Feeling like a piece of meat in front of lions

I don't know how Middle School teachers do it... day in and day out... Today I substituted for a Middle School reading teacher. I felt like a piece of meat that the lions were picking on. The kids had a great time and little work was done, although I tried to stick to the plans I was given by the teacher. I did not yell. I used proximity. I tried to be firm. And yet there was more disruption than there was work being done. This would not happen if I was in an elementary classroom. There is something I am missing. I have no idea how to manage a Middle School group. Hmmmm

Changing Brains

For a long time now I have had this idea about technology changing our brains... but maybe what I really mean is that it changes the way we think. I guess I would have to be a neuro-scientist to talk about changing the pathways that messages take when they go through the brain, so I will just talk about changing the way we think. This last week I have been really struck by a few things and I want to note them here so that I can go back to them later:

1. Mentality-For example cutting and pasting used to involve scissors and paste and I only thought of it when I had paper, scissors, and paste. Now I do it ALL of the time to fix things. I find myself thinking that cutting and pasting might be a solution to all kinds of problems, but it isn't always possible.
   
2. Communication-Cell Phones and answering machines have changed our total way of thinking about communicating. I see it intergenerationally. My mother's generation thinks it is rude that some people use their answering machine to filter their calls. Her generation thinks it is rude to call someone after 9 pm in the evening because it might bother them. My son's generation thinks that it is rude to answer a call if you really don't want to talk at that time.
   
3. Availability of Answers-My mother's generation thinks that it is OK not to know something and that there is a lot that is unknowable. They do not value asking questions. They are VERY protective of their private information. My son's generation thinks that EVERYTHING is knowable and that there are no secrets really. In any conversation when there is a question they go right to Google. They wear their lives on their sleeves and assume that it is not a big deal (just look at My Space).
4. Accuracy of Information-My mother's generation thinks that public information MUST be accurate and correct. Politicians must be VERY careful what they say in public (i.e. the Edwards blogging scandal) Computer programmers decry the lack of careful documentation. My son's generation is moving too fast to care about how accurate public information is. It is OK to say what you think and to change your mind. Misspelling is not a big deal. Programmers are rushing to keep up with what is new and do not have time or inclination to document everything.

These are just observations made in the last week while spending time with my mother and then attending Ed Tech conferences. What do you think? (Image from http://lbc.nimh.nih.gov/images/brain.jpg (found on page http://lbc.nimh.nih.gov/osites.html) Accessed at Wikimedia Commons 2/29/07

Asking a Favor

I don't suppose that there are many of you who read this, but I will put this request here just in case :-)

A friend of mine is the Media Specialist at Westlake High School in Austin, TX. (Carolyn Foote). She wrote me this morning saying that the principal of her school is challenging the teachers to do "Teacher Blogging Fridays" and they are starting today. She would really like it if many people read and responded to the blogs so that the teachers would see how powerful blogging can be. She says, "This is our first effort at this today and so I don't know what kind of response we will get as most of our teachers are fledglings at this and there are a lot of events going on."

If you have a chance to check out http://www.whschaps.com there is a link that says "Our Blogs". I hope you have a chance to participate.

Janice

p.s. Both Carolyn Foote and Joel Adkins were nominees to be TCEA Technology leaders of the year for Texas at the TCEA Conference (Carolyn as Media Specialist and Joel as Technology Coordinator. Carolyn won $500! and Joel came in first for $1000! Wow!

Writing Software-SWoRD

This last week my husband the University Professor went to a seminar on a piece of software developed by other professors to increase the quality of student writing.

Here is how it works. Students write their first draft of a paper. Five other students in the group are anonymously assigned to review the paper. So, every student reviews other papers anonymously and receives 5 other student reviews. The reviews are guided so students are told what to look for (grammar, style, content...). Then when a student gets back the five reviews they can rate them for helpfulness and redo their draft. The same 5 students get the revised paper and see the helpfulness ratings and are graded for the help that they give. I think that they go through this process one more time and then the 5 students score the paper.

Other professors in the meeting felt that this is bad because it removes the content expert from the loop and the students will end up with an average of information and scores from non-experts. However, the people who designed the software have done some testing and found that students listen better to peer review and that they tend to make more and better changes to their writing when given pointers from peers than from an expert.

Here is some more information: SWoRD

TCEA-Learning

What are we going to do about learning in the future when there are SO many great ways to learn that are not connected to degree programs?

I am listening to Wil Richardson right now and he mentioned all of the MIT courses that are online. I have not looked at it yet, but he says that everything is there: the syllabus, a discussion board, tests, and answers to the tests. And it is all free! I am sure that some people are fascinated by certain things and don't have the way to get into MIT, but NOW they can take the courses online. Most of them couldn't compete with an MIT graduate, but I would bet that there are some who can.

I like learning and the way I do personal professional development is to read blogs, to listen to podcasts, participate in Webinars, and read online journals. All the learning that I do benefits me in many ways, but not in terms that can be measured, like a degree. Much of the learning I am doing this way is of higher quality than some of the courses I took for my Master's Degree.

I am not saying there is not a place for academics and scholars, but I think it is going to change somehow. Do you have any ideas about what is going to happen?

[Important background: I am married to a University Professor and I highly respect professors!]

LoTi-Levels of Technology Implementation

At the TRLD one session that I attended was with Kari Stubbs from Altec. She talked about the LoTi framework and did a good job describing the meaning of the 6 LoTi levels. I will try to list them here:

• Level 0-No use
• Level 1-Teacher Poductivity only
• Level 2-Students use technology to do the same thing they have always done (PPT, webpage, computer project to report back on facts learned)
• Level 3-Tool based applications used for some analysis, making inferences, drawing conclusions.
• Level 4a-Use of outside resouces aid teacher in developing challenging learning experiences using classroom computers.
• Level 4b-Teachers design challenging learning experiences using computers with no outside help. Students solve authentic problems using technology.
• Level 5-problem solving, issues resolution, student action-teacher role actively facilitating this kind of learning.
• Level 6-Computers are seamless and transparent. Used for problem solving and/or product development.

What she said that stuck with me and seems so true is that teachers seem to be stuck at the second and third levels. It is really a big change to move beyond that to the higher levels defined by LoTi. There were several people in that session who suggested that it will not happen with trying to change schools a little bit at a time. None of us had suggestions about how to make the type of changes that need to happen.... Do you?

Web 2.0 video

This video is amazing. I am going to try to embed it here, but if it doesn't work I have linked the title. I am guessing that it is being posted all over the place, but it seemed like a good thing to share.



Janice

TRLD

The Technology, Reading and Learning Diversity conference is my favorite conference. It was last weekend in San Francisco and I was inspired and learned from Ellin Keene (author of Mosaic of Thought and other books), David Warlick and especially Julie Coiro.

The thing that I like most about this conference is that it is truly curriculum oriented rather than technology oriented and I feel like people care as much about kids really learning and reaching those special ed kids who are hard to reach as they do about Web 2.0 or other cool tech things.

I am inspired by David Warlick and have learned so much from him. I am so glad he is there. At the final session of the last day (a really deadly time for ANYONE who is presenting) he had a room full of really interested people. It was great. Julie Coiro is someone who is doing extremely important research and is able to communicate about it to practitioners. Ellin Keene cares so much about reading and has insights that are exciting. Her next book, which is about to come out is called "To Understand" and I am looking forward to reading it. This is a conference where some presenters still use overheads and where the keynote speaker is not a lover of technology, but an educator with a compelling story to share.