It's been said and discussed often here and many places that a real shift for educators is moving from teacher to learner. Not so much moving, we still need teachers, expertise matters but until we see ourselves as learners and intentionally show are students we can't be the educator our students need us to be. 

Last week I began my ECMP 355 course with largely freshman pre-service teachers. My usual introduction to my course reminds them that they are the winners of education. They were successful students because they were largely compliant and knew how to survive and thrive in a system that values a "mind your own business" style of learning. Do what you're told, when you're told to, and you'll be fine. Learning isn't very self directed in this system. Students wait to be told what to learn.

I'm trying to get them to consider something new. I truly believe that the best coaches in sports aren't usually the best athletes. They are often the bench players, backups and lesser known players who end up becoming the best coaches because they truly understand and can break down the subtleties  of the game.  Understanding not only how you learn but being able to articulate it and express it is a skill I'm not convinced all our teachers have. 

Last year i read Ewan's post about a 100 hour challenge. I tucked that post away because I knew I'd come back to it. So with that idea in mind, I'm asking my students to take 25-50 hours and learn something new. While Ewan's goals were somewhat different, I want my students to explore a few things.

1. Learn a skill, concept or idea you know very little or nothing about but that you're interested in learning

2. Document the learning. Write about it, video tape, audio record, whatever.

3. Consider all the sources you use to learn. Collect those resources. 

4. Take a early baseline snapshot of your understand at the beginning and another one at the end. Compare and analyze. 

That's it. As the quote above says, make your learning transparent.  I've never done a project like this with students before. it's not really about technology and yet it will be as students share their learning and consider people who can be their teachers. I feel like I need to participate in this as well. So I decided that I'd like to learn to play the guitar. I love music, have some musical background but have never learned to play the guitar. Starting with my daughter as one of my teachers, I completed my first lesson.

I'm really looking forward to my own learning but also watching others learn as well. If you have any ideas on how to make this idea/project better, let me know.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/langwitches/3500044331

It's been over a year since one of my students wrote a very heartfelt post about his younger brother. The aftermath of this post was quite powerful and led to  a big change. Read the comments, a few of which aren't very nice to get the full picture. Kyle handled himself with integrity. I continue to point to this post as a great example of the power and potential of blogging. But the whole grading and honour roll thing continues to be problem-some, at least for me.

All my kids have been on the honour roll. For them the grades were motivating and to be honest, they didn't really work all that hard. Sure they studied and put in the effort but I know many students who worked much harder with poorer results. School came pretty easy for them. In the end, the real winners were the ones that learned how to learn, the ones that found a passion, worked hard because they cared about what they did and wanted to make the most of every opportunity. I'm not saying my kids didn't achieve any of these but it wasn't the dominant reason they went to school. My youngest, who is 12 is tired of me telling her not to focus on the grade but focus on the learning. But it's hard for her to think differently when everything around her tells her the grade is really the most important thing. We live in a system that prizes numbers and letters.

So back to Kyle's post. Last night Kyle and Jordan presented to my current ECMP 355 class on ideas that are still resonating with them a year after taking my course. One of the reasons I asked them to do this was to demonstrate that hopefully what they learn in my course has value, value beyond a grade but something they'll use for the rest of their lives. They did a wonderful job. Kyle spent a few minutes talking about that post and some of the inside stories around it. I posted it to twitter last night and my colleague and mentor Rick Schwier posted a comment that has been in my head for the day:

I have a son with a different kind of disability. He has Down syndrome, and he is 37 now. He’s the most academic of my three kids, and I mean it… not in some pathetic condescending way. He pays attention. He is a serious critic. He has no tolerance for fools. He remembers important things and refuses to internalize trivial things. He inspires. Honour rolls. Silly. Trivial. Unnecessary. And at their worst, soul destroying. The older I get, the less tolerant I’m becoming of the deleterious effects of grading and its offspring.

Wow. "…the deleterious effect of gradings and its offspring". Chew on that for a while.  

Technology doesn’t make you a great teacher. But in my experiences those that do, seem to be among the best. I had two examples today that supports my hypothesis. First I was at a conference today with most of our school administrators.  During a lull in the conference I checked my twitter account. (There were several lulls) and saw a primary teacher from one of our schools posted a picture of her students learning. Her principal happened to be sitting nearby and I showed him the picture of the kids. Another principal asked him who the teacher was. His reply included the phrase, "she’s an awesome teacher".

Today I taught my pre-service teachers and brought in over 20 teachers from across Canada, the US and even New Zealand to introduce themselves and share what they might want my students to do in their classrooms. Each teacher took a couple of minutes to introduce themselves and describe their classrooms. It was absolutely exhilarating. This had nothing to do with the technology they deployed but their passion for teaching and learning.  One of those teachers was in her 37th year of teaching. Digital natives theory shot down again. 37 years and still willing to learn, to try something new that might help her students, that’s inspiring.

I"m fortunate, no question. I have a wonderful network and get to expose my students to these awesome teachers.

http://dcshstech.pbworks.com/
http://www.hafford.lskysd.ca/?q=cone
http://history302008.edublogs.org
www.mrforgrave.net
http://weblogs.pbspaces.com/mrskolbert/
http://fablogs.org/capohanka
http://www.mrkapptie.wikispaces.com
http://ckheyrman.wikispaces.com
http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com
http://new.schoolnotes.com/xpages/view/16893
http://userve.unioncityschools.org/~lbruce
http://www.earth.edublogs.org/
http://www.major.lskysd.ca
http://mraungst.wikispaces.com
http://wilsonbeckri.edublogs.org
http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/TEACHERPAGES/MrsSmith/tabid/1814/Default.aspx
http://weblogs.pbspaces.com/ionnoj/
http://berwicklodgeps.globalstudent.org.au
http://www.mpradio.ca
http://www.burnabyonline.ca
http://edm310fall2009.blogspot.com
http://room10rbs.edublogs.org
http://www.macklin.lskysd.ca/?q=node/26
http://www.37stars.org
http://woodtech.edublogs.org/
http://sargentparkmathzone.blogspot.com
http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=73127
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337
http://fa-marine-science.ning.com/ and http://www.fredericksburgacademy.org/page.cfm?p=958
http://huzzah.edublogs.org
http://www.wtisburyschool.org/
http://readwithme.edublogs.org
http://mallonmessages.blogspot.com
http://noeltigers.com
http://www.laspillane.org
http://learning.ssis.edu.vn/blogs
http://pvec201wscience.wikispaces.com/
http://www.calgaryscienceschool.com
http://wdpms.blogspot.com;
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=26233

http://martini.wetpaint.com

There must be a link between good teaching and technology. That’s what I see.

Photo by Mrs. B. Martin
 

This video illustrates one example of what happened last term as Carey Pohanka and one of my students worked together. If you were one of those students or teachers impacted by this mentorship program, please feel free to leave a comment as well.

I’ve written about it before here so I won’t go into any more detail other than to invite you to be a part of this experience from September to December. If you’re interested, fill out this form and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.

For the past 3 terms I’ve had my undergrads hook up with classrooms from around the world. Over the course of about 2 months the range of interactions is anything from skype conferences where my students teach lessons to commenting on blogs to working closely with students in collaborative projects. I’m been reluctant to make it much more structured since I want to honor teacher’s time and access. My student’s express a variety of  levels of satisfaction. I usually have the connect with 2 classrooms both to give them some variety but also to insure a greater chance of interactions. Two months is a very short time to build a connection with a class. Amazingly, some of my students made this happen and for many it was the best part of the course.  Others were frustrated by communication break downs and lack of activity. This was usually no one’s fault but the nature of school. Teachers are busy and I don’t want to place any undue expectations on them. I want my students simply to have the chance to interact with other students in whatever way the teacher sees fit. It’s not a perfect program by any means but it continues to provide students with an experience they never get in other classes in their university careers.

From May 6-June 18 I’ll be teacher the spring term of this same course. I had originally resigned the idea of a mentorship not only because of the shorter time frame but also since many US schools in particular would either be done or winding down. However I know there may be many that might be looking to have some outside voices participate.  I thought I’d give it a shot.

We’ve had classrooms ranging from Kindergarten to advanced senior Math. My goal is simply to have my students witness and experience how teachers and students share and open their classrooms to the world.  So I’m calling any teacher or classrooms in any grade and subject area. I might suggest the following scenarios for interaction:

• A Skype call to share stories about where you live and where we live
• Find out what areas of expertise my students might have and have the teach a lesson virtually
• Collaborate on a story
• Have my students comment on student work

As teachers, you’re using many tools to connect, these are just some starting points. My students need to see these in action. I realize that in a month it’s going to be difficult to establish a deep relationship be I’m open to being surprised.

So leave a comment, email me shareski at gmail.com, or resend this to any teacher you wish and let me know if you might be interested.  Our class meets every Monday and Wednesday evening and I’ll likely have you come all join me  in early May (likely the 11th or 13th) via Elluminate one evening to share about classroom.

Please complete this form if you’re interested:

Once again, testing the boundaries of my PLN.

Of course I subscribe to Will’s blog but it wasn’t until someone tweeted it again, did I go back to re read it, or read it properly. As I read it I realized I needed all our administrators to read it too. We have a division weblog of sorts that gets used primarily by me but felt that’s the best place to post the idea.  I’ve been pretty gentle with talking to teachers and administrators about sharing. I’ve hinted at the idea that it might be their professional responsibility, but Will’s post made the argument more compelling.

…there is certainly much I could learn from them if they were sharing. But most of them are not.

In this same vein, I have more and more of an expectation of the teachers and especially the administrators in our schools to lead transparent lives. The fact that they are veritably “un-googleable” in terms of finding anything they have created and shared and perhaps collaborated with others on troubles me on a number of levels. First, I can’t see for myself whether or not they are learners. And, almost more importantly, I get no sense as to whether or not they are leaders of learners. Whether they are in the classroom or in the front office, I want (demand?) the adults in my schools to be effective models for living in a transparent world. I want my kids to see them navigating these spaces effectively, sharing what they know, teaching others outside of their physical space, and contributing to the conversation.

Demand. Strong word which Will puts in parenthesis and adds a question mark behind it. I realize it’s tough to demand people to share but when we toss our phrases like “life long learner”, “professional responsibility”, “modeling” and “learning communities” these quickly become catch phrases that have little or no substance.  Even with our small school division of 40 schools, there are almost 80 school administrators that could be highly connected and learning from each other every day. Instead they gather a few times a year, spend most of the time catching up, complain a little and then address the more important issues, with a select few only to have time run out. That’s fixable. Easily. These are smart, caring, innovative people who should be learning with and from each other every day.  That goes for teachers, students and central office people. It’s been rewarding to work with pre-service teachers and lead them to this idea. Some may say I’ve forced them to share. But others have come to embrace it.

I’m going to start stepping up the language and if not demand, strongly encourage us to be more transparent.

24-time-effect

5:24 QIK recorded of me parking at the U of R. (stupid, but I was trying to figure out why the alert to twitter wasn’t working, I guess it worked)
6:25 Email from a student who said she was sick and wondered what I could do so she could participate. (Our online classes are held in Elluminate but since this was a f2f class I didn’t create a session for tonight)
6:28 Started a Ustream broadcast and sent her the link and my other student who is in Malaysia.(Productive. Didn’t plan to do this but I suppose a teachable moment)
6:30 Class begins. I demo ustream and qik to students and have the stay there to keep Chelsey and Eric company in the chat.
7:15 Join with Alec’s class and watch Ben Hazzard’s excellent presentation on SmartBoards.
8:05 Students explore Smartboards I move my computer over to one of the Boards, use the video feature in Elluminate to show the board and students to the 2 students viewing virtually. (productive)
8:55 Class ends.
9:12 Wait for Alec to finish with students. Stuck my nose in their conversation and offered some suggestions.
9:18 Tweeted out my impatience (stupid but effective, students talking to Alec had their laptop open and conveyed my frustrations to Alec)
9:55 Need gas, the gas station near the University was closed I started driving west and got a little lost, fired up GPS enabled Google Maps on the iphone and found my way to a gas station. (productive)
10:05 Qik recorded my ordering at the drive thru. (really stupid)

What I have come to realize is that teachers who share are the best teachers. Even better if they choose to share online. Sharing online requires, in most cases some careful thought and consideration since the implications and stakes are much higher.

I was fortunate to spend an hour with some of these outstanding teachers;teachers who have an online presence of some sort and are willing and excited to open up that space for others to join them and participate in their learning. Alec and I are teaching undergraduate courses and are matching up our students with several of these teachers.  Listening to them describe their
classrooms, you can sense their passion and it’s palpable.  They love kids and they love teaching. Many of them made statements about their work as if they are just learning to use these sharing tools and they shouldn’t be seen as leaders. In that respect, they are wrong.

Sharing and meta cognition should be inseparable.  Deep reflectors of their practice  are constantly modifying instruction to make learning more effective. This is not about them using technology, it’s about sharing. I’m not saying you have to share to be a great teacher, I’m saying if you do, you are.  I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

This group of teachers includes a few that in their last year of teaching, some in huge high schools, in small rural schools,  some teaching in Indian reserves, some Kindergarten teachers and some senior classes. The one thing they have in common is that their classrooms are open to the world. What would our schools be like if every classroom operated this way?

Here’s a link to their spaces for you to check out yourselves.

Carey Pohanka
Chad Brannon
Chris Harbeck
Colleen Glaude
Donna Fry
Eldon Germann
George  Mayo
Jaqlyn Schmitt
Jeff Whipple
Jennifer Clark Evans
Karen Chichestor
Moira Moritz
Anne Smith
Kristen Leclaire
Kelly Hines
Kyle Stevens
Lois Smethurst
Maria Knee
Mavis Hoffman
Matt Montagne
Jessica Lipsky
Debby Cothern & Michelle Ellis
Tracey Ruark and Cathy Daniels
Nellie Duetsch
Sandi Kerney
Seth Dickens
Sheri Edwards
Sophie Rosso
Stephanie Affield
Stephanie Olson
Susan Carter Morgan
Paula White
Teryl Magee

Teachers from Chet's Creek Elementary in Jacksonville talk to our students

Thank you all for sharing.

Images: Teachers introduce themselves
http://www.flickr.com/photos/holtsman/3235968267

I also asked what ideas/resources they will continue to use. Here are a couple of responses.

• I’m not to sure what I will continue to use as time goes on, but I do know that I appreciated my blog, but I don’t always have stuff to say so I will like not being marked on the content. I will also continue to use my Igoogle I have created as well as all of the other aspects of google. They will be significant in the classroom.
• Google: igoogle, reader, earth, maps; I will continue to visit the classes I was mentoring; I will hopefully keep up with my blog; i will have a class blog in my classroom, and use the computers there often once I’m teaching; this class helped me to become familiar with many, many things regarding technology in the class, and lots of the tech tasks helped me to figure out how to do things that I will be more confident doing again; I also learned how to use some things I had used before better and in different ways; I have become more comfortable and familiar with blogging; I really enjoyed this class!!! I liked being at home, and learning so many new and useful things! Thanks so much Dean!!!

I asked what I could do to improve the course.

• I think that having the blog worth so much is kind of stressful. I think that a blog is something that takes adjusting to and having to do it so much caused me a lot of frustration because I didn’t always have stuff to say which kind of hurt my mark a little bit. I think that three hours a night was kind of rough to, I mean you can only stay interested for so long, and at night time there is always other homework that needs to be done so it caused a bit of frustration.
• It was a great course, but if we could have more knowledge of our marks or the marking structure as we go along, that would be really helpful.
• The blogging expectations seemed high like I didnt know how to meet the standards for the highest ones (of course aiming for the highest… but couldn’t possibly)
• To inform the students of blogging other than tech tasks right away as well as his expectations for blogging right away
• More time in the classroom at the beginning of the class to make sure all students were on the same page. Maybe go through things like smart boeads more as well.
• Dean’s great! i love the final project was so personal and flexible. I think there was a lot of assignments. I didn’t have time for everything. huge work load. but very worth it!
• explain clearer in the beginning about blogging: the min. # needed each week, and for commenting as well min. #, also about having non-tech task blogs and how they don’t count for the required number, maybe give some ideas of things you could blog about, maybe show some past students blogs; Maybe a few less tech tasks; maybe have one more face to face in the beginning of the semester so people can put faces to names/voices/blogs (i still don’t know some people from their face but i do know them from their blog/name/voice)
• not as many tech tasks so we are able to focus and learn from each one more.  I found the more tech tasks there were the quality of work for each assignment was not as high.

Having to teach again in a couple weeks, I already know a few things I’ll do differently.  Certainly I was unclear regarding my blogging expectations and perhaps weighted it too heavily. As much as I find value in reflecting and having a clear web presence, for many this was a challenge. The dilemma I have is that I need to have some mechanism to observe their reflections and thinking. Perhaps there is another way? Not everyone is going to want to blog as they enter the classroom but I do want everyone to share. This is where I’m still struggling. The mentorship and guest speakers continue to be a highlight as well as the pecha kucha night. I also need to rethink how to spend 3 hours in one sitting online. Even the best speakers can likely only hold attention for 30-40 minutes. I need to offer more interactivity and take advantage of breakout rooms inside Elluminate. One of the best classes we had was on bullying where students broke into groups to tell their stories. With a short turn around time, I may not have time to change much and I’m not sure I need to. This term I hope to work closely with Alec who will be teaching an advanced level of the course but we think we can combine a number of ideas.

What types of mechanisms to you use to improve as a teacher? Do you have great evaluation form? Any suggestions for me?

While I tried using the Keynote recording function, I was having trouble exporting to Quicktime and retaining the sound. Not sure what I did wrong. The flash export worked well but when I went home to record, not having a second screen meant not seeing my speaker notes. Doing it “off the cuff” ended up with too many “ums” and “ahs”. Just another reminder of the power of planning and the challenge of audio recording. When you’re under a time crunch you can’t afford to stray.

I finally exported the sans sound quicktime and added the narration in iMovieHD. 

• I don’t clearly state objectives
• If I do state them, they are as fuzzy as all get out
• I have a hard time measuring student progress
• My course syllabus changes almost daily
• I never use tests
• I constantly stray off topic

There are likely a multitude of sins I have not listed.

Here’s what best summarizes my teaching approach:

Me can be swapped for students. Thanks D’arcy for the graphic.

This is what I want for my students.  While I have many shortcomings, I’m good at finding smart people who are willing to spend time with my students and share what they know.  I’m also blessed to have a number of people in my network that willingly comment on my student’s blogs and encourage them to reflect and learn.

As I work with teachers in K-12, I’m bound to work within a structure that values grades, systematic growth, accountability, and to certain degree uniformity.  Without going into all the details of the implications of these values, I don’t discount them all and work to extract the aspects of these ideals that are most beneficial to students. Some days that’s hard.  Many of them are designed to insure that students are getting a quality education.  All well meaning but at times become so convoluted that teachers sense frustration and stress in trying to work in this system:

How is it that we have so many passionate dedicated educators and so many really failing schools?  The problem is, that you put a good person in a bad system, the system wins every time..  We need to change the system.
Chris Lehmann…Ignite Philly

I don’t feel accountability as much as I feel responsibility. I’ve been blessed to experience the power of networked learning. I want that for my students.

In 6 weeks, they’ve already talked to Jeff, Kristin, Rushton, Wes, Kenneth, Melanie, Sophie, Sandi, Kyle, Nicole, Darin, Mavis, Anne, Maria, and Chris.  This group represents a vast variety of expertise and experiences that I alone could never offer. I’ve got plenty where that came from.

At times my job feels too easy. Sophie, a fantastic 9th grade teacher in our division once told me after implementing some social media in her classroom:

You should see the stuff the kids are doing on the wiki. I get the webcam set up today so we can start using Flixn too. This is so great. I can’t believe everyone isn’t doing it. Even the Alt ed kids in period two have it going on. Talk about engaged learning. I could be sitting at the back quilting!! They are helping each other, going above and beyond any expectations I have.

Okay, I’m not likely to start quilting  I will enjoy room service.  The reason it’s easy is because not only do I outsource like crazy but also I am totally passionate about the work I do with these students and want to provide them with the best possible experience and often that means finding others who know more than I do. That’s not very hard.

I do constantly question whether or not I need to be more structured.  Do I need to be able to define my outcomes more succinctly than this?

Students will learn that:

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

I do provide rubrics, build criteria together, emphasis and utilize descriptive feedback.  Providing supports and the odd insight best describes my role.  I’m of total confidence they are learning. Just read their blogs.  I’ve read, listen and thought  more about assessment than most and yet it still baffles me. Mostly because the kind of assessment that makes most sense (immediate and descriptive feedback) isn’t really valued in schools. Then we want to deconstruct outcomes into minuscule bytes that only cloud the real learning that matters. I love Chris’ goals for his school:  Thoughtful, Wise, Passionate and Kind

Simple.  Meaningful.  Necessary.  Education has become very good at making the simple very complex.  That just seems wrong to me.

In the early stages of this course there’s no question that students feel overwhelmed. They are introduced to many new concepts and ideas that are pretty foreign to most. I wondered if a few of my students from previous sessions would want to share with my current students what, if anything, they learned and are using today.  I have spent a fair bit of time with Kyle Lichtenwald so while his responses were excellent, they were not all that surprising since he and I are fairly connected. Darin Janssen and Nicole Little were students in my Winter 2008 class. Both showed quite a bit of growth in the class and were two that continued blogging.  They shared some powerful lessons about many of the themes I’ve tried to focus on throughout the class:

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the work I do is that the more you can point to others who are doing the right work, the more powerful and applicable it is. Darren’s student voices is a great example of this.   Alan November has apparently discovered this as well. In other words, “don’t take my word for it, listen to these people”.

Listen to these three students share their discovery and application of networked learning.

[display_podcast]

Everyone once in a while you try something and it turns out far better than you imagined.

Photo: The Blonde, the Contrabass and the Microphone #5
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brtsergio/1275188911/

We found that our students could not be usefully categorised as Digital Natives or Digital Immigrants. I.e. This distinction does not help guide the implementation of technologies it simply provides the excuse that some people ‘just don’t get it’ which is why your new approach has failed so badly

I discovered this link today from Alice who led me to a post that uses the terms “resident” and “visitor” rather than immigrant and native.  Native implies born and raised, you can’t become a native. You either are or you are not. Anyone can become a resident. It’s a choice.

This Visitor, Resident distinction is useful when considering which technologies to provide for online learners. For example if your learners are mainly Visitors they are unlikely to take advantage of any feed based system for aggregated information you may put in place. They are also unlikely to blog or comment as part of a course.

As I read this, I thought of my class of pre-service teachers. I’m definitely trying to turn them into residents. But I hear that when you visit a new country, it’s best to learn to live like the locals. Who knows, you might even decide to stay. I hope some of my students will become permanent residents.

Photo by:mattdesmond
http://flickr.com/photos/mattdesmond/244961875/

marcprensky, digitalnative, ecmp355, davewhite

We met 12 times, 8 online and 4 in person. You can see the course outline here if you login as guest you’ll have full access.

Students were evaluated in five areas:

• 25% on weekly Tech Tasks
• 25% on their blog
• 25% on a final project
• 10% on Blogging Mentorship
• 15% on Social Learning

Tech Tasks

These were simply assignments in using the various tools we explored in class. Podcasting, setting up various accounts, watching and responding to K12 online sessions and digital storytelling were a few of the task. There were 13 in total. We spent our synchronous time considering pedagogy and for many of them the struggle was in the technology. The challenge of distance learning means you have less control over things like what software students have and their ability to download plugins and troubleshoot. One student struggled for quite sometime until a friend of hers realized she didn’t have Service Pack 2 installed. Students were basically given 20/25 for completion of the tasks and the other marks were subjective to the quality of the work.

Many students commented on the challenge of this but it also provided something very specific for them to work on. The balance between desktop and online applications is important. I may change some of the tasks but the concept works well.

Blogging

As many remarked during their self evaluations, this was a big stretch. Forced blogging is never the best way, however in a distance setting, this becomes my window into their learning. I encouraged them not only to reflect on class discussions but to chronicle their learning in other areas. It was powerful to watch the growth of my students in this. I realize most will drop their blogs the minute the course ends but others have said they’ll likely continue. Obviously a big hook for them was the comments for others within the class but in particular from those outside. The really saw the power of linking as they reviewed the k12 sessions and a number of the presenters were led to their reviews and left comments. I’m also coming to accept the fact that blogging isn’t for everyone but sharing is.

I’ll likely not change much in this area. Perhaps some more deliberate mentorships outside the class as well as focusing more deeply on exemplary blogs.

Final Projects

While most are still out there, the struggle here was the open-ended nature of the assignment. I strongly encouraged students to combine this with the work in another class. This seemed to make the most sense. About half the students have choose this route.

Grading will be tough as it’s difficult to rubricize the varying projects. Everything from live presentations, videos, wikis, podcasts is challenging to assess. I need to do a better job developing the assessment up front. Perhaps I’ll steal a page out of Chris Lehmann’s approach to projects.

Blogging Mentorship

I wanted my students to gain some experience inside a classroom in a virtual way. I invited these teachers to open up their classrooms to my students:

• Maria Knee (Kindergarten, NH)
• Lisa Parisi (Grade 5, NY)
• Kathy Cassidy (Grade 1, SK)
• Sandi Kerney (Grade 6/7, SK)
• Erin Remple (Calculus, MB)
• Clay Burell (English, South Korea)

These teachers graciously introduced themselves briefly to my students after Vicki Davis provided a context for what a globally connected classroom might look like. The success rate of this aspect of my course had the most variance. Partly due to the students efforts but more due to the set up. Many students were disappointed that these students never responded to them. My continual nattering about blogs as conversations, led them to believe everyone, including 6 year olds, think the same way. In fairness, both Kathy and Lisa have a large number of mentors and it becomes difficult for their students to respond. However, there were some outstanding successes. One of my students had a skype conference with Maria’s class. The impact for her, will be long lasting. I had two other students who stepped out of their comfort zone and had some very positive results. Although none of my students had any experience in calculus, one of my students emailed Erin and ventured into her class and provided some very insightful comments. Clay was very clear he was not interested in any type of forced mentorship. Because of the nature of his student’s work I had a difficult time helping my students understand his intentions. Yet one of my students did venture out and again, had a very powerful experience with one of his. I also know that Clay emailed her to encourage her. I want to thank all these great teachers for participating. Your willingness to share will have long term impact on these young people.

I have lots to think through on this assignment. Certainly the concept is good but the execution might require a bit more planning. I really didn’t line up these teachers until shortly before we began. I also wonder about the more focus on tutoring/mentoring one or two students rather than trying to spatter comments throughout the class.

Social Learning

If there was one area I emphasized throughout this course it was the importance of social learning. More so than any course they’d likely take, the expectation was they would learn together. Whether they were asking questions, answering them, commenting on each other’s blogs, texting each other or visiting each other in person, I asked them to document the way in which they contributed and received help from each other.

Other than the format and details of how they assessed this, this was truly a critical component of the class. Even their commenting progressed from “nice post” to challenging each other’s ideas. Certainly most classes don’t require much in this way. Perhaps the odd group work project but not as running thread.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoy working with these young people. Most of them will make outstanding teachers because they already recognize they are learners first. My main themes continue to drive my class and I hope many of theirs as well.

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity