Blog Junkie

What did I learn this week?  Was the learning of any value?  Is it worth continuing with Twitter?

Three weeks ago when I began this challenge – Twitter for a month – I was not to sure that Twitter had any real value to be honest.  I have had my epiphany!

Twitter in Review:

I challenged myself to increase my tweets.  This was difficult, but I’m up to 48!  Still feels like butting into a conversation.  Stuck to safe topics: the weather, offered to send boxcars of snow to others.  Silly, safe.  No educational value at all. There are many technical tweets that I cannot follow as my technology skills are still at the “twit” level, but then …

Of value: Here’s what I learned on Twitter this week.

From mscofino I discovered TweetDeck.  I think I really like TweetDeck better than Whirl although I have not switched yet.

From bookminder a research paper on assessment for and as http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Publications/TeacherInquirer/archive/2008-09/2008-10/Moore-Maps%20for%20Improvement-edited.pdf as well as this great site from Africa which has live video stream 24 hours a day from the African bush http://www.wildearth.tv/home – hmm won’t link. Sorry about that.

I just happen to be taking a course from Knowschools called 5 Days of Google and from Bryan Hughes:http://mashable.com/2008/12/07/how-to-use-google-reader/

From Coolcatteacher a teacher group at twittgroup.  That was really great and I found a few more people to follow.

From Dean Shareski the video of your students was wonderful.  It made me wish that TLITE had been structured in a similar manner. Keeping the mustache growing suggestion on the back burner!  Glad you went to Twilight! Now you need to read the series! I have a Facebook account for that very reason!

There were various pictures posted that people shared of family and that was really nice as you begin to know these people and begin to feel connected to them.

Finally, datruss had a blog post on the eddie nominations and from that I discovered some amazing library blogs, teacher blogs, and voted for my favorites.  If I hadn’t found this I would not have known who was nominated or would have voted.  Congratulations to the people I have run into either in Twitter or blogging on their nominations:  datruss, michelle martin, sue waters, dan meyers,  and jan smith.  You can see all the nominees and vote here.  Good luck to you all!

The epiphany?  This PLN community I have been building has provided amazing and unexpected support.  I can post a tweet about a new blog post and some people on my Twitter PLN will actually read it.  But more importantly they will leave a comment.  Through those comments they share their ideas, opinions and thoughts.  It does not matter if they agree with my ideas, reflections, opinions or thoughts.  What matters is that they have taken the time to share.  I appreciate and value those comments immensely as I continue on my technology journey of discovery and learning.  Thank you.

Is it worth continuing on Twitter?  Definitely, YES.

The mind once stretched by a new idea never returns to its original dimension – Ralph Waldo Emmerson

I have been grinding the glacier over some issues around my instructional practices.  I left a private school system for the public system because I felt like I was teaching in a box.  A box that was becoming smaller and tighter each year. I was the outfielder standing alone in left field waiting for someone to throw a new ball my way:  differentiated lessons, co-operative learning, professional dialogue, anything.  I stood alone until I finally quit the game. Now I feel like I’m miles behind everyone.

I’ve discovered I can stop fighting with my big picture learning style, honour it and teach with it. I can provide my students with the “big picture” of the lesson, from objectives to work/project examples and return to it at the end of the lesson. Did you meet the objective? This was a very huge realization for me as I’ve fought against my own learning style since I started teaching.  It always seemed that I figured out how to do something right or better after I finished doing it.  How embarrassing to “get it” in June instead of September!

I have been working on solidifying some ideas around relinquishing control of the information and letting the students own it, of relinquishing my teacher power to control the discussions and/or avoid uneasy topics or questions and to replace this with language of least power.  It’s time to roll with the students.  But I still have to do this within a guided framework as I’m not in complete agreement with the constructivist theories of education.

My research groups do not need to work on a project.  They need to work on the skills needed to do a research project.  I do not need to feel pressured into producing some elaborate end result with them, we need to work on the process in a manner that allows them to own their own learning and for me to own my teaching.

I have not refined these new ideas yet, but that will come with the process.

What drives your instructional practice?

What have I learned in the Twitter challenge to-date?  What do I think of Twitter now?

It has been a week since I started this Twitter challenge so what happened out there in Twitterland?  I am now following 31 people and have 23 followers.  An improvement over the initial blog report!

I was given Dean Shareski’s blog as one to follow.  The initial post I read was about sharing.  Dean challenged people to:

Here’s an idea: put a sticky note on your desk that says, “What do you want to share today?” I’m not kidding. Then, if anything interesting comes your way: Share It!

I read his “about” page as I became very curious about a man who wrote such a post.  Surprise, surprise, he is a prairie man.  Go figure.  If you ever get lost out there, you can have a 45 min conversation with a stranger, get invited to their house for supper, then get the directions you need!  I ADORE the prairies.  So Dean, nice to meet you, I’m sharing!

I also was sent some great links:

http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/2008/04/02/are-you-twittering-heres-how-i-use-twitter/ by Sue Waters, of course, on the value of using Twitter.

http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/11/top-ten-types-of-tweets.html from Rodd Lucier on types of communication within Twitter and also http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/07/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet.html where there is a discussion on Rodd’s blog about the value of Twitter.

I found a grade 5/6 class blog just when I needed it! http://56c2008.edublogs.org/

I have learned to use, well sort of learned to use, Twhirl.  I have used direct messages and I have managed to put a toe out into the conversations.  I find that not so easy.  It feels like barging into a conversation at a party that you may not have been invited to. I tend to learn by “lurking” and “delurking” is rather a challenge.  So that will be the new challenge for the upcoming week: send out more tweets!

Now here are the more interesting things I’ve learned this week:

This Week’s Twitter in Review…

• chocolate lava cakes are worth moaning about – well chocolate is a food group on the food pyramid ya know!
• cats should not be machine washed http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/11/18/funny-pictures-told-u-not-masheen-washabul/
• baby showers have developed some unusual games since my hosting days!
• I’m not the only one waiting to see the Twilight movie! – Was great and I always said it should have been Jacob and Bella!
• this game causes people to stay up all night, nope it isn’t WOW! http://www.casualcollective.com/games/DesktopTD No, I did not try it.  There is a limit to my new geekiness!

What do I think of Twitter now?  I’ll stick around for another week.  Lord knows what I might learn!

I have just spent an amazing week at Knowschools taking an on-line class on blogging and blogging with students.  It was engaging, informative, supportive and, as usual with Knowschools, I came away with a great deal more knowledge than I came in with.

What I liked most from the session were the readings on blogging and the forums on issues around blogging that came up.  The resources provided in this class were practical and useful.  Some of my favorites are:

http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/08/29/learning-about-blogging-and-how-to-blog/

http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=18945

http://lorelle.wordpress.com/books/blogging-tips/

http://knowledgetree.flexiblelearning.net.au/edition04/pdf/Blogging_to_Learn.pdf

These readings enhanced my knowledge of my own blogging, especially reinforcing the idea that the reason I blog is for critical reflection and any comments provide concrete feedback.

What I gained from the class is much needed information, mostly positive, but some negative, about using blogs with students.  I have yet to embark on that endeavor although I certain have plans to!  The forums were both eye-opening (I hate surprises when I am involved in something new) and encouraging.

I came away from the class with a much stronger sense of the educational value of blogging with students and the need to use blogs to teach students the skills needed for on-line social relationships. This just happens to be an important issue to me. I also discovered the strong sense of community that blogging creates which surprised me. I picked up a few skills regarding working within Edublogs.  I believe I finally have the issue of screen shots solved!  Many thanks!

So now what? Well, I have approached a colleague about creating a joint blog.  I am both excited and absolutely terrified to begin this journey with the students, but working with someone else who is more tech savvy than me and an administrator who is currently supportive this should make this an interesting adventure!  As well I’m becoming curious about Twitter.  I know very little about it, except that maybe it involves a cell phone?  My hatred of cell phones is well known so I’m not sure about me and this Twitter thing!

This Field Study is not actually a research project for a Master’s Degree.  It is an action study into my own teaching practices that investigates how I can use technology to improve my teaching and the learning of my students which is a requirement for my post-grad diploma.  All self-directed I might add.  Hmm…… Yep, I do get a diploma out of the deal.

What program am I investigating?  Inspiration Software.   I teach research skills and this seemed like a good idea as our school district has this software in its schools.  It seemed reasonable to find out if Inspiration’s claims that its software webbing program improved student ability to retain factual information.

I chose a research project based on a country as most kids enjoy learning about other cultures, but I needed a country they would know the least about so I could measure their “factual improvement”.  I picked Nepal.  The most they knew, as per a post-test, was that Mt. Everest was in Nepal.  So far, so good.

We began by using the note-taking system I was under the impression everyone was using in the school.  I’m the newbie to the school and as usual assuming things is where the first of a series of woes began.  I used Britannica On-line for our research information.  Good stuff, involved technology, how cool was that.  Kids liked the idea of an encyclopedia on-line…and then I discovered that a third of the kids couldn’t seem to follow either written or oral directions on logging onto the data-base, didn’t understand what “case-sensitive” meant, and only one of my two research skills classes was competent with the note-taking system SOME of the teachers were using!  I know better than to assume anything!

Ok, teach the note-taking system to the class that was not so familiar with it, no big deal.  With lesson plan in place, computer set up on the projector complete with the Britannica On-line page up, I begin.  That is when I discovered I had landed in HELL!  I had a class of 30, 25 boys and 5 girls and those 25 boys can put the fear of hell into its creator Himself!   Never in my teaching career have I had a class fly south like this one did and I could NOT get it back!  Next class I tried my faithful standby for problem kiddies:  intimidation.  I can imtidate Martha Stewart herself!  Hah!  They threw that back at me as fast as a rapid-fire paintball gun!  Good God, what to do?  How about panic! Actually, thinking back on it, it was rather funny! I felt like a lion-tamer, after it had been attacked by the lion!

After thinking about the problem for a week, I did what should have been done in the first place, provide structure. Must be a novel teaching strategy!  I put in place a seating plan, I do not respond to questions where the answer is already know, and I refuse to argue.  You’d think I’d know better, huh!

What happened?  Peace.  Cool.  I enjoy these holy terrors immensely.  They are full of creative high jinks.  They like the computer and technology.

Class under control, all is well.  Notes are being taken, not the best, but we’re getting there.  I don’t have the time to teach the note-taking as properly as I would like due to time constraints on this field study.  We move to Inspiration and create webs. I put up my demo version which is on my jump drive to discover it will not open!  Go figure! (Teaching with technology is starting to loose its glamour.)  It seems I have version 8 at home and my school has version 7.5.  Lucky me. But the  kids pick it up quickly, I reinforce the use of separate colours for sub-topics, repeatedly remind to put in the details for the 3 geographic landforms….blah, blah.  Then we save.  What does this amazing networked PC lab do?  It saves in the French Inspiration rather than the English!  How this is happening has yet to be determined.  Have to ask my darling techie man, who thank you very much, speaks in Non-techie English.  Maybe re-imaging the lab will solve the problem.  I am no IT Tech so hell if I know.  But the kid’s work is in English so all is well.  Then we discover that when we re-open the saved Inspiration document, it opens in the English version.  And I want to add technology to my teaching – definitely losing its initial thrill!

What exactly have I learned so far?  Well, as mentioned in a previous post – technology doesn’t solve a boring topic,  kids pick up computer technology at an amazingly rapid rate, and these kids can create the most amazing PowerPoints.  Some of them should give seminars to educators in how NOT to create boring presentations!  I now know what NOT to do for my final project presentation to my cohort group and I know exactly which gr. 7 I am going  to enlist to help me with my presentation! I’ve learned how to have the kids hand in digital work to my folder, with the help of Techie Man who just happened to be in the lab at the very moment I needed said help! He so earned those brownies I brided him with!  I now need to figure out if I can copy that hand in file to my jump drive and have it open properly at home.  I think I should turn that into a math probability lesson:  chances of success:  100 to 1???  Chances of Inspiration Software improving factual recall….????  Stay tuned!

Once again, while cruising through one of my most favorite ed blogs, I find Dan Meyer has yet again provided something for me to think about. I love words and the power they hold. I love art for the power the images create, and to see them together was nothing short of heart-stopping.

The power of this artist’s words and images were immense. He talked about finding a type-face that worked for him. He saw meaning in the various type-faces that would never have occurred to me, but they reflect his “voice” as an artist. They made me redefine the way I see the art I do – I always struggle with being a minimalist with words.

Now as I struggle to reclaim my writer’s voice, and to define my educator’s inner landscape, his words ring true: “You have to be who you are no matter how dangerous it is.”

Some time ago, while reading (and lurking) a post on Dan Meyers blog, here, he made a statement about teaching just being a job while on a rant about Freedom Writers. My first reaction was, wait a minute young’un this isn’t just a job! Working at the gas station in high school was just a job, working for Social Services as a typist was just a job, working at the utility company collecting their damn money was JUST A JOB, teaching is NOT just a job!” But then I decided think about it. After all, Dan just doesn’t blog about things that are superficial. So what was he getting at. It took me some time to get the gist of what he was talking about. Finally, on the circuit in the gym, and a sentence from an intermediate level novel I was reading, the light goes on. I finally “get” it. Seems I’m a slow thinker.

While you may be as passionate about teaching as I am, to the point where it nearly took over my life – because I allowed it to – and you may be very good at it and be very concerned about your teaching methods, philosophy, student achievement…teaching is just a job. It does not define who you are. It is only what you do. I no longer say to people, “I am a teacher.” I am not a teacher, I am Cindy. I now say, “I teach” because teaching is just a job. Thanks Dan.

I have a new position this year, one that is not in an inner city school. I have not worked in an upper-middle class school before. It is also four times larger than any of my previous schools and it is a dual language school. I get to run the library, provide prep relief to the intermediate teachers – teaching around 120 intermediate students research skills through various projects. There are four times as many students as have been in my previous schools. I’m a nervous wreck. I feel like a displaced person. What is causing all this anxiety and stress? Fear! How do I make that all important first impression on all those students? How do I make a good impression on my new colleagues, none of whom I know? How do I make this library my own? It has been ages since I’ve felt this first day stress. *whine*

I have had to stop and think about how I managed all this before. It was very simple. I am me – always – part Mary Poppins and mostly Arnie in Kindergarten Cop, complete with the humor. I will be fine….if I say it as a mantra I should believe it by Sept. 3rd.

How’s everyone else feeling?

After reading several books on teacher inquiry in the classroom, I was side-tracked into a reflection on what drives my passion to teach. Something has to make me want to get out of bed and brush 4cm of snow off my car in -30 celsius weather to drive to school.

Learning: the ability/skills to help others learn, whatever their learning style may be.

Inquiry: to develop as a teacher by looking at my own practice as a teacher-inquirer and engaging in reform-minded teaching.

I’m addicted to the “aha” looks on the faces of my students when they grasp something they’ve/we’ve been working on or struggling with. I’m addicted to the dead silence that occasionally fills my class when everyone is engaged in a topic or book or the blast of questions that stem from a discussion. I’m addicted to those rare moments of “magic” in the class.

I’m also addicted to the questions I constantly ask myself regarding my teaching. Those questions, that sometimes I’d rather not ask, questions that make you look at yourself as you teach and interact with the students.

What drives you to teach?