Educational Discourse

Ahhh! This looks like a familiar place. It seems I’ve been here before although it has been a long time and I do feel somewhat of a stranger to this place. I know that, like riding a unicycle, it will take some time to regain my balance and sense of place but once I do, I’ll be able to get back to my usual writing.  Oh, welcome visitor. You are a very persistent one aren’t you. I wasn’t sure that anyone would be able to find the place with all this dust and spider webs, concealed here in a corner of blogosphere.

Welcome.

Come. Sit. I’ll try not to bore you with meaningless tales of what I’ve been doing with my time or such things (although I have been doing some amazing things, completely changing the environment in which I live!) That’s for another time. Why I’ve returned to this special space is to recount a discovery I’ve made that I think might be somewhat helpful for some others. Before I start, are you comfortable? Need a drink or a small snack? Ah, well. Probably better, I’m not sure that you’d want to eat or drink any of what I’ve left here anyway. (Although that wine and ale might have aged just nicely. Again, for another time!)

You see, I’ve made an interesting discovery about myself and, maybe, just maybe,  some of you might just be able to take something away from this.

You see, as I was crossing the plains of my mind, just examining the various experiences and interesting implications of these, I began to notice a very noticeable pattern of battle scars that pocked the surface. Around these battle areas, each one with a black flag that showed the person(s) with whom I was battling, were dead grass areas probably a result of the awful toxins that resulted from these battles. Now, some of them seemed to still be raw and sore, like there were still festering even though the person(s) were no longer in my life. I was confused because, unlike other events or emotions that had left their marks on the plain, many of these were evenly spaced, with a similar  growth pattern between them.

The growth between them was amazing, consisting of wonderful memory flowers of great colours and variety. The flowers increase in intensity until about halfway between the two was an incredibly brilliant growth. As I approached, I could feel the joy and calmness radiating from them, like an oasis in the dessert. Each one also had a flag that identified the event and the people involved. As I wandered from one to the other, I noticed that those which involved my wife and children were of the greatest intensity, followed by those with my family and friends.

As I scanned the landscape, I began to see the pattern emerge.

What? You need to go. Okay.

I’ll finish at another time - but please come back to visit. I enjoy your company. And, if I’m out, leave me a message to let me know you were here. Since returning, I realize I have neglected visiting many of my dear friends around the blogosphere and I plan to do some of that in the near future. I ‘ll check in daily and reply to your messages.

I know not when I’ll be able to finish the tale and divulge to the world my discovery that, I believe, is going to assist me to become a much better person and, hopefully, a much better teacher and leader.

No, sorry, no time for the ale or wine. But come back and we’ll share one on your next visit and I’ll let you know what I’ve discovered.

The title is a two sided one. First, I’m suffering from a headache right now brought on by driving for an hour through blowing snow on icy roads from a meeting. It was a very good meeting but the driving was horrendous. Even the semis had their 4-way flashers on while driving!!

The second is from the fact that I’m up to my neck with trying to absorb all this information that I’ve been reading and looking at on various blogs regarding using Web2 in the classroom. The more I read, the more I am becoming convinced that we need to bring this to the forefront of educational discussions - be proactive and shaping instead of reacting and having someone else shape things for us. For many educators, it seems that government policy and regulations become the driving force and not the learning that could be taking place. As I’m finding out, there is a growing number of people who are finding the resources of Web2 and building them into their teaching with the results being a learning that takes on a different face than what we have previously seen.

One good example of this is the flat-classroom projects that are taking place in various classrooms. Now, usually I’m one of the first to hear of technology based learning but this came to me as a surprise - I had not heard of this nor was I aware of how it worked. I did some digging, via  Cool Cat Teacher to see what was being described. It looked to be a great thing and from the description, there is some great learning taking place. Flat classroom wiki  shows what is happening with this project. The information for the students is available on the wiki, which I found very informative as it gave me an inside look to what was going on in the classes - prior knowledge, learning objectives, resources and expectations. Now, the question that comes to mind is how does one make connections to try such a thing? Especially when it is obvious that the students from these two classes will be well ahead of my students when it comes to using such learning tools.

Finally, how does one break into the “circle”. It seems there are a number of people that I read who are linked to each others blogs and they are in the know about various on line and other line conferences and conventions that many of us who are not in the technocrat world don’t know about. This brings me to one of my pet peeves about this whole technology  in the classroom thing. There is a place for this in all schools not just those who have teachers who are technology teachers or consultants or such. In fact, I’d say that the people that I have had discussions with about using these tools are very interested but, like every teacher I know, must pick and choose what they put energy into and they find technology to be a daunting issue that they do not want to tackle. Yet, it is only through extreme blog surfing that I have come across this information. This is when my head begins to really pound - I consider myself to be pretty tech able but even I don’t have the time to get done and explore what I want to explore because of the demands of family, social and school life. How can we expect non-tech able people to begin seeing these tools as viable resources when those of us who are tech able are having trouble keeping up?

Just tonight I’m looking at how to manage RSS feeds, linking pages to my blog site, figuring out the wiki site information (and still a bit confused) and writing this. And it’s an hour past my bedtime!!  From what I can ascertain from most of the blogs I’ve been reading, these people have been at this for about 5 - 10 years, working with the technology, have been blogging since it became available (4 or 5 years at the most) and now it is the next wave that other teachers are suppose to get at? Not fair! My head really begins to pound at this notion. Had I not been into the technological tools and looking for information on blogging, I’d never have stumbled on some of these sites or tools. Somewhere, from someone, I remember there being a mention about passion being a key ingredient for the learning of something. Yet I’m reading that teachers, regardless of the passion, should be doing. Huh?

Again, I believe these tools will enhance learning and may be the next up and coming advancement in education but if most of the population with whom you are frustrated doesn’t know of the frustration, what happens next? What is the next step in the process?  As I’ve said before, I’m in agreement that we have to bring this to the next level but if people are not aware of the conferences or need to be on the techno side to get the invitations, you will get only those who are on the path not those who aren’t or those who might be searching but are overwhelmed by what they see. Finally, it’s not only the people who are in the classrooms that we need to invite but most of the general public, including parents, who are still wanting to see “school” as something with which they are familiar. Most of them don’t even visit the school website and some are even non-technology advocates as they see the use of technology as something that  can be a harm to their children as portrayed in the media. It’s all good and fine to say do it, show some individuals who are star performers as case studies and expect everyone to follow suit. It’s another to have the rest who are working very hard and don’t see any more time to fit in any more, who are doing their best with the expectations that are placed on them by legislators and trying to meet the demands of a very diverse learning population to see the benefits of something that, quite frankly, appears to be driven by a select group. To be truthful, until a few weeks ago I hadn’t heard of Will Richardson  , Vickie Davis , Sharon Peters , Jennifer Wagner , podcasting, meebo or wikiing. However, I am very familiar with Alan Blankstein, Richard and Rebecca Dufour, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Jay McTighe, Roland Barth, Douglas Reeves and other educational authors. Are we missing a link here?

Well, the headache isn’t any better. I think I’ve even made it worse!!

K

Blogged with Flock

Well, I’ve finished the second chapter of Three-Minute Classroom Walk-Through. This chapter sets out the five steps or parts to the  walk-through. In the book, each section includes a place for you to record you thoughts or understandings. I didn’t really pay attention to this at the start but as I moved through the chapter, I realized that it was important for me to do this. I ended up going back and recording my ideas, not in the book of course, to see how this was going to work for me. The first step is student engagement. This is to be done without interruption, if possible. This is when you look around the room to see if students appear to be engaged with what is going on. It would take very little time. The thing I noticed was when I walked down the halls, if I stopped by rooms with open doors, it was easy to gage if the students were engaged. I’ve also noticed a pattern to those teachers who have their doors open but that is another thing:) If you cannot do this from looking into the class because of a closed door or frosted glass, they suggest you enter the class, move to the back of the class as quietly as possible. Do not engage students in talk or even make eye contact. The second step is to establish what the objectives the teacher is teaching at this time. This will mean that one will need to be somewhat familiar with the various curricula that are in the building - a bit daunting if you are a K - 12 administrator. This step goes beyond this as it is explained that one does not just want the objectives but then one must become more adept at breaking this down into three parts.

The explanation is quite good and the examples are do give one an idea of what to do. However, as I was reading I thought that having some sort of template just to record some of the information would be a good idea. Later on in the chapter it is mentioned that a principal should work towards not having any sort of notes but be able to do this mentally before creating notes.

Step 3 involves looking for the instructional decisions that the teacher is making. This step also has 3 parts for which one should be looking. I found that this would depend on where you were teaching and what you were observing. However, this was well explained and gave some very clear examples.

The next two steps are less crucial and I’ll be back to talk about them and the overall plan.

MrC

Just began the book “The Three Minute Clasroom Walk Through” by Carolyn J. Downey, Steffy, English, Frase & Poston.

The beginning is very interesting as the model Downey uses is described, the influences that shaped the model are introduced and the stages of development are outlined. I particularly like the approach that has the teacher-supervisor in a collaborative relationship, working toward teacher self-efficacy with support from the supervisor.  I also like the fact that it focuses on influence and acknowledges that we cannot make someone do something with any longterm effect. Instead, we need to influence their thoughts through observed questioning which leads the person to reflection and change coming from within.  Stay tuned.

MrC

Today I’ve been working on my class at Harvard Education. I’m taking a graduate class in using Teaching for Understanding Incorporating Technology. The purpose of the class is to think about ways in which we, as teachers, can use technology to enhance the understanding of our students. We begin with the understanding that we want our students to have and then create a unit and lessons that look at matching technology to the class. My class, Communication Production Technology, works so well for this. I’ve been working with audacity in the class, having students create their own sound combinations and then, hopefully, creating podcasts that they can post for others to listen. We really would like to have them posted, get feedback about what might be need to be changed. If you follow the link you will see my school website that has the outlines for this class.

www.freewebs.com/mrchristie