Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Social Learning Course Final Reflection

This spring semester has been a really busy one for me. I've been training five days a week for my first triathlon, helping a practicum student, working at the Bookworm, taking this class, preparing my eighth graders for the state reading and writing tests, and then just trying to have a life. As I see the end in sight and reflect on how I've grown, I am grateful for the opportunity to take a Social Learning Course, mainly because I've had challenges in the past finding courses that teach new technologies and that is super frustrating. Beyond that, there are other things to think about. If you're interested in knowing more about the course or how I will proceed from here, read on.  


How has social networking made a difference in your classroom? 
The main affect this class has had on me is giving me the courage to push forward in using technology in my classroom to help my students connect. The first week of this class, I learned of an opportunity for my students to email back and forth with students from Sweden. I was hesitant, but because of the confidence I felt about Social Learning from my new Twitter friends, I plunged in. I also held on/stayed the course when my students started getting requests on their personal email accounts during English class to instant message since the Sweden kids were out of school for the day due to the eight hour time difference (my kids 9a.m. - Sweden kids 4p.m.) I didn't freak out when one of the Swedish kids said, "Oh Sh$#, this is so cool!" It may seem simple or not that big of a deal, but I have always fretted about what parents will think or if I'll get in trouble. Just having this class and the support from my classmates and Twitter friends helped me feel more secure.
Well, the way this class made a difference in my classroom is that these Sweden penpals have made my students EXCITED about English. They want to check their email every day. They beg to write them back. They even read the User Agreement to FotoBabble so that I would let them send a Fotobabble project back to the Sweden kids in response to something they had sent.


What plans do you have to continue developing your online personal learning network (PLN)? 
I will not be missing NETA, EdCampKC, or EdCampOmaha, and I will continue to actively seek ways to learn more about how to integrate technology into my classroom. This summer I plan to take the Nebraska Writing Project's Technology course in Lincoln during June and meet even more people who are already doing great things promoting 21st Century Learning Skills in their classrooms.
The great thing about EdCamps is that they give me a chance to meet the people and get to know them really well, so I can feel comfortable asking them for resources, continuing the conversation, or contacting them at a later date. I am confident I will continue to build relationships with these people, but I want to make a personal goal to share more of my resources with others. Prior to this class, I was definitely a lurker and a taker only. During this class, I have moved toward sharing, but I'm still not balanced on those roles, and my goal will be to be more sharing and less taking ultimately. I just need to find my niche/role/spot where I can help others.

How do you see an online education community changing education?
As many educators know, teaching has the possibility of being isolating especially if a person teaches in the same building, same content area, same community for a long time or if those areas aren't necessarily supportive or open. I think the online education community will allow people who are early adopters to find other people like them to provide support, so they can feel happy and confident doing what they know is best, and not have to worry so much about waiting for others to "get it."
      

      Overall, I feel like I have a strong foundation and will continue to use the skills I have learned at least on a weekly basis, maybe more once I finish out a few of my current projects.  I will continue to blog, probably under a different name and with a different purpose.  I will be trying to have a teacher Facebook group for students and parents as well as a teacher Twitter account either for a month in May or in the new school year.  As I said, I will continue to learn more about integrating technology and keep doing small things, one step at a time.

sk

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Dear Mr. Clay Shirky,

Dear Mr. Clay Shirky,
     Nothing excites me more than the part of your TEDTalk where you say, "Innovation can happen anywhere and is moving from one spot to another." I like the idea of innovation being open to all of humanity.  If there's a great idea out there, I want to hear it. . . and if I can hear it without having to wait for some expert to validate it and then have another expert validate that expert, that's even better.  Awesome.
     The other exciting line you mentioned is that the "Largest increase in expressive capability in human history is now."  If we as humans are not here on this earth to be expressive, what are we here for?
      However, while these two ideas are amazing and make me so happy, the thing I really, really love is that teenagers ( my target audience as a middle school teacher) have as good a shot at being innovative and expressive as people who are older and more experienced or experts.  They don't have to wait until they "grow up" or "figure out what they want to be."  Using their MacBooks issued by our school, they can create, innovate, express, and publish in an easy manner.  Wooohoo!
          Thank you, Mr. Shirky, for your talk.  I am truly happy to know your ideas combined with my students will make this world great now and in the future.

Sincerely,
SK

Student Panel Progress

     During each of my six English classes, I told the students about the blogger who held student panels in order to help with teacher professional development by offering the students an opportunity to share their thoughts on how to improve learning.  I asked for anyone who would be interested in sharing their opinions by participating in a panel with only me as the audience during homeroom to raise their hand.  Surprisingly, between 3 to 7 students in each class volunteered, and it wasn't necessarily the students I would have thought would volunteer.
     I really thought the kids who would volunteer would be those who get good grades or who seemed to like school or even those who like attention or are good at class discussion.  However, it was more of a mixture of kids who seem bored, some who are attentive but maybe a little shy, some who are super smart and some who need a little help.
      Three of my homeroom students took the list of about 45 students and split them into groups of five.  I only gave them the idea to try to make comfortable groups- kids they knew got along or would at least feel comfortable sharing freely.   On their own, they decided to either make groups all girls, all boys or an even mixture of both.
      So far, I have completed one panel consisting of five boys.  The majority of what they talked about didn't surprise me.  Here's a few things they mentioned.
***I asked- How is technology at school different from your technology use outside of school?
***They said- We use technology for everything at home.  We use it to talk with our friends.  Well, not just talk, but communicate because we call, text, Facebook, everything, you know.  At school, we're not allowed to do those things at all.  Everything is locked down here because some kids don't use it well.  We should be able to have the cameras on and not have things blocked until we do something wrong.

***This led to a big discussion about how it wasn't fair that some kids did bad things and then everyone got punished for it.  They wanted to know if the eighth graders next year would get to start the year fresh with computer privileges or if they would not have some privileges because of this year's student behavior.  They thought it would be better if computers weren't locked down at all for all students until they showed they were irresponsible and then only the kids who did something wrong would lose privileges.    (Ah. . . I agree, I agree, I agree.  Not only for the kids and computer privileges at school but for adults as well.  If there's a teacher who isn't following dress code, talk to that one teacher, don't make an announcement for all teachers at a staff meeting.  I have tried really hard in the last three years since being a behavior interventionist not to punish a whole class for the actions of a few.  I did that often my first few years of teaching. )

***From there, they transitioned to how they felt that teachers spent too much time helping the kids who don't want to learn.  Here's where their ideas diverged.  Some kids felt the teachers only helped the really smart kids and the ones who didn't want to learn.  Some said only the kids who didn't want to learn.  Another said mostly students who needed lots of help got it.

After spring break, I will still have enough time (just barely) to interview the other eight groups.  I think it will be interesting to see how the comments do or don't show patterns over time through the topics and with the different student groups.

Are you curious about how middle school students think about a particular topic? Post your question here in the comments and I'll be sure to ask them and post my findings. :)

sk

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Another Adventure

Last time I wrote, I mentioned I wanted to follow one of my adventures from start to finish.  I'm just setting out now, so I'm going to be diligent about tracing my steps right away to be more accurate.

Tonight, I'm choosing a Twitter hash tag from Cybraryman's Awesome Educational HashTags Page, which is a site given to me by my Social Media teacher.  I'm headed to #edadmin to check out what the administrators are talking about these days since I have my EdAdmin degree even though I'm not using it.  Maybe this will help me stay in the loop since I finished it over two years ago.  Also, I might be able to get some ideas to share with the leadership at my school.

Edutopia was the first site I visited and read an article entitled, "Kids Master Mathematics When They're Challenged But Supported."  Author Bernice Young wrote about the importance of providing a supportive environment and a little more challenge to give students the chance to struggle with problems more.  After reading the article, I realized I was on Edutopia's website.  I believe I just signed up for their NING during class two weeks ago to become part of their online learning community.  


From there, I hit the pull down button, "Browse by grade level" and headed to my area 6-8.  This page looks like a newspaper with three columns.  Under the Editor's Picks, I skipped past a headline, "Middle School Students Grow Their Own Lunch" to check out, "The 21st-Century Digital Learner -How tech-obsessed iKids would improve our schools."  


Wow!  What a great article.  Of course, it is nothing new or truly brain busting.  It's just the truth.  If we want to know what kids think, we should ask them.  Kids are bored at school.  I need to change the way I teach or they aren't going to listen.  So, how can I do this in my classroom?  Easy. I could let them read this article and invite them to participate in a student panel in my room during Academic Support Time.  Tons of kids (sadly, including those in my Homeroom) are dying to get out of their homeroom and go somewhere when they are supposed to be doing their homework.  If I promise snacks and drinks, I'm pretty sure I'll have to make a waiting list.  Then, I'll have to listen and brace myself, so I can let them be honest and ensure I'm not defensive.  That will be the hard part.  


As for letting the kids drive their education a little bit, I could easily let them choose what topics they want to learn for the rest of the year after the state writing test is over, especially if I start by giving them a few choices.  So, I can say, would this class like to study Shakespeare or the Holocaust?  Then, I could give them a goal as the article suggests.  The goal for Shakespeare could be to pick a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream and present it using volume, rate, tone, pronunciation, enunciation, costumes, props, and great acting in order to ensure the message gets across to a real audience.  For the Holocaust, the goal could be to generate five questions they would like to answer and help them get to those answers through literature and research.  


I think the benefit for me would be having a small excuse to not be so prepared, but what I really mean is I don't have to teach the same thing six times, so I could be a little less scripted and the curiosity of my students would flow a little better.  I need to explain this better I think, but maybe I can come back to it. 


Yippeee.  Skipppeee. I just thought of a great idea.  I won a grant for some field trips and was wondering how I was going to create student interest, but now I know.  I am going to mention this as a panel topic.  If I take the ideas kids give me, they will definitely want to go. . . even if it's on a Saturday. 


Also, I must remember a student's idea at our recent student led conferences.  She said she would play the piano for our class if I could get a piano in my room.  Then she mentioned having a day where any of the students could share their talents.  This will be perfect.  


And. . . I still want to try 20% time which I heard about on a TEDTalk.  I've been mulling this idea over in my mind and have decided I'll have to start slow and maybe just do 10% time or something, but I could bring this up at the panels as well.   (20% is where some companies - I forget which ones- give their employees a certain percentage of time to just work on creating ideas and working on their own chosen project.)


Well, there's a lot here.  I challenge you to make a panel of at least three students to hear what they have to say (even if you pick ones that are going to be mostly nice), and I also challenge you to check back here in a week to see how mine went.  Wish me luck!  


sk

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Where I've been today. . .

As you may or may not know, I'm taking a Doane College class called Social Learning.  So far, we've spent lots of class time learning to use Twitter, Diigo, and Blogging.  Normally during class, we actually get TIME to sift through the Twitter feed, blogs, and internet to find information we're interested in and make it our own.

Today, I have had the luxury of going through this same process on my own. I basically started out by going through my Twitter feed which now has some meat to it since I've been adding people each week during class.  I clicked on articles that looked interesting.  Usually, when I get to an article, it mentions a blog, another article, or another link to follow.

I wish I had thought to keep track of where I jumped from and to as I was going through the process, but just for fun and a little curiosity, I'm going to track one of my adventures.  :)

I'm not sure how I found David Coffey, but I know it was today and I think it was from adding the Top 20 List of Influential Education Tweeters to people I follow.  I love David Coffey's bio which states, "Passionate teacher of teachers, TEDTalk enthusiast, Runner. I am trying to model graceful imperfection."  I love teaching teachers (I have had a student teacher, a practicum student, and a mentee this year.) TEDTalks rock, and I am trying so desperately to be a better runner.  It looks like we have a fair amount in common.

From David Coffey's tweet, I went to #education.  There, I chose "Check out this new #education article Challenging False Assumptions : http://tinyurl.com/4sv4a9m & comment on it!"  It led me to a blog called Redeeming the Love of Learning, which in truth had a nice little article about helping kids learn through a customize or individualized approach, but then it turned out to be kind of an ad for a company that works with kids privately.  When I went to check that out more, I realized, "Maybe I'd like to do that," also found a new word, which I also clicked on . . . .  It took me to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/autodidact  where I learned that today's work/fun on Twitter and browsing around truly makes me an . . .




au·to·di·dact

  
[aw-toh-dahy-dakt, -dahy-dakt]  Show IPA
–noun
a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of teacher or formal educationa self-taught person.

I encourage you all to get out there and become an autodidact.  I do think it's good to remember all things in moderation as Grandma Baumert would say.  So, if it weren't for my Social Learning class that meets in person with a teacher, I might not know how or where to go to extend my own learning.  :)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Passion

Lyn Hilt's ideas on passion and more specifically, the quote she included from Seth Godin, struck me the most when reading through the different posts on the awesome Project PLN10 Openzine. PLN10Zine The key word that hit home was focusing on what is . . . important.    


Passion is a desire, insistence, and willingness to give a gift. The artist is relentless. She says, "I will not feel complete until I give a gift." This is more than refusing to to do lousy work. It's an insistence on doing important work. (Godin, 2010).


I think that most of education's supposed woes could be solved fairly easily by just focusing on what's important.  When we get to spend at least half our time doing what we feel is important, it makes life easier, more fun, and really more productive. 


Here's an example.  The students watched some TED Talks last Friday.  One by Daniel Pink talked about the "Surprising Science of Motivation."   Watch it at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html


Lia H., one of my students shared these comments on our class blog.  Check it out at http://wms.podcasts.westside66.org/users/skroenke/blog/
"I thought that Daniel Pink's new (or old, apparently) take on the way businesses should be run was very innovative. One example I can think of that may give further proof to this theory is our Choice Project in English. It was a lot more fun to be able to write about whatever you wanted and present it in your own way. We probably would've been willing to do it even if we'd get a B without doing the work; we could do something WE cared about. That's a good argument for 20% time and the fact that incentives aren't as much needed as opportunities to be creative."


So, basically, Daniel Pink, Lia (a bright young mind, and I all agree that life is about finding our passion and having time to do the "important work."  That's what it is to be passionate.




Zappos.com and Tony Hseih's book Delivering Happiness happen to be two of my favorite examples of where doing what people are passionate about creates good business sense as well as all around good living and happiness. 


  

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

ROI

       ROI- No, I'm not talking about a man with a name that rhymes with boy or getting mixed up with the Koi, the name of the fish we can see desperately trying to gobble fish pellets we buy with quarters at the turn crank machines at the zoo, I'm talking about one little business term I know.  Yep, just one term.  I often like to think about what I might be like working in a career in the business sector, but usually just for a little bit.
       Regardless of whether people work in business or education, ROI or Return on Investment is something it seems most people pay at least a little attention to especially in terms of input to output or time management.  Return on investment is a topic related to social networking too, but maybe not in ways people might think of first.
        In John Hagel III and John Seely Brown's article, "Five Tips for Smarter Social Networking," they recommend expressing authentic vulnerability, mixing professional and personal, provoking, promoting, and actively seeding, feeding, and weeding."  Especially in promoting, seeding, feeding, and weeding, it seems the old maxim, "you get out what you put in" is true.  However, I liked and agree with the two Johns' idea that it's important not to promote myself but to promote others.  When people take the time to create genuine relationships and share, they will benefit greatly.  Just last night at the Bookworm, I saw the International Intrigue Book Club holding a discussion with the author of their latest book.  What's interesting is the group didn't contact the author; the author contacted them.  He received a Google Alert that they were discussing his book and offered to chat with them.  In the article, "Principal's Perspective" by John Hudson, a similar situation happened.  William M. Ferriter on Twitter noticed John's biography said he was interested in his book.  Ferriter wrote to john and offered to collaborate as well as posted on John's Blog when he wrote about it.  Ferriter as well as the author at the Bookworm both understand the value of hearing others' ideas.  
         This week I hope to take the advice and examples given in this article and work to promote others without worrying about my Return on Investment, but knowing that building relationships, promoting and provoking others, and "feeding" will create positive results. 




What do you think? Is this advice sound? Do you have examples of where and how it has worked? What other practices would you add?