The Clock, the Yardstick, and the Dream

Inspired by the Peace One Day celebration of International Peace Day on September 21, we shared a few thoughts in class about peace.  We read Todd Parr’s The Peace Book–a favorite of mine to read to my son, Jake–and we watched a video about International Peace Day.

I’ve thought a lot lately about peace, what it means, and what it takes to truly achieve it.  I shared a few quotes about peace, and then I asked the students to write what they thought peace was.  Here are there responses, mixed and only slightly edited by me.

Peace is when everybody’s happy and when there’s no fighting.

Peace is to be kind, helpful, calm, and grateful.  You should always be peaceful to others.

Peace is dessert.

Peace is being with my family or playing with my family.  Peace is also being a good friend.

Peace is freedom, and peace is anything that makes you happy–yourself and no one else.

Peace is to have fun, be nice, and to be a hippie.

Peace is a world full of happiness.  It’s helping others and loving and caring about our world.

Peace is making new friends and being who you are.

Peace is your favorite food or a warm summer day.  Peace is having fun and laughing.

Peace is helping a friend, caring for someone, and loving your family.

Peace is treating others the way you want to be treated and getting rewarded for the good things you do in life.

Peace is helping and giving to those who need it the most.  Peace is being outside.

Peace is extra recess.

Peace is happiness, harmony, and joy.  Without war, there would be peace.

Scrambling for textbooks at the beginning of this school year had me thinking about something:  why have them?  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important for all of our kids to have a textbook, if that’s a valuable tool we’d like our students to have.  But the thought of going without them prompted me to think that maybe we didn’t need them anymore, especially if we are trying to be 21st century schools.  Let me explain.

In particular, my teammates and I were looking to scavenger enough science textbooks for a new teacher to our grade level.  Now let me say this before I go further–I like our science textbooks and have a hard time considering going without.  I use it frequently as a great reading and content vehicle for instruction; the student texts, supplemental materials, and teacher’s manual provide great experiences for our fifth graders.  But in a time when school technology is far behind home technology, how can we expect to capture the attention of digital natives with tools from the digital immigrants’ “old country”?  I began to think I’d rather do away with waiting for expensive, antiquated tools if I could just have the right modern tools for the job.

See if this adds up to you: student books, teacher’s manual, transparencies, test generator, e-book (a nice attempt at 21st century print, though it only parrots the 20th century version), study guides, independent inquiry activities, simulations, reading support suggestions, and vocabulary cards–all part of the program packaged by the textbook publisher.  According to the prices I found on the publisher’s website, all of these print resources would cost the classroom roughly $876 by my estimates, on top of the $80 per student for their textbooks. This is just for science textbooks and related publisher materials. That’s a lot for books.

Gone are the days when students want to reach for a textbook for the answers. Where will they reach?  Shouldn’t we consider the possibility of replacing textbooks with laptops? Which will students use more in the real-world? Would we rather have students reading biographies about scientists or contacting scientists with questions about an area of interest? Would we rather have students experience abstract concepts with stagnant pictures and print or interactive diagrams and simulations? Textbooks are limited to their date and scope of publications, whereas laptops, information infrastructure, and online subscriptions are current and boundless in scope.

I’m not asking for textbooks to be abandoned. I’m asking us to consider the broader scope of information and the wealth of information for which we hope to give our students. Then, we must invest in the resources that will yield the greatest benefits for our learners. Given the choice, what would our learners choose?

Pay Attention

Storyboard Template

“This plan all began in a bar” is the excuse I’ll be using for what I feel was a rough start to the world of tech presenter. You know you have a soul mate when they drag you into something you fear kicking and screaming and you come out wanting more. So, Elaine and I are making plans for more presentations. There are some doors that need kicking down. First, we’ll be knocking on some I suppose.

Somewhere here soon you’ll be able to find the presentation on Web 2.0 and Media Literacy that we test-ran at the SOITA conference. Come see it and read about it at Elaine’s blog. Congrats to a Larry Pogue and Michelle Knight and all the SOITA staff and volunteers on a great opening day. I look forward to coming again next year, and I’m so sorry that I won’t be making it to the next two days this year. I had a fantastic afternoon with Sean Beavers, learning about Google tools for educators.

Ah! Another weather alert arises on my screen to remind me of the impending possible-school-canceling-whopping-two-inches-of-snow that is heading our way! What joy to a teacher’s eyes!

http://mattmoyer.edublogs.org/files/2007/12/holiday-wish-list.mp3

Hark, the Holidays draw near! I’ve been in a wishing state of mind lately when it comes to professional hopes and dreams. Instead of sugarplums dancing in my head, there have been tech tools and dreams of peace in the lounge and goodwill toward administrators, teachers, and students alike. So, while no one will ever ask for this list, I’m hoping somewhere there’s a fat-cat in some suit that might hear these wishes and maybe grant a Christmas miracle.

• A data management system that provides teachers with pertinent and punctual information about their students.

In this Information Age, why must I rely on digging in a student’s file only to find a letter grade or a number on an achievement test that doesn’t tell me everything I want to know? I’d like to be able to analyze an achievement score down to an item-level and see trends in a students’ work in the classroom side-by-side with test results. I want to be able to see what services a student has received to date and whether psychological tests or an MFE or IAT meeting was held, when, and what the suggestions were. That information does no one good in the separate file cabinets. It belongs in the hands of a teacher who can utilize this information. If we can stream useful, timely information to soldiers on the battlefield, isn’t education worthy of such tactical assistance to better our society and my sanity?

• Equal resources for every teacher.

Yes, some teachers utilize technology more than others. Yes, teachers at all levels need various tools, software, hardware, and infrastructure. But, I feel that a district that restricts one level through lack of tools, professional development, or because of a prejudice view of teachers’ or students’ capabilities or desires, does a disservice to the entire district. If a district is not spending equal time and money at all levels, then there is poor leadership that costs students and teachers.

• A community of learners/teachers that has universal communication.

I want to know what great things my colleagues are doing and I want to do them, too–if they work. If teachers get together and focus (this is the key point), we can do some awesome things. We could rule the world if we want. Right now we’re just too tired from jumping so many hoops that we don’t feel up to running the world and a classroom. What if we could have meaningful collaboration with our fellow talented colleagues? What if we could share ideas and resources efficiently and effectively? What if we could actually support each other professionally? I’d like to think that if we could really converse with one another, we’d be thriving instead of just surviving. I’m all for the hive-mind approach and we’ll have the world in the palms of our hands by recess.

• A workplace with the comforts of home.

Isn’t everyone yearning for this in some way–especially our students? Don’t they want school to feel and act like home? What I’d like to see is a closer parallel with how I live at home with how I can work at school. I’d like to pull in my laptop and work with my tools, but with the added resources of the school. I’d like more tools, like a digital camera and videocamera and printers and scanners all within my reach. I’d like for students to have that same level of resources, or as close to it as we can get. I don’t want to have to fight for scheduling the laptops or strike out on taking pictures because the school’s two digital cameras are currently checked out. I don’t want to have to walk all the way to the library just to edit a picture or video or create a podcast efficiently.

OK. I’d like to see this: a showdown between the resources a school provides and what students have at home. Seriously. Let’s see who’s got the most resources. Digital Natives v. the Institution of School. I say ten paces and draw what you’ve got–make a straight list of what you’ve got where the other doesn’t. Who can claim to have the most resources?

These are just some of my raving holiday wishes–not really the only things I’m wishing for this season. I’d still like all that peace on earth and Goodwill clothing. Stuff my stocking with comments, please. Happy Holidays. Peace to you and your loved ones.

http://mattmoyer.edublogs.org/files/2007/08/web-two-point-uh-oh.mp3 

Given my aspirations of being a technology facilitator in our district, it’s natural that my professional development plan includes a full dive off the high board into the pool of Web 2.0 tools.  This summer I’ve been splashing about in inservices and professional conversations with my favorite colleagues about podcasting, wikis and Wikipedia, Flickr, blogging, and all other sorts of things just waiting anxiously for the school year to start to invite my class in for a dip.  Like most educators with new ideas and summer months to hatch new plans and aspirations, I’m excited to jump in with something new this year. But a cannon ball free-for-all in the Web 2.0 pool shouldn’t come without some caution, so when a review for the cautionary book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture was given to me by our lovely school librarian (who happens to share a passion for technology AND balanced information)  I couldn’t help but read it.

I’m must state up front that I believe our culture is greatly in need of an overhaul, so it isn’t so shocking that I might read this book.  Besides, I detest people who listen to only one side of a debate, as them seem to only want to listen to their side of the debate.  While all of the books and inservices and conversations may have made me more skilled in utilizing some Web 2.0 for education, it is only with this book that I gained the perspective to be more literate as a user/creator in this new environment.  Or, in my analogy earlier, I know how to swim but I’m a better swimmer and will be a much better swim coach as my students hit the water.

A few quotes, if I may:

“These days, kids can’t tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com.  For these Generation Y utopians, every posting is just another person’s version of the truth; every fiction is just another person’s version of the facts.”

“And the irony in all this is that democratized media will eventually force all of us to become amateur critics and editors ourselves.  With more and more of the information online unedited, unverified, and unsubstantiated, we will have no choice but to read everything with a skeptical eye.”

Now the author, Andrew Keen, goes on to talk about many more rip tides in the Web 2.0 world, but with these quotes you can see that media and information literacy skills will decide whether our students sink or swim.  Here in Ohio, these skills are noted in the Academic Content Standards, but in my opinion, aren’t stressed enough.   Not only must we as educators possess these skills, but we must have an intimate knowledge of how content is generated in the Web 2.0 world.  Knowing how Wikipedia is created will help us evaluate its validity as a source. Not only that, but comparing it to Citizendium and traditionally-published encyclopedias will broaden our intellectual scope so as not to falter with a myopic reliance on an inaccurate or heavily biased source.

So, this year as I make plans for a dip with my students in the Web 2.0 pool, you can bet that I’ll be telling students to be more alert out there in the information waters.  No more reckless cannonballs into the deep end–we’ll be questioning before we leap. 

Audioblog: New Gradebook

I’ve been fascinated with assessment now for some time.  After doing some work with the Ohio Department of Education in developing model lessons to address the state’s technology academic content standards I now see assessment as the key component of good instructional design, pre- to post-assessment and all the formative assessments along the way.  Recently I read Rick Wormeli’s Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom, and I’ve encountered a shift in how I assess that I think has revolutionized the way I teach.

I tried a new format for my gradebook (grading is always a source of frustration for me–how about you?) and unit design in my math class at the end of this last school year.  Before beginning the unit I looked at all the objectives we needed to achieve in the course of our study and looked at what opportunities for assessment there were: formative and summative, pre- and post-testing as well.  Nothing spectacular there, that’s just good design.  However that wasn’t easy as it sounds, since by objectives I mean there were several sources of outcomes to consolidate:  state academic content standards, district course of learning outcomes, and math program objectives that were a priority as mandated by our district (does this disparity in what you’re to teach happen to you, too?).

 Here’s the revolution, though:  The gradebook was not just assignment and percentage grade as in the past, but rather it was set up for assessing mastery in each of the indicators.  Organized in a table format, each indicator had many assessment opportunities, some that all students participated in and others where only a few students who still needed to demonstrate mastery participated in, and at the end I had a clearer picture of what outcomes students’ mastered and which ones they were still developing understanding.  The idea of grading wasn’t based on averaging percentages of random assignments but rather to grade on a pattern of achievment.  Looking at all the assessments that addressed each outcome–and yep, those tests and homework assignments addressed more than just one outcome so really they had more than one “grade”–helped me precisely analyze students’ understanding.

A topics-based gradebook, like the one I mention and thankfully found in Wormeli’s book, is worth checking out if you have struggled as I did with loving the math of those averaged grades but realized their limitations.  If a student understood nothing at the beginning of the unit but could demonstrate mastery at the end of the unit, in more than one way on more than one occassion, should that student be penalized by the law of averages?

Audioblog: The Clock: A Brief Explanation

As a teacher, do you live and die by the clock?  Once I heard teachers in my building longing for the days of summer where they seek asylum from their watches and the constraints of a schedule, I knew this was a common thread between all of us.  I get the impression that teachers can be much like Tom Hank’s character in Cast Away, obsessed with the clock and its constant call to move, move, move.  Coupling that thought is another charicature of teachers–one which has us operating under a “one-room-schoolhouse” mentality where we only occassionally make it off our island of a classroom to have contact with the larger world.  I beg all those who this post can reach for a discussion about time and teaching (if I’m left with no comments perhaps I’ll have no choice but to seek the company of a volleyball named Wilson).

While this may not be a discussion forum in format, I hope that most would not pass up the opportunity to add their experiences related to this and other topics on this blog for our greater good.  What are the time constraints that most affect us as teachers?  What can we do to maximize our time?  Where does the time go at school?  It is my hope that others will read this and be enlightened as to what is happening on our classroom islands across the educational oceans.

Audioblog: Hello World

Here I am!  In these times, that is quite the ambiguous statement, isn’t it?  What with so much of “us” out here in cyberspace, our identity becomes expansive and “we” become ubiquitous.  After initially turning up my nose at blogging with a sense of modesty (what, me, ramble on about things “out there” for people to read?!), it wasn’t until an inspirational inservice with our school district’s technology coordinator that lead me to have the desire or means to start blogging.  Just a few months later, I’m becoming helplessly addicted to utilizing the space here–who knows what might happen if I actually get a comment or two!  So, here I am–exactly wherever that may be.  It’s good to meet you, whomever you  might be and I’m happy to join you for some thoughts, wherever they might take us.

 Matt