr. Celina Byers from Bloomberg University of Pennsylvania says this about web-based rubrics.

“The objective is to provide not just a grade but authentic evaluation, which means delivering feedback that students can and will utilize to improve their performance. Using a Web-based rubric application is making that objective more attainable…….This movement from paper to digital rubric building and rubric use is proving to be a time-saver for me and, more importantly, a clearer and more useful method for the students to use evaluation feedback to improve their performance.”

Source:

Byers, C. (2008, November). Using Digital Rubrics to Enhance Practical Learning. Editlib.org. Retrieved July 18, 2011 from http://www.editlib.org/d/29849/proceeding_29849.pdf

What Did the Zero Say to the Eight?

A: Nice Belt!

Image Source: http://bit.ly/njhOdb

Zero.  Nothing in my career has created such passionate responses as the idea of the zero: a student misses or is late on an assignment, and therefore gets no credit.

Here is the issue.  Is a zero reflective of curriculum outcomes, or is it a reflection of work habits?  How can we motivate students?  What role does technology play in the zero?

Okay…I’m not going to lie.  I have given out zeros.  Here are some questions to ponder.   In what situations are zeroes warranted, if any?  Do you give out zeros?  What led up to the zero?  How can technology help with zero?

Let me start by saying that I have never had higher academic achievement from my students than this year.   I taught Grade 7 Mathematics, Grade 9 Information Processing, and Instrumental Music (Band) 6-9.  All subject areas saw marked improvement in term grades compared to previous years.  Does this mean that kids are becoming inherently smarter?  Does this mean that I won the Golden Teacher of the Year Award?  Not likely.  So what changed?  What was different this year than last?

This was the first time that we (my school district) initiated our on-line gradebook Grades 7 to 9.  Teachers were asked to pilot D2L grades with one class this school year.  The 2011-2012 school year will require all teachers to use the system for all grades in all subject areas.  As the Technology AISI Teacher, I piloted the gradebook with all of my courses.  This meant that all of my students, at any time, could see their grades and track their progress.  My gradebook became a living document; constantly changing and calculating.  The power of the gradebook was not that students could see their grades, but the feedback and comments they received from me.   I was able to give direct, concise, and useful feedback to students on their work.  Many times my comments ended with, “Please take some time to fix this up and resubmit.” This comment was given to any student I knew could do better.  A separate “Not complete.  Please submit an assignment.” was given to students who had not completed the task.

Comments alone are not enough to improve student achievement.  Parental support is necessary.  They have influence over their child’s completion of outcomes.   When parents are kept informed of their child’s progress, the tone of Parent/Teacher interviews changes.  The transparent gradebook takes away the element of surprise.  When parents are aware of what their child has done (or has not done) it diffuses the adversarial relationship that can develop between the teacher and the parent.  When parents are engaged in the process interviews become a conversation of the real issues; not a dissection of marks.  I will continue to develop supports for parents with our newsletter, e-mail, our school website, parent information nights, and twitter.  An ever-present reality that I face is our growing English as a Second Language population.  I will be working with my AISI cohort on strategies to address this demographic.

My idea of ‘zero’ may not work with everyone’s philosophy. It was not all that long ago that I handed them out easily.  It was what I knew.  It was part of the school paradigm I was raised (incomplete=zero).  My philosophy and knowledge of student achievement is evolving.  Today, I grant 2^nd chances, even 3^rd and 4^th chances, and maybe enough chances until students get it right.  I strongly believe if a student is willing to put the effort in to re-doing an assignment, therefore improving their knowledge and understanding of the outcome, they should have the opportunity.   Isn’t that the purpose of teaching?  Do we not want our students to be the best learners they can be?  Do we not want them to show a higher level of mastery and competency?

As a result of this change in philosophy, and the aid of technology, student academic achievement improved in all of my classes.  Students asked questions on how they could improve. Students started to realize their peers were taking initiative to redo assignments.  I was engaged with my students on a different level than I had ever been and they were engaged with me.   Technology became a vehicle for connection and dialogue. Evaluation became more fluid and less concrete.

So at what point did I put zeros in the gradebook?  Zero to me meant that the student did not learn the outcome.  Zeros came after discussions with the student, their parents, and sometimes administration.  In the gradebook I would always leave the unfinished assignment as blank (therefore not affecting the calculated average), but when push comes to shove, and after the aforementioned attempts on my part, I changed them to zeros the day my marks were due into the office.  This was not a surprise to either parents or students as I communicated regularly with them and they understood the consequences of not completing the assignment by the end of the reporting period (the zero).  Even as I write this blog entry, I continue to struggle with zeros.  Should I have left the unmet outcomes blank (excused)?  Should I have tried harder?  Does the zero show that they have no knowledge of the outcomes (maybe if they were missing from class), or does it mean that they just have not had the opportunity to demonstrate the outcome?

Assessment is one area of teaching where I continue to evolve.  I thought it would get easier with experience, however, the further I explore the less answers and more questions I seem to have.

What are your thoughts on zeros?

J.T.

The Kitchen Party with Brian and Emma

My original thought was to create a video using GoAnimate (http://bit.ly/1V0HFy) instead of typing a post.  The last step of posting it to WordPress turned out to be almost impossible!  GoAnimate4Schools does not have a way to share files to YouTube (maybe the pro version does), and the embed code could not be taken by WordPress. (I am open to ideas from anyone who has figured this out).

I tried to capture the video using RealPlayer (http://bit.ly/19Tw1I) but it would not download the video properly, so I finally used Jing from Screencast.com (http://bit.ly/dpL8Vp).  Hmmm…capturing video and screencasts…sounds like a great future blog post!

On with the show!  Click on the link below for this blog entry.  Enjoy!

http://screencast.com/t/Gg5XlyAckNw

JT

Even the Pope Tweets

“Twitter” and “tweeting” have become common place in our vernacular. Celebrities, politicians, educators, and professionals alike have found common ground to share their news and ideas.  Now, even Pope Benedict XVI is in on Twitter.  This shows the increasing permeation of social media in society.

I believe that the power of twitter has not been fully reached or developed, especially in the middle years.  I’ve had former students come back from high school and asked me if I was on Twitter, but I have not had the same question from my own students.  As with all technology, it will only be a matter of time before Twitter becomes more popular with middle years adolescents.  Facebook had similar origins. It started in colleges and universities and then cascaded to high school, and down to junior high.

My AISI cohort has been using twitter in a variety of ways.  We hashtag  posts related to our group project (#jraisi).  We’ve created group lists and filters (mostly in Tweetdeck) to sort out the hashtag and group our posts together.  We’ve shared content and ideas, using shortened links and other hashtags.  We’ve also used back-channel tweeting; having our twitter feed with hashtags #CCSDPD and #jraisi running on projectors during multi-site professional development days.

I have not tried Twitter in a classroom setting.  Frankly, as with most social media, I’m apprehensive.  There are far reaching ethics and privacy implications.  Here are some of the questions that I have:

1) Do students follow only me or is it a two way street and I follow them too?  Many students have one twitter account that they’ll use for everything including personal tweeting. Following students would give me access to their personal lives.  There are student-teacher boundaries there that need to be adhered to. I believe that the answer to this question may also depend on the age of the students being taught.

2) Does a teacher set up a separate twitter account just for students to follow?  I doubt that many of my Jr. High students would find personal value in my professional tweets; their concerns would be classroom based.

3) What is the purpose of tweeting with students?  Is the purpose to disseminate information such as reminders, homework, due dates, web links, and deliver content, or is it to share and generate discussion (which takes me back to question #1)?

4) What are the Digital Citizen implications for students and teachers using Twitter? Who’s job is it to teach students to use Twitter properly? What is the role of the teacher, student, and parent?  When I take students on field trips I remind them that they are representing themselves, the school, and their families. Does the same apply to Twitter (and the online world in general)?

My position on  Twitter  is similar to how I view e-mail. I have a personal twitter and a professional twitter account.  In my view, I like to keep the two separate.  This does not mean, however, that I don’t tweet out some personal things on my professional account and vice versa.  To keep the majority of work and personal separate seems logical to me.

What are your thoughts?  Do you have more than 1 twitter account?  How do you use twitter professionally and personally?

I’d love to hear your comments.

Follow me @tangoedtech

J.T.

Flipping the Classroom

Sometimes the universe is knocking at the door.  It is similar to when you think about someone and then they phones you up, or you hear a new word, and that new word just seems to pop up over and over again.  The same thing happened to me when I was deciding what my first ‘real’ blog posting should be.

For my Grad Studies course, our professor gave us a video to watch on the Khan Academy.  A small snippet of the video struck a chord with me.  One of the ideas that Mr. Khan presented was that of  ‘flipping the classroom’.  The next day, my consultant (@gwoitas) tweeted out a link to a blog from the ISTE 2011 Conference.  The blogger, Betty Ray (I’ll link to the blog at the end) cited Flipped Classrooms as an emerging trend coming out of ISTE.

A Flipped Classroom is where content is presented or ‘taught’ at home in an asynchronous format (usually through video modules), and then class time is spent on assignments/work/group discussion.

What a radical idea! It made me question my own teaching practice.  Have I always given my 100% to my students?  I thought I had, but maybe this is not the truth.  A flipped classroom would give me the opportunity to really dig deep into my students’ comprehension.  It would free up my time to really work at and reach that student who is struggling.  It would allow me to do more formative assessment to improve or remediate my instruction.

I also see some potential pitfalls to a Flipped Classroom. First, teachers must be committed to the work.  There would be intensive front load tasks attached to this type of teaching. Preparation work would be enormous (making/editing videos, learning new software, posting the content into a Learning Management System).  Second, students must have the intrinsic motivation to go on-line and watch the videos on their own. For most of us the 80/20 rule will apply.  80% of our students will do as we ask of them, 20% will not.  This gap should narrow over time, as the need to stay up-to-date with the class will outweigh the desire to procrastinate.

After watching the TED video on The Khan Academy, and reading the blog post that was tweeted out by my consultant, I decided to do a bit of digging on my own.  Below is a video of Aaron Sams, a teacher in Woodland Park, Colorado and his thoughts on the flipped classroom.

Here is a link to the TED Video – http://bit.ly/hDa26d

Betty Ray’s Blog Entry from ISTE – http://bit.ly/jAjEwq

On a quick note before I end this post, I wanted to let you know that I have narrowed down the focus of my blog.  The focus is going to be Motivating and Engaging the Middle Years Learner Through Technology.  Thanks to everyone who was able to provide me with feed back.