Think Like a Teacher

The NECC  session on Classroom 2.0: Exploring the Potential of Web 2.0 with backchat at http://www.chatzy.com/610230759294 presented a good philosophical and “historical perspective” on what web 2.0 is and what it means. The panel had some diverse comments and angles (wise crowd or homogeneous group?). I was left a thought to ponder, followed by a couple of random thoughts from fighting with interrupted network connections and riding the bus.

From the session:

If collaboration is the key to wisdom and the cure for cancer, when will funding models catch up with the slippery nature of “ownership” in these collaborative successes? For example, university researchers must guard their results in order to demonstrate their successes when applying for the next round of grants. People who are truly creative have to balance the choice of ownership with the power of collaboration.  It seems that web 2.0 (and a global collaborative model) is, in a way, analogous to the Native American model of non-ownership of land/the earth. The different is that this time the interlopers are declaring that they DON’T own anything.  Creative Commons is there, sure, but what about ownership of the innovations that generate the income to fund the thinktanks, etc. Somehow there must be a way to make money “collaborate,” too. I wonder.

Random:

Doesn’t it seem ironic that a group as heterogeneously gung-ho about collaboration and openness as NECC attendees still rushes to get free doo-dads as fast as a six year old in the exhibit hall? There is proof that each of us has a dark side.

Everybody is so busy Twittering that Twitter is down.

OK- time to get some sustenance. Back tomorrow.

I spent the morning sorting through old emails for pull-quotes to use on some promotional materials, and the process brought on a surge of reflection. I have been in this job since 2006 and have always kept a “teachers out there” folder within my email for messages that tell me good and bad about how TeachersFirst is doing. I even have subfolders for mail from college faculty users or those who comment on the Interactive Raven. I make folders as a reference system to find emails later , but I had no idea of their impact as a tool for reflection. Bear with me as I muse on…

Imagine if every student had an email account (yes, I know…. archiving, server space, bullying, etc…everyone has a reason NOT to provide these). Imagine if they could file emails from peers and teachers all year as a way to sort out reactions to major projects (like my Interactive Raven folder), comments from outsiders (like my webmaster email or “teachers out there” folders), and feedback from specific professionals (like my college faculty folder). Then when the time came to “pull quotes” (verb, not noun) to share as part of an end-of year reflection, each student could read back through and see progress, consensus and even direction. A new personally-organized learning network.

Taking it further: Maybe students don’t need email to do this. After all, so much of their input likely comes in the form of web 2.0 “comments” and can be sorted by “tags.” Perhaps what they (we) need  for School (or Work) 2.0 is a tool that allows us to organize responses to ANY and all media we create (email, wiki, blog post, dig pix, online comic strip, YouTube video, podcast, or cute web2.0 doo-dad) in a single location by tag or “folder.” Suddenly we have “Response Central,” a place to see trends among very diverse products and to allow meta-analysis of our own strengths and needs for improvement. If EVERY tool provided RSS feeds for comments, that would be one way to do it: by tagging the responses within the reader using a consistent system.  We could have our personal RSS (Response Sorting System) Reader. Not every tool provides RSS for responses or comments, though. Many do.

I wonder if anyone has ever done this. Of course, setting up the tagging system could be the kicker. The first few times we did it, we’d discover that some tags did not “work” over time. But the second year would be a lot easier. We could make New Years Day the unofficial tag reorganization day as we watch parades and football…but I am getting carried away.

So there’s a skill to add to School 2.0/Work 2.0 so we can reflect on all those marvelous comments and actually learn from them. Anybody have a cute name for it yet? (TagUrIt?) I am sure some developer is working on it.

As teachers, we sometimes forget how large a public window opens into our lives. The Washington Post today tells tales of intrepid teachers in the Washington suburbs who apparently think frosted web-glass obcures all public view of their web presence. Wrong. I wonder, though: Is it wrong to provide a consciously open window, even to keep it crystal-clear on purpose?

Thinking about any web presence requires the same approach as your bathroom blind:

• If I keep it open, who will see?
• If I do reveal something, it implies that I want it to be seen by anyone.
• Is there a good reason to share?
• What others will inadvertently see it?

As a lifelong teacher, however, I ask one more:

• What can I teach this way that I cannot teach any other way?

My first decision would be to post a “See next window” sign on the outside of the bathroom blind, directing people, instead,  to a slightly-less-voyeuresque view of my living room. Now, I ask:

• What can I teach from my web “living room” that I cannot teach any other way?

I can teach that I am an art quilter and a writer, a side of me that splashes into  view immediately on the walls and in this blog window. My visual-spatial students and colleagues ask: how does this connect with what she does all day? Should I connect art  and/or writing into what I do all day?

I can teach that books  and TV can share a space in my life. Can they in YOUR life?

I can teach that family is at the center, and a dog closeby. My students and colleagues ask themselves what forms the center of their world.

I can teach that teaching and work sometimes make me tired (is that me on the couch, asleep?). The voyeurs ask: What is it that drives her to work so hard? What drives me?

I can teach that nothing is finished, even the space for the imaginary fireplace still down the list on our “ten year plan.” They ask: What am I willing to wait for? Are time and imagination as important as the final, tangible item?

I can teach that I don’t mind being honest and human, but that I will always try to present my best. A little dust is OK, though.

I even wash the windows (inside and out) occasionally. My windows are frames for viewing both ways, and I welcome the voyeurs. I have thought about what I will show them. I hope other teachers will do the same.

Why frost the glass when we can shed such light?

I love RSS feeds, even though I rant about not having time to read them. Today I ran across Clay Burell’s discussion of schooliness. I smile as I muse.

Is it like girliness? — a term meant to demean , but occasionally value at the same time?

I can sense schooliness, even in myself. Like girliness, I try to avoid it yet do not want to push it away entirely. It has its place. On certain days for certain occasions, in certain moods, girliness is OK. Never my goal, just OK.

Now, schooliness…?

Schooliness actually cares whether the line is quiet in the hallway. Schooliness is made of  the film and chicken wire they put inside the safety glass insert in my classroom door to prevent shattering (of ideas, customs, or quiet). It blocks the view of what is REALLY going on inside (inside heads, especially those who can entertain themselves while “education” goes on around them). Schooliness is the translator we apply to technology tools so they are “safe” and comply with AUPs. Schooliness  is the substitute we LOVED to see as students because she was so much fun to fool. Schooliness  is why they invented NCR paper, then changed it to Acrobat files you have to TYPE into. Schooliness  is what prevented me from turning in what I really thought in most essays…until I trusted the anti-schooliness  of the teacher. Schooliness  is what my liberal arts degree ridiculed. Schooliness  is what Congress would use to define Highly Qualified Teachers. Schooliness  is the make-up that thinking human beings “touch up” as they leave the faculty room. Schooliness  is what makes us wear a watch. Schooliness  is what my brightest gifted students so aptly parodied as I chuckled and pretended not to hear. Schooliness  is “May I have your attention please,” which should warn, “Turn the speaker off NOW!”

I will enjoy thinking about schooliness for days …especially as I look out a non-school window, across my unfiltered computer, watching a lake with no buses or concrete in sight.

There is a definite exhilaration to leaving schooliness  behind.

When I read a piece of good writing, it sings. The feeling is much like the chill up my spine on hearing a perfect choral performance or that sense that a dive or gymnastics performance just IS a perfect 10 — even before the scores show on screen. You just know. There is a sound a guitar makes–I believe called harmonics– that is beyond the earthly, normal, and delightful plucking or strum. That’s what GOOD writing is. It does not happen often. It stops me and says, “Did you hear that?”

Rewind–replay in slo-mo. Yes, I DID hear that, and it is just as good the second time around.

I worry about web2.0 desensitizing us so we no longer can hear writing that sings. Even worse, I worry about the sound simply being drowned out. It is marvelous that everyone has the opportunity to create that perfect piece, and ironically sad that no one will likely even know it is there. The ease of tools makes one wonder about craft. Web2.0 may be the equivalent of the introduction of the power tools into sculpture. With artistic creation so simple and so much faster, are we losing anything?

I am an art quilter. I celebrate the heritage of hundreds of years of women’s quilts as the underpinnings  (sorry—pun) of my work, but I also deny them in pushing the medium, cutting through it, redefining its edges into non-edges and its techniques away from a rigid 10-stitch-per-inch standard.

I don’t think writing should be subject to such a standard, either, but I will be truly sad if we can no longer hear it when it sings. Is there a way to tag a blog post that sings?

Jeff Utecht writes about teachers and students blogging as an integral part of who they are and what they do, not as an add-on. This promotes reflection, communication, and openness, among other things.

I wonder: what if other professions did this, too? Let your imagination run with this one.

• The president blogs on policies he/she is considering. Is this blog public?
• The apartment manager uses a blog to communicate about building issues and reflect on repairs?
• The CEO blogs on issues facing the company and encourages employee comments on ways to solve them?
• YOUR boss blogs on ..on what?
• The contractor blogs on how to build a truss that spans a 30-foot room?

Does every level of profession and avocation blog? Is it only the people “in charge” and the “creative ones”?

What were generations doing before that can be replaced by a blog? If we do build a generation of bloggers, what will these kids grow up to do with their blogs?

I REALLY need to get back to several other tasks now.