Think Like a Teacher

I love verbal challenges, so what better way to round out this series of “Happy 15th Birthday, TeachersFirst” posts than to use a six word story? Thanks to Jonathan Olsen’s Edutopia post for reminded me of this minimalist challenge for masterful messaging. Reflecting on how TeachersFirst began, what we have done in fifteen years, and what we strive to do into the future would seem to explode the six word limit. But I will brainstorm a few possibilities:

Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers- trench tactics!

Teachers learn, thinkers grow, technology helps.

Internet mysteries evolve to teaching masteries.

(Continuing my brainstorm, I stop to wonder: Is punctuation is allowed? Do six word stories often end up having meter or some sort of rhythm, as mine often do?)

Web-filled minds imagine limitless learning.

By teachers for teachers for years.

Just in time  — for fifteen years.

Learning imagined by friendly, tech-savvy teachers.

Imagine teaching that makes you think.

I could go on for hours, but instead conclude with this personal birthday thank you:

Happy Birthday to TeachersFirst,  the best “workplace” any teacher could ever hope for.  I love all the Thinking Teachers I “meet” in this job  and love imagining those  “out there” whom I will never know. 

(In case you are wondering, you can create your own images from letters on Flickr with this tool.)

This is the  second in a series of reflections as TeachersFirst celebrates its fifteen birthday this month.

TeachersFirst’s non-profit parent company, The Source for Learning, has as its mission:

… to create and deliver high-quality, technology-based content and services that enhance learning for all children, and to empower teachers, child care providers, and parents to support that learning. An important part of the mission is to increase access to our services for underserved children and adults.

Just as all teachers have days when we question our effectiveness, we at TeachersFirst have worrisome days about accomplishing our mission. What haunts me is not whether TeachersFirat empowers teachers.  Thank goodness for the many, many teachers who tell their stories, assuring us that we do have an impact. The monthly traffic and Twitter followers add stats to support the teacher anecdotes. What specifically haunts me is whether TeachersFirst can:

increase access to our services for underserved children and adults

The frustration? If teachers do not have reliable technology, readily available and supported by an administration that understands how technology empowers learning, how can the they access TeachersFirst  — or any other web-based tool for teaching and learning? Each time circumstances build a barrier, whether it is limiting teacher decision making about lessons or having unreliable Internet connections (or computers), teachers lose access. For every real barrier that exists, downtrodden or “underserved” teachers perceive the barrier as four times hugher. Each time we hit our heads against another wall, we decide to delay trying again. Barriers breed excuses.

The barrier I hear about over and over is that students lack access to Internet-connected devices both in and out of school. While some schools have well-planned BYOD/BYOT programs where students can bring tablets or laptops to class, many other schools lack the network capacity or their students lack the financial means to own a device. The gap between technology haves and have-nots gets bigger and bigger. Underserved means unsupported and disconnected.

Gutsy teachers keep on trying, even after they hit repeated barriers. They beg, borrow, or grab computer time for their students anywhere they can. They come in early, skip lunch, or rotate kids through one available machine. Meanwhile, other schools have iPad carts and 1:1 programs.

My birthday wish for TeachersFirst is a wish for all schools: 

increase access to TECHNOLOGY for underserved children and adults.

If I blow out the candles, will it come true?

News Corp’s education division, Amplify, has announced a new tablet designed specifically for education.  According to the story on NPR today, they are touting this new device as the tool to bring schools into the 21st century. Amplify’s CEO, Joel Klein, claims they are launching this device for the love of learning. The skeptical teacher in me says it is for the love of earning. To start, News Corp’s infamous leader, Rupert Murdoch, insults teachers by saying

Today’s classroom looks almost exactly the same as it did in the Victorian age: a teacher standing in front of a roomful of kids with only a textbook, a blackboard, and a piece of chalk [Really? When were you last in a school?]

Then Klein continues

It’s not about hardware, it’s not about devices, it’s really about learning.

Is it? What does NewsCorp/Amplify know about today’s teaching and learning? If they think it looks like the 1890’s, they have not been in the schools I know. They have not seen teachers who work hard to take advantage of any technology they can to connect their classroom to the world beyond. They have not seen efforts like MySciLife® . They have not met the teachers who come to OK2Ask® to learn how to use the technology they have — and use it well. They have not read the comments of teachers describing the pedagogy behind their decisions to make their interactive whiteboard (IWB) into a student-controlled learning space. (They should have been there with us last night.) They have not heard teachers critiquing colleagues who fail to leverage the devices and materials they DO have for learning “to the max.” They have not met the teachers who are driven to learn themselves and take their discoveries to their classrooms the next morning.

According to NPR, “Murdoch has described education as a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” The education market is both a tasty lure for entrepreneurs confident they will make big bucks and a carnival of quick-fix claims. The education marketplace is far too much about earning than learning. Efforts like Edsurge try to bridge the gap between techpreneurs and educators, but the urge to make money still seeps in among the education reform/rethink efforts.

Money is a harsh reality of life, for sure. We all make difficult decisions about it. I just wish that those making the decisions about educational technology money would listen a bit more to the voices of learning. Just sit, watch, and listen for a while. Talk to teachers. Talk to students. Erase what you remember about school and try to imagine being a kid now. Then try to put your money into making sure every kid is connected, both at home and at school… and on the walk between. If you can’t shift the priority from earning to real learning,  please go away. Teachers and kids are busy enough without another Big Fix. Let us use what we have well and, please, let us tell you what else we really need.

During the holiday season we seek ways to give, not only to our friends and family but also to those less fortunate than we. Teachers give of themselves all year, whether it’s giving extra time to help a struggling student or volunteering as a coach, church helper, or scout leader. The one gift that is most difficult for us to give — for many teachers even harder  to come by than money — is time. I often wonder what teachers would give if they had the time. Here are my top three if-only gifts I would like to give if I had the time.

1. An afterschool club for kids in my community. I know many of the kids who get off the bus on my street go home to an empty home, the TV, and a snack. This is a solid, middle class community, and most of the parents get home well after dark this time of year. I would love to invite the kids to get off the bus at our community center multi-purpose room for a short game of (you name the game), a chance to eat their snacks together with other kids and some adults, and a chance to get the homework done in a friendly, cheerful place. After they were done, maybe we could go outside and play some more or invent silly games. A few adults could go a long way in making homework a positive thing that happens among friends and making a little physical activity more fun than the remote. Alas, I am still working when the buses roll down these streets, so I cannot give this gift– at least not right now.

2. Computer help for seniors (or not so seniors) who are embarrassed to say they need it. I know so many adults who do not know how to find great vacation places or share a link to a Google Map or write a blog post. They have so many stories to tell, but are afraid to start. If I were free at 10 am, I’d love to share Tuesday Tech Fun at Ten for an hour or so. I have a feeling we would discover many hidden talents and interests among folks who have no idea how much technology could open their worlds. But on Tuesdays at ten, I am otherwise occupied.

3. Family tech fun nights. It would be great to help elementary kids surprise their parents with the thought provoking things they can do using online tools like the ones we have feature TeachersFirst’s Special Occasion Ideas for the Classroom. This collection shares a selection from the hundreds of creative tools kids and adults can find on TeachersFirst to collect and montage writing, images, and sound into clever personal projects. I would enjoy organizing the kids as the experts to teach the adults how to  lessons without touching the mouse as the grownups make their own projects side by side with a mini Geek Squad.

It seems quite self centered to say, “I would like to, but  can’t.” Maybe in 2013 I can find the gift of just a little more time to give away. I would love to hear what other teachers’ dream giveaways might be.

‘Tis the season for the Raven. We have been watching our Google Analytics live as TeachersFirst’s Interactive Raven is hammered by traffic from around the world. I think it is kind of scary to think that we can “see” who is on the  TeachersFirst site minute by minute (their general location and numbers).

The Raven is such a haunting poem for many reasons, not the least of which is how easily it invites parody and poor imitation. So I offer an early trick or treat. Maybe you would like to invite your students to  spend some time with the Raven then try their own hands at a mimicking version related to a topic you teach.  Here is a sample. (Perhaps you can suggest a title?)

Once upon a blog post reading, logged in tabs I leave, unheeding
As the world of data miners raids my unattended store.
Clicking on, I set to shopping, then to Facebook briefly hopping
As the ads that came a-popping match my shopping cart and more
‘Tis coincidence I mutter, these enticing wares galore.
Random ads and nothing more.

Bored with browsing, I try tweeting hashtagged quips and ideas fleeting
While on Tweetdeck laughing, reading others’ pithy repertoire
Twitpics, links, from folks I follow, reweeting with praises hollow
Cheer each follower I add as I send new tweets by the score.
I’m so clever — here come more!

Bravely then I take to writing, links and articles a-citing,
A post acerbic — even biting – thoughts that none have thunk before.
Proudly dream of going viral, Technorati upward spiral
Wordiness and hubris gath’ring, will my reputation score?
Saved and tweeted. Whew, I mutter, hope my Clustrmap will soar.
I’m an optimization whore?

Insecure, I check my tags. Seems my footprint ever lags
I can find no way to raise my Google reputation score.
Googling myself, I then discover that my name has yet another
Whose accomplishments surpass my tweets and blog posts written heretofore
I must press my footprint deeper in the sand upon this shore!
Oops…that tab is for an online store.

As I click to close my Facebook, ads arising flaunt a new book:
“How to make your friends share photos, posts, and ‘like’ you more”
“See your face here!” it is screaming, but I am no longer beaming
As the monster Bigfoot prints the prideful sands upon my shore.
Haunted by my online clicks and logins I must shift to something more.
Clear the cache—clean out the store!

Logging out, I clear my history, some of which is quite a mystery
Can’t believe that I have ever clicked some things in there before
Cache is gone, and Chrome restarted, my old paths no longer charted
Yet the searches of my name still yield ten thousand eighty-four
Memberships and projects linger from a past so long before
Cast in sandstone on this shore.

Far from me, a sandstone sculptor shapes my name and gives it luster
Analytics, spiders weave my life and story more and more
All I want is to go shopping, from ideas to Pinterest hopping
Without carving data fields as Google keeps a hidden score
Let my thoughts for once be fleeting as they were in years before
Quoth the Google, “Nevermore.”

Happy Independence Day/week to all. I am on hiatus from full blog posts as my own Declaration of Independence. Given the recent storms and resulting havoc for technology based in the Washington D.C. area (i.e. TeachersFirst!), perhaps independence from technology for a few days would be a good idea. Have a picnic or go for a swim. It’s too hot for much else.

From a dusty basement into the palm of my hand comes the story of TeachersFirst, snapped into a plastic case. As one usually impatient to have “archives” of anything important in electronic format, I will attempt to share the feel of this artifact with you virtually.  What I cannot convey is the stunning moment of impact I felt seeing what this puzzle has to say about teachers and teaching during the fourteen years since it announced the 1998 mission of TeachersFirst.

The question, “Puzzled by the Internet?” on the top of the box says it all. Many of today’s teachers were not in the classroom in 1998 — except possibly as students. It was a time when only about half of the teachers I knew had ever used Google and many were innocently hooked on AOL. Web pages were text-heavy, and no one anticipated Twitter or blogs. How all this Internet stuff was supposed to fit into the world of chalk, worksheets, and VCRs was a mystery. The people at the Network for Instructional Television (NITV), now called The Source for Learning, talked to teachers and found out that they wanted help navigating and understanding how this new-ish thing called the Internet could help them teach (and learn). So TeachersFirst happened.

I hear you laughing now. When I saw the box, I laughed out loud. I remembered that TeachersFirst had given away these cute (and challenging) tangram-type puzzles, but somehow I had forgotten the question that had been printed on the top. This little puzzle is Teaching 1998 in a time capsule. I think I had better keep it in my desk drawer as a reminder of all that has happened since.

My mind fast-forwards to 2012. We would need a new promotional giveaway every three to six months of we want to snap the mysteries of changing technologies into a box with a cute question on top. Even the messages of last summer are too old, though teachers quietly confide that they haven’t had time to “catch up” yet!  I wonder what we will be laughing at in 2015. One thing is for sure: we should back up our blogs and keep archives of what we say today.  Maybe we should bury digital time capsules of the giveaways at ISTE 2012. If nothing else, it will be good for humor therapy, assuming the file formats are even legible.

Happy 14th birthday, TeachersFirst.

I read a great post from Rian van der Merwe, a tech designer/dad in South Africa. He shares four essential guidelines for folks designing iPad apps for his young daughter. His requests make perfect sense, not only for young children on iPads, but for our students using both apps and web resources. I especially like  this one:

If You Try To Trick My Kid Into Buying Stuff, You’re Dead To Me.…The screen is a landmine of carefully placed icons that lead to accidental purchases — not to mention the random animated banner ads that are designed to draw attention away from the app itself….if you try to use persuasive design on my young daughter, all bets are off. Your app will be deleted, and we’ll never do business again.

Does that remind you of experiences you have had with web sites in your classroom? How many have you declared “Dead to Me”?

Rounding out  Mr. van der Merwe’s top four usability guidelines for little fingers and young minds using iPads are these points (paraphrased):

• use visual cues to indicate which things are interactive
• make pagination using arrows: obvious and easy to navigate (even for little fingers)
• make menus secondary: something we seek out and will not open accidentally

While some teachers may not be fortunate to own an iPad or even use them at school, we have parallel expertise on what drives us crazy about web sites OR apps we use with students in our classrooms. I offer my top four guidelines for web resources AND apps to avoid a “Dead to Me” sentence:

1. Bikinis are islands, nothing else.

If you must have ads to keep your app/site free, at least moderate them so there are no scantily clad women. My students are not here for human anatomy visuals or lessons on eating disorders. The same goes for guys with sixpacks in Speedos. Puberty begins earlier and earlier these days, even without your help.

2. Your energetic music is my insanity.

Engaging, perhaps. But your “engaging” music means I have to hand out headphones (lice?) or give the same directions for muting speakers and/or finding the “sound off” icon at least three times EVERY time we open the app/site. Set your music default to OFF.

3. I am not a student, so don’t force me to act like one.

I like to sample every activity/game/app, but I don’t have time to navigate through the whole thing just to know which terms are used or what we will learn. Give me Teacher Information. If your site/app is not intended for school, you can still tell us a bit about it. Call this area  “behind the scenes” if you don’t want to doom your app/site as “educational.” I’ll find the site/app anyway, if it is good. While you are at it, please tell me how long it typically takes to navigate a game and other practical tips. I promise not to send kids into your app/site without previewing and deciding how it fits our curriculum, but I need your help.

4. Remember Josh and Julie in the back row.

I love Josh and Julie. Josh is so bright he makes me laugh when I shouldn’t. He also knows how to break any game or web activity. He shows Julie (or she shows him), as they set their own “learning objectives” for the day. For Josh, the objective usually involves showing the game that he knows more or sleuthing out incorrect information or exceptions he can argue about. Josh needs a way to skip ahead by demonstrating competence and something open ended to intrigue him into productive and extended thinking. Julie has a learning disability. It does not prevent her recalling how to escape learning the terms or avoid thinking about anything that was “too hard” or open ended. Give more than a fleeting thought to Josh and Julie, and be honest in sharing what I may need to do to adapt for them … in the Teacher Info (see #3).

I personally thank any app/web developer who can adhere to at least these four. You’ll be alive and well with me. I am certain every teacher has at least two or three or ten death sentence avoidance guidelines to add. Each Thinking Teacher who writes for TeachersFirst has his/her own. We carry these with us as we write reviews for TeachersFirst, and we always welcome the thoughts and “guidelines” of others. Comment here or on any TeachersFirst resource review.

TeachersFirst is blessed with a wonderful team of reviewers. The challenge we face is maintaining a consistent voice among so many teacher-writers. This same challenge rises in any collaborative student project where each student writes a portion of the content. How do we maintain a voice and writing style that does not scream, “Listen to how different I am”? Of course, in the “real world,” there are editors handle this challenge, shifting sentences and wrangling words to conduct a song in unison without erasing the beautiful tone of each writer.

As I work with our team, I realize that the lessons I learn from these lifelong learners, our teacher/reviewer/writers, are similar to those any teacher learns from students. My lesson this week was on feedback. The editorial team decided to share screencasts of the editorial process with each reviewer. The screencasts follow the mouse as the editor reads, mulls things over, makes changes, moves things, and –in effect–thinks “on screen.”  It is stream of consciousness editing in real time. (That element of time matters.)

You could do the same: have a student “editor” (or you) use a tool like Screencastomatic (reviewed here) to record the process of revising a piece of writing. Another possible tool is Primary Pad (reviewed here) which plays changes back like a tape recorder. Keep it simple. Focus in on changing one to three things that writer needs most. Let him/her watch as you combine sentences to eliminate redundancy or add active verbs. Don’t TELL him,  SHOW him.  Don’t talk about it, just share the link and see what happens. Perhaps have a slightly more talented writer make a recording for one who is having trouble with a specific aspect of writing. As a precaution, retain a copy of the original, in case the writer feels robbed of his work.

In the case of our reviewers, the response was as authentic as the situation. The process has taught me a lot about how we learn as writers. My fear going into this was that we would violate the very personal ownership that writers feel. Instead, we are hearing excited feedback on the screencasts. Specifically, if the release of ownership is motivated and justified by a purpose (such as making a group project sound consistent or making our site more consistent),  most writers will respond, analyzing what they observe about the changes at a level of metacognition any teacher would thrill to see:

As I looked at the screencast last night, I do see more what you mean in past feedback and what you are looking for…. I am making a list of the words, phrases to stay away from as well as use as examples to be a better writer. The screencast was actually much better feedback than just…comments. I really appreciated having that.

—–

I LOVE this, thank you for doing it! It is so helpful for me to get a better idea …. Based on what I see, more of my sentences should start with verbs – making them have more of an active voice and I’ll definitely try to combine sentences more effectively.

—–

The screencast is a lot more effective than the mark up on a word doc, I think!  It’s like, real time, or something.

This feedback on our feedback is enough to put screencasting high on my list as a powerful tool. Whether we respond to professional work, student lab reports, stories, or essays, we can offer an authentic, real-time window into revision and writing. And it takes a LOT less time than writing up all those comments … or reading this lengthy post!

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.