Ah, social media.

This week I notice that someone has tweeted this (Twitter ID redacted out of respect for anonymity):

      Of course, I know that TeachersFirst’s Interactive Raven is one of our most popular resources and that schools all over the world use it, especially during October. This was the first time I have noticed The Interactive Raven being tweeted by a student  My reactions, in order of occurrence, are probably typical of most teachers, edtech coaches, and/or web site editors:

1. Is this kid promoting “cheating” using TeachersFirst? Nah…not really. It’s out there on the web. Great that kids can find it. Surely the teacher knows that kids can find anything.  If he/she does not realize that, the assignment needs some work. (Call in an edtech coach for ideas to make the assignment build from comprehension level to creative synthesis level…)
2. Cool. Kids sending us traffic. Traffic is always good. And this tweet has 3 favorites. What should we be hashtagging our tweets with so kids find us?
3. Cool. Kids LEARNING! Smart kids to share resources! Social learning via social media. I wonder if the teachers know they do this? Sad if they don’t.
4. I wonder who this kid is. Oooo, fun challenge! I will call him/her MK (for Mystery Kid)…

• Check out MK’s Twitter profile. No location listed. Some references to ice skating in tweets in last few days. Picture of obviously high school aged couple in front of a lake. Is this the boy or the girl ? (Name not clearly one or other). Pics on profiles of people MK follows include many outdoorsy, winter sports. Ice skating seems more than a passing interest. One MK tweet mentions “my new skating program.” Hmmm.
• Digging further: one tweetpic includes screenshot with location of  someone who retweeted. I’ll call it Coldtown, USA. That location fits: I know it is in a cold climate with lots of ice skating. It is near a one-time Olympic venue. Other pics and profiles show cross country skiing, hockey and high school kids.
• Another tweet, retweeted by MK, includes a teacher name: Mr. X.
• Google MK’s name (in quotes). Still not sure if girl or boy. Several by this name. Tried adding “skating.” Bingo on the first page of results! Newspaper article from the Olympic venue-town paper about local skaters competing to move on to sectional and national competitions. There is MK in the picture, and the image matches the girl on the Twitter profile. Definitely a girl. (Also found a Pinterest board — possibly hers — that includes skating jewelry.) Article mentions she is from skating club in Coldtown, USA.
• Google the name of the teacher “Mr. X” plus the word Coldtown. Bingo– found the Coldtown High School web page. Found the favorite teacher Mr X’s web page. He teaches social studies, not English. Check out the web pages/assignments of the entire English department. (It’s not that big — only six teachers.) Cannot find the specific homework assignment about “The Raven,” but suspect it is one of two teachers based on the other topics they are teaching.

I stop. I know that MK is a girl who figure skates and attends Coldtown High school in Coldtown, USA.  She used TeachersFirst’s Interactive Raven to do her homework and shared it with her friends, many of whom are involved in cold weather sports. All of the above took less than five minutes. What do I learn, aside from MK’s true identity?

1. I could be a digital stalker,  but this is creepy. Yuck.
2. Kids share and learn via Twitter. Teachers should know that. Teachers should USE that! (I feel a pang of guilt for not following through and informing the teacher(s) at Coldtown High School).
3. Kids share and learn via Twitter. TeachersFirst should USE that!
4. A five minute, savvy “dig” tells a lot about a high school kid beginning from just one tweet. This could be a great lesson on digital footprints. If you are savvy/fearless enough, give your students this same tweet or another you find on Twitter about homework answers. I am sure there are plenty!

And I wonder: What would you do if you saw a student tweeting about answers to your homework assignment?

I will be the first to admit that I love web tools/apps that invite creative uses no one thought of before. Beginning Sunday, TeachersFirst will be featuring a review of Patatap, a seemingly simple musical gadget to make sounds by tapping your computer keyboard or tablet. You can even embed it in your web site. Many teachers might react to it as they would to party noisemakers or kazoos interrupting a lesson in their classroom: by taking it away and go back to the lesson at hand.

But what a lesson you would miss by closing out Patatap! Ask your students how it “sounds” to spell the term they learned today on Patatap (try typing in onomatopoeia for example). Some words have especially meaningful spell-sounds. Try the word we. It almost sounds like harmony of two souls.

What if we asked kids to listen to all the Patatap vowels or to letter combinations and use those sounds to help remember spelling demons. For example, sepArate has that lower pitched, letter-a snare-drummy tap in the middle, not the higher pitched e-snare. Even the SOUND of the word please “patatapped” sounds polite!

What if we asked kids to write sound poems or compose music using letters on Patatap?

What if we watched the colors and shapes that change to remind us of new terms: “Onomatopoeia starts with the popping bubbles of o.”

Ask your gifted or creative students how Patatap could help them compose and play word songs, rhythm combinations, or memory prompts to help them recite states and capitals or elements in the periodic table. The LETTERS of the chemical elements could have sounds, too. Unfortunately, the numbers have no sounds  so compounds like H2O don’t work. Share the “tunes” link at the bottom of the page for examples.

Instead of taking away this mental kazoo, embrace it. Give your students the homework assignment of creating a way to use Patatap to help them study. Let them work with a buddy or small group. Your classroom will sing with the sound effects of learning. This one will work in your BYOD classroom, too!

Parent conferences can be confrontational, collaborative, or just plain boring:

• show work samples
• show grades
• describe strengths
• point out needs for improvement (often including organizational skills, work habits)
• mention upcoming projects
• where to find class web site
• questions? (if you have 20 seconds left)
• thank you

… repeat

If you have fallen into this routine, you may want to change it up to maximize the impact of  this face to face conference time. You have to prep for conferences anyway, so why not prepare a document that can be viewed more than once and by more than just you and the parent?

• share work samples and grades in advance via your online grading program and/or email
• describe strengths and point out needs for improvement in an online conference summary (think Google Doc?) that the parent can share WITH their child or teen. Include the link to this document in the email mentioned above. Better yet, have the student help to CREATE this document prior to conference day.
• mention upcoming projects and include the link to your class web page ON the conference summary form
• Add The Trifecta+ information below to your class web page prior to conference week. (You have my permission to copy/paste from here, as long as you give credit.)

You have just saved ten minutes of your 15. Now, when you meet face to face:

• Ask if parents have questions about the information you shared in advance (5 min). If they have not read it (quite possible), start with the Trifecta+ and come back to the online conference summary at the end.
• SHARE The Trifecta+ of organizational tools and work habit support so you can work together in support of their child/teen. They will appreciate the concrete help!

The Trifecta + is a set of three tools — and an optional fourth — that every family can use to manage home “study life.”

More importantly, encouraging students to find and use the tools that meet their individual needs (see above) will have a lasting impact on that young person’s life long after this elementary grade, English class, or Algebra I course.

Every student will need at least one of these at one time, and most need all of them most of the time:

1. A timer like Timertab (review) or Teachit Timer (review)
2. A can’t-lose-it list maker like  Strike (review) or Todoist (review)
3. A sticky note tool like Primary Wall (review) or Lino (review)

1. A timer like Timertab (review) or Teachit Timer (review) Often, time available = time wasted. Show your child how you use a timer to manage time available. Do it for yourself so he/she can see how you organize your time. If you are not great at time management, admit it and learn together! Make it a game to predict how long a task or homework assignment will take and see if you can complete it in that time. Adjust your prediction the next day. Look at all available time (before soccer, after dinner, etc) to allocate time for each task on your list (see #2). The Timer Tab option i especially handy if you are trying to manage ONLINE time. You can see how you are doing just by glancing at the browser tab. Family bonus: this helps with arguments about which child gets to use the computer and for how long! TeachitTimer has audible alarms. (Yes, your teen could also use his/her smartphone timer.)

2. A can’t-lose-it list maker like  Strike (review) or Todoist (review) A list maker can be gratifying for those who enjoy saying “it’s done!” but can seem overwhelming to those who never make lists. Do this one together with your child/teen and admit it if you are not good at remembering all the things you need to do. Learn to make lists together! Key to this idea is having the list be accessible wherever you are. Online tools are perfect, especially if you can also use them on your smartphone. These tools require a free account, so create a FAMILY account so you — as a parent –can also see your child’s lists. Start by making lists of tonight’s homework and other to-do items. Don’t forget to include repacking the backpack, picking out clothes, and going to swim practice. Younger kids will enjoy checking things off. Older ones… well, offer an incentive for making and completing “good” lists. Is there a long term project coming up (the one the teacher mentioned at conferences)? Have your upper elementary to high school student make the list of steps required, adding self-selected due dates:

• Purchase display board
• complete research notes
• write first draft
• etc.

You may need to talk through this. Use an example from your own job or home tasks to show how you divide things up and plan for them. Including materials that mom or dad need to purchase will help avoid panicky trips to Office Max and yelling at each other at 9:55pm! Tip: some tools, like ToDoist, allow you to you recycle lists of things you do every week. Explore a couple of tool options and let your child/teen choose.

3. A sticky note tool like Primary Wall (review) or Lino (review) A sticky tool is a place to collect things: brainstormed ideas, sources for a research project, images, questions, links, even bits of writing. Try making a few sticky note boards as a family for recipes you’d like to try, movies you want to see, places to go on vacation, etc. Make sure you can access your board on all your devices. Now, when your child/teen has an assignment to write a paper or do a science fair project, start by making an idea board of stickies with possibilities. Use color coding to go back and sort them. Rearrange them in order of preference. Add images, especially for non-readers. You could even use stickies as a visual to-do list and drag to rearrange the steps. Ask your chlild/teen which kind of “list” he/she prefers using. By the way, there are many more sticky tools like the ones mentioned here. Lino has the advantage of being “device agnostic,” meaning there are free app versions of it for your mobile devices. Access your stickies anywhere, anytime.

4. The plus: an online “picker” like Random Name Picker (review) Sometimes it is hard to make up a young mind. Sometimes siblings fight over the stupidest things. Enter this online spinner tool you can customize with names, game choices, dinner options, or choices of which science project to do. If you need a quick, random selection, let your kids use this gadget. Yes, flipping an actual coin would also work (Oooo, try this), but doing it “high tech” is simply more fun.

I am not a “real teacher.” At least that is the reaction I have heard for decades when telling people the specifics of my teaching assignment. Over the years, I have been:

• teacher in a middle school library/media center (teaching language arts and cultural arts minicourses on media production, research, and more)
• push-in teacher of process writing (co teaching with middle school language arts teachers)
• gifted program specialist, grades 2-8 (implementing individualized enrichment and advancement per IEPs for which I was case manager)
• technology integrator (peer coach to teachers on effective use of technology in their teaching)
• Adjunct grad instructor (teaching Technology for Educators to teachers and teachers-to-be)
• Director of K-12 Initiatives (running TeachersFirst, an online friend and “coach” to any teacher seeking ways to improve their own teaching and enhance/facilitate learning using technology)

What I have never been:

• a teacher of a self-contained, elementary class
• a teacher of a narrowly defined or scripted curriculum
• a teacher with a textbook or teacher edition

In the world of teaching, there are “real teachers” (aka “regular” teachers) and “specialists.”  “”Real” teachers’ days follow predictable patterns and behaviors (the ones most adults ascribe to teachers based on our own experience in school). Then there are teachers whose patterns are less easy to explain or envision. Unless you have shared the same role, you have no idea what a teacher-librarian, Art teacher, school counselor, learning support teacher, speech/language clinician, reading specialist, instructional coach, or ed tech coach actually DOES. Those of us who are not “real teachers” do not use a specific textbook — or teacher edition. Our patterns, while possibly predictable, are not like those of “real teachers.” We are the ones who are assigned extra bus/hall duty (and the worst Friday afternoon study halls) or who are told to fill in when a “real” teacher is sick and there is no sub. We are the ones that “real teachers” do not fully understand. On the worst days, “real” teachers may even covet our mysterious positions.

As education grinds toward the divergent goals of 21st century individualization and test-based accountability, those who are not “real” teachers may be best prepared to handle the push-pull of change. All teachers today are pushed beyond previous patterns. Those of us accustomed to inventing our own wheels may have a slight advantage. “Real” teaching has changed. Now is the time for us to share ideas and strategies to invent our own teaching wheels. Those who embrace technology have some helpful tools. Those who embrace collaboration, questioning, reflection, and mutual support have even more. Let’s make teaching and learning “real” together. Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers are much more important than “real” teachers.