Happy New Year! (See my Geogreeting* to you)

This time of year, everyone offers carefully studied retrospectives,  the “Top Ten” this or that from the past year. I see so many amazing sites every year that I could never choose a top ten. Instead, I offer this random, personal collection — just some of the many visual, interactive sites that intrigued me for more than a moment during 2011, at least long enough to say, “WOW!”

TeachersFirst reviews them — so I don’t need to explain them further. My job lead me to find these WOWs among the 714 Featured Sites on TeachersFirst during 2011.  [Actually, one was featudurian late 2010, but it remains a Tip Top Fav of mine.] On any given day, I could close my eyes and click on a dozen or more from among the Featured Sites archives and experience the same “WOW!”

How fortunate I am to have a job where I experience WOW every week.

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Random, personal  WOWs from 2011 - in alphabetical order. (The titles within reviews are links to WOW.)

60 sec recap (review) Definitely ad-heavy, but the concept is great. I once had a hilarious cassette tape of literature classics in two minutes, including Hamlet, but this is even better. Makes me want to create my own or do one with a group of gifted kiddos.

Exhibition Monet (review) Breathtaking. Steep in it.

Foldplay (review) Put anything in a visual container, even abstract concepts and experiences. This is the way I think.

Font de Music (review) Because music and words make poetry together.

Gettysburg Address (review) I live not far from Gettysburg and find this speech moves me more and more as I grow up. I think I finally am starting to get it.

Google Search stories (review) * actually from 2010, but an all time fav. I find myself imagining new stories while sitting in traffic or waiting rooms. This should be an app for my phone.

Information is beautiful (review) The title says it all.

Instagrok (review) I love learning new things, and Instagrok invites me in.

Newscred (review) Learn and read just what I want. To think I used to have to ride my bike two miles to experience this wave of knowledge in the stacks of the public library when I was a kid.

Spicy Nodes (review) As I have said many times, I am a visual person. Concepts = images. Cool.

TeacherWall (review) Morale booster! Not only do I see great teachers. I also feel our profession lifting up and taking me with it.

Virtualswim (review) OK. I like to swim. I think under water. This one is just for me. Aquaphobes, stay away.

Wondersay (review) Because message is about both words and visuals. See a poem.

Yulia Brodskaya (review) I love art, and visually rich sites lure me in for hours. This one is striking.

*The tool that made my greeting above is reviewed here.

TeAching is tech that has earned an “A.” I hope to improve my peer teaching performance to earn that “A.” Last week I wrote of my resolve to improve the way I share edtech expertise with tech-challenged teaching peers in 2012, to help the tech-challenged in a way that enables and respects their ability to help themselves. So I may actually stick to this resolution, I propose five simple “insteads” of respect:

Five Insteads to earn an A:
1. Instead of,  “It’s easy, let me show you,”  I will try, “You have the skills to do that. I remember you showed me … (fill in something my new techie did the last time we met).”

2. Instead of,  “You haven’t tried X?”  I will try, “I just heard about X, but I haven’t had time to even look at it. Can we figure it out together”

3. Instead of touching the mouse, I will keep my hands in my pockets and try to contain my twitching. When I am about to blurt something out, I will offer to fetch us each a cup of coffee so my new techie can play on his/her own. No coffee? I’ll go to the rest room! I will leave for a few minutes so the new techie can explore without a witness. But I’ll be sure to return soon enough to prevent meltdown.

4. Instead of, “Yeah, I’ve done that,” I’ll confide the list of tech tasks I haven’t learned yet or can’t figure out. This will also apply when a fellow edtech guru boasts about a new tool. I will admit what I do not know.

5. Instead of, “Just let your students show you,” I’ll  ask, “Which of your students needs the boost of knowing something the rest of the class does not? Maybe the three of us can do it together first.”

I hope that these “insteads” will encourage a new wave of teAcher techies who have earned the golden A as tech evangelists who support, encourage, and empower. We owe it that respect to our hardworking teaching peers as we pay our expertise forward.

We are all aware of our digital footprints these days, and we caution our students to be aware of the potential future impact of their digital droppings. I wonder, however, about the opposite problem:  the footprints we leave in sands to wash away with changing tides. How can we, as children or adults, plan and preserve the digital archive we want without having to reformat or create new versions every 24 months or so? If a student today wants to be able to retrace his/her own path, what shoes should he/she wear on the trail? How can we avoid having to reformat our lives to fit ever changing media so we can preserve a digital footpath to be retraced in the future?

In the past couple of months, I have helped my husband sift through family archive photo albums as we emptied out an apartment of a loved one who had passed away. I have mourned the changes to the recently aired version of A Charlie Brown Christmas (an heirloom of a sort in this family) as compared to the original 1965 version. I realized that no two are alike: the 1965 version I have memorized (and sang in), the VHS tape for which we longer have a player, the recently remastered BluRay version, and the current on-air version. I even tried  the iTunes version…all different. Stashed around our technojunkyard house we have LP’s, CDs, MP3s, Hi-8 video tapes, VHS tapes, DVDs, BluRays, 3 1/2 inch floppies, USB sticks, zip disks, negatives, paper prints, scans, digpix, SD cards, compact flash cards, iCloud files, Win files, Mac files, Facebook pages, Picasa pages, Google+ photos, and — yes — some very old photo albums from the days when photography was new, hanging precariously from black corners that have lost their adhesive.

I want my four year old grandson to learn to build a digital pathway instead of leaving random droppings. Unless he/we constantly revisit(s), reformat(s), and re-collect(s) the footprints of his life, we will never have the same kind of treasury that once resided in smelly old photo albums. And as we revisit, we will be tempted to change the versions just a bit. I wonder about the ethics of being a revisionist vs an archivist. And selecting the tools will never be a “final answer,” but simply a prediction of today’s high and low tide media. This is the other side of digital footprints. Something more to teach and learn.

This is a story of powerful teacher collaboration. It is the story of TeachersFirst. A comment by a colleague yesterday made me stop and think about what an amazing, living organism TeachersFirst really is, thanks to care and feeding of an amazing team of teachers. Teachersfirst may not be as sophisticated at the human body, but look what this team of teacher-leaders has wrought:

A database of  over 13,000 TEACHER-reviewed resources

Each review (example) begins with and passes under the eyes of at least three different teachers and includes title, creator, description, classroom use ideas from real, thinking teachers who know what it’s like in the jungle out there,  subjects, grades, tips to address the many safety/school policy concerns of web 2.0 tools, information on plug ins and media types, tags to connect to related resources. This is teacher-friendly information designed to help fellow teachers quickly find and use what other teachers recommend. This is collaboration.

Scores of teacher-tested units, lessons, and interactive “ready to go” activities, all TeachersFirst “exclusives”:

Each lesson, unit, or interactive piece, such as The Interactive Raven and Dates That Matter, is created by a classroom teacher (or two), often after that teacher tested, adapted, tweaked, improved, and  used the activity/lesson/unit for years in the classroom. These lessons work. If J.D. Power and Associates rated them, they’d rank #1 in reliability. Over half a million teachers and students used the Interactive Raven last month. The TeachersFirst organism thrives on sharing, just as humans thrive on social interaction.

Regenerating and growing, all the time:

Every week, these teachers collaborate to add 25-40 new reviewed resources. They select a dozen or more as “Featured Sites.” Our standards for what is a “feature” keeps rising as we collaborate in looking at all that the web has to offer,  filtering our excitement for that innovation through practical realities of the classroom and the needs of today’s students. Every week there is a new Brain Twister, Weekly Poll, Across the World Once a Week question,  TeachersFirst Update, editor’s blog post (here) by yours truly, and often a new Special Topics collection. Growing, growing. Every living organism continues growing.

Healing when we are sick or “break something”:

The Thinking Teachers know that wellness is important, including web site wellness. We have a trusted team of primary care and specialist geeks who listen as we describe symptoms and ailments. Even the nasty effects of predators attacking servers are held at bay. Fortunately, we heal quickly, usually within an hour. This organism is also fortunate to have guaranteed health care (funding) and nurturing from our generous, non-profit “parent,” The Source for Learning. (And we keep our healthcare costs under control!)

Surviving and thriving through adolescence:

TeachersFirst, age 13 and a half, recently passed through the challenges of adolescence as we matured to TeachersFirst 3.0 in summer, 2011. Like any middle schooler, we still allow vestiges of our childhood to show through occasionally, but we have  matured remarkably, thanks to the joint efforts of a team of Thinking Teachers from California to Florida, from Colorado to Australia. Teachersfirst 3.0 is a twenty-first century teen, strapping and strong. Like any young adult, we still need positive reinforcement and a few kind words to keep us going, so we relish the messages we receive through Twitter and “contact us” emails.

Our stem cells are teacher-leaders:

The DNA of TeachersFirst lies in its team of teacher leaders. Typing and cross-matching to infuse new content is careful and deliberate. It takes over 80 candidates to match a new member to our review team. But the shared DNA is that of Thinking Teachers, the ones you admire and listen to because they are willing to share and grow alongside their peers and their students.

Healthy and agile:

Like any healthy organism, TeachersFirst adapts. None of us knows what will be the next big thing in technology or the next mandate or pendulum swing in education. But the power of teacher collaboration that grew TeachersFirst is fit and prepared for whatever comes next — together:

Thinking Teachers  - Teaching Thinkers.

iPad, laptop, or paper? The decision is worse than choosing between carry-on only and baggage fee.

Do I do my pre-meeting prep based on the others who will be there, the weight and portability of my various devices, my profound paper hatred, the great Flash/iOS divide, the weather forecast, or what’s  digitally “in” ?

I am traveling 2500+ miles next week to meet some folks I have never spoken with face to face. I am accustomed to having everything at my electronic fingertips all the time: wifi connection, synched iPhone and iPad, and so many accounts “remembered” on my MacBook Pro that I would struggle to name the most important. (At least I have a consistent personal password policy so I can usually log in once I know I have an account on a given web tool.)  I will be traveling with two colleagues: a pure paper person and a willing, Blackberry-toting office person. I am a teacher turned teachertechiewritercreativeperson. We are a diverse trio.
In a dream world, I’d tote along nothing but the iPhone and iPad, and my shoulder would be happy for the lighter weight. If it rains, I can simply zip the bag. But I don’t know what I will encounter at our meetings or in the car/airport/hotel on the way. Will we need to connect to a projector? Will there be free wifi — or would 3G be better? Will I need to demo something that requires Flash? Will I need my Diigo links (OK, I know that PW and can get to it from anything). How quickly can I pull up whatever I might be asked to share…and how much does speed matter? Will I be judged by the way I store and retrieve? If I carry paper (yuck) to help out my one colleague, will it make me less credible in the eyes of the techies I am meeting for the first time?

How much does my digital tote bag matter in my professional credibility?

Is there digital oneupmanship in today’s business environment? I feel like a teenager preparing for a dance. I just have to guess what everyone else will be wearing.

I came across this wonderful Sunni Brown video today about the power of doodling in formulating and refining ideas. As a perennial doodler, I feel validated. As a teacher, I feel challenged. How do I usually react to a student who is doodling in class? (How do you?) Do I ever celebrate the doodle or even ask about it? I tend to use the old favorite “ignore it if it is not disturbing anyone” tactic when I see elaborate scribbles where student notes are supposed to be.  A less doodle-tolerant teacher might say that doodle laissez-faire will allow the student to discover the logical consequences of his/her inattention. As a more visual/artistic person, I secretly delight in seeing original cartoon figures and 3D graffiti in notebook or handout margins. But I honestly have never celebrated them as visual representations of thinking related to what we are discussing in class.

I wonder whether the student who draws would be willing/able to share about what he was thinking, perhaps on an illustrated blog post or Voicethread. I wonder what would happen if we posted the images on a class wiki, or collected many on Wallwisher or a bulletin board and asked others  for their reactions. I also wonder whether seemingly UNrelated doodles actually would help the artist retell or explain a concept that was in his/her auditory space while he/she was drawing.

Fast forward to a faculty meeting (or dreaded, day-long inservice). My agenda pages are always filled with doodles. When I pull them from the file folder months later, I look at the doodles and their relationship to the text, and I remember what I was thinking. This video says we each progress through various developmental steps as doodlers,  though at different rates. Surely the doodle-to-reenact-thinking  level is a one we would like our students to achieve. But first we must allow and respect the doodle, and make it clear that we expect doodlaccountability. Leave a little more white space. Ask about doodle meaning. Respect and share the doodle. Maybe even frame a few. Oh, and start paying attention to what you do(odle). We all might learn something.

I admit it; I was  “jock” in high school.  Actually, I went to an all girls school before Title IX (don’t start doing the math now…). It was OK to be athletic when there were no boys around. I was a good student, too– lots of academic accolades and all that– but my classmates remember me most for being captain of this or that and for getting out of the scary Algebra II teacher’s classes as many afternoons as possible to leave early for games. I did a lot of other activities, from glee club to yearbook, but 3 varsity sports a year really defined my reputation.  As a college freshman, I continued on to the first women’s field hockey and lacrosse teams at a formerly all-male college. I was not afraid to try anything, from sports to being a T.A. for a revered prof. Those who know me now would say that all of this “fits” with what they know of me today. My high school extracurriculars did help define who I became and how I approach adult life.

So I read with great interest on Education Next about the Academic Value of Non-Academics. Unlike many articles that correlate extracurriculars to student/life success, this analysis does a great job of critically analyzing whether either is a cause or effect. It probes into what makes a student decide to participate in an afterschool activity. What makes him/her stick with it? The research about the impact of extracurriculars intrigues me. As budgets shave away at students’ opportunities to participate, I worry. If I had been asked to pay for my activities, would I have chosen to try almost anything? Probably not. There was no extra money in my two-teacher family. My scholarship to the all-girls school was as a “professional courtesy,” and I attended school with many whose families had a hundred times more money. But I had confidence and an identity among them, in part because of being a “jock.” We played on the same team. We lost together (a lot).

EdNext’s article is on the right track in suggesting that the extra adult contact of extracurriculars could be a major factor in why participating students are more successful. But so is the extra contact and social parity of simply being in the same activity with other students you might not otherwise socialize with. We talk a lot now about how social learning really is. Employers want collaborators. Extracurriculars are often a much better suited environment to learn collaboration than a forced “group” project. Being a jock is not a frill. It is part of the same broadbased, personal, and ubiquitous learning that we advocate as “21st century.” I hope the kids who attend schools where “jocks” and bandmembers are being asked to pay up (or even lose the chance to have a team or band altogether) can find another way to play.

For most of my 27 years in the classroom, I taught gifted students. I was the “gifted program specialist” whom these children trusted to provide their weekly respite from ordinary school. It was a privilege to learn from them and later to see what became of them. They did not all become doctors or lawyers or college professors. Few became rich. Some have suffered and wandered and have not yet found a happy medium between functioning around other people and the intellectual play they so enjoy. There are few I do not remember in detail from my time knowing them as elementary and middle school students. Among the hundreds (maybe a couple thousand?), there were perhaps a score who brought me up short with their vision. I looked forward to the days when they would bound (or shuffle) through the door of my borrowed, “itinerant” classroom space.

As Steve Jobs passed away this week, I wondered where his teachers are. Surely there are some still alive who watched this adopted son of a working class couple through elementary and middle school. I wonder: how did he articulate his vision as a young man? I am guessing he had some tough times on the playground and in the cafeteria. I am guessing he irritated more than one  straight-arrow teacher who found his opinions inappropriate coming from a young mouth. I wonder whether he was the one who read and absorbed quietly, then tinkered in the garage, or whether he blurted out unthinkable mental connections to peers (and adults) who did not understand. Surely, Steve Jobs was what I call “severely and profoundly gifted.”

As a teacher, I love to mentally rewind adults into what I hypothesize they might have been like as a child.  I never really research or verify my musings. I do enjoy thinking about little people I have known and unrelated adults, playing a mental matching game with no correct answers. I just enjoy flipping over the two cards: one child, one adult, and questioning in my mind whether this could be the precursor to that.

I have no matching child card for Steve Jobs, though I think I have some partial matches in my Former Student deck. But somewhere there is an aged teacher or two who knew this man as a boy. I envy them.

Every once in a while, I have an amazing conversation with another teacher. Yesterday was one of the best ever. I have a colleague who teaches science and is dedicated, reflective, and far too self-critical. She is not a visual person. Listen to her talk, and you hear words like “data” and “application.”  Listen to me, and you hear “vivid” or “visually rich” or some sort of metaphor you can picture. We both love seeing kids learn, but we see it so differently.

We are both intrigued by infographics, she as the scientist and I as the artist. She calls them “data visualizations.”   I find that a mouthful. (Today I ran across this blog post on this very topic and chuckled aloud at how fitting it is to the two of us.)  Both of us want to help kids discover ways to critique and create infographics. We don’t just want kids to throw a quick copy/paste or slap a downloaded image together with a too much text or endless numbers in  large serif font, however. We want to see kids create meaning out of what they are learning.

As we conferred about how she might use infographics to scaffold learning in her biology classes and not simply as a culminating assessment, we talked for over an hour about the infographics, but we never approached it from the same orientation. We think as scientist and artist. Fortunately, each of us has great respect for the other approach, sometimes verging on awe. As we bounced ideas around for helping her kids get started and for a presentation proposal we are working on about this, I wondered why more teachers don’t try such a collaboration. Imagine if the artists (and I include writers) among us were to partner with the data people, the scientists. I can help her figure out an approach that will work with her artist students and help draw out (BAD pun!) visual analogies from her scientist students. She can help me see what my scientist/data loving students are looking for. Not only that, we can learn from each other to the benefit of our students. I even mused aloud that it would be very cool if schools facilitated such partnerships between teachers.  But we both paused, cringing to imagine if teachers were “forced” to talk to those on the other side of the worldview fence.

A few hours later, my colleague emailed me with a link from the National Writers Project, a project I know well as a fellow in a local affiliate. It was about helping kids visualize vocabulary.  My scientist colleague gets it. She knows that she is not a visual person, so she seeks out the advice of those with a visual approach either in person or via an online resource. Thus, I have the privilege of  enjoying eye-opening conversations with the scientist as we seek to fill the voids we know we have.

I have to wonder how much more effective we all would be as teachers if we ventured to form friendships or professional partnerships with other teachers who see the world differently. What can a physics teacher and a Spanish teacher learn from each other? Should the math teachers all eat lunch together without ever speaking to the art teacher? Even elementary teachers have very different preferred angles of view,  though they teach every subject. How can we encourage teachers to appreciate, celebrate, and learn from our different world views? I know our students would benefit.

I admit it. I am sick of social networks. My hermit feelings will surely pass, but this Friday finds me questioning the value-added of so many places to contribute, comment, rate, respond, or otherwise spill my guts. The cicada-like buzz about Google+ is deafening this week. I find myself taking an analytic look at social absurdity in hopes of avoiding an all-out rant.

As pundits point out, our social networks establish a false sense of consensus. We see and hear only the opinions of those who agree with us. Yes, it’s “social” to pat each other on the back and sing in harmony from the same choir stalls, but what do we learn or gain? What makes the difference between social networking that has value and social networking that wastes time and has little nutritional value?

The social marketplace: a food model of social networking

Premise: There are different places to acquire social network nourishment. Which describes the social network that you frequent?

The roadside table: We can stop by this spot for random offerings, whatever is in season. It stays open only as long as there is a surplus of cucumbers in the garden - a few thoughts to share. We rarely see anybody else as we leave a dollar in the coffee can, and the goods we take with us may be delightfully fresh. If left too long by the roadside in the hot sun, they shrivel and are of no use to anyone. Most web sites with add-on “social” features are simply roadside tables. We pass by without stopping unless it is a neighbor.

The farmers market:  We gather at specified times - the earlier the better - to buy or swap for the freshest of the fresh. The offerings change with the seasons, and we learn to anticipate the coming crops. We dicker, exchange, and find the best ingredients, taking them home to create new recipes based on today’s offerings. The level of chatter and common support is strong as we wait or weave through the hungry crowd, armed with our reusable bags. The selections and the company of this network influence our nutrition for several days, and we like it so much we come back, as long as it isn’t too far to go. It does require extra time out of our week, though. Some of us have such social networks as part of our weekly habits. #edchat seems more like a farmer’s market for edu-ideas.

The food coop: We organize with a group with common goals: good food, fresh, and at good prices. We plan and delegate work that will be shared. The ideas we acquire here are outlined in advance: an online conference like the K-12 Online Conference or the Global Educon. Only the very organized can manage this kind of network on an ongoing basis.

The independent grocer: If nearby, we know this store well,  and they keep it well stocked — given possibly limited space. They don’t spend much on advertising, so the we discover it by word of mouth. But the nutritional offerings are comprehensive and quite tasty. The management will even bring in something new we suggest. We know that the clientele and floorspace are smaller, but the combination of staples and new ideas keeps us coming back. TeachersFirst is like this, I hope. Perhaps not a megsatore range of offerings, but always open to new suggestions.  We customers talk to each other when we can, but the grocer respects the fact that we don’t have a lot of time.

The specialty shop (Coffees, teas, and gourmet baked goods): Our little favorite stops. We can only get one thing there, but it is our passion: the perfect bean, the best book club blog, the latest tech developer blog. We make time for this one. The rest of our food is not important to us as long as we have the best coffee beans. Good Reads is  such a specialty shop for book lovers. Classroom 2.0 is another. Once we choose a niche like this, we always come back. We don’t have time for many.

The growing, upscale market chain: The Wegmans of social networking nutrition, these have all the media buzz and the latest and greatest in both groceries and cafe offerings. We watch the pastry chef at work  as we gather the rest of our ordinary groceries. The lobster tank is full, and we are tempted by the very best.  Even the store brands seem special. We are quickly entranced and find ourselves wishing we knew everything they carry. If there is a new product, they have it. Google+ is the Wegman’s of social networking. If you haven’t bought new ideas there, your ideas simply aren’t as good.

The mega-market chain:  The Walmart of social networking nutrition is Facebook. They tell us what to eat by offering loads of  quantity but a limited selection. Everything is Real Value and comes stacked high on the row-ends to fill our carts with blandness. Though “everybody” shops there, we leave only slightly satisfied– if at all.  Walmart Facebook is ubiquitous and blue.

The fast food stop: We run in, grab what looks good, and run out. Some of us stop far too often, and our nutritional balance is at risk if we are not careful to select well. We risk a diet high in fat or sugar, but the 140 character offerings can be so temptingly tweet. Definitely not the only way to feed your mind.

Take out/delivery: We can order up anything, but our interaction and learning are limited to a few likes and comments. We frequently order the same thing: this channel or What’s Popular. YouTube.

I think I need to decide my nutritional needs for this stuff.  But first, there’s a weekend…