Hello world!

In the past few years, I’ve had a lot of blogs. Blogs for school, blogs for coaching, blogs for other people. However, with all of that, I’ve never kept one myself. Not that I don’t have much to say, I just didn’t feel the need to make it public. However, that is all starting to change.

Type III Work

Image Credit - Fitz Cahall & The Dirtbag Diaries

In Fun Divided by Three – a tremendous podcast published on the Dirtbag Diaries – Fitz Cahall begins by explaining how outdoor types love rating systems: kayakers rate rapids; skiers rate runs; you get the idea. However, what had me both laughing , and slightly queazy, is Fitz’s explanation of how outdoor folks also rate fun. Type I fun describes events that sound like fun, are fun when doing them, and still seem fun several days later. This type of fun includes great powder skiing, day hikes with epic views, and perfect surf. Type II fun includes days when it’s mostly fun, and seems fun after the fact, but has some crummy moments scattered in as well. These are the hikes that include 4 miles of brutal vertical that kill your lungs on the way up, and then pound your knees on the way down, but are really fun to talk about over a beer. Finally, Type III fun, the ultimate misnomer, just isn’t fun. People climb Mt. Everest for Type III fun. I go sailing in Vermont, in October, on 40º rainy days, for Type III fun. Basically, it’s not fun until you get home.

You may wonder where I’m going with this. See, I was inspired by Fitz and started thinking about my work. Seems to me like this rating system also applies to school work – just in a different sort of way.

Type I

This is work work. Type I work includes the mundane tasks that you hate in your job. There’s no reward, no glory in their accomplishment, and you question their validity throughout the process of completing them. For me, this is PowerSchool.

We use Pearson’s PowerSchool as our Student Information System (SIS). When I started at St. Michael’s five years ago, one of my first projects was to create a central database – besides the rolodex on the receptionists desk. We needed something highly flexible and highly customizable. I’ve lost months of my life to PowerSchool. Most recently, I’ve been coding custom screens for our parents to view their report cards online. What a massive time suck. There are system generated screens that could easily do the job, but our administrators wanted something that looked pretty; so, I have coded, and tested, 8 distinct screens (each of which will need to be updated for each grading period), to make the school logo appear and ensure report card prettiness.

Type II

Type II work has some inherent value, though it may be hard to discern at first glance. Last Monday (January 4th), we participated in a three school, professional development day. Throughout the fall, a colleague and I met with the other school planners to create this day. Throughout the planning process, Sam and I complained – a lot. We feared that the day would be an absolute bust. The plan called for individual teachers to lead two, small, hour-long workshop sessions. It also required the rest of the three faculties to sign up for those sessions. The whole process closely resembled pulling teeth.

To further add to the work, I volunteered to teach not one, but two workshop sessions. I admit that my second one was a remix of a previous endeavor; however, it still required some effort. During our winter break, I devoted about four hours to the creation of my presentation notes and the gathering of resources. Since Mike and I took the late flight back from Salt Lake City (doing some Type I fun on the slopes) the night before, I then delivered my two workshops on two hours of sleep.

It was the day after the event that I realized the Type II-ness of the process. The faculty loved the day. People found value in collaborating with other professionals. I even received some compliments for my workshops: Making Order from Chaos – 10 things that everyone should know to make the Internet useful in the classroom and  Using Technology to Support Diverse Learners.

Type III

I guess my scale is in reverse of Fitz’s. With Type III work, it’s hard and frustrating, but you understand the absolute value the entire time. This is the one-on-one with a student kind of work, or the we’re-in-this-together project with an eager class.

Most recently, it best describes the five hours that I spent before the break with Charlie (his real name isn’t Charlie, but I don’t teach a Charlie). The sixth grade was frantically working to complete their projects for the history fair – a tremendous, well-differentiated, well-constructed project. Charlie had been assigned North American geography as his topic, and two days before the due date, had nothing completed. Each student needed to write a five-paragraph essay and prepare a presentation for the fair. Charlie was lost.

You have to understand that this student reads well below grade level, struggles with vocabulary, and has significant gaps in his learning. Over two days, I worked to teach him how to take notes, create an outline, draft an essay, and then edit his final draft. At 4:00 on a Friday afternoon – he volunteered to stay after school in order to finish his work – we finished. He had written his first essay, and it was all his.

Type III work makes educators want to stay in the field of teaching. It results in those teachable moments, includes the lessons that generates enthusiasm in the classroom, and thrusts students to new heights. Unfortunately, Type III work occurs sporadically within the current framework of our schools and educational system. We usually spend our days trudging through Type I tasks, and laboring through the occasional Type II day. In his last post for 2009, Will Richardson looks forward to the potential of the next decade.

And, if like me you believe that the current structure of the education system in this country (and elsewhere) is fundamentally flawed in preparing students for a life of learning, then this may be the decade real change breaks out. Or not. - Will Richardson, 2020 Vision?

Perhaps, if we’re lucky, this is the decade of Type III work.

What do ClimateGate, Tiger Woods, and Michael Phelps have in common?

This is the question that I posed to my 7th and 8th grade classes over the last several days. I told them that they would have to use their inference skills and think about the framework of the class – technology – in order to come up with their answer. They worked in relatively arbitrary groups of 4-8, and had to spend a minimum of 5 minutes actually thinking through their answers. Most groups took closer to 10 minutes to formulate their thoughts. Here are a few of the discussions that came out of it all.

• All of these people got in trouble because of mis-use of technology. The hackers got caught. Tiger Woods got caught, and Michael Phelps lost a lot of money. (7th grade)
• These three things all have to do with scandals, and technology exposed all of them. Because of the Internet and Twitter, everyone knows about Tiger Woods and the picture of Michael Phelps. The Internet is talking about ClimateGate because the media isn’t. (8th Grade)
• Everyone got caught because they were stupid with their use of technology. They all used things that could be tracked: text messages, email, and the cell phone pictures of Michael Phelps. (8th Grade)

Here’s where the conversations got really interesting. We spent some time discussing how anything that goes out there, stays out there. Most of the students didn’t realize that emails and text messages were stored in multiple locations – client and server. They also still struggle with the concept of privacy on Facebook. In fact, in light of the recently accelerated shifts in policy, most of my students have no idea what they do and don’t control with their own profiles.

Yet what got me the most, was the one group who felt that the whole thing was stupid. They could not understand why someone wouldn’t use a non-tracking cell phone, or purchase a device to make their communications more secure. This group wanted to argue and hypothesize about every possible way to cover-up, or hide, their online interactions rather than take responsibility for their own online reputations.

Swift Kick Central has been blogging excerpts of their new publication, “Your New Best Friend, Social Networking in the First Year Experience.” In Section Three, as a response to, “Don’t students understand that anything that goes online will be there forever? (We need to tell them not to post this stuff.)” They respond with:

Telling them to be careful is not enough. We can’t just tell them to avoid the bad. Hiding in the basement for fear of saying something wrong is not a success strategy. The world has moved to greater levels of transparency and publicness. We must teach students to be public – this is how they will find success. We have to teach students to find, and project, the good in their record; To build, in the words of Joe Uguretz of Macaulay College “a museum of themselves.” – Kevin Prentiss, Swift Kick Central

A museum of themselves – that could be a great spring project….

A Little Birdie Made Me Do It…

What could have 12-year old boys fighting to write poetry?

Storybird

Several weeks ago, I read Rick Byrne’s blog post about Storybird. In it, he mentions that if Larry Ferlazzo and Kevin Hodgson liked it, then it was worth checking out. Well, if Rick thinks it is an effective tool, then I had to know about it, too. If you’ve never seen Storybird, and you have any interest in writing – or reading illustrated works – then you have to take a look. With a free login, you can create your own stories and integrate artists’ illustrations.

After looking at it, I had one of those this is great, now what do I do with it? moments. First, I showed it to the first grade teacher and asked if we could do a buddy project where maybe a middle school student typed a younger student’s story. Not sure if that will work or not. Then, I demonstrated it for our two 6th grade English teachers. They both had the same reaction: this is fabulous, now when do we use it?

On Monday, one of the English teachers grabbed me in the hall and asked if Storybird could be used for poetry. She showed me what the students had already created, and then asked if it could work. Suddenly, we had a plan in motion. Tuesday, during class, she reviewed the concept of illustration and asked the students to think about how it works when an author collaborates with an illustrator. I then demonstrated how the students could set up their own accounts on Storybird for homework. By 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon, half of the students had come to the lab to set up their accounts. (The one boy who did not have an email address used mine.) During Wednesday’s English class, the students picked their illustrators and started integrating their poems into their Storybirds. For the rest of the day, at any free time they had, students came running to the lab to continue their work.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting… Not only are the students working on their assignments, several boys have continued to create their own poems and stories. They are also commenting on each others and cheering each other on (I know this because I get emailed all of the comments for the one boy who used my address). In fact, that boy’s younger brother has also created an account so that he can read and share. I don’t know how long this new enthusiasm for writing will last; however, as educators, we should do whatever we can to prolong it. Amazing what a little technology can do!

Thanksgiving Dinner Courtesy of Google

My friend, Clare, is having her annual pre-Thanksgiving dinner today. This tradition began four years ago when she first moved into town. I wasn’t there for the first Poplar Thanksgiving (she used to live on Poplar street), so I don’t know how large this event was at its inception. This year, over 50 of us will be coming for dinner.

Here’s what has me thinking: the realization that this entire event has been carefully coordinated online. First, Clare sent an Evite to 109 people. By checking the Evite this morning, I know that 53 of us are attending, 40 never responded, 7 can’t sort myself out, and 9 are pretending that they have something better to do. Searching through the responses, you can then see the many of us then offered to bring something. To keep track of it all, Clare started a Google spreadsheet that she shared with all of us. The initial invitation went out on Tuesday, the 17th, at 8:35 am. By 2:00 pm on Friday, every item was accounted for by the 21 of us who contributed to the document. Anyone who didn’t respond is expected to contribute to the beverage category.

Looking back through the Revision History on the spreadsheet, I know that the organizers of the event actually started the planing on November 13th. They tracked what needed to happen and then invited more contributors as they needed more help. By 3:00 this afternoon, there will be 2 Turkeys, 7 appetizers, 6 pies, and side dishes ranging from sweet potatoes to parsnips.

The demographics of the guest list are close to 50/50 male/female. 94.3% of us have college degrees, and our ages range from 25-43. The organizers are three, college educated women in their late 20’s. None of us fit into the category of Digital Natives; however, I think we have evolved fairly well.

Where did all the PLNing go????

Teachers as Learners (Part 32)

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Each summer, our headmaster creates a summer reading requirement. Usually, it is a nice little book that can be digested on the beach. Two years ago, we all supposedly read Dan Pink’s, A Whole New Mind. While most people decoded it, I don’t know how many consumed it. Anyways, this year, I proposed that we should have a more hands-on approach. Besides, with our limited financial resources, why should the school pay money to purchase each faculty member a book when so much existed online?

We moved our email system over to GoogleDocs last spring, so creating a closed blog took a matter of minutes. Each teacher needed to read 3 articles over the summer and then respond by commenting on the blog. About 40% of our faculty took part in the activities. When we all reconvened in August, we had a nice discussion about the format and the process. Most teachers asked for their books back. And then, we were done.

In Will Richardson’s recent post, Teachers as Learners (Part 32), he talks about why teachers need to “see themselves as learners, too.” The ultimate goal of our summer project had been to encourage teachers to begin to create their own PLN and then contribute to a larger PLC. However, many people, including our head, saw the website as the PLN itself, rather than the beginning of a larger learning process.

Now, it’s November. Projects are rolling. Teachers are doing their thing. We are all back in our classrooms, and I’m just wondering Where did all the PLNing go????

 

Off the Grid

I haven’t written anything in months. My last post, a final attempt to fill my last fundraising envelope (thank you again, Mary), was the last time I even logged into my blog. So, where have I been? Off the grid!

It started with our two week trip out west. No email. No Internet. Minimal cell phone coverage. It was wonderful. I didn’t miss the emails, the constant contact, the hours spent glued to a screen. During that time, my news reader compiled over 500 articles of interest – most of which I just marked as read. To be honest, I haven’t even really checked my Twitter feed since the beginning of August – unless you count the few logins to show my students the concept of a microblog.

Before I left, I was dialed in. My PLN was jamming between the tweets, the posts, and the news letters. I was reading and writing a ton, but then, I just stopped. I thought for a while. I even just reflected on what I had learned. Originally, I wanted this blog to be well read – like Tim Byrne’s or Will Richardson’s. Thing is, I just don’t write enough. I’m ok with that.

See, we’ve had a crazy start to the school year. Our middle school has been infused with new teaching talent, and it has been wonderfully hectic. My 8th graders have finished their video trailers of their summer reading books. Our new history teacher immediately charged the 7th grade with creating podcasts to tell the stories of Native American tribes. While the 6th grade may have started out with a more traditional technology project – one that exists solely in the lab – it served a larger purpose: in the first few weeks of school, they learned about boolean searches, reviewed the concept of web browsers and search engines, practiced their note taking, and discovered the difference between blogs, microblogs, and wikis. Not too bad for the first few weeks. With these skills, they have then created posters to illustrate the concepts of various parts-of-speech and started a series of spreadsheet challenges to reinforce what they have learned in their math classes. Even our 5th grade, which has traditionally collaborated minimally with me, has jumped into the mix. We reviewed basic word processing skills by creating timelines of ancient man, have worked with graphic organizers to support their language arts writing, and start author studies next week.

I’m exhausted, but in a good way. The key thing is that I haven’t been completely driving these projects. I’ll talk more on this later, but the key to successful technology integration is that the teachers have the conceptual idea, or can voice the curricular need, and then I can help them create the project using the available tools. The day of the computer lab class has long past. Looks like our teachers have started to embrace it.

URGENT: Last Envelope to go back to BCM

If this little fella isn’t postmarked by the 18th, he’s going in the recycling bin. Please help this last donation envelope get back to Big City Mountaineers. Cash, check, anything to make it worth the postage and he’ll be set free.

Summit Dispatch #2

ots of good things to report. First off, our fund raising total is now at $6505. Thank you again for the donations!

This past weekend, Mike, Maddie, and I decided to go test out our new Jansport packs that were donated to us for the climb. First, we thought we’d go up to New Hampshire and try to climb Mt. Lafayette. It’s supposed to be a great hike. However, the weather report on Friday night was grizzly. Then, we thought we’d try southern Vermont and Mt. Equinox. When we got up at 5:00 on Saturday morning, it was raining there with a high probability of thunderstorms. So, we loaded up our packs with about 30 pounds of dead weight (we need to carry 50 up to base camp on Mt. Langley), and headed to Connecticut.

Now, you may say, I didn’t know there were mountains in Connecticut. Well, there aren’t really. We found a 6 mile loop around Ragged Mountain just south of Hartford. Thing is, the mountain doesn’t really go up! We did have a great hike along the ridge line, and got down before the thunderstorms started.

Not the most epic hike, but at least we saw the sun! We’re headed up to the Adirondacks this coming weekend with former SG sailors – Garth Fasano and Jamie Beadie. We’re following Garth’s lead up a mountain. We’ll update you if we make it back.

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the last adventure.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/micmaddie/tags/raggedmountain/show/

Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head

Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head

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I’m in the process of re-designing our school website.  When I first started at SMS, it was the first major project that I undertook. What a disaster. However, at the time, it was ahead of the curve. Hard to believe that over four years ago, RSS was still in its infancy.

Anyways, as I look to re-build this summer, I’m trying to position us ahead of the curve once again. To just be playing the social media game, we need an RSS feed, a Twitter feed, a FaceBook page, a LinkedIn profile, a Flickr account, and video on both Vimeo as well as YouTube. The question, though, is what else?

For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching the rise of Posterous. Originally, I had thought about moving our daily news site, the Daily Mike, to Tumblr. However, now I’m starting to think otherwise. My only issue, though, is that I cannot seem to customize the theme on a Posterous site. Given the way that news is updated here at school, that may be the least of my concerns. The question is really, how long do I hold out to see if they offer this in the next few weeks. Of course, this could all be out by the time the site launches in August anyways. It’s really amazing how quickly everything has progressed this year!

Swift Kick Central: Facebook and The Adolescent Brain – The Emerging Employers’ Dilemma

Swift Kick Central: Facebook and The Adolescent Brain – The Emerging Employers’ Dilemma

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I won’t use the word battle. However, I’m not quite sure if deal-with sums up what we have been doing in the last six months either. Social Networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have certainly wreaked havoc on the middle school social dynamic. Now, middle schoolers can continue their adolescent behavior in cyberspace as well as at recess.

Back in October, this article by Will Richardson inspired me to spend more time educating our students about their online persona. I spent hours this year discussing with them the repercussions resulting from essentially living their lives in a public sphere. It was truly amazing at the resistence that I got to all conversations. In light of this article, I’m wondering if it is even possible to get them to understand the social impact of their online actions.