Educational Discourse

Well, for those of you who have been waiting for some inspiration to get moving with the A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, it is here. The book club is up and running with a few of the senses having chapter leaders and some discussion posts already going. I’ve been over at Classroom2.0 to see what is happening. I’m going to do some more looking and thinking before I make my first post. I am going to start a discussion there and send people to the wiki and mention that people who want to join the conversation can look there to see how things are going.

A Whole New Mind

This book really has me thinking about many different things, not just the 6 senses that Pink describes. As I was reflecting on the book, I realized that someone at a different point in their life/career/education might see things differently than me which had me thinking that these topics would be great to discuss with my classes which then led me to think about how I might work them into my class for discussion. By this time I had way too many things running around in my head so I began to make notes about what I was doing. I then remembered that Dave Truss had posted a mindmap on the wiki so off I went to look at it. This mindmap helped me as it creates a visual representation of the book’s main parts, allowing me to think about how I might be able to use this as a teacher/principal.

For me, the section of the book that really “touched” me was the final section on “Meaning”. I’m not at the point where I can put into words why or how but it spoke to me about how we all are looking for meaning and that school needs to help students with this.

So, if you’re interested in joining the discussion, wander on over to the wiki and join us in the discussions. If you’re so inclined, volunteer to be a chapter leader or just begin a discussion. Let’s see where things will go.

John Pederson tagged me with this “what are your secrets to a successful life” meme. Now, I’d like to dedicate this meme to my grandmother. I’m home visiting my family and my grandmother, who is 92, is just a wonderful person. The day that she found out we were coming home to visit, she went up town and made sure she had Easter gifts for all 7 of my children. She makes sure to buy each of them a treat for the drive home and just loves to have them visit. (Me, on the other hand she can take or leave!) She knits each of them a new pair of slippers each year. To pass her time, she makes tiny touque/mitt pin-on sets which she sells and then donates all the money to local charities. She’s a great lady!

#1 – Live one day at a time – many people look forward to “tomorrow” without paying attention to the day they are in. Planning is a good thing and spending time looking forward is necessary but we need to remember to be in the present, day by day.

#2 – Be in the room – I don’t know where I heard this but it is something that I remind myself about all the time. When you are doing something or with someone, focus on the activity or the person not something else. Give the person your attention and be open to them.

#3 – Take time to get off the road – my grandmother reminds me of this regularly. Life is the accumulations of our experiences and encounters. We need to take time to slow down and enjoy our experiences with other people, especially those who are close to us. One of the worst statements is “Not now, we’ll do that ……..” because it may not happen that time will come again. Our commitments need to be met and kept but we don’t need to fill each moment. Leave time to enjoy our experiences and encounters.

#4 – Meaning – find what gives your life meaning and follow it. “Money isn’t everything.” is completely true. Being fulfilled and happy will bring greater joy than money.

#5 – Learn to laugh and do it often. Laugh with friends and family. Be able to laugh at yourself!

#6 – Hug those you love – human contact does something to us. It brightens our day and makes feel wanted and connected.  In our fast paced world, we sometimes don’t take the time to be with the one’s we love and care about.

#7 – Be willing to try something new. Learn a new skill, read a new author, meet new people. Life has so many options for us but we often get caught in a rut because it is comfortable and the rut becomes so deep we don’t know how to get out.

#8 – Be willing to make mistakes. That is how we learn. In being willing to make a mistake, we are not worried about always being “correct” which frees us to try new things. Mistakes help us to learn what we did wrong and change – they deepen our understanding.

#9 – Be humble – we all can do things well but often our ego gets in the way and we close ourselves off to others’ ideas and knowledge. Let others know that you appreciate their efforts and assistance.

#10 – connect with the spiritual – not necessarily a religion but that which is larger than you. My faith has given me the strength to try new things and go new places knowing that there is a larger plan to life than just mine. It sustains me during times of difficulty and helps me to be humble when things are going well.

These are things that I believe help me to have “success” in life.

Tagging – missprofe

misscofino

Susan Ens

Brian Saxton

David Truss

The last few days I’ve been intrigued by a number of posts referring to the use of games in education. I will start off by stating that I wasa gamer. I liked playing games butmy habit has been curtailed in the last few years by the growth of my family and the fact that it took up too much of my time.\. However, as my sons begin to get old enough for gaming, I’m looking at getting back into it – salivating at the thought of an gaming console or the Wii but knowing that it has an addictive nature to it that, until you play, you don’t see.

I am intrigued by the idea of gaming in schools because I find it ironic that finally someone is seeing that there is a place. As an ADHD person, I found games to be a great thing. I could concentrate for hours playing Space Invaders and the other arcade games or, once I had a nintendo, those games. I even developed a better handheld device for myself because I found the small ones that came with the game didn’t work too well. They hurt my thumb and I couldn’t move quickly enough. I did get good at Frogger and Donkey Kong.

As Dungeon and Dragons began to take hold and computer were making their way into the system, I began to play an online version where the players basically had various online “roles” and, depending on their choices, their fate in the world would unfold. It was fun and the whole idea that the world was not earth but more Tolkien in nature really made it fun. I did start in Everquest but, alas, a MEd and more children put a stop to that quickly. I still liked to play games such as SimCity and the action games based on movies. I then moved on to The Sim’s  and more sophisticated computer games. Recently I’ve begun to get involved in Second Life and World of Warcraft. I also have a few Star Wars games that I enjoy just for frustration relief. I’ve also found some of the games that are present on Agames, NeoPets, and other children’s sites to be fun. Line Rider was introduced to me by some of the kids at school. It is a very interesting game with many different skills needed
to be successful.   I really enjoy playing games with my kids, trying to outdo them. Thus far, I’ve been able to stay ahead except for the game Bubble-Struggle where my two daughters have unfairly been practicing when I didn’t know and can now soundly defeat me!!!

We enjoy playing games like The Sims together, designing homes and seeing what happens when you light things on fire! My pyro-son likes to see his sister’s house start on fire – it’s pretty funny! (Not sure what learning is going on there!)

I agree that games can be a benefit for the classroom. I’ve even used the game Risk to demonstrate that even the soundest military strategies can run into problems when taking the unknowns like weather and climate into account. I’ve had students design games to help them understand different aspects of Shakespearean plays or novels. As for playing games for educational purposes, I’ve used some of the BBC games to introduce students to various things dealing with world history.

Personally, I’ve learned that games can provide all kinds of learning opportunities but there are some things that, no matter what the game, I believe need to be put out in the open before games are used in the classroom.
#1 – Games are not real. You can simulate all you want and make it as real as possible – you are not affected. So, you can see what happens if you do A or B or C but, as an individual, you are not affected. So, when my son plays a new game, he  will gladly sacrifice his lives knowing that he is learning things about the game that will increase his success in future plays, he can restart with new lives and it doesn’t hurt him at all to have the Penguin jump off the edge.
#2 – Emotions you experience are different than in real life – you will not know how you will react until the actual event takes place. I have seen this played out in many different fashions from the first time someone actually drives a car and not a simulator to how people react when there is actually an emergency. I’ve watched people trained to deal with emergencies freeze in actual events although they had done all the training and simulations.
#3 – Along the same line as 2 – your emotions when playing a game are not the same as when the event is actually happening to you. In the game, you are trying to win. In real life, there are many more things going on than trying to beat the game. In RL, you feel a multitude of things while in game life you usually feel very little. I can kill, maime, cheat or do whatever to win in a game and then walk away. It is a game. In real life, I have trouble killing a mouse!
#4 – In a game, reactions are one dimensional and end whent the game is over. In life, reactions always have multiple ripples that you sometimes don’t even see. Even when I am in SL, I know that in RL I’d never be able to stand for as long as I do and those bad landings when I fly, I’d still be recovering from the first attempt. Now, the conversations are real but not the same as in f2f.
#5 – Games have taught me different things than what was going on in school. Now, I can still remember various stages in a few games that I played and what was needed to defeat the stage. I remember what I need to do in different games that allow me to win. Granted, I haven’t really been able to delve into the multiplayer – multistation games or mpg but I will definitely be looking more closely at them. However, what I did in school did give me access to knowledge that I have used outside my teaching. Ex – I once owned a company and had to rely on numerous skills in order to do that and some of the basic skills I learned in school did have applications. The whole idea of learning to touch type is thanks to school. While I watch a number of people two-finger type, I realize that my taking typing in highschool was a blessing ( although I really didn’t like it at the time!) Who knew that such things would figure to be so much a part of what I have experienced.

Games can provide a number of ways for students to engage and learn different things. Using games in school has a place. However, thinking that because I can remember various stages from Frogger doesn’t mean using a game will help me with my math. I still have difficulty with my timestables and I’ve played various games with my children learning timetables.  So, as with all technologies, we need to be sure of what we want when we begin to use games. What is the
purpose of the students playing the game? What do we want them to understand and how will they then demonstrate that they have, in fact, come to a specific understanding? I don’t mean test them but we must be able to assess in some way why students have used the game.

If I had more time, I’d play more games but as I’ve grown and found all these responsibilities, I’ve had to make some choices about time although, like I mentioned, I can see being able to get back into it in the near future (OH YEAH!!!) I’m looking forward to this on a personal level and because, as a kid, it was one place where being ADHD
helped me to excel. Now as an adult, I’ve other things to get my focus, like this blog!

As I’ve read about using gaming more in schools, I haven’t heard exactly what we want to accomplish with them. What are the objectives? As I ask my kids, So What? What will doing this affect learning and understanding? What is the benefit to the student? What about the addictive nature of gaming? How do we ensure that we don’t create even more problems
for some students? How will these games fit with learning and understanding? These, along with many other questions, need to be discussed as we explore the use of games in education. They do have a place, I’m just not sure how they fit at this time.

This has been crossposted over at Leadertalk.

Well, I’m been doing a great deal of writing on my own reflecting and how it has affected my view on the various roles that I have within my school and my life. Now, as an ADHD person, I often have a hard time reflecting – my mind tends to wander quite alot so I have to really focus. However, once I begin to reflect, it can be a very intense experience as I become completely involved in what I am doing. Because I’m very interested in how this can be used in my professional and personal life, it is not hard for me to get into it. For anyone who has experienced this type of focus, I especially find it true when playing a video game, it is like you totally enter the experience.

Now, I began this reflection on my career after doing an administrator evaluation with my staff. From this, my supervisor and I sat down and identified some key areas that needed to be addressed. We also discussed various ways that I might work through this and both came up with the idea of a reflective journal.

Now, as an administrator, I’ve kept a journal of daily events for some years now. I record the days events, especially when I have to meet with a parent, student or teacher. Now, one of the things that I have worked on over time is to develop a neutral voice when making my recordings. A neutral voice means that I don’t include judgements or comments. I work very hard to stick to facts, the events and the outcomes. Now, one cannot be totally impartial when recording events that one is taking part in but I have found that by removing such things like “She was very angry”, “He was afraid” and “He said sarcastically” with more neutral observations or noting it that this was my own observation – “From my perspective, she appeared to become angry with this suggestion.” I have been better able to record a situation fairly accurately. Of course, this was not something I learned in a class but learned “on the job.” Now, this has served me well when I’ve had a situation that lasts for a period of time and I need to review what has taken place.

My reflective journal has been a bit different. In it I do almost the opposite of my school day journal. I record my perceptions of what takes place and my reactions to the situations. I started doing this three weeks before the Easter break. I don’t write everyday. In fact, because it is reflective, a bit of time allows me to reflect on what has taken place and the outcomes. It gives me time to get perspective on what is transpiring and look at things from variuos perspectives.

Having done this for just a couple of weeks, I’ve notice a few things about how I react, interact and do things that have an affect which is not necessarily positive. With this information in mind, I have blogged about my experiences and received some great comments and suggestions. This, in turn, has expanded my options for how I might deal with a given situation. Thus, by combining my reflections with my blogging, I have increased the opportunities I have for an effective way to address the situation. Four months ago I could not have done this because my world was limited to the administrators in my division. But that’s a whole other topic!

When I began my career as an administrator, I’d visit such sites as Education World to see what other administrators had to say about being an effective administrator. I remember reading how administrators would comment about “taking time to reflect”, “spending time reflecting”, “Going for a walk around campus to reflect” and wondering “Where do they find time to reflect?” As someone new, I didn’t see how reflecting about what I did would really improve what was happening. I mean, there was so much to do and so many new things to learn and do that, by the time I was ready for reflection, I was asleep!

Now, however, I see that these veteran administrators were very wise. (Imagine that!) They realized that the “busy” would always be there but there was a need to create time to reflect on the day and its events. So, with this in mind, I began my journal. It began very slowly as I recorded much the same way as my “Today’s Events” journal. However, it wasn’t long before I realized that this need to record my emotions, reactions and interactions so that I could honestly reflect on the situation and improve.

In three weeks I’ve already noticed a difference. First, I am much more aware of each interaction and the affect it can have on people, especially students. I am cognizant that each student is arriving at school already having a number of issues on their plates, even my own kids! I have also realized that I must listen to the stories of the people who are talking to me. This became clear to me as I began to work through the chasm that has developed between a group of students in our school and the staff, especially me. I must be honest and grateful to this group since it was this distance that prompted a parent to write a note to my superintendent that prompted the administrative review that resulted in the reflective journal which made me realize that I need to do more listening to this group. I also realized that I need to be positive and open with all the staff. I have some staff who have been in the building for many years and they don’t always see my suggestions as being positive or necessary. Instead of reacting, I know that I need to ask more questions and listen to what they have to say to me if I hope to get them using the technology more.

Now, I’ve been doing a great amount of reflecting, not only in my professional life, but also in my personal life. I’ve made a few decisions that have had a powerful positive impact on my life in just a short period of time. Such things as being willing to delegate to someone else and then have them inform me through updates and emails, handing a few chairperson situations to other members while still staying on the committee and dedicating time each day to spend time with the students away from my office all have allowed me to focus on areas that are my passions. It was a combination of the information from my administrative review and my reflections that made me realize that I needed to do a few things very well and then decide what they needed to be.

I realize, now, that it is important for someone in the unique position of administrator, to take the time to reflect. I haven’t been an administrator for very long, this is my 5th year, but I have learned so much about doing things differentl. I’ve come to recognize that change, once something that people endured, is now what people must expect. As administrator I need to develop a way to screen and then incorporate those changes that will benefit our school and the teachers. For me, reflection, combined with blogging, has become a powerful combination that allows me to evaluate the workings of my day-to-day world and then get feedback from a group of working experts. To me, that’s powerful evolution!

They did it. They didn’t shrink from the pressure. They didn’t stop even against a team ranked much higher. MY ISLANDERS ARE PLAYOFF BOUND!  :-)

It was oh so sweet. An overtime shootout. Two backup goalies. All the intensity of a playoff game. I listened, glued to my computer, as the ……

Yes, I listened. You see, my wife and I decided the year that our oldest daughter was 2, to get rid of television. That was 13 years ago. We haven’t had broadcast tv in our house since then, well, except for 1 month a few years ago and we remembered why we got rid of it. Now, we have a tv and watch movies but we, as parents, have a much better handle on what our children watch than with broadcast television.

To say I don’t miss it would be a lie, especially with the playoff race being so tight these past few days. But I’ve learned to enjoy the radio and streaming audio over my computer. In fact, I find that I’m not interested in much tv any more. I like the way I can listen to things and still do something else.

Surprisingly, many people who find out we don’t have channels are amazed that we have survived. Once we explain how we find tv to be too much of a time waster and an argument starter, people kind of see it but “I just couldn’t do it.” is their usual response. Or my husband couldn’t do it.  Some people have even suggested that it will hurt our children socially since they won’t be able to talk about the tv shows. Well, my kids are up on all the movies and, because they read a lot, they know most of the stories that are the shows or movies are based upon. With the burst of technology in the past 4 or 5 years, my children have become very tech savvy and have no trouble keeping up with what is going on in the world. In fact, because we read the paper regularly together, we’ve had some great discussions about politics, culture, world problems and the funnies and they are not afraid to ask about certain things which usually leads us
to the computer for more information. It’s not unusual to see them reading the paper sometime each day, with each one having a section they like to go through. Myself, I really like the crossword and criptoquip while my wife does the math problem thing. (That is how much I like math!!)
With 4 computers in the house, 3 wired to the internet, information is there any time someone wants it. Now, I’m reading a few different news pages but don’t have a favourite. I do like the fact that I can get the NY Times, LA Times and other newspapers online to browse their contents.

So today, as I listened to the game, I was online reading through various blogs and doing some other work – well, actually not, since we are on holiday – I was goofing off but was telling everyone that I was working. Couldn’t do that with tv now could you! I’ve found that, with listening, I am much more in tune with what is happening than if I watch. I actually find watching sports on tv to be – dare I say it – boring! So there I was, rooting for my team – they’ve been my team since their first season. I’ve stayed with them through great times – 4 straight cups – and horrible times (but no where as bad as those Leafs!)

So when people ask me where I find the time to do my work with technology or do work with some of my stuff online, I just explain that I don’t have a tv and have all sorts of time to do that stuff. My kids also have more time although they do watch movies on the weekend. The rest of the time, they are reading, playing or doing something on a computer. Now, our main computer is in the kitchen so it is easy to monitor what is going on. My oldest daughter has a laptop which has wireless but she does not have chat. She writes (books), maintains a blog, has a few other core sites she visits and friends she emails. Our other computer is a games computer and used for wordprocessing. There is then my laptop which is wireless and off limits. As I’ve been reading about the slow adoption process in education and the many frustrations with people not grasping the opportunities that the web2.0 tools offer, I wonder if part of the problem is that many people, teachers included, don’t use the basic skills enough because they are still watching tv. What if each main tv in the house was replaced with a computer? Would this have any effect? For me and my family, it is the information center in our house and, therefore, everyone uses it and feels, to some degree, comfortable with using it.  What if we were to extend this even further and, in schools, just get rid of the textbooks and ban photocopying? I’d sure like to give it a try!

As an administrator, I’ve been slowly trying to get teachers to integrate technology but, for some things, I don’t allow a option. You get memos, school and division email and other correspondence via email. School activites are now posted on our staff wiki calendar. I’m hoping to get each of our PLC’s groups to begin using a wiki or group collaboration tool to work on their ideas during the month so that we are not trying to do everything at our once a month meeting. I’m also looking at having each teacher set up an online website that is linked to the school site and help teachers to maintain it during the year by posting photos, podcasts and other things. I’m actually hoping to move to having each student use an online desktop to do work so that they can transfer items from school to home without the hassle of email. With all the tools available, we should be able to do a few things that make life a little easier for everyone.

GO ISLANDERS GO!